How to Export an Awakening

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

The U.S. needs a new military strategy in Afghanistan, and has made clear -- through General David Petraeus, the new head of CENTCOM -- that it intends to try to replicate the success of Iraq's Awakening movement in Afghanistan. Iraq's Awakening was an alliance of Sunni tribesmen, Iraqi nationalists, ex-Baathists, and others who were united by the goal of driving al-Qaeda from their country. In considering how the U.S. will try to foster such a movement in Afghanistan, there is no better place to start than a 47-page memorandum written by Sheikh Ahmad Abu Risha, the leader of Iraq's Awakening, that was submitted to the American embassy in Kabul last spring.

In an article published in the new issue of the Weekly Standard, my colleague Joshua Goodman and I analyze Abu Risha's memo, and the prospect of an Afghan Awakening. An excerpt:

Abu Risha reviews several challenges in Afghanistan. The country is beset by warlords and their followers, who "are accustomed to living freely without the rule of law." There is great distrust of Hamid Karzai's government, which some Afghans believe is conspiring with the United States in "Americanizing and changing the identity of the Afghan people." This distrust is magnified by the country's living conditions: The economy is poor, with wages low and unemployment high. Despite improvements, the government has been unable to provide adequate education and health care.

These internal factors are compounded, in Abu Risha's view, by a military picture unfavorable to the United States. He argues that "military attacks by air against Taliban locations will cause the loss of many civilian lives," and so are likely to generate hostility to U.S. and NATO forces.

Abu Risha argues, nevertheless, that there are parallels between Afghanistan today and Iraq's Anbar Province in 2006 and 2007. Most important, al Qaeda and affiliated groups in Afghanistan have created a "climate of terror" similar to what they created in Anbar, where "they murdered anyone who opposed or criticized their actions and behavior." As in Anbar, he believes, an Awakening could help Afghanistan reverse its present deadly course.

Abu Risha outlines some preconditions for success. First and foremost is the need for a strong leader. In Anbar, this was the late Abdul Sattar al-Rishawi, Abu Risha's brother, assassinated in late 2007. Such a figure must have "charisma, outstanding leadership elements and courage," he should be "a man of honor, tolerant and persistent," and he should be "a center of trust" with "a political family background." Abu Risha emphasizes, however, that NATO should not try to establish new leadership in Afghanistan, but should work within the tribes' existing hierarchies. "This is a nation," he writes, "that does not accept changes or give up control easily without a fight."

Sterling Jensen, who participated as an Army contract linguist in the U.S. government's engagement with the Iraqi tribes as the Anbar Awakening was taking shape in the fall of 2006, agrees that Abdul Sattar's leadership was critical. "The Americans didn't make the Awakening," Jensen says. "They didn't make Sheikh Ahmed or Sheikh Abdul Sattar. You can influence some [local leaders'] thinking, but it's going to be the Americans recognizing these kinds of leaders, and supporting them."

Broken aid system to Palestinians

By Matthew Levitt

In the wake of the Gaza war, finding ways to provide much needed humanitarian support to the residents of Gaza—without inadvertently empowering Hamas—is of paramount concern. Unfortunately, problems remain with two of the primary vehicles the U.S. government intends to use to provide newly pledged aid, namely the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Today, the U.S. government announced that President Barack Obama has authorized the use of $20.3 million from the U.S. Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance (ERMA) Fund “to address critical post-conflict humanitarian needs in Gaza.” According to the State Department press release, of the $20.3 million in new ERMA funds, $13.5 million will go to UNRWA, $6 million to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and $800,000 to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Beyond the contributions to UNRWA, ICRC and OCHA, State’s press release noted, USAID has provided more than $3.7 million for emergency assistance to Gaza.”

These may in fact represent the most appropriate of the available options to get humanitarian aid to the residents of Gaza, but in the cases of both UNRWA and USAID recent history highlights areas of particular concern.

Both UNRWA and USAID do important work, and in the current environment are especially important players. That they both need significant improvement should be reason for increased focus and attention, not despair. There is no better place to start than with the implementation of the new USAID Partner Vetting System and the many detailed policy prescriptions offered in James Lindsay’s groundbreaking new study, Fixing UNRWA: Repairing the UN’s Troubled System of Aid to Palestinian Refugees .

My full article, written for the Middle East Strategy at Harvard (MESH), can be found here.

Al Qaeda and the plague: a follow-up

By Olivier Guitta

New information has surfaced in the past few days seeming to confirm that Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb terrorists had died of plague.

I explored the different possibilities behind such an occurrence in an article in the Middle East Times.

You can read it here.

Here is an excerpt:

In the middle of the massive coverage of U.S. President Barack Obama's inauguration, a rather troublesome news story emerged. Unfortunately, it failed to get the coverage it deserves. If confirmed, it deserves the full attention of the Obama administration: the story has to do with bio-terrorism.

The story began with a Jan. 6 report in the Algerian newspaper Echorouk that a number of terrorists had died of the plague in one of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) training camps in Tizi Ouzou. Another Algerian newspaper En-Nahar, affirmed that 50 terrorists have been diagnosed with the plague, 40 of whom have already died.

Now some analysts dismissed outright this story saying it was totally fallacious. But a few observations at this point give credibility to this story, even though one cannot be sure of the provenance of the plague. Consider the following:

1. Algerian authorities have been totally silent. Reliable sources usually willing to share information declined to comment on this report. As can be expected, Algerians authorities were not too pleased that the story was confirmed by American sources. Indeed the Washington Times confirmed through a senior U.S. intelligence official that an incident had taken place at an AQIM training camp that had to be shut down as a result.

The Importance of the FBI's CAIR Cutoff

By Douglas Farah

Mary Jacoby of The Investigative Project brings the important news that the FBI, after years of legitimizing CAIR as a mainstream Muslim organization, has finally cut of their dealings with the organization.

This is the first time a part of the government has publicly linked the presence of CAIR in meetings to the government entity's refusal to attend the meeting. This stand is long overdue, and one that should be followed by other government agencies. The FBI has said it won't deal with CAIR until "certain issues" are addressed to the FBI's satisfaction, and must be addressed by the national FBI, not local field offices.

Why? Because CAIR, as has now been amply documented, was formed to support Hamas and has organic ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. The Holy Land Foundation documents show this clearly. (For a look at how the package ties together from what is now public evidence, see this NEFA Foundation piece I co-authored.

It is worth recalling how CAIR came into existence, is historical relationships, and what its group of organizations actually said, in their own words, about what they are doing here. These are some of the issues the FBI wisely would like explained by the CAIR leadership. The full citations can be found in the NEFA paper.

It is important to note that the authenticity of the documents and their content were not disputed during the trial, but were accepted as legitimate. This should be borne in mind as CAIR and its allies launch an intensive lobbying campaign on Capitol Hill and elsewhere to get rehabilitated.

Rather than actually address any of these issues, it is a fair bet that CAIR will focus on claims that the FBI action is a result of "islamophobia," "intolerance," and present themselves as victims of a campaign to deprive them of civil rights. They should not be allowed to get away with less than a full explanation of their own actions and words.

CAIR does not speak for all Muslims in this country, or even most. Its membership has plummeted in recent years and it thrives because of is access to the FBI and other government institutions.

First, the MB is not al Qaeda, but it is Hamas, and Hamas is the MB. Article 2 of the Hamas founding charter:

“The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the wings of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine. The Muslim Brotherhood Movement is a universal organization which constitutes the largest Islamic movement of modern times. It is characterized by its deep
understanding, accurate comprehension and its complete embrace of all Islamic concepts of all aspects of life, culture, creed, politics, economics, education, society, justice and judgment ,the spreading of Islam, education, art, information, science of the occult and
conversion to Islam.”

The parent organization of CAIR advocated internally for the use of front groups:

“[Fronts groups are] one method to communicate the Ikhwan’s point of view. A front is not formed until after a study and after an exhaustive study. I mean, the last front formed by the Group is the Islamic Association for Palestine. So, Ikhwans, this did not come out
over night, or it was not the Ikhwnans who are in charge went to sleep, dreamed about it and met the next day and decided to do it. Not at all, by God. This went through lengthy meetings and took long discussions.” My full blog is here.

NEFA Foundation: Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) Issues Messages from German Militants Fighting in Afghanistan

By Evan Kohlmann

The NEFA Foundation has obtained and translated a newly-released German-language propaganda video from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) produced in September 2008. During the video, a group of German nationals fighting with the IMU in Afghanistan offered messages and commentary to those living back home in Europe. According to "Abu Adam the German", "more than 20 organizations are fighting here side-by-side with the same goal. All of their members and commanders have given their oaths of allegiance to a man who found its way into the hearts of each mujahid. We speak of the mujahid Amir al-Mumineen Mullah Mohammad Omar. As far as the jihad in Afghanistan is concerned, there are currently about 30 mujahideen operations per day. About 75% of the country is already under our control. My dear brothers and sisters, I do not say to you merely to come to the the land of jihad. Rather, I say to you, you should be racing one another to come to the land of jihad." Another German national, "Abu Abdullah"-shown sitting amongst a group of young children brandishing automatic weapons-explained, "as you can clearly see, praise be to Allah, this has become a very family-friendly place. So, bring your wives and children. Praise be to Allah, there are living quarters here far away from the front. There are hospitals, pharmacies, doctors, and schools-schools in which our children not only learn about Islam, but also all walks of life and obedience. That is why we advise you all to join together, revive, and live the cause of jihad with your entire family." These sentiments were also echoed in the video by IMU commander Muhammad Tahir Farooq himself, who openly welcomed European recruits, "we invite our brothers and sisters. We invite you to our frontline of jihad. We invite you to martyrdom."

An English transcript of the video can be viewed on the NEFA Foundation website.

Iraq's Upcoming Provincial Elections

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

Today I published an intelligence briefing for FDD that examines the implications of the upcoming provincial elections in Iraq. An excerpt:

• IRAQIS GO TO THE POLLS. On January 31, 2009, Iraqis will go to the polls to select their political representatives in 14 of the country’s 18 provinces. This will mark the fourth time since 2005 that Iraq has held elections. Previous votes include January 2005 elections to select provincial representatives and an interim national assembly to draft Iraq’s constitution (an election that Iraq’s Sunnis largely boycotted); an October 2005 referendum on the national constitution; and parliamentary elections in December 2005. Iraq will also hold elections later this year for the national parliament, and to consider the U.S.-Iraq security pact.
• FEAR OF VIOLENCE. There have always been heightened concerns about the potential for violence when Iraq has held elections, and this year is no exception. However, levels of violence were surprisingly low on all three election days in 2005. This year, U.S. and Iraqi security forces are preparing for possible outbreaks of violence, particularly in the ethnically mixed Diyala province where tensions between the Arab and Kurdish population have simmered. Time reports that “U.S. commanders last week brokered a deal” for Diyala “that will see area security provided by a joint force of Iraqi-army and Peshmerga fighters, with U.S. troops present to make sure everyone stays calm.”
• TURNOUT. There were initially concerns that turnout for the elections might be low since they were scheduled at the time of a traditional Shia pilgrimage to Karbala that typically draws hundreds of thousands of visitors. Shia religious and political leaders have been working with the pilgrims to facilitate voting. But despite the timing of the elections, it appears that there will be a large turnout on Saturday: a recent poll conducted by Iraq’s government found that 73% of Iraqi adults intend to vote.

The importance of trying Ali Saleh Khalah Al-Marri

By Jonathan Winer

On January 28, a group of 19 former government officials with experience in intelligence and national security filed an amici curiae brief with the Supreme Court in the case to provide the court a brief finding that holding Ali Saleh al-Marri in the U.S. as an enemy combatant for seven years on U.S. soil without charge has been dangerously counterproductive in combating terrorism.

As one of the 19 bipartisan group of experts who joined the team on the brief led by Suzanne Spaulding, formerly Assistant General Counsel at the CIA and General Counsel for the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, I thought it might be useful to highlight why such a politically-diverse group of people all felt so strongly that the U.S. needs to end the indefinite military imprisonment of a man who if the facts are as alleged by the government was a highly-dangerous terrorist at the time of his 2001 arrest in Illinois.

In a nutshell, terrorism lives off ideological stories. These stories, or narratives, become incorporated in worldviews which however twisted, are constantly incorporating new facts. As stated in the brief:

"Subjecting individuals apprehended inside the United States to indefinite military imprisonment as enemy combatants, instead of putting them on trial, invigorates the false – but widely accepted – narrative that the United States is engaged in a war on Islam, using its vast power to victimize Muslims, and that the terrorist is a noble warrior engaged in a holy war. Such treatment of a terrorism suspect is so far outside the traditions of this Nation that it undermines the credibility of our commitment to equality, justice, and the rule of law. The result is a powerful recruitment tool for violent extremists who claim allegiance to Islam, and greater risk to the security of the Nation."

NEFA Foundation: Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) Releases Message From German-Speaking Militant

By Evan Kohlmann

The NEFA Foundation has obtained and translated a new video excerpt from the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) in Afghanistan of an IJU militant threatening in German to carry out revenge attacks on Western countries for the recent Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip. According to the IJU operative, "Dear brothers and sisters, there can be no peace with the enemy... If we are attacked and killed, Allah willing, the Zionists and all of the occupying forces will be attacked and killed. That is the correct balance... Dear brothers and sisters, praise be to Allah, we have prepared some surprise gifts for the occupying powers this coming year." The German-speaking militant also boasted of the origin of his own uniform: "these clothes, what you see here, they are the uniforms of the U.S. military. Praise be to Allah, we seized these military uniforms as booty from U.S. soldiers. Allah willing, we, the mujahideen from the Islamic Jihad Union, will someday reach Tel Aviv, Haifa, Siderot, and throughout all of Israel and Jerusalem. Allah willing, we will seize the uniforms of the Israeli soldiers as booty."

An English-subtitled version of the video can be viewed on the NEFA Foundation website.

IPT Exclusive: FBI Cuts Off CAIR Over Hamas Questions

By The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT)

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has cut off contacts with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) amid mounting concern about the Muslim advocacy group's roots in a Hamas-support network, the Investigative Project on Terrorism has learned.

The decision to end contacts with CAIR was made quietly last summer as federal prosecutors prepared for a second trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), an Islamic charity accused of providing money and political support to the terrorist group Hamas, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

CAIR and its chairman emeritus, Omar Ahmad, were named un-indicted co-conspirators in the HLF case. Both Ahmad and CAIR's current national executive director, Nihad Awad, were revealed on government wiretaps as having been active participants in early Hamas-related organizational meetings in the United States. During testimony, FBI agent Lara Burns described CAIR as a front organization.

