The first is the decision of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez to bring on board a senior Cuban official with a long time specialty in internal security and torture to act as a consultant on Venezuela's energy crisis.

What Ramiro Valdes, one of the four remaining "originals" of the 1959 revolution, can bring on the electrical side is open to question, given that Cuba is not a model of electrical efficiency and management. What he can bring is a strong sense of how to control the internal opposition and make repression more efficient, which is his specialty.

This leads to my second concern. As Chávez grows more beleaguered and under siege, the one card he holds to wreak havoc in the region is his relationship with the FARC in Colombia.

Valdes, the old guerrilla with a strong penchant for supporting armed movements, is a likely candidate to help escalate that relationship at a time when the FARC, a designated terrorist organization, has money from cocaine sales to pay for increased training and access.

Another desperate regime, that of Iran, is also scrambling to survive, and the two friends are likely to jointly seek ways to save themselves while sinking their own countries and others.

A third area of concern is increasing violence in Juarez, Mexico, where I just was. The massacre of the 16 young people has brought to the forefront the sense of despair and hopelessness people feel, and the profound disillusionment with the government and its counter-drug efforts.

When people lose all faith in a government, the situation will be very difficult to reverse. The narcos and allied gangs such as Barrio Azteca and Artistas Asesinos feel a complete sense of impunity that is well-deserved. Less than 2 percent of all homicides in Mexico are ever prosecuted and in Ciudad Juarez the numbers are even lower. The military is widely viewed as corrupt and abusive, the federal police generate little trust and the municipal police are viewed as handmaidens of the cartels.

This leads to the type of terror on the streets of a once lovely city, with 2,600 homicides last year and already on pace to surpass that by a significant amount.

A fourth issue is the eroding freedom of expression across the Bolivarian sectors of Latin America. It was driven home to me after the release of our new report on Ecuador, Ecuador at Risk. Not only has the ordered his ambassador in Washington to see if he can sue us, his government has threatened to try to find my sources.
My full blog is here.

The second blast, the more strategic one, took place outside the emergency ward at the Jinnah Hospital where injured were being shifted for treatment. Nearly 11 people got killed in the hospital blast which also damaged vehicles at the vicinity. Another live bomb has been recovered from the premises of Jinnah Hospital and later it was defused by the bomb disposal squad. The hospital bombing was carried out only to maximize damage and inflict fear among the relatives of the injured and among the emergency responders (doctors and nurses).

Surprisingly enough, both the attacks took place despite tight security measures were in place for Chehlum Processions across the city. Late December Ashura blast in Karachi had claimed nearly 45 lives. Then, Pro-Taliban elements and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ) outfit were blamed for the attack. However, no groups have taken resposibilty for Friday's (Feb 05) twin blasts so far.

Karachi has a history of ethnic tensions, targeted killings and sectarian violence.

Here is an excerpt from the Foreign Policy piece:

When I served on the staff of the 9/11 Commission, one of our primary tasks was to assemble the story of how al Qaeda's plot developed. One of the aspects of the plot on which we focused our attention was, therefore, the movements, activities, and associations of the 19 hijackers. The basic question we struggled to answer was how al Qaeda persuaded 19 young men to participate in an attack that would result in their certain death. Although al Qaeda's "success" on this front was rather startling, the organization failed to convince all of the initial would-be attackers to go through with their plot. Why not? The stories of the individuals selected for the 9/11 attacks who backed out, even in the face of pressure from the terrorist group, have received little attention in the media or among policymakers, but could teach us important lessons for thwarting future attacks.

While Mohamed Atta, the hijackers' operational leader, is now a household name, Mushabib al-Hamlan and Saud al-Rashid are far less well known. These two young Saudis were selected by al Qaeda's leadership to participate in the attacks and left the training camps in Afghanistan to return home to Saudi Arabia to obtain visas for travel to the United States. Both, however, were beset by second thoughts after arriving in Saudi Arabia.

To read the entire piece, click here:

The Washington Institute also recently hosted a launch event for this monograph. I was joined on the panel by Mark Williams, a senior official from the UK's Home Office, and George Selim, a senior policy advisor in DHS's Office of Civil Liberties & Civil Rights. Click here for a rapporteur's summary of that event.

