Fractured Fairytales about Jihad on Capitol Hill

By Jeffrey Imm

On September 23, 2008, in the U.S. Congressional Rayburn House Office Building (RHOB), speakers in a panel discussion sponsored by the Counterterrorism Blog (CTB) and the New America Foundation (NAF) spun fractured fairytales about Jihad and the need for America to "engage" with proponents of Islamic supremacism. (I previously wrote a background article on this subject entitled "Jihad and the Growing Surrender of American Counterterrorism.")

The September 23 panel discussion topic was "The Jihadists' Revolt Against Al Qaeda" based on a New Republic article co-written by Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank. The speakers on the panel were: Peter Bergen of the "liberal think tank" New America Foundation, Counterterrorism Blog contributing experts Paul Cruickshank and Evan Kohlmann, and the Quilliam Foundation's Maajid Nawaz. The audience at this panel discussion included foreign policy analysts, counterterrorism analysts, the Saudi Arabia press, and a representative from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Per the Bergen/Cruickshank New Republic article, the focus of the discussion by most of the panelists was that disagreements over tactics between Al-Qaeda and other Jihadist and Islamic supremacist (aka "Islamist") groups was "making Americans safer," and the idea that Americans should "engage" with "Islamist" groups to promote peace. Bergen, Cruickshank, and Kohlmann addressed details on how Al-Qaeda bombing tactics (resulting in the death of other Muslims) have alienated Al-Qaeda from other Jihadists.

One attendee in the audience asked the obvious question: "Isn't this just a PR problem for Al-Qaeda that they can solve by simply killing just Americans [i.e., non-Muslims]?" Predictably, the panelists waffled on answering this question, stating that it was really more than a "PR problem," and moved on to reiterate the tactical differences between Al-Qaeda and other Jihadist groups, as if we didn't hear them the first time around.

Paul Cruickshank also offered the standard "regionalization" argument, stating that the "jihadist movement over the years has been very amorphous," representing different ideologies. This argument claims that because Jihadist groups in different regions of the world have different near-term tactical goals, we should ignore their overall shared ideology in Islamic supremacism. Moreover, Mr. Cruickshank failed to actually explain how such Jihadist groups have different "ideologies," but led the audience to believe it is a complex issue; the "complex issue" argument is used to avoid a direct answer on anything obvious, implying that Americans should leave such thinking to experts like himself. In fact, the root problem is that many in the counterterrorism community simply refuse to acknowledge the obvious basis of Jihadist actions in the ideology of Islamic supremacism.

Peter Bergen Calls for Engagement with Islamists (Again)

Peter Bergen, an internationally known journalist, professor, and speaker, has wide reach and influence in the war of ideas. Peter Bergen is a Schwartz senior fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington D.C., a research fellow at New York University's Center on Law and Security, and CNN's national security analyst. He has taught at John Hopkins University and at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Peter Bergen has also testified before numerous congressional committees.

Peter Bergen is also a leading proponent of surrender in the war of ideas. As Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank stated in their June 2008 New Republic article on Jihadists' conflicts with Al-Qaeda, "it is their ideas, not the West's, that matter." This article also claimed that Muslim Brotherhood leader Kamal El Helbawy was helping to recruit "moderates"; this is the same Kamal El Helbawy who was banned from entering the United States to attend a previous panel discussion on the Muslim Brotherhood attended by Peter Bergen and organized by Paul Cruickshank. It is also the same Muslim Brotherhood leader Kamal El Helbawy that Steven Emerson identified as a supporter of Hamas. This is the same Muslim Brotherhood whose motto is "Jihad is our way."

When it comes to such Islamic supremacist organizations (called political "Islamist" groups by foreign policy analysts), Peter Bergen has repeatedly called for America to "engage" with such groups. At another New American Foundation-sponsored event in Washington DC in September 2005, Peter Bergen recommended as counterterrorism "strategy" that America "engage with Islamists.... [who] are not our enemies and can even be our friends." (Reference, New America Foundation working papers, page 11).

At the September 23, 2008 Capitol Hill conference, Peter Bergen reiterated this position in surrendering in the war of ideas to Islamic supremacists, stating that a suggestion "not to engage with Islamists is ridiculous." Peter Bergen then made a moral equivalency between "Islamists" and Christian fundamentalists, stating "I am not a Christian fundamentalist, but I have some friends who are." His essential "moral equivalency" argument is that if he could have Christian fundamentalist friends, why shouldn't America engage with Islamists?

During this discussion on "Islamism," the ideology of "Islamism" was then equated with the ideology with Socialism, repeating the unsound Cold War thinking argument that an identity-based supremacist ideology is the same as a statist ideology (along with the illogical belief that tactical measures should be the same for dealing with such radically different ideologies.)


Evan Kohlmann Calls for Dialogue with the Muslim Brotherhood

Evan Kohlmann is also another internationally known and respected individual in the counterterrorism community, who has provided expert testimony in terror trials. He is a senior investigator with the Nine Eleven Finding Answers (NEFA) Foundation, and is also a terrorism analyst for NBC News.

At the September 23, 2008 conference, Evan Kohlmann spoke in detail about Muslim Brotherhood organizations in Iraq that have distanced themselves from Al-Qaeda because of Al-Qaeda's tactics in killing Iraqi Muslims, arguing that this could be part of a larger trend where "jihadists can turn against Al-Qaeda in a meaningful way."

Evan Kohlmann was then asked about his previous statement on the Muslim Brotherhood that "I won't hesitate in saying that I believe we must initiate some kind of dialogue with the [Muslim] Brotherhood, even if we don't support their overall agenda." At the September 23 conference, Evan Kohlmann confirmed that he has been speaking with representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood. Evan Kohlmann is well-aware that the motto of the Muslim Brotherhood is "Jihad is our Way." Moreover, Mr. Kohlmann is acutely aware of the evidence revealed in the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial that shows the Muslim Brotherhood plans to infiltrate and undermine America, as such Muslim Brotherhood memoranda are posted on the NEFA site where he is senior investigator.

Per the Muslim Brotherhood Mohamed Akram memorandum on the NEFA website (HLF Exhibit GX 3-85 -- "An Explanatory Memorandum: On the General Strategic Goal for the Group"), the Muslim Brotherhood clearly communicates the Ikhwan's ["Brotherhood"] goals to infiltrate and undermine America:

"The process of settlement is a 'Civilization-Jihadist Process' with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions."

"As for the role of the Ikhwan, it is the initiative, pioneering, leadership, raising the banner and pushing people in that direction (the Jihadist process). They are then able to employ, direct, and unify Muslims' efforts and powers for this process. In order to do that, we must possess a master of the art of 'coalitions,' the art of 'absorption' and the principles of 'cooperation.'"

Evan Kohlmann clearly is aware of these goals of the Muslim Brotherhood in America. Yet in a tactically-centered discipline such as counterterrorism, defining the strategic enemy is not a priority. Therefore, identifying the identity-based supremacist nature of the Islamic supremacist ideology at the root of Jihad is not a priority. Without a focus on who the enemy is, what the enemy believes, and a strategy to combat it, such counterterrorism analysts focus on tactical measures that they believe will, in the short-term, prevent violence. At the same time, they surrender in the very war of ideas that enables Jihadist terrorism in the first place.

Evan Kohlmann justifies calls for discussions with the Muslim Brotherhood, not as a compromise, not as surrender in the war of ideas, but as a necessity. According to Evan Kohlmann, America frequently has to talk with groups that it might not like, but America has no choice other than to have a dialogue with the Muslim Brotherhood.

But America's leadership does have a choice whether or not to engage with the Muslim Brotherhood ("Jihad is our Way"). America can choose not to legitimize such Islamic supremacists, or any other identity-based supremacist ideology, by refusing to "engage" with them or by refusing to hold a "dialogue" with them.

What U.S. government organizations are seeking a dialogue with white supremacists, black supremacists, Neo-Nazi Aryan supremacists, and such ilk, as part of "counterterrorism" tactics? Who is speaking on Capitol Hill calling for engagement with white supremacist "political" groups to prevent Ku Klux Klan terrorism? Of course, anyone who did this would justifiably become an instant public pariah. But incredibly, there is no meaningful protest or condemnation when "experts" come to Capitol Hill telling Americans that they need to surrender in the war of ideas, and engage with Islamic supremacists to prevent Jihadist terrorism.