Hamas is a US-designated foreign terrorist organization, and it's been illegal since 1995 to provide support to it within the United States.

The decision to end contacts with CAIR is a significant policy change for the FBI. For years, the FBI worked with the national organization and its state chapters to address Muslim community concerns about the potential for hate crimes and other civil liberty violations in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

But critics said the FBI improperly conferred legitimacy on CAIR by meeting with its officials, even as its own investigative files contained evidence of CAIR leaders' ties to Hamas.

Last autumn, FBI field offices began notifying state CAIR chapters that bureau officials could no longer meet with them until CAIR's national leadership in Washington had addressed issues raised by the HLF trial, according to people with knowledge of the notifications.

CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper declined to comment Wednesday when the IPT called for comment. Before hanging up, Hooper said "We're more than happy to cooperate with legitimate media. But we don't cooperate with those who promote anti-Muslim bigotry."

In one letter obtained by IPT News, James E. Finch, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Oklahoma City field office, canceled a meeting of the local Muslim Community Outreach Program, a state-federal program designed to enlist Muslims in terrorism prevention and investigate reports of civil liberties violations.

"Regrettably, due to circumstances beyond my control, the meeting will be postponed until further notice as a result of the planned participation by the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations," Finch's Oct. 8, 2008 letter to Muslim groups in the Oklahoma outreach program said.

To read the rest of this report, click here.

"Lashkar-e-Taiba Chooses Between Kashmir and the Global Jihad"

By Animesh Roul

Originally published as "Pakistan's Lashkar-e-Taiba Chooses Between Kashmir and the Global Jihad" in Terrorism Focus (Jamestown Foundation), Volume: 6 Issue: 3, January 28, 2009.

Here is an excerpt:

In a surprising shift of tactics, the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist organization has toned down its violent Kashmir-centric agenda, claiming it will pursue a peaceful settlement of the Kashmir problem. The radical group, blamed for many terror attacks in India, including November’s assault on Mumbai, also denied pursuing a global jihadist agenda. In a similar vein, another Pakistan-based terrorist group, Hizb ul-Mujahedeen (HM), and the terrorist conglomerate known as the Muttahida Jihad Council (MJC) have offered to end their so-called “armed struggle” in Jammu and Kashmir (The Hindu [New Delhi], January 22). According to MJC spokesman and HM operative Ehsan Elahi, “It is [our] desire that the [Kashmir] problem is resolved through dialogue. We want peace but it does not mean that we are renouncing our stance or showing a weakness” (Kashmir Newsline, January 23).

Also distancing itself from global jihadi linkages is Jama’at ud-Dawa, an Islamic charity and front organization for Lashkar e-Taiba. The group’s controversial spokesman, Abdullah (Muntazir) Gaznavi, indicated that their struggle is only confined to the Kashmir region: “We have no global agenda… [we] just want the freedom of Kashmir and if it comes peacefully [we] will welcome it. We don't see armed struggle as the only way to achieve our goal” (Hindustan Times, January 19). [1]

More surprisingly, the mysterious Abdullah Muntazir also disowned LeT commanders Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Zarar Shah, who masterminded the November attacks in Mumbai (Times of India, January 9). Muntazir has been attempting to boost JuD/LeT’s public image for a long time, as well as shielding the JuD chief, Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, from any government action.

After a government crackdown and international condemnation, the surprisingly defiant JuD had planned to reorganize itself shortly after its proscription by the UN Security Council under another the umbrella of another militant conglomerate, the Tehrik-e-Hurmat-e-Rasool (THR) (Dawn [Karachi], January 3). THR, loosely translated as the “Movement for Defending the Honor of the Prophet,” is reportedly comprised of several religious and political groups in Pakistan. However, a few weeks later the JuD again reincarnated itself as the Tehrik-e-Tahafuz Qibla Awal (TTQA) (Times of India, January 12).

The newly-formed TTQA organized a rally in Peshawar rejecting the UN Security Council resolution against Jama’t-ud Dawa, arguing that the Security Council was biased against Muslims, based on its failure to impose a ceasefire in Gaza. The protesters held placards and banners inscribed with various slogans condemning Israel for its barbarism and aggression against Muslim Palestinians and calling for jihad against the United States for its silence on the killing of the people of Gaza (Pakistan Observer, January 15).

For complete article , Read here.

For Full Text Issue

NEFA Foundation: Taliban Insist "Closing the Cages of Guantanamo Is Not Enough"

By Evan Kohlmann

The NEFA Foundation has obtained a new statement from the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (the Taliban) titled, "Closing the Cages of Guantanamo is Not Enough.” According to the statement, "This action of Barack Obama regarding Guantanamo prison can be regarded as a positive step to strengthen peace and stability in the region and in the world. It is, however, another issue as to... whether the closure of this prison is really Obama's initiative or the result of the blessing of the strength, faith, and great determination of the mujahideen... Anyway, as a result of the enormous chaos that the war-mongering Bush administration created in the region and the world, the closure of one prison can only be seen as an ordinary effort. If Barack Obama is really interested in peace and stability in the world, he should not suffice to this measure alone and should declare as null and void all those evil projects which have been started in the light of the satanic polices of Bush to destabilize the entire world... If Barack Obama, according to his speech, really wants to open a new page of peaceful relations with the Islamic world based on mutual respect, then before anything else he should stop and declare null and void everything that has taken place under the criminal polices of Bush. He should completely withdraw his forces from the two occupied countries of Afghanistan and Iraq and he should end support for Israel which is against Islamic interests in the Middle East and in the entire world."

An English translation of the latest Taliban statement on Guantanamo can be downloaded from the NEFA Foundation website.

NEFA Foundation: AQIM Denies Alleged Germ Warfare Experiment Gone Wrong

By Evan Kohlmann

The NEFA Foundation has obtained and translated a new communique from Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) denying recent reports that a group of Al-Qaida fighters perished in Algeria after mistakenly contracting fatal doses of the plague during a biological warfare experiment gone wrong. According to the statement, “on January 6, 2009, several journalists wrote reports, based upon information they had received from their bosses in the Algerian intelligence bureaus, about dozens of mujahideen who died from contracting the plague. According to their claims, this disease was spread throughout the ranks of Al-Qaida organization and that it will soon cause the collapse of this organization! …We wanted to announce that there was no truth to these rumors… We don't know anything about this so-called plague, because it never happened-other than perhaps in the minds and hearts of those collaborators who falsely carry the title of 'journalists.' We announce to our Islamic nation that the purpose of falsified reports such as these is to frighten young men away from joining the jihad and to become weapons on the battlefields… The real plague that threatens our nation's existence is this apostate group of treacherous rulers who have allied themselves with the Jews and the Christians in order to destroy Gaza, to sell out Palestine, and to trample over our beliefs, honor, and sacred possessions.”

An English translation of the statement can be viewed on the NEFA Foundation website.

NEFA Foundation: Video of Former Gitmo Detainee-Turned-Al-Qaida Suicide Bomber in Iraq

By Evan Kohlmann

The NEFA Foundation has released English-subtitled excerpts from the final video-recorded will of Kuwaiti national Abdullah al-Ajmi (a.k.a. Abu Juhaiman al-Kuwaiti). Al-Ajmi was a former detainee at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba who was freed from American custody and, undeterred, subsequently joined Al-Qaida's "Islamic State of Iraq" (ISI). In April 2008, al-Ajmi allegedly executed a suicide truck bombing on behalf of Al-Qaida targeting local Iraqi security forces in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. Footage of Al-Ajmi reading his will and carrying out his suicide mission were later distributed by the official media wing of Al-Qaida in Iraq. The Kuwaiti is shown addressing the camera and declaring, "I thank Allah… who freed me from Guantanamo Bay prison and, after we were tortured, connected me with the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). And it is the gift of Allah to follow the path of this country, the Islamic State of Iraq... You may not see us again after this meeting because we are headed for Allah, and Allah-willing, we will enter the dens and the neighborhoods of those who have abandoned Islam."

The video can be watched on the NEFA Foundation website.

See also: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,483764,00.html

Iraq War Update: Fight Shifts From AQI to Iran's Agents

By James Gordon Meek

We reported in the New York Daily News last weekend that some policymakers now see the Iraq war as simply one battlefront in a broader conflict -- no, not the “Global War on Terror” waged by ex-President Bush. A new war.

“This is rapidly becoming a regional proxy war with Iran,” argues Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-Queens), chairman of a House Foreign Relations Committee’s panel on the Middle East and South Asia. “The big threat is, was and will remain in the future, Iran.”

“We’re definitely trying to fight Iran’s influence in Iraq,” agreed a U.S. intelligence official.

Today, violence in Iraq is way down compared to a year ago. With the Sunni-supported Al Qaeda in Iraq on the ropes, the U.S. military now routinely issues statements about operations targeting Tehran-backed militias such as the “Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq criminal network,” which they allege gets cash, training and weapons from the Iranian Quds Force, and the “Katai’b Hezbollah,” described by the U.S. as a “surrogate of Iran.”

While the U.S. has patched together a fragile and imperfect truce of sorts between Iraq's warring factions, “if there was a political implosion, or security deteriorated, it would be a serious breakdown,” a second U.S. intelligence official told The Mouth.

“Iraq’s neighbors - particularly Iran - could see an opportunity,” the official added.

But not everyone agrees that Iran has that much influence anymore in the Shi’a Muslim neighborhoods of southern Iraq.

“I get the sense that Iran won’t be a huge internal threat. The south has gone solidly the other way,” retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey told me late last year after an extensive trip through Iraq.

Curious, I asked Multi-National Forces-Iraq in Baghdad a series of questions last November about Iranian subversive activity. Read the answers on The News' Mouth of the Potomac Blog.

A View Toward a National Security Court

By Bill West

Yesterday, the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) ran an article reflecting upon what may be an existing template for what some have called for in the ongoing legal battles combating terrorism...the creation of a National Security Court. Such a court might be a hybrid of Federal civilian courts, military courts and the current military commission tribunals. That said, since around 1997, the United States has had an operable, if not operating, version of a National Security Court. Read more here.

Afghanistan and the Question of Force Restructuring

By Douglas Farah

Toronto Globe and Mail has an interesting look at how increasingly complex the Taliban's attacks in Afghanistan are, belying the notion that the group is somehow in retreat there.

This is, of course, due in no small measure, to the Taliban's enormous revenue stream from opium and heroin, a pipeline that insures the groups is not only well armed, but able to expand its arsenal, training and capabilities. It is also due, in part, to the Afghan government's dismal performance in corruption and development, giving people little reason NOT to side with the rebel forces.

At the same time, the Obama administration is carefully considering how to define victory in Afghanistan in a way that will make it more attainable.

"One of the concepts we embraced in Iraq was recognition that you can't kill or capture your way out of a complex, industrial-strength insurgency," Petraeus said in an interview this month with Foreign Policy magazine. "The challenge in Afghanistan, as it was in Iraq, is to figure out how to reduce substantially the numbers of those who have to be killed or captured."

This debate is closely tied to the debate over the future of the military as we know-that is, what kind of military do we need to fight the wars of the future?

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting column by Mackubin Thomas Owens looking at this question. While the answer he gives is the most obvious-one equipped to fight several different kinds of war, both conventional and and small wars and insurgencies-he does remind us of some of the basic questions that need to be asked by advocates of the different camps. My full blog is here.

Drug Wars

By Michael Jacobson

My colleague Matt Levitt and I had a piece in The New Republic today, on the growing involvement of terrorist groups in criminal activity -- and particularly in the drug trade. In the piece, we have some recommendations for the Obama administration on how they can make greater use of law enforcement tools to take advantage of this growing nexus.

Here is an excerpt:

This past week, President-elect Obama declared that "Bin Laden and Al Qaeda are our number one threat when it comes to American security," pledging to "do everything in our power" to eliminate safe havens which terrorists can use to plan attacks against the U.S. As these terrorist networks become increasingly transnational, one of the key roadblocks against destroying them is the difficultly of achieving international cooperation in counter-terrorism initiatives.

To overcome this challenge, the Obama administration needs to change the way the U.S. government thinks about the "War on Terror." Taking advantage of the growing involvement of terrorist groups in criminal activity, his team should increase the use of law enforcement tools as a key pillar of his counterterrorism strategy. While terrorist groups can hardly be defeated by prosecutors and police officers alone, these tools can greatly increase the effectiveness of our efforts to capture and neutralize them.

Before 9/11, Al Qaeda funded and controlled operations directly from its base in Afghanistan. The group provided funding for the East Africa embassy bombings in 1998, the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, and the 2001 World Trade Center attacks. Today, the terrorist threat is far more decentralized, and Al Qaeda's central command is not funding operations as it once did. Left to their own devices, budding terrorist cells have resorted to criminal activity to raise the funds for attacks.

The cell that executed the devastating 2004 Madrid train bombing plot, which killed almost 200 people, partially financed the attack by selling hashish. The terrorists who carried out the July 7, 2005, attacks on the transportation system in London were also self-financed, in part through credit card fraud. In Southeast Asia, the Al Qaeda-affiliated Jemaah Islamiyah financed the 2002 Bali bombings, in part, through jewelry store robberies.

While terrorist groups are involved in a wide variety of criminal activity, ranging from cigarette smuggling to selling counterfeit products, the nexus between drugs and terror is particularly strong. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, 19 of the 43 U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations are definitively linked to the global drug trade, and up to 60 percent of terror organizations are suspected of having some ties with the illegal narcotics trade.

To read the rest of the piece, click here

Guantanamo’s manipulators leading the new Jihad

By Walid Phares

"By Allah, imprisonment only increased our persistence in our principles for which we went out, did jihad for, and were imprisoned for."

These are the words loudly uttered by an al-Qaeda cadre who was detained in GITMO for a number of years and released in 2007 back to the region. This statement comes at a time the detention center has been ordered to be shut down within a year. This episode provides evidence that Jihadism as an ideology does not respond to the political culture of democracy nor are the indoctrinated Jihadists impacted by the moral and legal debate within what they see as the sphere of the infidels. The Guantanamo legal and ethical drama will continue to be discussed in the United Sates and the West, but for now let's look at the outpouring harsh facts.

As reported by the SITE web site, two men released from the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba have appeared in a video posted on a Jihadi site. The most notorious of the two, a Saudi man identified as Abu Sufyan al-Azdi al-Shahri, or prisoner number 372, has been "elevated to the senior ranks of al-Qaeda in Yemen," a US counter-terrorism official told AFP. The other man on the video is Abu al-Hareth Muhammad al-Oufi, identified as an al-Qaeda commander. SITE stated he was prisoner Number 333. Reviewing the video provided by the Laura Mansfield monitoring group http://www.lauramansfield.com/mnhona.rm, I analyzed the statements made by al-Shahri and al-Oufi in original Arabic.