Indeed, most observers believe there has been an increase in support for the white separatist movement in recent years. This article assesses the current state of the movement by evaluating its operating environment, the competing strategies of top-down leadership and leaderless resistance, circulation of the movement’s core doctrine, training and access to weapons, and tactical and strategic successes.

Operating Environment

An important factor that will contribute to an extremist group’s success is a favorable operating environment. An environment is considered favorable if it provides the qualities necessary for a group or movement to sustain operations, and to eventually achieve its objectives. Some factors include a population that is ideologically supportive, and from which the movement may recruit members; a safe haven or protection from adversaries (in this case, the U.S. government); ability to train operatives; and the ability to access weapons and material necessary to launch attacks.

The environment in which the white separatist movement operates is decidedly mixed. On the one hand, the overall social tide in America appears to be moving against an agenda of white separatism or white supremacy. This is reflected, among other things, in the fact that the voting public elected an African-American president who hung his campaign platform on the concepts of hope and change. Further, demographic measurements show the country will only become more ethnically and racially diverse over time.

But paradoxically, the movement can also draw strength from these factors. Demographic trends give rise to fears and concerns in segments of the white population; in some ways Obama’s election has magnified rather than diminished racial tensions; and political issues that have drawn people to the white separatist movement (such as immigration and gun control) have only been thrown into sharper relief. Moreover, the economy remains sick, with seventeen states having an unemployment rate of over 10%. The poor economic future that whites face as the country changes has long been a theme that movement leaders believe draws people to white separatism. As one movement publication, The Truth at Last, stated:

Similarly, Bobby Norton of the Aryan Nations told researchers Betty Dobratz and Stephanie Shanks-Meile in the 1990s: “I think the economy is going to get really bad so that’s also going to bring a lot of suffering on us but it is going to make our ranks swell.” It is obvious why the movement would focus on the economy: as conditions worsen, the U.S. government may lose the population’s support. Pockets may become increasingly disgruntled and prone to aggressive, possibly even violent, expression of discontent. Riots may lead to government crackdowns, which would further erode trust in government. We spoke recently with Tom Metzger, a veteran of the white separatist movement and founder of the White Aryan Resistance, who sees even riots within the black community as a possible call to action for white separatists. “We’re waiting for the system itself to tip,” he said. “They’re the ones who are going to become more brutal, more oppressive.” Hypothesizing that the unemployment rate among African-Americans in the Detroit area would lead to unrest, Metzger said: “The government will come in and show its face. That will be the ‘go’ signal for us to defend ourselves.”

Unlike such militant Islamist groups as al-Qaeda, the white separatist movement is unlikely to have a solid base of operations or clearly assigned field bases from which to maintain a sustained military campaign. This will impede the implementation of any long-term strategy.

To continue reading this article, please click here.

This article (co-written by Madeleine Gruen & Daveed Gartenstein Ross) will appear in the third issue of CTR Vantage.

The Pentagon's review of the act of Terrorism committed at Fort Hood by Major Nidal Hasan deserves national attention not only regarding its important conclusions but also what it missed in terms of analysis. In this piece, I'll address major points made public in the media and raise issues about the bigger picture regarding the terror threat America is facing today.

Jihadi Penetration: Part of a War

As announced by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, the report "reveals serious 'shortcomings' in the military's ability to stop foreign extremists from trying to use America's own soldiers against the United States." The Pentagon's review of the Fort Hood massacre stated that "serious shortcomings" were found in "the military's ability to stop foreign extremists from trying to use its own soldiers against the United States." The first question that comes to mind is to know if the issue is about "shortcomings," as described by the Pentagon, or is it about "systemic failures" as announced by President Obama in his evaluation of the Christmas Day terror act? For as underlined by the Department of Defense in the case of Major Hasan, these failures were about the military's ability to "stop foreign terrorists from using American soldiers against the United States." Such a statement is extremely important as it finally informs the public that US personnel is indeed being infiltrated and recruited by foreign Jihadists, which are described politically by the Administration as "extremists." Hence, the first logical conclusion from that finding is that Jihadi networks are performing acts of War (and thus of Terrorism) against US defense assets and personnel in the homeland. Thus this warrants the reevaluation of the conflict and re-upgrading it to a state of war, even though it would still need to be determined "with whom."