Yes, of course, America has a choice whether or not to legitimize Islamic supremacist groups. Furthermore, our proven history of success against terrorism in America has been based on not legitimizing such groups and by confronting them, rather than by "engaging" them.


Refusing to Condemn Jihad in Afghanistan and Iraq

In the Bergen/Cruickshank New Republic June 2008 article on Jihadists allegedly turning against Al-Qaeda, they use the often repeated example of Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif (aka Dr. Fadl) renouncing Al-Qaeda. They ignore that Al-Sharif defends Jihad in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Israel. They also ignore that Al-Sharif continues to support the Taliban, stating that "Jihad in Afghanistan will lead to the creation of an Islamic state with the triumph of the Taliban, God willing."

Nor was there condemnation of Al-Sharif's support for such Jihad among the September 23, 2008 panelists on Capitol Hill either. In a half-measure that spoke volumes, Quilliam Foundation leader Maajid Nawaz stated that Al-Sharif should not be condemned for his support for Jihad in Afghanistan and Iraq, but only for his continued support for "Islamism." Quilliam's Maajid Nawaz stated that the Geneva Convention gave Jihadists the right to defend themselves in "occupied lands," and should not be criticized.

Those not attending the September 23 conference would not be aware that three of the four panel speakers seeking to provide American legislators guidance on Jihad had British accents. Maajid Nawaz, a former member of Hizb ut-Tahrir who now denounces that group, is a British citizen. This European perspective does not view America's actions overseas as justifiable; this perspective does not care that it was the 9/11 attacks by Jihadists in Al-Qaeda camps supported by the Taliban in Afghanistan that served as the rationale for our war in Afghanistan. As a result, we have such "counterterrorism experts" at Capitol Hill defending the rights of Jihadists according to the Geneva Convention. In addition, the panel discussion also included Evan Kohlmann responding to a DHS attendee on how to better prepare America against Islamic supremacist "radicalization" by stating "don't invade foreign countries." The general consensus among the panelists seemed to be that America's efforts against Jihad in other countries are wrong.

Maajid Nawaz's support for what is popularly called "defensive Jihad" was discouraging, but not surprising. Regrettably, the message of Maajid Nawaz's Quilliam Foundation organization lacks consistency. At the September 23 conference, Maajid Nawaz did condemn the ideology of Islamism and called for "values-based engagement" regarding Islamism, but he was unable to condemn the Jihadist actions of its adherents in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Quilliam Foundation struggles with the challenge of trying to be against Islamism, yet sufficiently attractive to a broad range of British Muslims, and ends up not accomplishing either completely. Thus its leaders end up being caught in the middle of having to justify promoting Hezbollah-supporting Egyptian Mufti Gomaa, defending Usama Hassan's "support [of] a just Caliphate based on the Prophetic model" (the same words used by Al-Qaeda's As-Sahab) as being "secular," and encouraging British Muslims to reform Sharia law to protect British Muslim women rather than simply promoting support of equality under British law. As then seen in the September 23 conference, while Maajid Nawaz condemned Islamism, he then defended the rights of Jihadists in Afghanistan and Iraq under the Geneva Convention. It is sad to see.

Moreover, such unwillingness to condemn non-Al-Qaeda Jihadist actions in Afghanistan and Iraq was shared by other members of the September 23 conference panel.


Paul Cruickshank: Support for Jihad is Merely One's "Politics"

Counterterror analyst Paul Cruickshank presented an NBC video interview with Hanif Qadir as an example of a "de-radicalized" British Muslim. Mr. Cruickshank pointed out, however, that Americans might not like "his politics," which turn out to be Hanif Qadir's condemnation of the American war efforts against Jihadists in Afghanistan.

In the video interview, Hanif Qadir admits to providing significant financial donations through a member of the Taliban who was allegedly raising money for "Afghan war victims." In December 2002 as a result of his donations, Hanif Qadir was then recruited by alleged Al-Qaeda individuals (who he previously describes as "Taliban") to go to a Pakistan Jihadist training camp. When Qadir realized that the Jihadist wannabes would be just "cannon fodder," he decided to flee back to London instead. Notably, in the interview, Hanif Qadir doesn't denounce the Afghanistan Taliban Jihad efforts. Instead, Hanif Qadir condemns America for bombing Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks and reiterates how "angry" he is at "U.S. foreign policy." (In the interview, his brother, Imtiaz Qadir admits to being happy during the 9/11 attacks.)

In his interview, Hanif Qadir states that then once he was safely back in London, he decided to create a London gymnasium and community center for young British Muslims. Qadir admits that he knew that members of his community center included "radicals" who met there and promoted Jihad. One radical who used Qadir's community center was convicted British Jihadist Abdulla Ahmed Ali, the alleged ringleader of the 2006 transatlantic jet bomb plot on jets headed to America (see "Airline terror plotters planned bigger 9/11"). This is the same Abdulla Ahmed Ali who promised: "expect floods of martyr operations against you and we will take our revenge and anger, ripping amongst your people and scattering your people's body parts... We love to die in the path of Allah." After Abdulla Ahmed Ali and other British Jihadists in transatlantic airline plot were arrested, Hanif Qadir denounced their arrest as "a mistake," and defended them as "pretty much decent kids."

Yet on Capitol Hill, Paul Cruickshank portrayed Hanif Qadir and his London community center as a success story in "de-radicalizing" British Muslims.

Paul Cruickshank fails to grasp that the inability of Hanif Qadir and others to address the ideological problem of Islamic supremacism, rather than merely rejecting "Al-Qaeda" terror tactics, has done little to "de-radicalize" either him or those who attend his London community center/gym. Mr. Cruickshank sought to make a false distinction between Jihad and Al-Qaeda terrorism, when the real point of the Hanif Qadir story is that Jihadist terrorism comes from the same Islamic supremacism ideology, whether the actions are taken by Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or individual Jihadists like Abdulla Ahmed Ali.

The larger question is, in view of the growing surrender in the war of ideas by leading members of the counterterrorism community, do they even care?


Politicizing Jihad and Islamic Supremacism to Further Infiltrate America

Such surrender by leading members of the counterterrorism community in the war of ideas does the spade work for those who seek further infiltration by Islamic supremacists in America's legislative and executive branches of government. By legitimizing Islamic supremacism and rationalizing Jihad groups, supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups are emboldened to expand their political influence and seek to "mainstream" Islamic supremacism as a legitimate American political cause.

The same day as this CTB/NAF panel discussion was taking place at Capitol Hill, another group, the U.S.-Muslim Engagement Project, announced the release of a new report "Changing Course: A New Direction for U.S. Relations with the Muslim World."

Among the members of the U.S.-Muslim Engagement Project is Ingrid Mattson, President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), an organization that is an unindicted co-conspirator in the ongoing Holy Land Foundation (HLF) terror finance trial. Ingrid Mattson has also recently spoken at the Democratic National Convention. Another member of the U.S.-Muslim Engagement Project is Ahmed Younis, former National Director of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC), whose communications director has praised Osama Bin Laden. In July 2008, both ISNA and MPAC sought to prevent the Investigative Project on Terrorism's (IPT) Steven Emerson from speaking on "Foreign Aid and the Fight Against Terrorism and Proliferation."

In addition, the U.S.-Muslim Engagement Project leadership panel has 32 other members, including Dennis Ross, Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) consultant, who is serving as a Middle East advisor for the Barack Obama campaign. The New York Times also reports that the "McCain and Obama campaigns have been briefed on the report's recommendations, and both were receptive, said Mr. Weber and other members of the group."

The report was promoted in a September 24 National Press Club press conference and has been praised by leading foreign policy members of the House of Representatives and Senate who have been briefed on this report.

I have previously summarized some of the key aspects of the U.S.-Muslim Engagement Project's report "Changing Course: A New Direction for U.S. Relations with the Muslim World." These points were not mentioned in the New York Times or Associated Press reports that glowingly painted the U.S.-Muslim Engagement Project's efforts as "Report Seeks Engagement With Muslims by Diplomacy" and as "US ex-officials want good US relations with Islam."