Taliban Hostage Heard Drone, 'And Then - Boom!'

By James Gordon Meek

On Friday, President Obama made it clear he has no intention on letting up on the CIA offensive inside Pakistan’s tribal areas begun by ex-President Bush last spring. Missiles fired by unmanned drones struck two targets inside North Waziristan. We reported in the New York Daily News' Mouth of the Potomac Blog on Jan. 18 (and mirrored here on the CT Blog) that missile strikes by unmanned Predator drones have killed eight senior Al Qaeda leaders, including some plotting attacks against the West.

While Pakistanis still occasionally mount anti-American demonstrations, there have been relatively few howls of protest despite more than 30 strikes near the Afghanistan border. One reason is that the targets have mostly been foreigners, and almost all the victims were Arabs - not Pakistanis, sources say.

So what’s it like to live in the tribal areas with U.S. drones zipping around in the skies overhead, launching death at any moment?

“It flies so often, they’re completely relaxed about it. Everyone’s off their guard,” British filmmaker Sean Langan told The News recently in a lengthy exclusive interview.

Langan has a unique perspective. The BBC man was double-crossed last spring on his way into Pakistan to interview top Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders, and was taken hostage by the Taliban for three months. His “hosts” kept him locked up with his terrified Afghan interpreter in a small house in Bajaur Agency, which was wedged between four active Al Qaeda training camps near the border.

Besides the sound of constant training gunfire around him, Langan heard the hum of drones “pretty much every day.” On May 14, he heard a drone fire its Hellfire missiles.

“During my captivity, I heard a Predator flying overhead and then - boom!” Langan recalled.

He turned on a radio the Taliban had provided and soon the BBC reported the missile strike in nearby Damadola - where the CIA tried to kill Al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri in January 2006. The May strike reportedly killed a senior Al Qaeda operative.

Rank and file spooks inside the newly unleashed CIA have gotten a huge morale boost from the offensive, since Bush - and apparently now Obama - have given them considerable freedom to strike any targets they find, sources say. There also was this humorous moment at a recent CIA reception for the agency’s departing director Michael Hayden, when he was roasted a bit for…well, roasting the evildoers.

According to one well-placed source, Mike Sulick - director of CIA’s covert operations - read aloud a mock “leadership profile” of Hayden, which said that after taking the helm at Langley in 2006, the spy chief “almost immediately reneged on his pledge to the CIA workforce not to ‘blow anything up’ by destroying dozens of Al Qaeda safehouses.”

Just a little joke…right?

Wither the War On Terror?

By Michael B. Kraft

The War on Terror is Dead, sayeth the Washington Post. But the struggle, or whatever we may wish to call it, continues.

Indeed, President Obama, who touched on the terrorism threat in his inaugural speech, already has plunged into the counterterrorism effort. Government officials and non-government organizations have prepared numerous transition papers and recommendations. The Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation, for example, released a series of recommendations Friday that include proposals for improvements in using multinational tools. And the Center for International Relations Forum just published a series of essays on challenges for the new president, including an article I wrote last month counterterrorism measures. (See below.)

Here is an overview:

With the Obama administration only three days old, the Washington Post carried a front page analysis article on Friday headlined: “Bush’s War on Terror Comes to a Sudden End.”

The article, by award-winning journalist Dana Priest, stated that President Obama on Thursday eliminated “the most controversial tools” used by the Bush administration against terrorist suspects and “effectively declared an end to the ‘war on terror’ as President George W. Bush had defined it.”

Ms Priest pegged her story to President Obama’s announced intention of his plans to close the Guantanamo Bay military prison facilities, where habeas corpus rights have been denied and the signing Thursday of executive orders to nullify the legal orders and opinions on interrogations issued by executive branch lawyers since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. President Obama declared an end to the use of torture tactics.

He set out his rationale in his inaugural address, saying:

"As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake.”

It is a stretch, however, to interpret these steps as an end or a significant weakening of the overall efforts to stem terrorism. The “War on Terror” phrase was overblown. Most professionals within the government were uncomfortable with it and considered it to be a rhetorical device, not an accurate description of the situation. As others have noted, terrorism is a tactic not a specific entity in itself. The phrase is an example of speech writers’ snappy sounding phrases influencing policy perceptions, sometimes in ways that probably were not intended.

Middle East Challenges to the Obama Administration: The Forthcoming Crises

By Walid Phares

The following briefing is based on a speech I delivered to the Florida Society for Middle East Studies (FSMES) on January 17, 2009. It was published by the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA). The briefing summarizes the projected challenges in the counter Terrorism campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan and the expected crisis in Syria/Lebanon and Israel-Palestine. It highlights the centrality of the Iranian role on the one hand and the capacity of the Middle East Studies community to provide newer ideas.

The Iran- al Qaeda Conundrum

By Michael Jacobson

My colleague Matt Levitt and I wrote a piece on the complicated and often opaque relationship between Iran and al Qaeda.

Here is an excerpt:

Last week, the Treasury Department issued terrorist designations for three senior al-Qaeda operatives who spent time in Iran, including Usama bin Laden's son, Saad. But the action, which targeted individuals unlikely to have assets in the United States or to move money in their own names, appears to be linked more to Iran than to al-Qaeda. During the designation announcement, Treasury undersecretary Stuart Levey noted, "It is important that Iran give a public accounting of how it is meeting its international obligations to constrain al-Qaeda." For the Obama administration, understanding the complicated relationship between Iran and al-Qaeda will be key as Washington begins to forge a new path in dealing with Tehran.

Iran's Ties to al-Qaeda Before September 11

Links between al-Qaeda and Iran are not new and have developed over time. Ties between the two first blossomed during the early 1990s when al-Qaeda was based in Sudan. Hasan al-Turabi, the leader of Sudan's National Islamic Front, encouraged relationships between Shiite and Sunni entities as part of his attempt to establish a unified global effort against the common enemy. As a result, Iran and al-Qaeda reached an informal agreement to cooperate, with Iran providing critical explosives, intelligence, and security training to bin Laden's organization.

Iran continued to provide assistance after al-Qaeda relocated to Afghanistan in 1996. Iranian officials were often willing to help facilitate al-Qaeda members' transit through Iran on their way to Afghanistan. Iranian border guards were instructed not to stamp their passports, presumably to prevent their home governments from suspecting that they had traveled to Afghanistan. Although the 9/11 Commission found no evidence that Iran was "aware of the planning for what later became the September 11 attacks," it concluded that "strong evidence" exists that Iran facilitated al-Qaeda travel -- including some of the September 11 hijackers -- to Afghanistan.

To read the full article, click here.

Bin Laden: Gaza is one of the many fronts of "World Jihad"

By Walid Phares

To Usama Bin Laden, the confrontation in Gaza is not a local national issue but it is part of what he coins as world Jihad against the Kuffars (infidels), or more precisely the “Crusader-Zionist enemy.” This stark ideological reminder came through a new audio message by the leader of al Qaeda at a time Israeli forces and Hamas’Jihadists were still fighting in the enclave. The Bin Laden address was titled “Call to Jihad to stop the aggression against Gaza” and was addressed to the “Umma” (Islamic Nation). The following is my analysis of this latest tape.

Worth Reading: A Report on Drug Trafficking That is Terrifying and Incomplete

By Douglas Farah

If you want a fairly complete, and completely terrifying view of the power of organized criminal activity in the United States, take some time to read the National Drug Threat Assessment of the National Drug Intelligence Center.

Yet as good and comprehensive as it is, it reflects one of the fundamental weaknesses and walls that still exist.

The entire report mentions the overlap with terrorist activities exactly ONE time, and that, in a footnote relating to prison radicalization.

While different law enforcement agencies (the DEA in particular) have made drug cases leading directly to Hezbollah, the FARC and the Taliban, this is not mentioned. The FARC is the primary trafficking organization in Colombia, while the Taliban controls most of the heroin heading to Europe. Hezbollah skims from illicit drug laundering from Venezuela to Colombia to Maracaibo and Panama. At least 19 of the 43 designated terrorist organizations have been shown to have direct ties to drug trafficking.

Yet the NDIC is kept completely separate from terrorist analysis, just as terrorist analysts are still largely segregated from anything to do with drug trafficking and organized crime. It is called stovepiping information, as the 9/11 Commission made famous.

This, despite the fact that there is an undeniable and growing link between terrorist organizations and the organized criminal pipeline.

I understand the report was on the threat of drugs in the United States. But, given the existing case precedent and stated desire of different terrorist organizations to attack the United States, I cannot help reading things like the following and wondering what it portends in terms of terrorism. My full blog is here.

The Gaza war coming to Europe?

By Olivier Guitta

My colleague Victor Comras had a great post on the rising anti-semitism in Europe.
I wrote an article for the Middle East Times looking at how the conflict is being imported on the continent.
You can read the full article here.
Here is an excerpt:
After three weeks of war in Gaza, Israel has implemented a unilateral cease-fire. The coverage of this war has been overwhelming. From Washington to Amman to Paris and London, the images, reports and articles on this conflict have been hyper-present.
While it is true that the Israeli-Arab war has been a very passionate issue, the so-called peaceful demonstrations in Europe have unfortunately turned more than often into pure Jew-bashing. And like in 2003-2004, Europe is importing the Middle East war once again.

In fact, the intent of demonstrating for peace - real peace - is quite laudable. But when it comes to calling for the destruction of a democratic state acting in self-defense against a group classified as a terrorist organization by among others the United States and the European Union, then the peaceful aspect seems totally gone.

Lots of demonstrations in Europe have turned quite violent physically and verbally. While it is totally acceptable to criticize Israel and deplore the Palestinian civilian victims, cries of "Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas" that erupted during demonstrations throughout Europe are unacceptable and show the extent of the problem Europe is once again facing.

Also most of the demonstrators consider Hamas, a legitimate resistance movement that they compare to the French resistance during WWII. That disturbing comparison totally whitewashes a movement that is viewed by the large majority of European countries as terrorist. Interestingly the WWII comparisons do not stop at Hamas, but are mostly targeted at Israel, described as the "new Nazi state" committing a "holocaust."

Unsurprisingly this rhetoric has pushed in some cases to calls of boycott not against Israel but against all its alleged supporters. So in one instance, Giancarlo Desiderati, the head of a small Italian union called Flaica-Uniti-Cub, called for the boycott of all Jewish-run businesses. In another case, a famous Jewish French stand-up comedian had to cancel his one-man show on Friday because dozens of pro-Hamas angry demonstrators prevented the spectators from going into the venue.

Feds: Zero Arrests During Obama Inaugural

By James Gordon Meek

This was an Inaugural security update I posted last night on the New York Daily News' Mouth of the Potomac Blog:

Nobody got arrested during President Obama’s record-smashing Inauguration celebration, The Mouth learned tonight from a half-dozen D.C. and federal law enforcement officials.

Think about that folks.

Crowd estimates range from 1-2 million on the National Mall today. And no one left wearing bracelets.

“As of 6 p.m. no one had been arrested by any agency - unheard of for a crowd that size,” said one senior federal agent inside the Joint Information Center. “Quite a testament to the President and the people wanting change for the better.”

“There were no reports of any arrests,” confirmed a D.C. Police spokesman.

A Homeland Security Department spokesman also said no arrests were logged Tuesday by feds.

Mostly, the 20,000 National Guard troops and cops helped Obamaniacs with medical emergencies. There was only one protest from a group asking Obama to close the Guantanamo Bay terror prison.

We also reported today that there was a moment of drama early Tuesday.

U.S. Park Police dispatchers radioed a bolo - "be on the lookout" - for three vehicles belonging to a petty criminal from New York, who they warned should be treated with caution. The "person of interest" had vanity plates on each vehicle that are variations of President Obama's last name. Why he was being sought remains unclear, however.

The FBI and Homeland Security Department had also issued a law enforcement bulletin late Monday about Somali-Americans recruited by the Al Qaeda-affiliated Al-Shabaab insurgent group in East Africa. But it appeared to be based mostly on an analytic judgment ,rather than any hard intel, that the Inauguration could be targeted, my sources told me.

All in all, Tuesday was a near perfect day in the world of security. So hats off to all involved.

Plague allegedly killed Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb terrorists

By Olivier Guitta

On Monday, the Sun ran a story reporting that 40 terrorists from AQIM had died of plague in a terrorist training camp in Tizi Ouzou. Yesterday, Eli Lake from the Washington Times confirmed through one of his source in the U.S. intelligence community that an incident had taken place at a training camp that had to be shut down as a result. The deaths were not confirmed though.

A few observations at this point that give credence to this story, which has not received the coverage it deserves:
1- There has been a total black out from the Algerian media that has not even mentioned one line about this story.

2- Algerian authorities have been totally silent at this time: I suspect that they have not been too happy about the story leaking through British and American sources.

3- Coincidence or not: 60 terrorists from AQIM from Tizi Ouzou (the same region where the incident allegedly occurred) miraculously just decided they wanted to surrender to the authorities; this is very rare that such a large number of AQIM operatives defect at the same time. That tells me that possibly they got really scared of what had taken place in the training camp and do not want to get involved with any biological weapon experimentation that could possibly result in their deaths.

4- Over a year ago, Pakistani terrorists came to train in AQIM training camps and may have one way or another contributed to the production of that biological agent. Interestingly, the Washington Times mentions that AQIM leaders had contacted AQ Central in Pakistan to tell them about the mishap.

5- AQ operatives in Europe had tried to develop biological weapons in the recent past. In France, Menad Benchelalli, a terrorist specialized in poisons had produced small amounts of ricin and Botulinum toxin that he intended to release in France. He was arrested in 2002.
Then in 2003, British authorities arrested seven individuals accused of also producing ricin.

6- AQIM was "hired" by AQ central mostly because of his extensive network in Europe that could allow them to strike Europe at some point. AQIM's leadership has been under intense pressure to attack European targets in order to maintain its credibility.
I suspect that possibly this biological weapon was destined for delivery in Europe. In fact, by not using a "conventional" weapon, AQIM would prove its value to AQ Central.

Final scary implication: if this story is true, then with such a virulent disease like plague having infected individuals, these persons need to be quarantined as soon as possible and the authorities need to track down whomever they have been in contact with.
Also even more worrisome, imagine if one of the infected individuals board a flight to Paris, London or New York, this person could be the means of "delivering" the weapon.
The damage could be enormous.