CSI Belfast
According to Tony Geraghty’s fascinating The Irish War: The Hidden Conflict Between the IRA and British Intelligence the IRA was obsessed with preventing evidence from falling into the hands of British authorities. The developed extensive internal research and development capabilities to counter British forensic science and wrote manuals to train their members how not to leave evidence. The manuals get very detailed, including instructions about the dangers of incriminating particles and fibers in the hair and clothes of operatives.

The IRA had good reason to be concerned. British authorities found clothes and hair to be forensic bingo and actually ran an undercover operation disguised as a mobile valet service to gather forensic evidence.

Read the full post here.

The Christmas Day pants bomber traveled a well-worn path to global terrorism: through Yemen. From the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in the Gulf of Aden, to the role key Yemenis played in the September 11 plot, to the increasingly prominent role of Yemen-based leaders of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Gulf country has long been a terrorist hot-spot. Now, a small number of Yemeni jihadists have reportedly joined others from Syria, Egypt, France, and Belgium to fight a new war on an old battlefront: Gaza.
According to intelligence officials, up to a few dozen foreign fighters have entered Gaza from Yemen and other Middle Eastern and European countries. Some are experienced fighters there to provide training, while others seek to be trained and experience jihad. Some of the Europeans have even reportedly "come with their credit cards" and financed jihadist activities while in Gaza.

The influx is beginning to have an effect on what has traditionally been a local jihad. Groups such as Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade weave Palestinian nationalism and radical Islamism together but limit their operations to the Israeli-Palestinian front. Now, under the influence of more worldly jihadists, some Palestinian fighters are signing up for groups inspired by al Qaeda, fighting not for Palestine but for the whole Muslim umma.

The complete article is available here.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa is a member of the Hugo Chávez-led Bolivarian Revolution, and has had an extraordinary political trajectory. The Belgian and U.S.-educated economist is often said to be "Chávez Lite," because he has not implemented some of the more aggressively-authoritarian measures of the other Bolivarian states.

But, as we document in "Ecuador at Risk: Drugs, Thugs and Guerrillas and the Citizens' Revolution," the FARC in Colombia, having been cleared from the center of the country, are increasingly relying on the Ecuador-Colombia border as a vital resupply region. The camp of senior FARC commander Raúl Reyes, killed in a Colombian attack on March 1, 2008, was in Ecuadorean territory.

Now, the FARC and Mexican drug cartels use Ecuador as a neutral meeting ground, further developing ties that strengthen both groups. Major FARC cocaine laboratories, as well as R&R camps, remain on the Ecuadorean side of the border.

In addition, Correa has developed relationships with Iranian banks under U.S. and U.N. sanction, a move that will help allow Iran to avoid international financial sanctions.

This is the second paper in our series on the effects of the Bolivarian Revolution. The first one, "Into the Abyss: Bolivia Under Evo Morales and the MAS," can be found here.

He is enough of a crisis that his pulled force RCTV off the air for refusing to carrying his endless and inane speeches en toto, even though they take hours of air time. Not that there is even the appearance now of freedom of the press, but the price to Chávez's already-sullied international image will be high.

However, I am not sure I share Diehl's optimism that the system is on its way to collapse. It would be in a normal world, but given Chávez's clear willingness to profit from the expanding cocaine trade through Venezuela, he has more of an economic slush fund to draw that could allow him to limp along and keep a deeply inefficient system running.

More evidence of Chávez's ties to terrorist groups is now in hand. The FARC and much smaller (though still declared Marxist) ELN (Ejército de Liberación Nacional - Army of National Liberation) have reached a ceasefire in order to stop killing each others' troops in the field.

The three meeting to reach an agreement of the two designated terrorist organizations were held in Venezuelan territory to discuss a truce, and were ultimately sign an agreement to jointly confront the Colombian government

Among the points discussed were how to bring the ELN more fully into the FARC's primary umbrella front group, the Movimiento Continental Bolivariano. The MCB publicly held its most recent plenary session in Caracas in December, and named senior FARC commander Alfonso Cano to its directorate.