Major points in the U.S.-Muslim Engagement Project's report include:
-- Rejection of concerns about "Islamism" as an ideology (page 51)
-- Tolerance of Sharia-based governments (page 52)
-- Calls for engagement with Iran (pp 4, 48, 44)
-- Calls for America to "assess the value of engagement with political representatives of armed and activist movements" (page 59)
-- Calls for America to consider dialogue with "armed political groups and movements" if they have sufficient public support (pp. 59, 60)
-- Calls for talks with the Muslim Brotherhood (pp. 54, 56, 60, 61)
-- Promotion of the 2005 Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) Mecca Declaration (page 53), which calls for "deterrent punishments" against "Islamophobia," and which promotes the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam that calls for "human rights" based on Islamic Sharia law

Other than an oblique reference to discussions with Iran, such aspects of this report in calling for America's surrender in the war of ideas against Islamic supremacism are not being discussed or reported in the news media. The report is being portrayed as merely a report seeking general "diplomatic engagement" and "major investment in economic development in Muslim countries to create jobs for alienated youth."

This U.S.-Muslim Engagement Project's Report was briefed to House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Congressman Howard L. Berman, who has reportedly welcomed the report, stating, "This study explores in depth one of the central global challenges of our time: developing harmonious relations between Muslim-majority countries and the West. It offers thoughtful, creative, and multi-faceted proposals for meeting that challenge. Congress should give those proposals the fullest possible consideration."

In addition, this report has been endorsed by Senate Committee on Foreign Relations' Ranking Minority Member Senator Richard G. Lugar, stating, "The Project's report offers a thoughtful analysis of the current state of America's relations with the Muslim world and constructive recommendations on how we can approach this pressing concern in a bipartisan framework." Senator Lugar reportedly "circulated the report to his Senate colleagues."

The growing effort of those appeasing or supporting Islamic supremacism to influence our legislature should be alarming to Americans. This secret invasion extends beyond the growing efforts to infiltrate and influence our homeland security, our military, our law enforcement, and now the growing surrender of our counterterrorism community. In addition to seeking to influence our legislature, Islamic supremacist advocacy and appeaser organizations seek to influence the campaigns of the candidates for the next American presidency as well.

As the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Akram stated in his strategy to infiltrate America, "we must possess a master of the art of 'coalitions,' the art of 'absorption' and the principles of 'cooperation.'" This plan to infiltrate and influence every level of the American federal government is rapidly succeeding.


America Must Win the War of Ideas against Islamic Supremacism

American remains a nation of over 300 million individuals. America is a nation "of the people, by the people, for the people." Let us never forget that this is our country, not just the country of a handful of elected representatives and federal government officials, and not a nation controlled by the whims of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic supremacist groups.

We can win the war of ideas against Islamic supremacism, but not if we refuse to fight, to speak out, to protest, and to demand that our voices are heard. This is our war on Jihad, our war on Islamic supremacism. But no one can win a one-sided battle with their opponents doing most of the fighting.

The Islamic supremacist enemy will tell us not to fight a fight we cannot win, to accept their "changing course" for America, to focus on the goals of "progress" rather than liberty and quality. They will seek to turn us against those who will stand in the way of their "progress." They will not directly ask us to "surrender," but ask us to simply accept the inevitable "change." They will not directly ask us to "submit," but ask us to accept Islamic supremacism as legitimate when it is opposed to equality itself.

Regardless of the words they use, the terms that Islamic supremacists will ultimately call for will be nothing less than... surrender.

Whether individual Americans and individual American leaders choose to surrender or not, the fact remains that America itself is more than its people, more than its geography. America is an idea that embodies the principles of equality and liberty. America can no more be crushed by those on their knees, than it can be crushed by Jihadist bombs. America is what we believe in our hearts, it is the values we hold dear, it is our principles of equality and liberty that generations have given their lives to build and preserve.

We have no choice in fighting this war of ideas against Islamic supremacism. The war against Islamic supremacism is a war that we must win. If we lose, we will lose the identity, the meaning, and the values of America itself.

Fear No Evil.

Source:

Read more ...

Putin's Growing Appetite

By Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld

President George W. Bush meeting today (Monday Sept. 29) with Ukraine’s President, aims at strengthening Viktor Yushchenko’s stand against the Kremlin. On the agenda is Russia’s growing threats against and meddling in Ukraine’s domestic politics in effort to derail its pending integration into NATO.

This meeting, as Bush’s condemnation of the Kremlin’s aggression towards its neighbors, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s fierce criticism of Russia’s war against Georgia, do little to slow Prime Minister and former President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to destabilize Ukraine, corner its food industry’s development and export, and buy a foothold in its major ports.

On September 15, Moscow efforts led to the collapse of Ukraine’s coalition government. This crisis came shortly after the Russian foreign office condemned Ukraine's "unfriendly" policies toward Moscow, especially President Viktor Yushchenko’s latest movement restrictions on Russia’s Black Sea fleet , and his objection to renew the Kremlin's lease of Ukrainian ports. Russia needs these ports to obtain greater access to their shipyards and to the Black Sea.

Russia’s military and political aggression became a cause célèbre in the West. Unnoticed, however, are the activities of the Kremlin’s loyal oligarchs growing control over Ukraine’s ports. Going far beyond energy, the Russian strategy now expands to control over the region’s scarce commodities, including food resources, threatening to leave millions of people cold and starving.

Food shortages and spiraling prices are spurring riots and creating emergencies worldwide, says director general of the Rome-based UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Jacques Diouf. Over 852 million (above 13%) of the world population is malnourished. Last April, global cereal reserves were already so low; they could feed the world for only 8 to 12 weeks.

The World Bank calls Ukraine “one of the few countries in the world,” capable of significantly increasing net grain exports. Aptly, Kiev decided last April to increase its grain export quotas.

For 69 years, Ukraine was the U.S.S.R. “breadbasket” Until breaking free in 1991 from the Soviet boot, Ukraine supplied over 25% of all the U.S. S. R. agricultural produce; now it’s the world’s 8th largest wheat exporter, and ranks 10th overall for cereals exports.

Ukraine’s government early this year asked the World Bank to facilitate President Viktor Yushchenko’s 2005 plan to double its food production, thus turning it to the “breadbasket of Europe.” The World Bank prepared a special Note: “Competitive Agriculture or State Control: Ukraine’s response to the global food crisis,” concluding, “Ukraine is in a position to make a significant contribution to the international effort to deal with the food crisis.”

Unfortunately, Ukraine’s unstable coalition government almost simultaneously thwarted Yushchenko’s plans with new grain export restrictions costing Ukraine food producers more than $2 billion last year, thus devaluing its entire agro-business industry. This opened the door to the Russians.

In February 2008, according to Ukrainian media reports, Russia’s FedComInvest assumed control of Sumykhimprom, Ukraine’s largest fertilizer manufacturer, whose products are essential to growing healthy crops and increasing Ukraine agricultural yields.

FedComInvest belongs to the leading Russian sulfur supplier, FedCom, which generates some $2 billion in annual sales. It was founded in 1996 by Alexei Fedoricsev, a minor league millionaire, and listed as a major investor in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

The Sochi Winter Olympics are Putin’s treasured baby. Like the Chinese with the Beijing Olympics, Putin aims through the Sochi Olympics to validate the success of his very own “new Russia.”

With Putin’s ‘encouragement’ Russia’s oligarchs -- the richest, $28 billion worth Rusal chieftain Oleg Deripaska (banned from entering the U.S.), to less known, and other shadowy figures like Fedoricsev, who barely squeaked onto the tail end of a recent Forbes Russia Golden 100 list, with roughly $450 million -- invest heavily in the forthcoming Sochi Olympics, and other related projects.

Meanwhile, Fedorychev’s Russian TransInvestService, another FedCom company, recently obtained a $50 million contract to build the largest Ukrainian container terminal for the Port of Yuzhny, to facilitate food- and fertilizer-shipping to Europe and the Middle East. (The Saudis are becoming major clients.) Ukraine's Transportation and Communications Ministry describes FedComInvest’s activities as “corporate raiding.” Other Russian companies also made huge investments in major Ukraine sea and river ports.

“The Kremlin has established a group of “service oligarchs,” people with shady past, who are ready to use any methods to reach their ends,” states Dr. political science professor Valentin Yakushik at Kiev’s Mogilaynsky Academy. Moreover, Fedorychev allegedly has a criminal record and was on the receiving end of Yukos’ remains after Khodorkovsky’s lynching, according to prominent Russian investigative journalist Yulia Latynina.