Homegrown Jihadist Terrorism in the United States

By Lorenzo Vidino

Various CT Blog experts have posted in the past about homegrown terrorism in the United States (most notably Madeleine Gruen and Frank Hyland and the NEFA Foundation’s Target America series). I have published a long article on the subject in the latest issue of Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, attempting to outline the history of homegrown terrorism of jihadist inspiration in America and analyze the U.S. government’s response to it.

On March 9, 1977, a group of 12 armed men, all African American converts to Islam who called themselves Hanafi Muslims, brought havoc to the central area of Washington, D.C. Divided in three groups, the men stormed into the city’s Islamic Center, City Council chambers, and the headquarters of B’nai B’rith, America’s oldest Jewish organization. Wielding rifles, shotguns and machetes, the men took about 150 people hostage. They were led by Hamaas Abdul Khaalis, an African American convert who had served as secretary to Malcolm X at Harlem’s Temple #7 under the name of Ernest 2X McGhee before leaving the Nation of Islam to form his own sect, which referred to a more traditional form of Sunni Islam. After seizing the buildings, Khaalis issued a series of demands. First he wanted authorities to hand over to him the five Nation of Islam members who had been arrested for brutally murdering several members of his family, including some infants, four years earlier. Then he demanded that authorities ban the showing of the movie Mohammad, Messenger of God, which he deemed offensive to Islam. This second request was granted and theaters nationwide stopped showing the controversial movie. The siege ended two days later, after extensive negotiations led by the Egyptian, Pakistani and Iranian ambassadors to the U.S., who read the men passages from the Quran about compassion and mercy. A security guard and a journalist were killed during the siege, and several others, including Washington mayor-to-be Marion Barry, were injured.

Nevertheless, despite these evident differences, the Washington siege and the Tabatabai assassination represent two of the first instances in which American-born and/or American-based individuals inspired by a radical and politicized interpretation of Islam decided to use violence inside the United States. They represent only some of the earliest examples that can be used to dispel the dual assumptions that homegrown jihadist -inspired terrorism is a recent phenomenon in the West and that it is largely limited to Europe. While it is true that homegrown networks have become significantly more numerous and dangerous over the last few years, extensive anecdotal evidence shows that they have been present in the West for at least three decades. Moreover, while it is undeniable that Europe is home to a larger number of them, homegrown jihadist networks (both “atypical,” such as the Washington siege’s Hanafi Muslims, and others more commonly inspired by Salafism) have long been operating inside the United States as well.

The piece continues with an analysis of cases and policies and with a comparison to Europe. The whole piece can be read here (subscription required).

On The Eve of the Obama Inauguration, Al-Qaida Takes Another Swipe at the "Celebrity" U.S. President

By Evan Kohlmann

Though it has attracted little attention in the midst of public celebrations for the inauguration of President Barack Obama, Al-Qaida has taken another angry swipe at the celebrity aura and optimism surrounding Obama--not just in the U.S., but also in Europe. Earlier this year, a crowd of hundreds of thousands of well-wishers greeted Obama during a speech in Berlin, Germany. Meanwhile, this weekend, Al-Qaida's As-Sahaab Media Foundation released a video of German Al-Qaida member Bekkay Harrach mocking the political system in Germany and widespread admiration among Germans for the results of recent U.S. elections. Harrach insisted, "the people have no choice because both parties want the same thing, no matter whether you will vote soon for McCain or Obama… Maybe the day will come when you will wish to be South Koreans or to have Opera leader Kirsten as Chancellor."

NEFA Foundation Report - "The Union of Good: A Global Muslim Brotherhood Hamas Fundraising Network"

By Evan Kohlmann

The NEFA Foundation has released a new report by NEFA Senior Analyst Steve Merley titled, "The Union of Good: A Global Muslim Brotherhood Hamas Fundraising Network." The Union of Good is a coalition of Islamic charities that provides financial support to both the Hamas “social” infrastructure, as well as its terrorist activities. It is headed by global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi, and most of the trustees and member organizations are associated with the global Muslim Brotherhood. The Union of Good was banned by Israel in 2002 and recently designated a terrorist entity by the United States, although neither Youssef Qaradawi nor any of the Trustees were similarly designated. Despite the fact that action has been taken against some of its member organizations in Europe, many of its other European member organizations continue to operate. Further, the Union of Good itself does not appear to be under investigation in Europe. This report complements prior NEFA Special Reports on the Brotherhood networks in the U.S., Belgium, and the Netherlands. And Steve Merley’s most recent report, “The Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe," examined an umbrella group that comprises the global Muslim Brotherhood in Europe.

Mr. Merley's report can be downloaded from the NEFA Foundation website.

NEFA Foundation: German Al-Qaida Member Bekkay Harrach - “A Bailout Plan for Germany”

By Evan Kohlmann

The NEFA Foundation has obtained and translated a new German-language video recording of German Al-Qaida member Bekkay Harrach (a.k.a. “Abu Talha the German”) produced by the As-Sahaab Media Foundation. During the video, titled “A Bailout Plan for Germany”, Harrach threatened, “I asked the German people what do the German secret services really know and do they believe that they can really protect the German people? Or have they not already admitted that they cannot put anything up against Al-Qaida… If you look at the strategy of Al-Qaida, you conclude that only those who were aggressive became targets… In that predicament, have the Germans any other choice then looking for the fastest way home? Time is running out for the Germans. I appeal to the German people, finally stand up and become reasonable… Don’t believe that you will get away scot-free or that even the smallest of your injustices will be forgotten or overlooked.” Harrach also appeared to mock widespread support among Germans for the election of President Barack Obama in the U.S. Addressing upcoming democratic elections in Germany, Harrach insisted, “the people have no choice because both parties want the same thing, no matter whether you will vote soon for McCain or Obama… Maybe the day will come when you will wish to be South Koreans or to have Opera leader Kirsten as Chancellor.”

An English transcript of Harrach's remarks can be downloaded from the NEFA Foundation website.

NEFA Foundation: New Video Footage of a Terrorist Training Camp Run by the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU)

By Evan Kohlmann

The NEFA Foundation has obtained new video footage of a terrorist training camp run by the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU), apparently inside the borders of Pakistan. The video shows IJU fighters receiving instruction in basic weapons and more advanced urban warfare courses. The IJU was founded by breakaway fighters from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in March 2002 in Pakistan's Tribal Areas. Based in Mirali in South Waziristan, the IJU is training Western recruits for attacks in the West. The recruits are mainly Turkish nationals and elements from Turkish communities in Western Europe--but also Muslim converts from Europe. In October 2008, the NEFA Foundation released a Special Report by Director of Analysis and Research Ronald Sandee analyzing the IJU and its developing efforts to promote international terrorist operations in concert with the Al-Qaida and the Taliban.

To watch the video, visit the NEFA Foundation website.

How Safe is the National Mall on Inauguration Day?

By James Gordon Meek

Putting aside the obvious safety concerns for the first African-American president getting sworn in tomorrow, there is a lot of nervousness about the huge, record-breaking crowd expected on the National Mall. The Mall is the mile-long green which stretches from the Lincoln Memorial on the Potomac River past the Washington Monument to the West front of the Capitol, where Barack Obama will take his oath of office at noon.

I reported in the New York Daily News yesterday that one scenario the U.S. Secret Service - which has ultimate authority over the 56th Presidential Inaugural as a “National Special Security Event” - hopes to avoid is a “Mumbai on the Mall.” The Thanksgiving terror attacks by 10 Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives in India caused over 500 casualties.

While there is no doubt U.S. counterterror teams would respond instantly to any outbreak of violence on the Mall, unlike Indian authorities’ sluggish reaction, it might make little difference.

Secret Service agents and Uniformed Division officers are directly handling tight-as-a-drum security along the parade route on Pennsylvania Ave. from the Capitol to the White House, as well as the Capitol’s reviewing stand. But on the Mall and much of the parade route, security is also being handled by the U.S. Park Police. And because of crowds estimated to be between 1.5 and 2 million people on the Mall to witness history, officials admit they can’t screen them with metal detectors.

“Tuesday we won’t have traditional checkpoints like we do at the 4th of July. The size of the crowd is just going to be too much. We wouldn’t be able to get the people in,” U.S. Park Police Chief Sal Lauro told The News' Mouth of the Potomac Blog in an interview late Sunday.

Lauro said there will be “spot checks, and (we) will have a very strong uniformed presence, and we’ll have multiple layers. There will be plainclothes officers. We’re using technology. It will be a very safe and secure site.”

Cops can search backpacks and coolers, which are discouraged but not banned from the Mall, “if they think something’s suspicious and they have probable cause,” he added.

One senior counterterror official with decades of experience said he doubted anything bad will happen to the crowd on the Mall.

“I’ll actually be surprised if there is any ‘event,’” the official told me. “I’ll read about everything the next day. No way I would venture out on Tuesday.”

Lessons From the Iran-al Qaeda Connection

By Douglas Farah

My CTB colleague Andrew Cochran has written about the Treasury Department's designations of various al Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden's son, Sa'ad. The designation order ties several of those identified, including Sa'ad, to Iran.

The designation, taken literally, has little meaning. None of those named have any assets in the United States than can be frozen, and likely do not do business under their own names abroad, nor are they likely to have bank accounts.

But as a symbolic measure it is important because it highlights he history of the Iran-al Qaeda relationship, and how wrong the conventional wisdom in the intelligence community was in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. There still exists a strong resistance to seeing how thing work, rather than how we like to imagine they might work.

The thinking (which I ran up against repeatedly in the hostility to my al Qaeda-diamonds reporting) was that Shi'ia and Sunni groups cannot and do not collaborate. Therefore, Hezbollah supporters in Liberia smuggling diamonds would never help al Qaeda operatives move their stones. And Iran would not help al Qaeda on a broader level.

Yet Iran, as the Treasury statement notes, provided vital logistical support for senior al Qaeda leaders and the families of the very senior leadership (Osama bin Laden, Zawahiri) to escape from Afghanistan. They kept some senior leaders under "house arrest" but allowed them to remain operational.

It took the European intelligence services a considerable amount of time and effort to convince most of their U.S. counterparts that this was the case. My full blog is here.

Unleashed CIA Zapped 8 Qaeda Lieutenants Since July

By James Gordon Meek

In one of his final acts in office, President Bush has been trying to settle unfinished business in his internationally-unpopular “global war on terror.” No, he hasn’t killed Osama Bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri or Abu Ayyub al-Masri. No, he hasn’t pulled all U.S. troops out of Iraq. No, he hasn’t closed Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib or Bagram’s prisons.

However, Bush has met privately with groups of Gold Star families, whose relatives made the ultimate sacrifice in wars since 9/11. He has been tender, caring and compassionate with those in grief.

The President also bestowed the nation’s highest award for spywork on his security team, awarding the National Security Medal last week to Director of National intelligence Mike McConnell, CIA Director Michael Hayden and CIA Deputy Director Stephen Kappes. Hayden and Kappes, no doubt, were given the top honor for eliminating eight senior Al Qaeda leaders in missile strikes inside Pakistan in the last six months. Among the dead were operatives planning attacks against the West, sources have informed me.

Here is the CIA’s hit parade, according to a source who provided it to us at the New York Daily News:

• Khalid Habib, a veteran combat leader and operations chief involved with plots to attack the West, who served as deputy to Al Qaeda No. 3 Shaikh Sa’id al-Masri


• Rashid Rauf, the mastermind of the 2006 British airliner plot


• Abu Khabab al-Masri, Al Qaeda’s most seasoned explosives expert and trainer, and the man responsible for its chemical and biological weapons efforts


• Abdallah Azzam, also a top aide to Sheikh Sa’id al-Masri


• Abu al-Hassan al-Rimi, a leader who led cross-border operations against coalition forces in Afghanistan


• Abu Sulaiman al-Jaziri, a senior external operations planner and facilitator


• Abu Jihad al-Masri, a senior operational planner and propagandist


• Usama al-Kini, an East African who was chief of Pakistan operations and the planner of last year’s Marriott attack in Pakistan and the bombing of Benazir Bhutto’s motorcade upon her return from exile.

In a farewell message to CIA employees, Hayden alluded to the not-so-covert campaign in Pakistan’s tribal areas, where CIA has maintained constant overflights by unmanned Predator drones. Morale at the agency has soared since Bush unleashed the spooks to blow up any target they can acquire to crush Al Qaeda as a parting gift.

“In the past year alone, a powerful blow has been struck against Al Qaeda. Its operational capability has been damaged and its ideological strength eroded,” Hayden told his spies. “Our ops tempo has been unrelenting.”

As for the elusive High-Value Targets 1 and 2, Bin Laden and Zawahiri, Hayden said Al Qaeda’s Egyptian deputy has put himself more squarely in the crosshairs. “It’s always been my belief that you’ll get Two before you get One. (Zawahiri) is a more visible figure. He’s more operationally involved,” the CIA chief told reporters on Thursday.

Asked by The News at a Friday meeting with reporters why the two goons are still breathing, DNI McConnell replied bluntly: “We can’t find them.”

Gaza Conflict Provokes Anti-Jewish Violence in Europe

By Victor Comras

Since the beginning of the war in Gaza there has been a dramatic upsurge in anti-semitic activities in Europe, perhaps the most violent since post World War II reconstruction days. Jews, synagogues, and Jewish schools and institutions across the continent, from Sweden to Turkey, have been attacked or threatened. And several non Muslim organizations have joined with Islamist groups in blending an intensified anti-semitism with their anti-Israel rhetoric.

While some of this virulence against Jews in Europe stems directly from the violence in Gaza, its roots run far deeper. For there is a strong anti-Jewish current that has long been fed by organized Islamic groups across Europe, and particularly by the Muslim Brotherhood. As acknowledged in Leiken and Brooke's well researched Foreign Affairs Article, "The Moderate Muslim Brotherhood," the Brotherhood's claim that it is not "anti-Jewish," but only "anti-Zionist," is belied by its own actions, and the literature and preachings of its leaders and theologians.

It is somewhat ironic that as Sunni Muslim Government Leaders from Egypt to Saudi Arabia seek to mute their, and the local popular response, to the Gaza events, the contrary seems to be the mood in Europe. European cities have seen some of the largest anti-Israel demonstrations in history. Earlier this month, over 100,000 protesters marched in Madrid, convinced that Israel’s military incursion into Gaza to stop rockets being fired into Israel, was unjustified.

The Brussel’s Journal, published by the Society for the Advancement of Freedom in Europe (SAFE), a Swiss non-profit organization, reports a dramatic upsurge in “anti-Semitic violence.” Synagogues and Jewish centers have been firebombed in Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Sweden and Denmark. More than 100 anti-Semitic motivated attacks have taken place in France alone since the opening of the Gaza conflict on December 27th. Jewish schools have also been targeted for attack, and, in some cases, Jewish students expelled from local public schools. Death threats have also been directed against Europe’s Jewish Community leaders. Police in Sweden, France, Britain and Germany advised prominent Jews to redouble their security arrangements after several of their names were found on “Jewish Hit Lists.”