My full blog is here.

Both were arrested, along with other two accomplices way back in August 2006 during a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) undercover sting operation. FBI nabbed them after they had agreed to a shipment of 10 surface-to-air missiles(SAMs), ten missile launchers, and 500 AK-47s. Two of their accomplices Suhil Sabaratnam and Thiruthanikan, also Canadian Tamils, pleaded guilty to the same charges and awaiting court sentence.

LTTE designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) in the US in 1997.

Trying to understand how to reverse, halt or stop radicalization is an issue which is taking on increased urgency for the US government, as it copes with evidence of a growing problem on the home front. For years, the commonly held view has been that the US did not have a serious radicalization issue at home, in contrast to what was occurring on the ground in Europe. The slew of cases over the past year of US citizens who were radicalized and apparently eager to take action, against targets here and abroad, has raised new concerns about the threat of homegrown terrorism. Senior Obama administration officials have candidly acknowledged that the view of the situation has changed. As U.S. attorney general Eric Holder observed in a July 2009 speech after a spate of arrests in the US, the "whole notion of radicalization is something that did not loom as large a few months ago...as it does now." And in December, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano noted that “[h]ome-based terrorism in here. And like violent extremism abroad, it will be part of the threat picture we must now confront.”

FATF's findings have a particular relevance to Syria where terrorist and insurgent groups have established sophisticated networks in order to facilitate the movement of foreign fighters from around the world into Iraq. While the number of foreign fighters infiltrated through Syria fluctuates, these networks are especially important since foreign fighters operating in and moving through Syria have been responsible for numerous attacks on Iraqi civilians and coalition forces. Given the primary role that Iraq and Syria both play in the Obama administration's efforts to stabilize the Middle East, it is of great importance to understand the role of Syria and Syrian-based foreign fighters in the Iraqi insurgency. There is now a wealth of information available on these fighters, on their networks, and on their economic impact.

The complete article, Syria's Financial Support for Jihad, published in the latest volume of Middle East Quarterly, is available here.

Clan Tectonics
Much of what passes for politics in the greater Middle East are in fact driven by family, clan, and tribal interests. There is a famous Arabic expression:

I against my brother;
I and my brothers against my cousins;
I and my brothers and my cousins against the world.

Read the full post here.

The lifting of the ban, ordered by Secretary of State Clinton, is a significant victory for the Brotherhood, who has sought to frame the issue of Ramadan's exclusion as one of academic freedom rather one of national security. Ramadan was ecstatic, saying on his blog:

Today’s decision reflects the Obama administration’s willingness to reopen the United States to the rest of the world, and to permit critical debate. Coming after nearly six years of inquiry and investigation, Secretary Clinton’s order confirms what I have affirmed and reaffirmed from day one: the first accusations of terrorist connections (subsequently dropped), then donations to Palestinian solidarity groups, were nothing more than a pretense to prohibit me from speaking critically about American government policy on American soil. The decision brings to an end a dark period in American politics that saw security considerations invoked to block critical debate through a policy of exclusion and baseless allegation. Today I am delighted at the decision.

The truth of the grandson of Hassan al Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, is far more complex, and there is little doubt that, in the end, he is an agent of radicalization rather than peace. A rock star in the European Muslim scene, Ramadan, despite weak academic credentials, has been offered a teaching position at Notre Dame University.

As noted in this extensive review of Brother Tarik: The Doublespeak of Tarik Ramadan by French journalist Caroline Fourest, the definitive look at Ramadan's cannon, he is intent on saying one thing to Western audiences while something else to his followers. They often do not match up.

This is typical of the Muslim Brotherhood. It is eager to use the freedoms that would never exist under the caliphate is so desires to create, in order to promote its totalitarian vision. It demands the right to be heard while being unequivocal in its unwillingness to view as equal anyone who does not embrace its view radical Islamism. While it is willing to use the democratic process to achieve its goals, often putting it at odds with militantly violent groups such as al Qaeda, in the end the Brotherhood and Osama bin Laden share an identical vision of what the world should look like under Allah's rule.
My full blog is here.