Not long ago, Interpol investigated Fedorychev for alleged money laundering and links to notorious international arms/drugs and diamond dealers Leonid Efimovich Minin, now serving time in Italy, and illusive Victor Anatolyevic Bout, who was arrested in Thailand last March on an FBI warrant.

The French newspapers Le Monde, Le Parisien, and Aujourd'hui followed the investigation closely, reported Fedorychev got away due to lack of evidence. Though “Fedorychev’s close associate was indicted” says Inna Weiss at the Central Group of European Political Monitoring. “The publicity led cautious members of Europe's money elite -- notably, late Prince Rainier of Monaco -- to cut business ties with Fedorychev to the minimum.” This, however, did little to stop Putin’s oligarchs from gaining control over strategically important assets in Ukraine and other former Soviet republics, thus threatening the stability of the region and U.S. national security.

Moreover, Putin uses President Bush’s support to Ukraine and Georgia’s fledging democracies as justification and opportunity to further undermine the U.S. influence in the region. Indeed, challenging Putin’s ambitions while defusing the tension in U.S. Russian relations would present a real test to the next U.S. Administration.

Source: Human Events

Read more ...

Pakistan/Intelligence: Islamabad appoints new ISI chief

Pakistan has replaced the head of its main intelligence service, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the country's premier military spy agency. Lieutenant General Ahmed Shujaa Pasha has been appointed as Director General of the ISI, replacing Nadeem Taj, a Pervez Musharraf loyalist. Prior to this appointment, Pasha was Director of military operations and is considered a key aide to army chief Ashfaq Kayani.

The ISI has been under the US scanner amid growing concerns that it is either turning a blind eye to militants in Pakistan's troubled tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, or worse, even actively sponsoring the rebels.The agency is also suspected of involvement in the July 7 bombing outside India's Embassy in Kabul that killed more than 60 people.

Read more ...

Pakistan/Terrorism: Pakistani Taliban leader reportedly dead

Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, died on Wednesday at about 1 a.m. local time from kidney failure, CNN has reported.

According to the American news network, Mehsud’s death has been confirmed by Pakistani military officials.

Some local media in Pakistan reported about Mehsud’s death while some others said the Taliban were denying it.

Earlier reports raised doubts about his health condition, claiming that the 34-year-old taliban leader was ill and was expected to die within days.

Mehsud, who belongs to the Mehsud tribe in Pakistan’s South Waziristan region, is the commander of the Taliban in Pakistan and has been blamed by the Pakistani authorities for the assassination, last December, of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Read more ...

UNITED STATES: PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION AND IMPLICATIONS FOR NATIONAL SECURITY IN 2008-2009

By Raphaël RAMOS,
Director of Production, ESISC

With the nomination of John McCain and Barack Obama by their respective parties, there
begins a highly sensitive period which includes the election and inauguration of the forty-
fourth President of the United States. It comes to an end only when the new administration
will be completely installed. This so-called period of ‘presidential transition’ in fact has a
crucial dimension for the country’s national security, because changes in administration are
traditionally marked by a concomitant slowdown in government activity before the departure
and, at the other end, by the arrival of a great number of officials. Starting with the
inauguration of the new President, several months are generally needed before the incoming
bureaucracy can function in an optimal manner.


History has shown that a number of American Presidents had to deal with major national and
international crises from the very first weeks of their term in office. Without going back as far
as the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, in the midst of the Civil War, we remember, in
particular, the Bay of Pigs landing that President Kennedy inherited in April 1961, the
bombardment of Cambodia decided by President Richard Nixon in March 1969 and the
deterioration of the situation in Somalia which Bill Clinton faced in May 1993.

Although a tradition of dialogue between the outgoing President and his successor dating
from Harry Truman, as well as various legislative provisions have made improvements to the
situation possible, the transition phase remains characterised by the vulnerability to which it
gives rise for the United States and its interests, above all in time of war.

Hence, given the instability of the present international context and the fact that the summer
phase of the electoral campaign was largely marked by the topic of national security,1 it seems
timely to look closely into the issues of this period which though brief can leave an
irreversible imprint on the term in office of the next occupant of the White House. By means
of various examples, we will present the crucial dimension of presidential transitions before
examining the special sensitivity of the next transition. Finally, we will look into the
arrangements recently made and what should be undertaken in order to improve this
process.


1. A traditionally crucial period

Ever since 1797 when George Washington handed over the powers of the Presidency to John
Adams, the United States has had to deal with this practice that was only codified much
later. Although the transition between the first American President and the man who was at
the time his Vice President took place calmly, that has not always been the case, in particular
when power was handed over between two men who came from different parties. This
practice was improved with Harry Truman and his successors but it remains sensitive as we
can see from the last transition between Bill Clinton and George W. Bush in 2000-2001.

􏰀 Historical examples of transition

It was in fact President Truman who informally instituted the tradition whereby the
outgoing President facilitates the arrival of his successor in his duties, even
when he comes from a different party. On the day after the victory of Dwight
Eisenhower in the elections of November 1952, Truman invited the five-star general to come
and meet him in the White House to ‘discuss the problems relating to the transition
period in order to demonstrate to the world that the nation is united in its fight
for liberty and peace.’ 2 In parallel, the Democratic President asked the federal agencies
reporting to the Executive to keep him informed of the actions they were undertaking to
facilitate the arrival in the White House of the Eisenhower Administration.3 During the
electoral campaign, Harry Truman had already charged the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency)
in 1952 with the task of providing the Presidential candidates with a daily intelligence
briefing similar to what he received every morning. 4

It is not surprising that these initiatives were made by President Truman given the way he
was propelled on April 12, 1945 to the highest post of the American executive branch. Upon
the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Truman took over sensitive issues dealing with foreign
policy about which he had not been kept informed. It thus seems obvious that he wanted his
successors not to find themselves in a situation similar to his when he became President of
the United States. Moreover, Truman understood that the first decisions made by
his successor would be taken on the basis of the information and the activities of
his administration and that, for that reason, he should familiarise the entering President
with the ongoing affairs. Furthermore, as he indicated in the telegram he sent to Dwight
Eisenhower, Truman was aware of the imperatives of the Cold War and wanted,
when facing the Soviet Union, to give an image of unity and to assure as well as
possible the continuity of the executive power.

Another interesting example concerns the last Presidential transition made during wartime,
between Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) and Richard Nixon in 1968-1969. In the midst of the
Vietnam War, even before the November election, LBJ was the first President to invite the
campaign teams of the two candidates to meetings for the purpose of preparing the
transition. Richard Nixon began to prepare for his possible arrival at the White House as
from the end of the Republican Convention in July 1968 and got ideas from the reports
describing the previous transitions. Less than a month after his election, Nixon had chosen
his main assistants who were charged with the task of helping to run his administration.5 On
the other hand, the selection of the Cabinet took more time, though this did not influence
events since the essential aspects of American policy were formulated from the White House
by the President and his close advisers like Kissinger. The Departments of State and Defense,
as well as their bosses, were only going to play an administrative role. This special manner of
operation made it possible to limit any slowdown due to change of administration. This was
translated into action by the ability of the White House to lead, as from the month of March
1969, a campaign of air bombardment against Cambodia.

􏰀 Transition of 2000-2001

In July 2004, the publication of the works of the 9/11 Commission made it possible to shed
light on the shortcomings of the process of transition and their consequences for
the level of preparation of the incoming administration. In the case of the period
2000-2001, the hesitation which typically exists was accentuated by the disputed
electoral results in Florida, thereby delaying the process by more than one
month and, as the 9/11 Commission Report stated, reducing ‘by half the normal period of
transition.’ 6 Although the election took place on November 7, 2000, it was only on December
13 that the Democratic candidate Al Gore accepted his defeat. While ad hoc measures were
taken by the team of George W. Bush right from the announcement of the Florida results on
November 26, the take-over of the premises put at the disposal of the incoming
administration only occurred the day after the speech by the Democratic candidate. Thus, Mr
Bush had just five weeks to put his team in place before his inauguration.7

According to all the evidence, these circumstances ‘hindered the new administration in
identifying, recruiting, screening and confirming its principal staff members
by the Senate.’8 Experience and continuity were clearly favoured. Thus, apart from Vice
President Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and Norman Mineta were chosen to
occupy the leading posts. The fact that all three of them had already faced confirmation
hearings in the Senate and security clearance had undeniably favoured their
designation. In parallel, Mr Bush’s transition team, led by Mr Cheney, chose to keep in
their posts a certain number of high officials. We think in particular of the Director of the
CIA George Tenet and Richard Clarke, who was responsible for counter-terrorism on the
National Security Council (NSC) since 1992. General Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chief of
Staff, held onto his duties at the head of the American Armed Forces until September 30,
2001.