The Muslim Brotherhood has long manifested an anti-Jewish sentiment, dating back to its founding and the close association of many of its early and most senior leaders with Nazi Germany. Muslim Brotherhood literature, and teaching material, remains replete with anti-Jewish rhetoric, and the Gaza war has brought many of these tendencies back to the fore. Building on popular sympathy for the Gaza Palestinians as the misperceived underdog, it has provided the Muslim Brotherhood and other even more radical European Islamic groups a new rallying cry and recruitment tool. The anti-Israel popular sentiment along with European government fears of setting off a new series of Muslim riots in the streets of Europe, has also caused several governments to largely ignore, or give these Muslim organization a pass concerning their “violent outrage.”

While most European journalists attribute this surge in anti-Jewish violence to the events in Gaza, and downplay the notion of a resurgence of anti-semitism in Europe, considerable reason for concern remains that the problem runs far deeper. Europe’s media has played Israel’s actions against Gaza, and its causes, nature, and conduct, much differently than the American media. European journalists have generally portrayed a greater sympathy for Hamas, largely ignoring Hamas' sworn commitment to the destruction of Israel and to their conduct that gave rise to the present conflict. In one of the more outrageous examples of an anti-Israel bias, the France 2 TV network used graphic, but outdated video footage dating back to an accidental truck explosion in 2005 as current footage demonstrating current violence in Gaza. In Greece, the center-right Avriani daily newspaper The Brussels Journal reports ran a story charging that a Jewish plutocracy, was preparing to put in motion “war machines” in various hot spots around the world in order to control the price of oil, redistribute the world’s natural resources and start a new cycle of weapons production.

Many of the same concerns I raise here are also expressed in a poignant article by Daniel Schwammenthal, titled “Europe Re-Imports Jewish Hatred” that appeared last week in the Wall Street Journal. Schwammenthal writes:

Hamas and other Islamists are not even trying to hide their ideology. Just read the Hamas charter or check out Hamas TV, including children's programs, for a nauseating dose of murderous anti-Semitism. .... Muslims in Europe, watching Hamas and Hezbollah TV with their satellite dishes, are being fed the same diet of anti-Semitism and jihadi ideology that Palestinians and much of the Middle East consume. *** … Anti-Semitism… is not alien to Europe's culture -- to the contrary, the Continent once excelled at it and many still share the feeling. A Pew study from September shows 25% of Germans and 20% of French are still affected by this virus. In Spain, 46% have unfavorable views of Jews. Is there really no connection between this statistic and the fact that the Spanish media and government are among Europe's most hostile toward the Jewish state? Is it just a coincidence that Europe's largest anti-Israel demonstration took place Sunday in Spain, with more than 100,000 protesters? *** With little hope that the media coverage will become more balanced and the incitement of the growing Muslim community will abate, the Jews in Europe are facing uncertain times.

This new wave of anti-semitism in Europe is likely to continue long after the violence in Gaza subsides. It is incumbent on European governments to recognize this factor, and equally apply and enforce its anti-preaching of hate legislation and programs, and to insist on a equal level of civil behavior from all its citizens and residents. One should also expect that Europe's mainstream media will again live up to its pledge to fight discrimination, racism and xenophobia from whatever source. This means restoring a semblance of objectivity and balance in its reporting concerning Israel-Palestinian relations, the Middle East Peace Process, and other matters impacting Islamic - Jewish relations.

Discussion about the feasibility of a Gaza demilitarization

By Walid Phares

As the Israeli Government has decided to commit to a unilateral cease fire in Gaza, and in light of the US-Israeli agreement on blocking the flow of weapons to Hamas; also in light of a NATO exploration of a possible high sea control of arms shipments to the pro-Iranian organization and as news of Arab financial grants to the enclave, components of the internationalization of the strip are now being taken into consideration. But at the same time, Hamas and its supporters in the region, Iran and Syria, are adamantly opposed to any form of UN or international role in the enclave. At the same time, Egypt rejected the deployment of any international force on its side of the border with Gaza. In this context, I conducted the following media discussion with military expert Thomas Smith published in the International Analysts Network and on the Family Security Matters site.

What To Do With Terrorist Aliens?

By Bill West

This topic has been covered before in the CTB. There was just a ruling in US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria that should remind us of the difficulties dealing with such matters, even when the law is on the side of the good guys/gals. US District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema, who presides over the criminal contempt case of Sami Al-Arian, ruled in favor of the Government by allowing the prosecution to go forward. Judge Brinkema set the trial date for March 9.

Al-Arian, convicted in Tampa, Florida of providing support to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), has been fighting Justice Department efforts in Virginia to have him testify before a Federal Grand Jury investigating various Islamic charities and think tanks in the northern Virginia area. Al-Arian’s refusal to testify in those proceedings has resulted in him being held in civil contempt by the Courts and has led to the current criminal contempt charges. Several months ago, Judge Brinkema freed Al-Arian on supervised pre-trial release while the Court considered various defense and Government motions. Al-Arian has been residing in the Washington, DC area with some of his family during this time.

It should be noted that Al-Arian, as a result of his Tampa conviction, is also under an order of removal (deportation) from the United States. Al-Arian’s removal would be effected by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) which is an agency of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). For a time, Al-Arian had been detained in ICE custody during the pending criminal contempt case proceedings. ICE released him concurrently with Judge Brinkema’s custody order.

A further reminder...Al-Arian, as an alien (foreign national) who has been convicted of a terrorism-related felony, is not only subject to the removal order against him but, quite arguably, is subject to pre-removal detention by ICE whenever the pending criminal case is concluded and, if he is convicted of that violation, serves any time in criminal custody he might receive at sentencing. A Supreme Court decision a few years ago ruled that aliens under final removal orders could generally be held in custody for no more than six months pending the Government’s efforts to physically remove them. If not removed within six months, such aliens must be released from custody.

There are, however, certain exceptions allowed by that Supreme Court decision. Those exceptions include aliens who are involved with or linked to terrorism and are determined to be threats to national security. Arguably, an alien who is feloniously convicted of supporting a terrorist organization would be an alien subject to the longer, and that can even be an indefinite “longer,” pre-removal detention.

The question then presents itself relative to the Al-Arian case - what will DHS/ICE do with him when the pending criminal contempt case is concluded and he reverts back to ICE “custody?” Ideally, ICE would quickly remove (deport) Al-Arian pursuant to that removal order. This may be particularly problematic. As has been noted in the CTB before, physically deporting certain aliens, particularly stateless Palestinian aliens who are convicted/known terrorists or terrorism supporters, is often difficult. The issue really is to where does the US Government deport such people and how is that accomplished in a safe and secure manner?

While this task is difficult, it is not impossible. Other such aliens, like Fawaz Damra and Al-Arian’s brother-in-law Mazen Al-Najjar, have been successfully removed. Damra was an Ohio imam convicted of lying on his immigration and naturalization documents about his prior support of the PIJ and other radical Islamists. Al-Najjar, while not criminally convicted, was identified by other evidence as a notable PIJ operative working with Al-Arian in PIJ support efforts in the Tampa area. After significant effort and time, both Damra and Al-Najjar were deported. Damra was detained by ICE pending those removal proceedings. Al-Najjar, in what was a widely contested and media-covered process, was detained for a time, released, and then detained again during his removal case. The Al-Najjar detention case focused heavily on the Government’s partial utilization of classified evidence in seeking to keep him detained. Al-Najjar’s supporters, including Al-Arian, publicly made much of Al-Najjar supposedly being “held without charges” on “secret evidence.” That posture was a radical distortion of reality.

We will have to wait and see what DHS/ICE ultimately does in the Al-Arian case. If, at the appropriate time, ICE declines to take Al-Arian back into custody pending removal, it would be entirely appropriate to ask why they did not take such action.

Who was Said Mohammad Siyam?

By Matthew Levitt

Sheikh Said Mohammad Siyam, killed in an Israeli airstrike this week, was one of the most senior political and military leaders of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. His death is a significant loss to Hamas, both politically and militarily. Indeed, he offers a telling case study of the types of leaders now running Hamas in Gaza.

Born in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza , Siyam became a former protégé of Sheik Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, co-founder of Hamas, and was a former teacher at an UNWRA school. An early member of Hamas, he was first arrested during the First Intifada, in 1988, by Israel for security offenses and for his membership to the organization. Four years later, in 1992, he was one of the hundreds of Hamas members deported to southern Lebanon. He emerged as a spokesman of Hamas in early 2004. In the 2006 elections, Siyam won a seat in the Palestinian Parliament, representing Gaza City. Shortly after, he was appointed Interior Minister, where he established Hamas’s Executive Force. In a 2007 interview with Ma’an News Agency, he stated that the Executive Force was one of his achievements “which I felt proud of.” The Executive Force, under Siyam’s direction, played a significant role in armed confrontation with Fatah. Considered a hardline leader, Siyam lost his cabinet posts when Fatah and Hamas formed a short-lived national unity government in March 2007. He was soon appointed as the head of Hamas’s Parliamentary Bloc by the Shura Council. Siyam’s influence in the Gaza Strip continued to grow, as he was a leader of the Executive Force, and he was instrumental in Hamas’s take over of the Gaza Strip in June 2007. In the Hamas government, Siyam was considered to have the role of Defense Minister. He was killed on January 15, 2009 by a bomb dropped by the Israeli Air Force. His assassination is the second, after Nizar Rayyan, of Hamas’s top leadership in the Gaza Strip.

For the Hamas, politics and terrorism are just two equally legitimate and viable tactics to reach their desired goals. It should therefore not surprise that Hamas seeks to muddy the waters between its political, social and military activities.

Nor should anyone have been shocked when Hamas took pages straight from the Hezbollah playbook and developed a coherent strategy leveraging parallel and complementary political, social, military and terrorist activities.

As the international community presses the parties to conclude a ceasefire agreement, one critical yardstick by which any agreement must be measured is not only its focus on preventing Hamas from rearming through the Rafah tunnels but also the extent to which it denies Hamas political victories for its recent military adventurism. Said Siyam school of Hamas leadership -- effortlessly merging terrorsim and politics -- must not be allowed to carry the day.

U.S. Treasury Designates Sa'ad Bin Laden (OBL's Son) and Mustafa Hamid (aka Abu al-Walid al-Masri), Top Al Qaeda Theorist (updated)

By Andrew Cochran

The U.S. Treasury Department has announced the designations of Sa'ad bin Laden, the third oldest son of Osama bin Laden, and other individuals (updated link). Last September, Sa'ad bin Laden was reported to have returned to Pakistan from Iran, according to messages posted on an al Qaeda jihad Web forum, after living (or being held prisoner) in Iran since the end of 2001, according to Iranians who discussed the issue with NBC News. Sa'ad allegedly worked with Khalid Shaik Mohamed and participated in planning a 2002 bombing in Tunisia which killed 17 people.

(UPDATE) The Treasury also designated Mustafa Hamid, also known as Abu al-Walid al-Masri, a top Al Qaeda theorist. Hamid wrote two books, "Chatter on the World's Rooftop," and "The Story of the Arab Afghans, From Their Entry Into Afghanistan Until They Left With Taliban." Excerpts of the latter book were published in October 2006 on Al-Sharq al-Awsat (tip to Laura Mansfield). He is considered one of the most senior AQ theorists and is close to Mullah Omar, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and OBL. He is also credited with helping to develop the Islamist militant movement in Australia through a short marriage to Rabiyah Hutchison, an Australian convert to Islam who was married earlier to Abdul Rahim Ayub, one of the founders of Jemaah Islamiah's branch in Australia.

(UPDATE, 12:20 pm ET) The Treasury Department has released much more information about these two and two additional AQ associates also designated. Interestingly, the purpose of the designations is to infer that the Iranian government is giving safe haven to senior Al Qaeda operatives, which justifies sanctions against Iran at a time when some are calling for "dialogue." I don't recall if Treasury has done that before. “It is important that Iran give a public accounting of how it is meeting its international obligations to constrain al Qaida," says Stuart Levey. Here are more facts on the four persons designated today:

The Islamist (MB) Takeover of Al-Jazeera?

By Douglas Farah

The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report (free subscription required) has an interesting look at the growing Islamist agenda of the al Jazeera TV station, and the roots of the shift in the Muslim Brotherhood.

It is an important observation since so much of the Arab world-as well as the Western media-look to the station to portray and interpret events, particularly the Hamas-Israeli conflict.

It is easy to forget (and shockingly seldom reported) that Hamas is an organic part of the global Muslim Brotherhood, according to article 2 of its own charter. So that the Ikhwan would seek to control the main medium for the outside world to interpret the conflict is not at all unusual.

The report looks at Wadah Khanfar (aka Waddah Khanfar), the station’s General Manager, as the driving force behind al Jazeera's move toward embracing the Islamist agent, while marginalizing other voices in the station that once had a significant role.

In October 2006, one of Al Jazeera’s own correspondents stated that Mr. Khanfar had a Muslim Brotherhood background and asked him about it directly, receiving a non-denial and evasive reply:

Mr. Waddah, you have and Islamic background, specifically Muslim Brotherhood, don’t you think that this is conflicting with your position as a head of the biggest Arab media organization now?

In fact, I do not classify myself as belonging to a certain political ideological movement, this is firstly an important issue which is very ..

(interrupting) ..Or you were belonging ..

I think that firstly I belong to this Nation including its collective legacy and mind, and that this something I value and am keen on it, but I tell you clearly and frankly, Aljazeera taught us always that our affiliation to Aljazeera- as an administration or press- is an affiliation to an institution with deep-rooted rules and with a clear identity based primarily on proficiency and respecting the opinion and the other opinion, and it isn’t absolutely based on differentiating between people on ideological, intellectual or party bases.

Interestingly, it was the Nation Magazine article from 2007 that first reported on the growing Islamist agenda of the TV station. My full blog is here.

Stuart Levey, Top Counter-Terror Financing Official, to Be Acting Treasury Secretary

By Andrew Cochran

While the selection of Cabinet Secretaries in the Obama Administration draws the most press attention, the CT community is also concerned about those sub-Secretarial appointments who drive policy formulation, international negotiations, and execution of Presidential and Secretarial decisions - the Under Secretaries and Assistant Secretaries who "work in the weeds" on a daily basis. In the counter-terrorist financing area, the most important position is that of the Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence at the Treasury Department, created in 2004. Stuart Levey has held that post and has earned the respect of many in the community as the single most effective and important civilian official in the effort to detect, halt, and prevent terrorist financing. As Robin Wright reported in the New York Times last October, Stuart has been the key U.S. government official pursuing financial sanctions against Iran to raise the cost of its terrorist- and proliferation-financing activities. And I've written often, most recently in December, on the joint Treasury-DoD "threat finance cell" initiative, which has been one of the signature accomplishments of the past four years, thanks in large measure to Stuart's vision, determination, and cooperative spirit.

A number of us have been holding our breath recently, hoping that President-elect Obama would, at the least, keep Stuart on board until a suitable replacement for him would be found and confirmed. So I'm encouraged to read this morning that Stuart has been asked to remain on board as acting Treasury Secretary until the Administration's nominee for that position is confirmed. This assures me of the President-elect's recognition of the importance of the office, his appreciation of Stuart's achievements, and his confidence in Stuart's considerable executive abilities.

The Iranians are not happy.

India: “Assam under Terror Offensive”

By Animesh Roul

Originaly published as "India’s Assam State Reels under New Year’s Terrorist Offensive,", Terrorism Focus, (Jamestown Foundation) Vol. 6 (1), January 15, 2009.

An excerpt:
......

India’s northeastern state of Assam has endured a series of terrorist incidents, including bomb blasts, attacks on trains, and a fierce gun fight between security forces and terrorists, all within the first ten days of the New Year. On January 1, terrorists suspected of belonging to the separatist United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) triggered serial explosions targeting busy market places like the Birubari, Bhootnath, and Bhangagarh areas in Guwahati city, killing five persons and injuring over 50 others (Assam Tribune, January 2). The state police suspected the involvement of ULFA’s 709 Battalion in the serial blasts, though the group denied any responsibility for the attack. Terror visited Guwahati again on the evening of January 9, as suspected ULFA terrorists detonated a bicycle-borne improvised explosive device (IED) near the Northeast Frontier Railways headquarters, close to a busy market in the Maligaon area of the city. Three persons were killed and ten others were injured in the incident (The Telegraph [Kolkata], January 10; News Live TV [Guwahati], January 11).

Forensic investigations into the New Year’s blasts revealed that TNT was used in the bombs (The Telegraph, January 4). The state police have so far arrested as many as 15 persons, including hardcore ULFA cadres, in the ongoing crackdown on terror elements behind the New Year's Day serial blasts in Guwahati. The prize catch for the police was the ULFA’s Sanjeev Talukdar, who reportedly supplied the TNT explosives to the operation’s mastermind Pranjal Deka at the behest of Khagen Kalita. (Assam Tribune, January 5). Pranjal Deka, who along with at least five other ULFA terrorists entered into Guwahahti in late December to perpetrate violence, was killed during an encounter with the army on January 8 in Assam's Halikuchi village (Press Trust of India, January 8). Both Deka and Kalita belonged to the ULFA’s deadly 709 Battalion. The others arrested in connection with the incidents were Imran Choudhury, Hemanta Phukan, Ravinder Singh, and Tarun Kalita. The police also arrested nine distributors and retailers from Reliance Telecom Limited (RTL), who had provided SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) cards to the terror suspects without proper verifications.

Battered by relentless terror strikes, the Assam government adopted a tough anti-terror law under the provisions of the Assam Preventive Detention (Amendment) Bill 2009 on January 10. Under this act, a terrorist suspect can be detained in judicial custody for two years instead of six months (The Hindu, January 10). How far this new law will go in helping combat terror effectively in the state and in the region will be seen in the coming days.

For complete article, read here

Animesh Roul is the Executive Director of Research at the New Delhi-based Society for the Study of Peace and Conflict (SSPC).

NEFA Foundation: New Bin Laden Audio - “A Call for Jihad to Stop the Gaza Assault”

By Evan Kohlmann

The NEFA Foundation has obtained and translated a new Arabic-language audio recording of Al-Qaida leader Usama Bin Laden titled, "A Call for Jihad to Stop the Gaza Assault." During the recording, Bin Laden called upon Muslims around the world "to mobilize the youth into jihadi fighting units in the cause of Allah against the Zionist-Crusader alliance and their agents in the region—and not to waste the energy of the youth in street demonstrations without carrying any weapons." Bin Laden blamed the Israeli invasion of Gaza on the sagging U.S. economy: "Today, the U.S. is staggering under the attacks of the mujahideen and their consequences. [It is suffering from] a human, political, and financial drain. It is drowning in a financial crisis, so much so that it is begging from big and small countries alike. Now, its enemies are no longer in fear of it and its friends have no respect for it... The dramatic and rapid decline of U.S. power was one of the important motivations for the Israelis to launch this brutal attack on Gaza, in a desperate attempt to make use of the last days of the two terms of Bush and the neoconservatives."

During his address, Bin Laden also demanded that faithful Muslims contribute financing to help support jihadi operations: "the religious donations of a single prominent Muslim businessman are enough to cover the entire expenses of jihad on all active frontlines with our enemies today… I know that greed does not prevent many of the Muslim merchants from spending money in the cause of Allah, but rather they are prevented by their fear of the United States and its agents in the region... Can one not find a place to hide somewhere? Is the land of Allah not vast enough to carry out the religious duty of financial jihad?"

An English translation of Bin Laden's address can be downloaded from the NEFA Foundation website.

How Serious is the Mexican Crisis?

By Douglas Farah

A little-noticed Joint Forces Command study, The Joint Operating Environment: Challenges and Implications for the Future Joint Forces has some interesting conclusions on Latin America, and particularly Mexico. A tip of the hat to David Holiday of OSI for bringing it to my attention.

While there have been several recent studies looking at future challenges, including the more heralded "Global Trends 2025" Byt he National Intelligence Council, this one actually tackles the issues of transnational crime and stateless areas. The NIC report in particular, was notably silent on the implications of failing states and criminal/terrorist pipelines.

The JOE as the report is called, is a DOD's "perspective on future trends, shocks, contexts, and implications for future joint force commanders and other leaders and professionals in the national security field. This document is speculative in nature and does not suppose to predict what will happen in the next twenty-five years. Rather, it is intended to serve as a starting point for discussions about the future security environment at the operational level of war."

In looking at potential developments, the report concludes: In terms of worst-case scenarios for the Joint Force and indeed the world, two large and important states bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and Mexico.

That is an interesting juxtaposition for Mexico, and one that, surprisingly, has not risen to the top of the foreign policy agenda. Although president-elect Obama met with Mexican president Calderón to discuss the drug war, it is unlikely the stark terms of this issue were discussed.

Mexico is at a crucial juncture. The Calderón government has gambled that it can take on the criminal enterprises of drugs, illegal smuggling, extortion and kidnapping while having a non-functional judicial system and without diminishing the culture of impunity that allows the cartel sicarios kill the best and brightest with impunity. My full blog is here.

Lessons from Iraq

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

My colleague Josh Goodman and I published an op-ed today in the Ottawa Citizen that takes a critical look at Canadian defense minister Peter MacKay's stated opposition to attempting an Afghan "Awakening" movement. An excerpt:

The election of Barack Obama and Gen. David Petraeus’s appointment as the head of U.S. Central Command have brought the U.S. a greater commitment to the Afghanistan war. Just as one of Gen. Petraeus’s top priorities upon assuming command of Multi-National Force-Iraq was changing the coalition forces’ failing strategy, he also wants to change the approach to Afghanistan.

Much of the United States’ success in Iraq over the past two years can be attributed to the rise of the “Awakening” movement, a collection of Sunni tribesmen, Iraqi nationalists, ex-Baathists, and others who were united by the goal of driving al-Qaeda from their country. The U.S. has presented a plan to organize Afghans in a similar manner.

While some NATO leaders have supported this strategy, Canada has stated its opposition to attempts to create an Afghan Awakening. Canadian Defence Minister Peter MacKay recently said that Canada prefers “to continue with this more formal training process that leads to a more reliable, more professional soldier and Afghan national security force.”

To assess whether an Afghan Awakening deserves a chance, it is worth understanding the keys to success for Iraq’s Awakening.

It was a genuinely grassroots movement led by people respected by the Iraqi population; coalition forces provided the Awakening with protection, support, and internal diplomatic aid at key points; and after the Awakening’s success, it was broadened through the “Sons of Iraq” program, a U.S. initiative that authorized the formation of paramilitary organizations.

You can read the full op-ed here.

Feds Cite Racist Chatter for 'Higher State of Alert' in Inauguration

By James Gordon Meek

Federal agents are on "a higher state of alert" because of hate talk by white supremacists about Barack Obama’s Inauguration, officials told the New York Daily News on Tuesday.

"That chatter is out there, no doubt about it," one senior FBI agent in Washington told me this afternoon, adding that no credible plots against the 56th Presidential Inauguration have been detected.

The Bureau has ordered agents in all 56 field offices to "shake the trees" in advance of the Jan. 20 swearing-in of the 44th President, who will become the first African-American to occupy the Oval Office. "They're talking to sources to determine if there is any threat information in regard to the Inauguration," the FBI source said.

"Everybody in law enforcement dealing with that particular (white supremacist) 'clientele' is on a higher state of alert,” a senior agent at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told The News.

The ATF has expertise infiltrating white supremacist groups. A classified threat assessment for the Inauguration by the FBI and Homeland Security Department citing agitated hate groups was sent to police agencies this week.

Counterterrorism officials have also picked up chatter from Islamic militants, but the agitated domestic hate groups are "the big concern," said another FBI official.

But Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan told reporters at a briefing with local officials: “We have no credible intelligence to suggest a credible threat (to Obama’s Inauguration).”

During Obama’s campaign, white racists in Colorado and Tennessee were charged in separate plots against the candidate.

My Daily News colleague Richard Sisk reported today that local D.C., Maryland and Virginia officials cited security concerns Tuesday for new restrictions on those attending the ceremonies - a throng estimated between 1.5 and 3 million. The historic ceremonies will be the largest National Special Security Event ever. At least 20,000 cops, federal agents and National Guard troops will be deployed.

NEFA Foundation: Somali Militants Issue Biography of American Jihadist

By Evan Kohlmann

The NEFA Foundation has obtained and translated a biography issued by the Shebaab al-Mujahideen Movement in Somalia of an American jihadi recruit recently killed in a missile strike in southern Somalia. Former Seattle, Washington-resident Ruben Shumpert (a.k.a. Amir Abdul Muhaimeen) was allegedly under investigation by the FBI for distributing jihadi video recordings and providing weapons training before Shumpert fled the U.S. with the help of local Somali Islamic extremists living in Washington. According to Shumpert's jihadi biography, "While en route, he transited through Dubai and was stopped by the Emirates security services. They were investigating the identity of any person traveling to Somalia at that stage, may Allah punish them. Praise be to Allah, he was able to slip away from the policeman while he was busy talking with some of his work colleagues, and [Ruben] was able to catch a flight headed for Mogadishu... When he arrived at the airport, there was a group of brothers who received the new immigrants. Upon arrival, you must tell them that you are looking for a camp, or to conduct jihad, or a weapon. You say exactly what you want without fear of the intelligence services. They do not become agitated, and instead, they will take you to the camps."

An English translation of Ruben Shumpert's mujahideen biography can be downloaded from the NEFA Foundation website.

The Real Connection between Iran and Hamas

By Matthew Levitt

Iran’s active state sponsorship of Middle East terrorist groups is well documented, from terrorist
and insurgent groups in Iraq and Afghanistan to Hizballah in Lebanon and Hamas and PIJ in the West Bank and Gaza. The Iranian regime has been described by U.S. officials as the “central banker of terrorism” and has a nine-digit line item in its budget to support terrorism, sending hundreds of millions of dollars to terrorist groups annually. Illustrating how the support
for terrorism is part of an official government policy, Iran has used its state-owned financial institutions to dole out these funds.

For most, this is not news. Even the technocratic Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a multilateral body that operates by consensus and includes Russia and China, has issued a series of warnings about Iran’s deceptive financial practices, including its money laundering and terror financing. That’s why I was surprised when NPR asked me to talk about "The Real Connection between Iran and Hamas" for a point-counterpoint style piece debating whether Iran really does finance Hamas. The story, on this weekend’s NPR Weekend Edition, featured me highlighting Iranian financial and material support for Hamas and Hillary Mann Leverett, a former Foreign Service officer who is CEO of Stratega, a political risk consulting firm, arguing that while Iran would surely like to support Hamas it does not.

That’s right. According to Mann Leverett in all her time in government she came across no hard evidence of Iran financial or material support for Hamas. Since U.S. officials regularly cite evidence to the contrary, one wonders how Mann Leverett missed the memo. She proceeds to suggest that the idea that Iran could get arms to Hamas is “implausible,” suggesting she is unaware of such well documented examples as the Iranian-funded Karine-A weapons smuggling ship, the traditional weapons smuggling routes that cut across Yemen into East Africa and up through Sudan and Egypt, and alternative means of moving funds through trade-based and other money laundering schemes.

The Iranian Games and Pipeline Mastery

By Douglas Farah

As the saga of Lloyds TBS' involvement in illicit banking to help the Iranian regime continues to broaden and ensnare other banks,it is useful to look back over the circumstances that this unveils.

It must be one heck of a case to generate a $350 million settlement and deferred prosecution agreement, as significant admissions of criminal misconduct in stripping the Iran identifiers from bank transactions.

One thing that stands out is that Dubai, again, is the hub, as it was for A.Q. Khan, Dawood Ibrhaim, Viktor Bout and countless other facilitators of both criminal and terrorist networks. Now, Dubai is a nice city, but these folks are unlikely to be there for the glittering skyscrapers and or camel races.

Rather, they go there because the regulatory regime is so lax that they know the chances of being detected (or, more importantly, anyone wanting to detect their activities) are essentially nil. It is also an ideal physical location, at the crossroads of several key trading routes.

Now, with other banks under investigation, including one for trying to acquire 30,000 metric tons of tungsten, most likely to build missiles, under the guise of building refrigerators. That amount would take care of every refrigerator in the Middle East and then some,” Mr Morgenthau (Manhattan DA) told the Financial Times on Sunday.

“It was not being purchased, we think, for domestic consumption . . . Tungsten was not used for making refrigerators but for long-range missiles. That is our supposition.”

In none of the above cases did Dubai play a significant role in investigating anything. Dubai turns up in other investigations, which lead there. An interesting circumstance that is not coincidental. My full blog is here.

Will Hezbollah take part in the Gaza war?