However, these efforts aimed at favouring continuity in the transition came up against the
realities of administrative slowness. Thus, it took more than six months for the
assistants of Colin Powell at the State Department to complete the long process
which preceded their taking up their duties.9 On the eve of September 11, 2001, only
227 of the 508 posts to be filled by the Presidency had an occupant. Out of this
number, 106 persons occupied their positions for les than eight weeks.10 The most telling
example is that of Robert Mueller who took over as the head of the FBI (Federal Bureau of
Investigation) only one week before the attacks on New York and Washington. Succeeding
Louis Freeh, whose departure in the summer of 2001 had been anticipated long before, Mr.
Mueller was only named on July 5 and officially became the Director of the Bureau only on
September 4, 2001. As Michael Chertoff, the present Secretary of Homeland Security
emphasizes, ‘we lived through September 11th with many posts vacant. This was not a very
responsible way to deal with the threats that we were later confronted with.’ 11


2. A unique combination of threats and vulnerabilities

These words by Michael Chertoff are entirely appropriate to the period ahead due to a
particularly sensitive international setting and a national security apparatus that was largely
reformed by the Bush Administration, and for whom the handover of power between the two
administrations will be a first.

􏰀 A particularly sensitive security context

The period of presidential transition of 2008-2009 is the first since 9/11. It should be unique
due to the variety and quantity of threats facing the United States. According to a report
of the Department of Homeland Security, vulnerability will be greatest ‘30 days before, (…),
and up to six months after the change of administration.’ 12 Concerning the national
security, three categories of risks can be distinguished.

First of all, this change of administration comes during a time of war, since the American
Army has in fact been engaged in Afghanistan since October 2001 and in Iraq since March
2003. This is the first time in forty years and the handover of powers between LBJ and
Richard Nixon that a President will be inaugurated during a war. Unlike 1968-1969, the
American Armed Forces are presently deployed in two different operational theatres. The
United States has in fact slightly more than 140,000 men in Iraq and around 34,000 in
Afghanistan.13 The maintenance of these force levels requires on the part of the Pentagon
leadership an irreproachable management which cannot allow itself to be disturbed by a
Presidential transition. Moreover, the initiatives concerning the Transformation of American
Armed Forces14 presently under way also require that continuity be maintained during the
change in administration.15 For Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, whose career within the
American national security apparatus goes back to the 1960s, this period remains
problematic. According to Mr. Gates, this process has ‘deteriorated’ over the course of the
last twenty-five years and it takes more and more time for new teams to be put in place at the
Pentagon.16

Next, everyone is aware that the American presidential election is coming in a particularly
sensitive international setting that is marked by the development of regional threats.
Quite obviously one thinks of Iran and North Korea, which could seek to take advantage of
the situation. An increase in tensions has also been seen between Washington and certain
capitals of Latin America such as Caracas and La Paz.17 Moreover, the crisis that took
place in August between Russia and Georgia illustrates perfectly the
vulnerability of the American authorities in a period of presidential transition.
While the initiative for these disturbances may be traced back to Georgia and not to Russia,
Moscow has skillfully exploited the context and limited margin of maneuver of a Bush
administration that is on its way out. It is not improbable that the powerlessness of the
White House reinforced the determination of the Kremlin to adopt a hard line with
regard to the West. One may wonder over the manner in which events would have developed
had such a crisis taken place at the end of December, when the teams at the White House and
the Pentagon are busy preparing to move out.

Finally, we cannot avoid the question of terrorism. Al-Qaeda and its associates have in
fact often used elections and periods of transition to carry out attacks. We think
back over the attacks in Madrid on March 11, 2004 which had an impact on the Spanish
legislative elections scheduled several days later. Similarly, on June 29 and 30, 2007, i.e., just
five days after Gordon Brown took over as Prime Minister, the United Kingdom was
subjected to many attacks in London and in Glasgow. While in the case of Spain, the
relationship between the elections and the attacks is incontestable, doubts continue over the
link between Mr. Brown’s accession and the three attacks. These precedents nonetheless
indicate that one should take seriously the risk both to the United States and to its overseas
interests. The U.S. Ambassador in Yemen was recently targeted by an attack prepared by the
local branch of al-Qaeda.18 A highly placed official in the Department of Homeland Security
admits that ‘major terrorist attacks both here and abroad are often committed shortly
before or after national elections.’ 19 As regards precise threats, the American intelligence
community believes that ‘al-Qaeda is going to increase the frequency, the sophistication, the
opportunism and the anti-Western character of its propaganda to the extent that the
presidential election in the United States draws near.’ 20

􏰀 A national security apparatus that has been largely updated

The reach of threats which have been mentioned is enhanced by the absence of experience
with respect to presidential transition on the part of the American bureaucracy that has been
reorganised during the two terms of Mr. Bush and for which this handover of power will thus
be a first. We are thinking in particular of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ODNI (Office of the Director of National Intelligence) and the NCTC (National
Counterterrorism Center).

The most worrisome case is without doubt that of the Department of Homeland Security.
Created in November 2002 by the Homeland Security Act of 2002, the DHS supervises and
coordinates the work of twenty-two federal agencies including Customs, the Coast Guard, the
Secret Service and FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) whose activities are
linked to the security of national territory. It employs around 200,000 persons. The creation
of this Department involved the greatest bureaucratic reorganisation that the United
States has known since the creation of the Department of Defense in 1947. This
Presidential transition will thus be the first for this Department. It will be all the more
sensitive since, according to a Congressional report, ‘one of the recurrent problems
[DHS] is the over-politicisation of the highest ranks of its leadership.’21. This
means that a excessively large part of the managers of this structure is subjected to the
uncertainties of political change. For example, out of the ten main directors of FEMA, only
two are presently career civil servants.22 A report prepared by a private consulting company
estimates at 11% the ‘losses of leadership’ which the DHS will face during the transition of
2008-2009. 23

The problems are similar for the two other creations of the Bush administration - the ODNI
and the NCTC. The first is responsible for coordinating the activities of the American
intelligence community and was created in 2004 in the context of the most important reform
of the intelligence services since the creation of the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) in 1947.
The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA) 24 reorganised the
operation of sixteen intelligence agencies around a Director of National Intelligence (DNI)
who is responsible for setting the objectives and the priorities in the domains of collecting,
processing, analysing and disseminating intelligence. The key figure in this set-up, the DNI,
is named by the President and is assisted by the ODNI, whose composition will likely be
modified by the next administration. Nonetheless, Mike McConnell, the current Director of
National Intelligence, has let it be known that he is prepared to keep his post for six months
following the inauguration of the next President in order to facilitate the transition.

In order to strengthen the efforts in the domain of counter-terrorism, the IRTPA also created
the NCTC to analyse and bring together all the intelligence that the United States has in the
area of terrorism. Its Director is also named by the President and reports both to the White
House and to the ODNI. This makes it a central element in the U.S. counter-terrorism efforts
which cannot be allowed to slow down its operations during such a sensitive period.


3. The limits of American vulnerability

The considerations and the risks which we have just mentioned have certainly been taken
into account in Washington, where a series of arrangements have been put in place by the
Bush administration. On this question, the debate is prolific and many recommendations
have been presented in order to facilitate the handover of power between the two Presidents.

􏰀 Arrangements intended to reduce the risks linked to the transition

The problems of transitions are nothing new for the American authorities who have always
looked for solutions to improve this process. One example in this context is the move forward
of the inauguration date of the new President from March 4 to January 20 by ratification of
the twentieth amendment in 1933.26 Similarly, President Kennedy had the Presidential
Transition Act of 1963 passed, permitting the elected candidate and his assistants to receive
government funds and premises in order to prepare to bring in their new administration in
the best circumstances.27

As regards the transition of 2008-2009, many measures have been taken to limit the period
of inertia which characterises the handover of power. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen have respectively asked a group of
civilians and a group of officers to prepare the Pentagon for the change of administration.
According to a memo of its president John Hamre, the Defense Policy Board identified
a certain number of points on which the new team in charge of the Department
of Defense should concentrate so as to be able to be effective from the moment
they take over their duties. On the military side, a transition team was set up within the
Joint Chiefs of Staff.28 Furthermore, in order to avoid high vacancy rates at the level of
deputy secretaries which, according to him often are higher than20% at the start of a new
term, Mr. Gates has enjoined the main civilian managers to be prepared to keep
their posts until their successor has been confirmed by the Senate. The objective
for the successor of Donald Rumsfeld is to avoid ‘having a lot of empty chairs on the civilian
side’29 during a war.