By Olivier Guitta

I just wrote an article for The Middle East Times analyzing the possibility of Hezbollah opening a second front against Israel.
You can read it in full here.
Here is an excerpt:

While the Gaza war enters its third week, the question of a second front remains very accurate. Even though lots of experts have asserted that Hezbollah would not enter the war at this point, some troubling elements are questioning this assertion. Just last week northern Israel was hit by a few Katushya rockets just like in the summer 2006. The paternity of this act remains a question but it proves Hezbollah's ambivalence when it comes to facing off with Israel again.
The most logical culprit for last Thursday's attacks on Israel is the Syrian-backed Palestinian extremist group PFLP-GC. Ahmed Jibril, its leader, is based in Damascus and was behind the June 2007 Katushya rockets - modified in Iran - attacks against Israel.

The PFLP-GC has allegedly prepared more than 80 rockets of this type to bomb Israel.

Even if Jibril's group is behind this latest attack, there is no way he did not get the nod from Hezbollah. In fact, nothing happens in southern Lebanon without the knowledge and blessing of Hezbollah. What does Hezbollah have in mind? Is it testing the waters? Is Hezbollah using PFLP's action as a dry run to see how UNIFIL forces and Israel would react?

A Plan for Gaza: Demilitarization and Internationalization

By Walid Phares

As the UN Security Council was voting for Resolution 1860 calling for a cease fire in Gaza, for the stopping of the flow of weapons to Hamas and for the withdrawal of Israeli forces, I had sent a memo to the members of the Council advising for a more comprehensive plan based on Chapter 7. In 2004, I wrote an identical memo also remitted to the UN Security Council calling for Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. The memo was part of an NGO process leading eventually to the issuing of UNSCR 1559 in September of that year. The memo sent this week is not part of a formal NGO process but is signed by the secretariat of a newly formed Trans Atlantic Legislative Group (US and European legislators) and published in several outlets. It was remitted to several missions including the US, France, UK, Russia, the European Union, the Arab League, the Palestinian and Israeli delegations.

The central idea is to have the UN seizing the actual control of the Gaza strip but only under Chapter 7, that is with the massive deployment of a multinational force, the disarming of Hamas and other militias, and the rehabilitation of a reformed Palestinian Authority. Evidently my memo-article received different types of reactions. The Hamas and "Iranian axis" players definitively rejects the idea of any UN sponsored security measures in Gaza. They feel this will take away the only card they have: military pressure on Israel. But many on the other side are skeptical about any UN role. However diplomats are now discussing what seems to be some forms of international role and PA presence. The Cairo discussions are going in that direction. I am projecting that unless a wider conflict smashes all initiatives, the diplomatic resolution cannot evolve outside an international security system in Gaza.

I made several of these remarks on BBC TV and Radio, al Hurra TV, France 24, and I summarized the Ten Points Plan in a You Tube Posting. (Link at the end of the article).

Modeling Terrorist Group Behavior: Hamas & Hezbollah

By Aaron Mannes

In my day job at the University of Maryland’s Laboratory for Computational Cultural Dynamics I work with a team of computer scientists and socials scientists to build models of terrorist group behavior. As the in-house TerrorWonk my role is to “interpret” the results and see if they yield any useful insights. I’ve co-authored papers on both Hezbollah and Hamas ( only the abstract is posted online).

The models use a system called SOMA (Stochastic Opponent Modeling Agents) that calculates probabilities of a group acting in a given way in a given situation.

Obviously, we hope that our models can achieve a high level of prediction accuracy. But, regardless they can often reveal facets of an organization’s behavior that were not previously evident. Just as military experts say, “Plans are nothing, planning is everything,” I heard one speaker at a conference say, “All models are wrong, but some are useful.”

Following are short summaries of the findings.

Read the full post here.

Iran-Venezuela Games

By Douglas Farah

Almost lost in the shuffle of Gaza and the transition is the story of the Turkish interdiction of Iranian arms shipments to Venezuela

The shipment of 22 containers, carried by truck from Iran to Turkey for shipping, was labeled "tractor parts."

Instead, the inspectors found: a suspicious shipment bound for Venezuela from Iran because it contained lab equipment capable of producing explosives, a customs official said Tuesday. Suleyman Tosun, a customs official at the Mediterranean port of Mersin, said military experts were asked to examine the material, which was seized last month, and decide whether to let the shipment to go to Venezuela.

"Experts from Turkey's Atomic Institute determined there were no traces of radioactive material, but said the equipment was enough to set up an explosives lab," Tosun said. "We have asked the military to send experts to determine whether to resume the shipment."

Doesn't exactly sound like tractor parts, particularly when Some barrels, labeled with "danger" signs, contained chemicals.

As the AQ Khan network showed, it is relatively easy to ship almost anything illicit by ship, because the shipping cargo containers are so seldom actually inspected. My full blog is here.

Continuing Strategic Ripples of Mumbai Attacks

By Aaron Mannes

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s address to the chief minister’s Conference on Internal Security earlier this week was primarily focused on the nuts and bolts of internal security. But it also harshly criticized Pakistan, stating “there is enough evidence to show that, given the sophistication and military precision of the attack it must have had the support of some official agencies in Pakistan.” Although this assertion remains publicly unproven (the dossier about the attacks submitted by India to Pakistan does not support it, and it is debatable whether the attack’s sophistication required state sponsorship) Singh’s statement showed that, beyond the carnage, Lashkar-e-Taiba’s assault on Mumbai had another victim – the Indian-Pakistan peace process. Singh is a pragmatic and capable politician who had been open to improving relations with Pakistan. But Singh faces domestic hardliners (and, given the ISI’s long history of links to LeT and other Islamist groups in Pakistan, their suspicion is not unwarranted.) Now, in the wake of the Mumbai massacre, Singh will be unable to make even the smallest concessions. This is not merely a local problem. Pakistan is a geopolitical timebomb, and key to defusing it is improving relations with Pakistan and India.

Read the complete post here.

NEFA Foundation: Zawahiri Issues Orders to “Strike Everywhere” in Revenge For Gaza

By Evan Kohlmann

The NEFA Foundation has obtained and translated a new audio recording from Al-Qaida Deputy Commander Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri released on January 6 and titled, “The Massacre of Gaza and the Siege of the Traitors.” During his address, Dr. al-Zawahiri condemned the ongoing Israeli raids in Gaza and blamed the actions of Israel on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and incoming U.S. President Barack Obama: “These attacks are the gift of Obama to you, before he shall receive his position… this is Obama, whom the American machinery of lies attempted to portray before the world as the deliverer, who would change the policy of the U.S. He is killing your brothers and sisters in Gaza without any mercy or compassion.” As a consequence of the U.S. role in the events in Gaza, al-Zawahiri called upon Al-Qaida supporters around the world to carry out indiscriminate revenge attacks on American and Israeli interests: “O’ Muslims everywhere, fight against the Zionist-Christian campaign, and strike its interests wherever you encounter them… attack the Zionist-Christian alliance and its interests. O’ lions of Islam everywhere, the leaders of the Muslim lands are the protectors of the interests of the Americans and Zionists… so thwart the efforts of these traitors by striking the interests of the enemies of Islam—namely, the Christians and the Jews—wherever and by whatever means you can.”

An English transcript of Zawahiri's remarks can be downloaded from the NEFA Foundation website.

The Role of the Muslim Brotherhood With Hamas and Iran

By Douglas Farah

Former CIA analyst Reuel Marc Gerecht has an important piece in the Wall Street Journal on Iran's Hamas strategy. The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report (free subscription required) fleshes out the picture even further.

The fundamental truth is that Hamas' road to Iran runs through the international Muslim Brotherhood, and has for two decades.

What is often missing in the discussion of the Muslim Brotherhood is that Hamas, according to its own founding charter, is an integral and armed part of the Ikwhan, not separate from it.

According to Article Two of the Hamas Charter:

“The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the wings of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine. The Muslim Brotherhood Movement is a universal organization which constitutes the largest Islamic movement of modern times. It is characterized by its deep understanding, accurate comprehension and its complete embrace of all Islamic concepts of all aspects of life, culture, creed, politics, economics, education, society, justice and
judgment ,the spreading of Islam, education, art, information, science of the occult and conversion to Islam.”

The most open analysis of the relationship of the Brotherhood to Iran comes from the public interviews of Yousef Nada, the self-described foreign minister of international Muslim Brotherhood. Unfortunately, there is no English language link to the extraordinary series of statements he gave.

In a series of interviews he gave to al Jazeera in late 2001 and 2002, Nada described how the Ikhwan sent a delegation to Tehran immediately after Khommeini assumed power in 1979. He states that the MB delegation was the third plane to land in Tehran after the revolution-the first was Khommeni's, then security from the PLO, and then his.

As the Brother in charge of relations with Iran, he tells how his group worked with the Iranian revolutionary regime, and how he personally tried to mediate an end to the Iran-Iraq war. My full blog is here.

Israel Attacked from the North

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

My colleague Josh Goodman and I published a Center for Terrorism Research Intelligence Briefing this morning that examines today's Katyusha rocket attacks into Israel from Lebanon. An excerpt:

* ROCKETS LAUNCHED FROM LEBANON. According to reports, at least three Katyusha rockets were fired today from Southern Lebanon into Northern Israel. One landed in the kitchen of an old age home in Nahariya, wounding two elderly Israelis. Israel immediately responded by firing artillery shells at the location from which the Katyushas were fired. An Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman told Haaretz that the retaliation was intended as a "pinpoint response at the source of fire."

* LEBANON'S RESPONSE. The Lebanese government was quick to condemn the rocket attacks into Israel. According to a statement released by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's office: "Prime Minister Siniora regards what happened in the south as a violation of the international resolution 1701 and something he does not accept and Siniora called for an investigation into the incident."

* WHO BEARS RESPONSIBILITY? No group or individual has, to this point, claimed responsibility for the Katyusha attacks. Lebanese Information Minister Tarek Mitri was swift to deny Hizballah's role, saying that the group "assured the Lebanese government that it remains engaged in preserving the stability in Lebanon and respects Security Council resolution 1701." Israel blamed Palestinian factions in Lebanon, and does not believe this signals a broader escalation. Minister Rafi Eitan said, "I think these are isolated incidents. We expected this." FDD research fellow Tony Badran writes that the Damascus-based PFLP-GC is believed responsible for the rocket attacks, and that Hizballah "naturally knew about it and turned a blind eye, in order to conveniently maintain deniability."

You can read the full intelligence briefing here.

NEFA TerrorWatch Episode #9 Now Available

By Evan Kohlmann

The NEFA Foundation has released TerrorWatch Episode #9. This week, TerrorWatch examines the larger picture behind the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, which have been blamed on Pakistani militant groups active in the conflict over Kashmir. Since 1989, a host of Afghan-linked armed factions have taken up arms in a challenge to Indian control over Jammu Kashmir. Though these organizations have primarily focused their efforts targeting the Indian government and its security forces, there have also been notable exceptions—such as the December 1999 hijacking of an Indian civilian airliner. Moreover, these groups have never shied away from espousing a commitment to global jihad and supporting fellow mujahideen in Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iraq, and beyond...

Click to watch on the NEFA Foundation website

Tackling The Terrorist Threat: Progress Made and Future Challenges

By Michael Jacobson

This afternoon, the Washington Institute hosted Ken Wainstein, the Homeland Security Advisor to the President, as part of a speaker series we've been running since December 2007. Mr. Wainstein, who has served in this position since March 2008, spoke about the WMD terrorist threat to the US and its allies. In his remarks, Mr. Wainstein laid out the threat, focusing on nuclear and biological aspects, as well as the steps the US has taken to address it since 9/11. While Mr. Wainstein noted that the US has made significant progress in this arena and build a strong infrastructure to combat WMD terrorism, there is still much work that remains to be done in this critically important area.

For Mr. Wainstein's full remarks, click here.

Targeting Terrorists' Financial Networks: A Moving Target

By Matthew Levitt

As Michael Jacobson and I wrote in The Jerusalem Post, despite being under geographic siege and financial sanction, Hamas was still able to smuggle some 80 tons of explosives, roadside bombs and longer-range rockets into Gaza over the course of the past cease-fire.

It is ironic, then, that one of the most effective counterterrorism tools since 9/11 has been targeting terrorists' finances. Disrupting terrorists' means of financial support frustrates their ability to operate, while following the money trail up and down the financial pipeline can reveal to investigators otherwise covert terrorist networks.

As the current conflict illustrates, these tools face multiple challenges, the most pressing being the ability to be flexible enough to keep up with a constantly moving target. And therein lies the fundamental catch-22: In response to each successful disruption of illicit financing, be it of a terrorist, proliferation or other illegal nature, our adversaries change the way they raise, move and store.

Terrorist groups like Hamas will continue to adapt the way they raise and move funds to evade scrutiny, forcing governments to closely monitor evolving trends in terrorist financing and develop effective strategies to respond quickly.

While these are difficult challenges, the potential rewards of both denying terrorists access to money and following the money trail as an intelligence tool are well worth the effort.

Just consider this: The 9/11 Commission concluded that al-Qaida's cash flow on the eve of the September 11 attacks was "steady and secure." Compare that with the comment earlier this year by the director of National Intelligence noting that over the previous 12-18 months al-Qaida had difficulty raising funds and sustaining itself.

The full article is available here.

Strategic Reading in the Gaza Conflict (Part 2): An Eight Points Assessment

By Walid Phares

After having advanced ten questions about the ongoing conflict in Gaza, at the onset of the Israeli military operations against Hamas (December 28, 2008 on CTB) and as Israel chose to commit ground forces inside the enclave, here is a working reading of the main strategic developments and indicators at this time:

1. Israel’s land thrust in Gaza indicates that the long range goal of the campaign is to create changes on the ground, which are supposed to stop Hamas’ future rocket launches inside Israel. Many critics of Israel’s action, particularly the Jihadi propaganda machine, claim the ground operation didn't silence the shooting. But the counter arguments here are that a) the operation didn't end yet and b) Hamas’ ability to launch is linked to its ability to resupply its batteries or to build new missiles. Hence, the final military outcome of the operation, if indeed this is a silence-the-rockets campaign, will only show its success or failure at the end of the operation, or even after the supplies of Hamas are depleted.

Political Hardball Within Hamas: Hardline Militants Calling Shots in Gaza

By Matthew Levitt

Despite its myopic focus on promoting violent conflict rather than peaceful negotiations with Israel, Hamas is by no means a monolithic movement. Divisions within the Hamas leadership were evident, for instance, when the recent six-month ceasefire came to a close and varying Hamas leaders issued conflicting statements that both terminated the ceasefire and called for its extension. With Israeli forces currently deployed in Gaza targeting Hamas's military and political leadership, untangling the fissures within the organization is critically important to understanding the group's decisionmaking process.

With its electoral victory in January 2006, and even more so after it defeated Fatah and forcibly took over Gaza in June 2007, the external leadership of Hamas based in Damascus lost some control to the group's Gaza leaders. While the Damascus leadership remained dominant, in large part because it still controlled the organization's purse strings and oversaw relationships with Hizballah, Iran, and other foreign entities, Hamas leaders in Gaza were making the day-to-day decisions. Then, in August 2008, Hamas hardliners dominated the secret ballot election for Gaza's Shura council. Less-extreme Hamas leaders like reportedly did not even bother to run when they saw the electoral slate dominated by young Hamas members affiliated with the Qassam Brigades. The election reportedly brought hardline Hamas military officials into the movement's Gaza political bureau, and chief among them was Ahmed Jabari, Hamas's "chief of staff," who oversaw the group's military wing.

The emergence of Gaza's hardline Hamas leadership, one that is closely affiliated with the movement's military wing, provides critical background to understanding recent events. It provides context not only for Hamas's decision to terminate the ceasefire and resume rocket attacks against Israeli civilian communities, but also for the Israeli decision to strike back hard -- first from the air and then on the ground -- at the group's military and political infrastructure in Gaza. It also clearly indicates that as the international community attempts to craft an enforceable ceasefire -- one that presumably protects Israeli civilians against indiscriminate Hamas rocket attacks -- a key prerequisite for success will be to weaken the militant Hamas leadership currently calling the shots in Gaza.

The full article is available here.

The Challenge of Urban "Stateless" Regions

By Douglas Farah

Today's Washington Post has an interesting look at one of the growing challenges of statelessness and where much of the world is heading. It also has stark implications for terrorist organizations and their ability to operate.

The story looks at police attempts to take over the Santa Marta favela in Rio de Janeiro, where drug dealers have long been the primary, if not sole, source of authority.

Using tactics similar to the U.S. "surge" strategy in Iraq, police are seeking to build permanent bases among the population, fix broken services, gather intelligence, and stick around so the drug traffickers lose their operational freedom. The story showed that there was much to be done to allay the fears of the civilian population and win them over in some fashion.

What is striking is that, while we often look at ungoverned spaces (generally a misleading term because, while the state does not govern there, some person, criminal organization or militia almost certainly does), we view them as vast swaths of territory with little population and empty territory where one could hide.

In reality, many of the "stateless" areas are in the rapidly-growing mega-urban centers that are growing up around the world. See National Geographic map for a fascinating and terrifying graphic of the trends.

In these urban settings, there are densely-populated sectors where the state has no presence or power. These areas offer an entirely different set of challenges from stateless territories that are both larger and much less densely populated. My full blog is here.

The Superpower and Its Courts

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

In December, the Washington Post reported that the U.S. government, as part of an agreement it reached with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, has terminated $6 billion in judgments against Libya. Though it has been called "the forgotten flight" because most attention focused on Pan Am Flight 103, the explosion of Union des Transports Aériens (UTA) Flight 772 back in 1989 killed 170 people from 17 different countries. The family members of American victims seemingly gained some closure in January 2008 when U.S. district court judge Henry H. Kennedy awarded 44 relatives $6 billion in damages against Libya, so they were justifiably livid when the U.S. government nullified their judgments. Anne Carey, whose mother died on Flight 772, told the Post: "We fought this fight. We stood up to terrorists who took our loved ones and we did so in federal court." She added, "We felt we accomplished something. For it to be dismissed is beyond comprehension."

The government's actions have undoubtedly reopened old wounds, and make it seem that the vindication the families gained through a hard-fought court victory was ephemeral and ultimately illusory. Yet two questions must be asked in the wake of these dismissals. First, are such dismissals the inevitable result of litigation against state sponsors of terror? And if so, is the "terrorism exception" to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which permits such lawsuits in U.S. courts, a worthy piece of legislation? I published a policy briefing with FDD today that examines these questions. An excerpt:

Congress' two major goals in enacting [the terrorism exception] were to punish and deter state sponsors of terror, and to provide vindication and compensation to victims of terrorism and their families. In light of the government's recent dismissal of the Flight 772 victims' claims, the legislation does not seem to advance either goal.

The terrorism exception does not punish and deter state sponsors of terror because no state has paid an entered judgment. Though Gadaffi has agreed to turn over $1.5 billion that the U.S. government will distribute to family members of the victims of Libyan-sponsored terrorism, he would have paid compensation to normalize relations even in the absence of the terrorism exception. In 2004, for example, Libya agreed to pay France $170 million in compensation for the Flight 772 bombing as part of the process of reestablishing relations with France. Indeed, it seems that the reason Libya has paid attention to terrorism exception litigation--presenting a defense in court, while other countries sued under the exception have not--is because Gadaffi had already ceased his sponsorship of terror, and wanted to reestablish relations with the U.S. The countries that we really intend to deter, like Iran, do not display similar interest in the litigation against them.

Nor, in light of the recent dismissals, does the terrorism exception fulfill the goals of vindication and compensation. Vindication is supposed to be achieved by giving victims their "day in court," and by using the legal system to condemn the acts of terrorist states. But since no defendant state has paid a judgment, the terrorism exception fails to vindicate victims through the essential step of punishment. Worse, the Flight 772 families saw the judgments that they worked hard to obtain simply thrown away as the U.S. moved toward normalizing relations with Libya.

You can read the full policy briefing here.

The other dangerous actors in Gaza

By Olivier Guitta

I just wrote an analysis for the Middle East Times looking at the other dangerous radical Palestinian groups present in Gaza. Indeed Hamas is far from the only one on the ground.
You can read the full article here.

Ehud Barak, Israel's defense minister, told the French daily Le Monde six months ago, regarding the ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza: "It is unclear how long it might hold, two days or two months. Historically, we are in a curve of a collision with Hamas."
And he was right: the ineluctable military conflict is unfolding in front of our eyes. After a week of aerial strikes, Israel has implemented its plan with a dangerous ground incursion. Where do we go from here?

Did Israel fall into the Hamas/Syrian/Iranian trap? Possibly. Syria thinks that Israel is getting into a messy quagmire. Hamas and Hezbollah clamor that the only reason Hamas broke the ceasefire is that they are now totally ready to face Israel militarily.

In fact, in the past few months, Hamas put in place a war cabinet headed by Ahmad al-Jabari, one of the leaders of its Ezzedine al-Qassam branch, and Said Siam, its former interior minister in the Palestinian government.

While Hamas is no Hezbollah as far as firepower, sophistication and know-how, it seems that they have greatly improved and learned a lot from the summer 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.

First, hundreds of Hamas members went to training camps in both Syria and Iran. Second, Hamas has built an extensive network of tunnels and bunkers where its most prized leaders are hiding. Third, like Hezbollah, Hamas has at its disposal very mobile small units that communicate via hand-held radios.

NEFA Foundation "Spot Report": Ummah Welfare Trust and the Barclays Bank Controversy

By Evan Kohlmann

The NEFA Foundation has released a new "Spot Report" titled "Ummah Welfare Trust and the Barclays Bank Controversy." On December 16, 2008, a representative from Barclays Bank PLC wrote to the Ummah Welfare Trust (UWT) to inform the organization that after a review of Barclays’ “business risk exposure,” the bank would be closing UWT’s accounts on January 19. UWT has responded forcefully, urging supporters to “Contact Barclays and ask for a reason of account closure and inform them that you and your associates will be closing your accounts if the decision is not immediately reversed.” Several Muslim organizations, including the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS) in the U.K. and Ireland, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), MPAC-UK, and the Islamic Forum of Europe, have issued press releases in support of UWT. For example, referencing the recent closure of an Interpal bank account, the MCB announced that it was “deeply concerned” and saw “no justification for these summary closures and denial of services.” And the National Union of Kenyan Muslims has even threatened a global boycott of Barclays. These efforts have been supplemented by an online petition, which assailed the “indiscriminate” closure of Islamic charity accounts, along with a website: http://www.saynotobarclays.com. However, an examination of UWT’s financial records and other open source material
reveals numerous linkages to terror-linked organizations, particularly those affiliated with Hamas. UWT has sent Interpal over £190,000 and collaborated with the Al-Salah Islamic Association; both organizations have been named Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT) by the U.S. government for their links to Hamas. Moreover, UWT has funneled money to four members of the Union of Good, a Hamas-tied umbrella organization also named an SDGT. And numerous data points provide evidence of UWT’s ideological orientation. The UWT website has featured a tribute to deceased Hamas founder Ahmad Yasin, heralded the "unparalleled" status of martyrs, counseled readers to "consider the Police and Intelligence as filthy human beings," and advertised a guest speaker at fundraisers who has urged followers to avoid "align[ing] yourselves with the kuffar.”

A copy of the NEFA report on Ummah Welfare Trust can be downloaded from the NEFA Foundation website.

Muslim Brotherhood Reacts Defensively As Israel Takes On Hamas

By Victor Comras

Muslim Brotherhood leaders are already engaging in something akin to “damage control” as they rationalize Hamas' breach of the ceasefire with Israel, and condemn Israel, Egypt and the West for Israel’s incursion into Gaza. The Brotherhood is also trying to tell its members and followers that Israel’s defeat of Hamas in Gaza, and the possible re-establishment of Fatah control in that Palestinian territory, is a reversible set-back, and that it will provide the Muslim Brotherhood a golden opportunity to strengthen their movement in Egypt, the Middle East, Europe, and around the Muslim world. The Brotherhood is already busy turning these events into a major recruitment tool, and for proselytizing and broadening its support base. They have targeted Egypt and other moderate Arab leadership as well as the Israelis. But, it is also clear that they were caught short by Europe's reaction to the conflict and to the degree of understanding and sympathy expressed by European leaders with regard to Israel’s actions. This represents a real setback for them.

Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader, Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradawi publicly and loudly castigated Egyptian and Arab leaders last Friday (January 2nd) for their lack of support. Like Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah, he called for a popular uprising throughout the Middle East against Israel. "Supporting the Palestinian people in Gaza,” he said, “is a religious duty on every Muslim individual according to his capabilities, and no one is exempted from that duty." At the same time Muslim Brotherhood General Guide Muhammad Mahdi 'Akef, called on Muslims everywhere to wage Jihad against Israel in support of Hamas. He charged also that Israel's operation in Gaza was planned and coordinated with Fatah’s leadership and with Egypt and the United States. While demonstrators filled the streets of several Arab capitals, the response from Arab countries to Israel's actions will likely remain modestly muted.

European Muslim Brotherhood leaders, who continues to portray the Brotherhood there as a moderate and peaceful Islamic organization, shied away from calls for violent Jihad against Israel. Nevertheless, they strongly criticized European leaders for their placid responses, and actively organized a number of protests across Europe. Israel would not have hit Gaza like this without western complicity, complained Hamdi Hassan, a Muslim Brotherhood member of the Egyptian parliament.

The Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE), the umbrella group representing the European Muslim Brotherhood, issued a statement December 28th calling on the European Union “to take action to control the Israeli military machine which is continuing its bloody massacres…. (and) for the ending of all the assistance and privileges granted to invading Israel.” The Union of Islamic Organizations of France (UOIF), a Muslim Brotherhood group, condemned France and Europe’s failure to react strongly "to the bloody massacre just committed by the Israeli occupation army against the people of Gaza.” The British Muslim Initiative, another Brotherhood group, condemned “the shameless silence of Western and Arab Governments towards the continued violations and crimes committed by Israel.” Ahmed Al-Rawi, MAB President and former FIOE President, went further insisting on action by the International Criminal Court and referring to Israeli leaders as “Zionist war criminals.” None of these Muslim Brotherhood statements made any mention of the Hamas rocket attacks against Israel that precipitated the Israeli response, nor the refusal of Hamas to renew the six month truce with Israel when it expired on December 19th. (see "Global Muslim Brotherhood Reaction to Israeli Airstrikes in Gaza" Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report)

Despite the rhetoric, Muslim Brotherhood leaders are evidently quite concerned that Hamas overplayed its hand in Gaza, and by the muted responses of Arab governments that appear perfectly willing to allow Hamas to be ejected from its position of control in Gaza. They were also caught offguard by European government and popular sympathy for Israel's reaction - a rare occurrence these days. A curious editorial by noted Palestinian journalist Khalid Amayreh, just posted on the Muslim Brotherhood’s website sums up some of these concerns, and goes on to state that Israel’s attack against Hamas in Gaza may yet be a blessing in disguise for the Muslim Brotherhood. After hyperbolically comparing Israel's attack to Nazi atrocities and the WWII Allied bombing of Dresden, he writes: “the contemplated elimination of the Hamas government by Israel would eventually be proven to be one of the stupidest Israeli misdeeds ever. First of all, it would free the resistance group from the burden of government and allow it anew to carry out more ferocious attacks against Israel without having to worry about the bombing by Israel of buildings and security headquarters and hospitals.” He maintains that Hamas never really wanted to be in the government anyway. It had desired only to be in a position of influence in Palestinian affairs, he says. So, he writes “the disappearance of the Hamas government in Gaza would be a blessing in disguise for Hamas.”

Whatever the case, Muslim Brotherhood leaders are already actively working the street in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East and Europe, to make hay out of the Israeli attack, and the 'so-called' lack of action by "Western corrupted" Arab leaders, to respond. This, they hope, will serve to swell their ranks and their coffers.

Holding Hamas Accountable

By Matthew Levitt

Operation Cast Lead, initiated in response to resumed Hamas rocket attacks on communities in southern Israel, represents Israel's most furious attack on Hamas since the terrorist group assumed control of Gaza. For the past six months, an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire maintained an uneasy status quo, during which time Hamas smuggled some 80 tons of explosives, roadside bombs and longer-range rockets into Gaza. While Israel's military operation may succeed in weakening the heavily armed Islamist group, the Gaza crisis also highlights a vexing challenge awaiting the new Obama administration: the question of how to deal with Hamas.

Some will recommend that Obama approve direct talks with Hamas. Since Hamas controls Gaza, the theory goes, it must be brought into the political process, engaged not isolated, or else there is no hope for peace. But Hamas is dead set against a two-state solution, whether it joins a unity government or remains in the opposition. Indeed, Hamas deploys suicide bombers specifically aimed at derailing progress toward peace. Engaging Hamas will not help the peace process, but it will legitimize the group most violently opposed to such progress.

Meanwhile, as renewed rocket attacks make clear, Hamas remains committed to the use of violence targeting civilians. Engaging in direct diplomacy with Hamas while it targets civilian population centers would empower a movement designated as a terrorist group by both the United States and the European Union. It would also pull the carpet out from under Palestinian moderates who are truly interested in pursuing peace and are vying with Hamas for popular support.

There are a few concrete things the Obama administration could, and should, do. The full article is available here.