Under the direction of Michael Chertoff, the Department of Homeland Security has also
sought to anticipate the problems linked to this period by creating a working group which
presented its recommendations last January.30 A plan developed on the basis of these
proposals is supposed to be presented in October. Meanwhile, the DHS has
organised many conferences and exercises since February. The order of succession of
the Department was also reorganised to limit the ascendance of the holders of political
functions. In addition, twenty-five key posts were identified and high career civil
servants have been named to ensure the interim management.31 Thus, Nancy
Ward, who is responsible for the FEMA operation in Oakland, California, was chosen to
direct the federal agency for managing emergency situations until the person appointed by
the next President takes up his duties.32

􏰀 What remains to be done

The various published reports on the issues of the presidential transition, as well as the
interest shown by the press have made it possible to open a veritable debate around these questions. In the op-ed page of the Washington Post, Richard Armitage, the former Deputy
Secretary of State under Colin Powell and Michèle A. Flournoy, the former Assistant
Secretary of Defense in the Clinton Administration, call for the emergence of a
‘bipartisan consensus to put in place a process of accelerated screening and
confirmation for the 40 or 50 main members of the new President’s national
security team.’ 33 The authors also seek the commitment of the FBI and of the outgoing
administration. In a number of hearings by the appropriate Senate committees, the persons
named have had in fact to fill out more than sixty pages of forms and are subjected to
thorough verifications carried out by the FBI. They must also mention the scholarly
establishments in which they were enrolled and explain all their sojourns abroad, including
in Canada and Mexico, over the course of the past fifteen years.34

In parallel, Jamie Gorelick and Slade Gordon, two former members of the 9/11 Commission,
also came out in favour of drastic changes. They wanted first of all that the candidates be
given access not only to intelligence briefings but to the main dossiers and programmes
relating to national security. The authors then recommend that the candidates
provide, even before the election, the names of those whom they intend to
nominate in order that the competent authorities such as the FBI be able to
begin the investigations. The objective is that with the support of Congress, which would
be committed to organise the hearings of the nominees as from the very start of
the month of January, to ensure that the main posts can be filled from the day after the
inauguration of the new President. The two former members of the 9/11 Commission believe
that the persons put forward to perform the functions of director of an agency should, from
the day after the election, meet with those whom they will succeed in order to get used to
their new post under the best possible conditions.35

The two candidates in the presidential election have also made arrangements to anticipate
the presidential transition. Since the month of July, Barack Obama has put in place a team
charged with the task of planning the activities of this period should the Senator from Illinois
be elected on November 4.36 John McCain did the same in September when he entrusted the
preparation for his possible entrance into the White House to William E. Timmons, a former
member of the transition teams of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and of George W. Bush in 200037.
Nonetheless we note that the two candidates, whose arrangements with regard
to this matter have nothing innovative about them, do not seem to accord to the
issues relating to presidential transition an attention appropriate to what is at
stake. It even appears that the decisions taken by the two campaigns on this question have
been exploited for political ends. Right after the announcement of the Obama team, the
Republicans criticised the Democratic candidate for the arrogance of his decision. Similarly,
there are good chances that the lobbyist past of Mr. Timmons will be used by the team of the
Senator from Illinois to attack his counterpart from Arizona.

4. Conclusion

The first presidential transition after 9/11 constitutes a major challenge for the
entire government apparatus of the American state. The combination of
external and domestic threats, as well as the increased vulnerability of a part of
the administration which never experienced this process renders this period
particularly sensitive.

Nonetheless, it appears that the public debate which opened on these questions
made it possible for the various actors of this process to take measures in order
to facilitate the change of administration.

While an incident can always arise before or after the election, the main issue
for the incoming administration is to arrive on the day after the inauguration of
January 20 ready to assume its duties. For that to happen President Bush and
his successor must work together from the day after the election of November 4.
This cooperation will be essential to the preparation of the team of the next
occupant of the White House. While one may believe that the incoming
President will have to make good use of the eleven weeks before his taking up
his duties, much will depend on the good will of the administration in office. It
seems that President Bush is aware of this and will try to put his successor in
the best arrangements, because he certainly knows that an incident occurring
very early in the term of a new President can also tarnish his legacy.

Finally, the sheer weight of the process of screening and confirmation puts
forward the question of the politicisation of some functions of the American
government. Though from a democratic point of view the virtues of this system
are incontestable – France has even taken inspiration from it for its
constitutional reform – these procedures do not seem to be well suited to the
demands of the modern world and to the immediacy of the threats. The four
years of the term of a President of the United States is one of the shortest among
the Western democracies and it is no longer acceptable today that a department
like the Pentagon is not able to function in optimal manner during the first six
months of the new administration. Although awareness of these problems and
the ad hoc measures taken by each department are going to facilitate the next
transition, the next administration and the Congress should reflect deeply to ensure that long-lasting legislative measures are taken.

Read more ...

Dahlan: Iran, Qatar supported Hamas during Gaza 'coup'

Khaled Abu Toameh

Former Fatah security chief Muhammed Dahlan said Wednesday that he was not surprised by Hamas's "coup" in the Gaza Strip and that he had warned different parties about the Islamic movement's plans.


He also accused Iran and Qatar of providing Hamas with hundreds of millions of dollars.

Dahlan, who is a Fatah member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, has been accused by Hamas of conspiring with the US and Israel to remove the Hamas-led government from power. He is also under attack from some Fatah leaders and activists who hold him responsible for the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip.

His remarks came amid growing pressure on Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to negotiate with Hamas a solution to the current crisis.

Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia have advised Abbas to resume talks with Hamas leaders over the formation of a new "unity" government, a top PA official in Ramallah said. He told The Jerusalem Post that Abbas's position remained that there would be no dialogue with Hamas until it apologized for what it did in the Gaza Strip and withdrew its men from all the offices and security headquarters which they occupied.

Hamas, for its part, welcomed Arab calls for a dialogue with Fatah, but said it would not accept pre-conditions. Hamas spokesman Ayman Abu Taha said that in any case his movement was not keen on talking to a "bunch of murderers" in Fatah.

"I was not surprised by the coup in the Gaza Strip," Dahlan said. "I knew about Hamas's plans and I told different parties about this so we could try to thwart them."

Asked why the Fatah-controlled security forces were defeated by Hamas, Dahlan said: "The Palestinian security establishment was never prepared for internal fighting. Since the beginning of the intifada in 2000 our security forces faced systematic destruction by Israel. The Israelis destroyed 280 security installations in the past seven years and Hamas continued to destroy security installations before they launched their coup."

Dahlan pointed out that Hamas militiamen had raided the central prison in Gaza City and freed some murderers. "They claim that they have just liberated the Gaza Strip for the second time [after Israeli disengagement]," he said. "The Hamas men have Fatah blood on their hands. They forgot that Fatah had protected them when they were being chased by Israel."

Dahlan denied that he had played any role in the Hamas-Fatah clashes that preceded the takeover, saying he had been abroad for nearly two months for surgery. "I was not in charge of security in the Gaza Strip," he explained. "I was out of the country because I had to undergo surgery. This is not a personal matter because Hamas has been targeting our people and institutions over the past three years."

Dahlan lashed out at Qatar and Iran, accusing each country of giving Hamas $400 million. He also accused Qatar of turning its Al-Jazeera TV network into an organ for the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

"For decades, Iran never paid the Palestinians one dollar," he said. "But they gave Hamas $400 million that went to Hamas's bank accounts and not to the Palestinian people. Qatar also gave Hamas another $400 million that were used to slaughter Palestinians."

Dahlan claimed that Iran had been training many Hamas militiamen. "Our people are the victims of regional and international meddling in our affairs," he said.

He also claimed that Hamas was established with the help and support of Israel so that its members could fight against the PLO and Fatah. "Everyone knows that Israel established Hamas back then so that it could fight the PLO," he said. "When Hamas members were arrested back then for possession of weapons, they used to tell the Israelis that the guns were supposed to be used only against Communists and secular Palestinians."

Dahlan ruled out the possibility that Fatah and Hamas would patch up their differences through dialogue. "I don't believe that this is the appropriate time to talk about the resumption of dialogue with Hamas," he said.

"President Abbas does not support taking to these murderers. Besides, Hamas is continuing to hold 120 Fatah members who were kidnapped in the past few weeks. We will resort to all methods to prevent Hamas from perpetrating similar crimes in the West Bank."

In another development, Abbas decided on Wednesday to fire Gen. Musbah al-Buhaisi, commander of the PA Presidential Guard in the southern Gaza Strip, for surrendering to Hamas.

Abbas's office said the decision was taken following recommendations by the special commission of inquiry that was established last week to look into the reasons behind Fatah's defeat. It said Buhaisi was the highest-ranking security official to be dismissed since the Hamas takeover. Buhaisi and many other top security officers fled to Ramallah after Hamas took control over the Gaza Strip two weeks ago.

jpost

Read more ...

DNI's 100 day plan

By Michael Jacobson

In mid-April, nearly two months into his tenure as the nation's second Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Michael McConnell announced a "100 day plan," outlining what he hopes to accomplish during this period. McConnell stated that his plan to improve the “integration and collaboration” of the US Intelligence Community (IC) marks the “next stage in intelligence reform.”

McConnell's 100 day plan – which is intended to build on the October 2005 National Intelligence Strategy released by John Negroponte, McConnell’s predecessor -- focuses on transforming the IC in six key areas. These include: creating a culture of collaboration, accelerating information sharing, improving collection and analysis on the hardest targets, and modernizing the IC’s security and financial practices. McConnell also reorganized his office to create a directorate to manage the IC’s acquisition of new technologies.

To succeed in achieving the ambitious goals laid out in his 100 day plan, McConnell will have to be more aggressive in this role than his predecessor. There are promising signs in this regard. McConnell complained in a recent speech about his insufficient authorities, pointing out that he does not have direct power to hire or fire 15 of the 16 IC heads, as they are part of Cabinet level departments. In fact, McConnell’s 100 day plan calls for the DNI’s duties to be clarified and aligned, and notes that “more is required to realize fully the intended benefits.”

McConnell cannot wait though for additional authorities before moving to take strong action. While McConnell may regard his powers as insufficient, the reality is that the position comes with considerable authority. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism and Prevention Act of 2004, which created the DNI, imbued the position with significant control over the IC’s budget, personnel, tasking, and acquisition. The DNI plays a particularly important role in the budgetary arena, where he has the power to “develop and determine” the IC budget. The DNI can also reprogram or transfer funds and personnel within the IC without the consent of the affected agencies (with certain limitations). In addition, the DNI can use his control over IC funds as leverage, as he can withhold money from IC agencies should the need arise. The statute also explicitly gives the DNI responsibility for managing the IC’s tasking, and assigns the DNI a key role in all IC acquisitions.

While the issue of DNI authorities is important, perhaps an even more significant issue for McConnell is that he does not have a deputy in place. This position has been vacant for nearly a year, since General Hayden vacated the slot to become the head of the CIA. As the DNI, McConnell has two primary functions: leading the IC and serving as the President’s chief intelligence advisor. As McConnell noted at a recent press conference, he is spending hours every day fulfilling the latter role – particularly in preparing for and participating in the morning intelligence briefing with the President. This leaves him with far too little time to focus on leading the IC – the primary reason the DNI position was created. A strong deputy could play an important role in managing the IC and in implementing the DNI’s strategic vision of transformation. The DNI cannot adequately perform both functions on his own.

While the success of McConnell’s 100 day plan is important to his ultimate record as the DNI, more critical is the tone he sets during this period. Taking strong actions from the outset will go a long way towards establishing the DNI’s control over the IC agencies. Without an aggressive approach, the DNI will be hard pressed to make the changes that the IC needs.

counterterrorismblog.org

Read more ...

France to pullout troops from Afghanistan

PARIS - France does not plan to stay in Afghanistan, Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said Friday, hours before a deadline for a pullout of French troops in exchange for the release of two hostages.

There is no plan to continue occupying a country in the long term,’ said Douste-Blazy. ‘It goes against France’s values of respect for sovereignty, national independence and territorial integrity.’

France has contributed 1,000 men to the NATO-led force in Afghanistan, as well as Rafale fighter jets in support of the international force battling a Taleban insurrection.

Taleban militants are holding two aid workers for the French nongovernment organisation Terre d’Enfance (A World For Our Children), who went missing on April 3 with three of their Afghan staff.

The deadline for Taleban demands to be met in exchange for the release of two French hostages will expire Saturday, not Friday as originally thought, Taleban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP.

Unless its demands are met, the Taleban, which has beheaded several of its captives, has said ‘the position of Islamic Emirate (the Taleban) about foreign prisoners... (will) soon be applied.’

‘We are doing everything in Kabul and Paris to being them home soon,’ Douste-Blazy said, adding that he had ‘taken note’ of a Taleban statement on Thursday saying the hostages were in good health.


AFP

Read more ...

US: Iran could produce nuke weapon within 3 years

Iran has overcome technical difficulties in its uranium enrichment plan and may be able develop a single nuclear weapon within three years, American sources said on Friday morning.

According to an intelligence report cited by CBS, US officials have warned that Iran could have enough bomb-grade material to produce such a weapon before the previously estimated 1015.

"I think Iran can get enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon sooner than that," leading expert David Albright told CBS. "I think the 2015 number reflects too much skepticism about Iran's technical capabilities, and they are making progress."

jpost

Read more ...

Saudis arrest 172 militants in anti-terror sweep

Saudi police have arrested 172 militants and seized large quantities of arms and money in anti-terror sweep, a Saudi state TV channel reported Friday.

The channel Ekbariya quoted the Interior Ministry as saying the detained militants were plotting to attack the country's oil fields.

Read more ...

Iraq: US nabs suspected Iranian weapon smugglers

US troops detained seven suspected members of a cell smuggling sophisticated roadside bombs from Iran during a raid Friday in a Shi'ite militia stronghold in Baghdad, the military said.

The raid was targeting a network of militants helping to bring sophisticated weapons from Iran to Iraq, including so-called explosively formed "penetrators," or EFPs, which are capable of piercing armored vehicles, according to a statement.

The cell also was smuggling militants from Iraq to Iran for terrorist training and has ties to a kidnapping network that conducts attacks within Iraq, the military said.

"Individuals coming into Iraq from other countries for the purpose of endangering Iraqi civilians and disrupting security won't be tolerated," military spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Garver said in the statement.

In January, US officials said at least 170 U.S. soldiers had been killed by EFPs since 2004.

AP

Read more ...

Israel may get F-22s if nation at risk

The United States would be inclined to allow the sale of advanced stealth F-22 fighter jets to the Israeli Air Force if the State of Israel's security was in jeopardy, former US Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen told The Jerusalem Post Thursday night.

On a 24-hour visit to Israel, Cohen, who served as defense chief under President Bill Clinton from 1996 until 2000, met on Thursday with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni for talks on the looming Iranian nuclear threat and other regional issues.

Cohen currently heads the Cohen Group, which provides business consulting services and advice on tactical and strategic opportunities around the globe.

The Post reported last week that the Air Force has expressed newfound interest in receiving the F-22 - a US-developed fifth generation stealth fighter jet - and has requested that the Defense Ministry present the request on its behalf to the Pentagon. Defense officials have asked to receive the jet so Israel can retain its military edge in the region in face of American plans to sell smart bombs to Saudi Arabia.

"There is no stronger relationship than with Israel," Cohen said. "There could be circumstances that that level of technology would be released to Israelis."

While Congress and the Pentagon would be hesitant to release classified technology like the F-22 to Israel, "if it came to a question of Israeli security, I am confident they will come to help."

The F-22 has been forbidden for export by the Pentagon.

Cohen arrived in Israel Wednesday night after visiting a number of Gulf states, including Abu Dhabi and Dubai, as well as Jordan. Cohen said that during his talks with leaders in those counties he heard "sentiments" acknowledging that Iran was the greatest threat to stability in the Middle East and no longer Israel. Cohen visited Israel as secretary of defense in 2000.

"They understand that Iran is a threat to them all," he said. "There is a convergence of interest evolving and you can find that Israel is not being seen as the adversary."

With Iran funding Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Hizbullah in Lebanon and Syria, there was a need to focus on the "center" when looking to find the catalyst for instability in the Middle East, Cohen said.

"The prospect of Iran getting nuclear weapons changes the dynamics in the region with great impact for rest of world," he said. "We try to seek ways that the Gulf states can cooperate with the US. They are not yet ready to announce diplomatic relations with Israel but the sentiment is shifting and they understand that Iran is the major threat to them and not Israel."

jpost

Read more ...

IRAQ: KURDISH GOVERNMENT SIGNS 40M DEAL WITH ITALIAN FIRM

Erbil, 26 April (AKI) - An Italian company has won a 40 million dollar contract with the Kurdistan regional government for an overhaul of the electricity system in the two main power plants in the region, at Dokan and Darbandikhan. The ministry of electricity has chosen ELC-Electroconsult a global consulting engineering company, for the World Bank-funded scheme. "It is one of the biggest projects of the ministry in recent decades," a spokesman told Adnkronos International (AKI).

He added that at the signing ceremony the minister reaffirmed "the urgent need of Kurdistan for similar investment projects in various sectors but especially in electricity given the major problems the region has in this field."

"He appealed to Italian companies to invest in Kurdistan where the environment is ideal for this sort of activity," the press officer added.

During his recent visit to Italy, the president of the autonomous region of Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani, urged the government to "press Italian firms to promote strategic investment projects in Iraqi Kurdistan" stressing the "willingness of the regional government to provide all the neccessary support to investors."

The two hydroelectric plants of Dokan and Darbandikhan were built by the Russians in the 1950s but in recent years the deterioration of the original strucutre has led to a series of problems.

Electroconsult was established in 1955, with the objective of making available on the international scene the expertise accumulated over the years by two major Italian private firms leading and pioneering since 1930 in the planning, design and construction of hydropower schemes in the Alps mountain range of Northern Italy.

Read more ...

‘Dry run’ attack forces Prince Harry retreat

Army chiefs fear that a fatal attack on two British soldiers in Iraq last week was a dry run for an attempt on Prince Harry’s life, The Times has learnt.

The attack was made on a type of vehicle that the Prince will use, and took place in a part of the country where he is due to be deployed as early as next month. The two died when their Scimitar reconnaissance vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb – the first time that British soldiers had been killed in a Scimitar as a result of enemy action.

The Army fears that extremists deliberately chose the vehicle knowing that the Prince is a troop leader for a Scimitar-equipped unit.

Prince Harry faces a kidnap threat from insurgents, who have become active this month even within bases used by the British Army in southern Iraq. Security has been tightened at Camp Sparrowhawk, a base in Maysan Province used by reconnaissance units such as Prince Harry’s.


British soldiers are under orders not to walk around the Iraqi-run base for fear of kidnapping, either by insurgents who have infiltrated Iraqi ranks, or by Iraqi soldiers who are tempted by the possibility of ransom.

A British commanding officer at the base also said that insurgents were “trying out new devices” against his troops. He added that his men were often being tracked by militias using mobile phones and by observers on motorbikes.

The eleventh-hour review about sending Prince Harry to the area follows an alarming rise in attacks this year. Of the 17 British personnel to be killed in 2007, 11 died in the last month. Prince Harry, 22, has been trained to take command of four Scimitars when his unit, A Squadron The Blues and Royals, part of the Household Cavalry, is sent to Iraq.

The two soldiers who died in last week’s attack were Corporal Ben Leaning, 24, and Trooper Kristen Turton, 28, both from The Queen’s Royal Lancers. Their bodies were repatriated to Britain yesterday. Another soldier was very seriously wounded.

The attack has also raised further concerns that the presence of Prince Harry might increase the risk of casualties during his six-month deployment.

General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the Army who made the decision to send Prince Harry to Iraq after consultation with Buckingham Palace and Clarence House, will make the final judgment. He has about a week to decide whether to stick to his original decision or to keep him at home.

The Ministry of Defence and royal sources said that at present Prince Harry was still bound for Iraq, unless General Dannatt changed his mind.

Defence sources said that every aspect of Prince Harry’s deployment was being reassessed, and that the military and intelligence services in Iraq had been asked urgently to give their views.

They added that General Dannatt wanted to know if the insurgents had acquired a greater capability to attack British troops, if there would be a higher risk of casualties with the Prince serving as an officer, and if security conditions had significantly deteriorated since the earlier decision in February.

One of the key judgments is whether Prince Harry can do the job for which he is trained without putting himself and his men at an unacceptable risk. Defence sources said that the Prince – known in the Army as 2nd Lieutenant (Cornet) Wales – would not be spending all his time in a Scimitar vehicle carrying out operations.

“Like any other officer of his rank, he will also be required to do desk work, either as a watch-keeper or planning missions, so he will spend some of his time back at base anyway,” one source said.

However, the judgment is that there is no point in sending Prince Harry to do a permanent desk job for six months when he has trained to command 11 men as a troop leader in a reconnaissance role.

Even sitting in a base has become risky as every location where British soldiers are serving comes under fire almost daily. “Nowhere is perfectly safe in Iraq,” one defence source admitted.

But the current intelligence judgment is that the insurgents have not acquired a new capability that made it easier for them to target British units, or to close in on Prince Harry’s squadron.

Royal sources made it clear that the final decision was in the hands of the Army. They said that he was still eager to go and that he would be “extremely disappointed” if the decision was reversed.

They dismissed claims from inside the Household Cavalry that he would quit the Army if he was barred from going to Iraq. “Prince Harry is a grown-up and he’ll take whatever the decision is, but he wants to go to Iraq, and to say he would quit the Army if he didn’t is way too strong,” one said.

Friends of the Prince confirmed that he had no intention of resigning his commission.

Defence sources said that the review of the decision would continue “right up until Prince Harry is due to leave for Iraq”.


the times

Read more ...

Somalia says it has defeated insurgents

MOGADISHU, Somalia - Somalia's prime minister claimed victory Thursday over Islamic insurgents in Mogadishu, where nine days of battles using tanks and artillery left hundreds dead.

Western diplomats were skeptical of the claim. The diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of damaging relations with Somalia's interim government, said the insurgents had suffered many casualties and were running low on ammunition, but were not yet defeated.

Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi said government forces and their Ethiopian allies had captured an insurgent stronghold in the northern part of the capital and that more than 100 fighters had surrendered. He said the city should be secure by Friday.

"We have won the fighting against the insurgents," Gedi told The Associated Press by telephone from Mogadishu, saying that small, mopping-up operations were still under way. "The worst of the fighting in the city is now over."

Machine gun and artillery fire could still be heard in the south of Mogadishu, a coastal city of 2 million people. An estimated 340,000 Somalis have fled the city's worst fighting in 15 years.

"People can now return to their homes," Gedi said. "The rest of the fighting will be over soon. We have captured the stronghold of the terrorists. We will capture any terrorists who have escaped."

The insurgents are linked to the Council of Islamic Courts, which was driven from power in December by Somali and Ethiopian soldiers, accompanied by U.S. special forces. The U.S. has accused the courts of having ties to al-Qaida.

The militants reject any secular government, and have sworn to fight until Somalia becomes an Islamic emirate.

Somalia has been mired in chaos since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then battled each other. A national government was established in 2004 with U.N. help, but it has failed to assert any real control.

AP

Read more ...

Jordan: Man arrested for honor killing of sister

Jordanian authorities arrested a man accused of killing his 30-year-old sister on suspicion that she had a love affair, even though he had earlier signed a pledge to the police that he would not harm her, a police official said Thursday.

The crime, which took place in the eastern industrial city of Zarqa on Wednesday, brings to eight the total number of women killed since January in what is known as "honor crimes."

An average of 20 women are killed by male relatives each year in Jordan, a largely conservative Muslim society where men have the final say in all family matters. Many here consider sex out of wedlock an indelible stain on a family's reputation. Some women in conservative circles of the society have been killed simply for dating.

Read more ...

Iran: US seeks to undermine regime

A top security official accused the United States Thursday of seeking to undermine Iran's clerical regime by stoking sectarian and ethnic tensions in the country and using newspapers and non-governmental agencies toward that goal.

"A soft threat is the main plan of the US due to its incapability to launch a military operation [against Iran,]" Deputy Interior Minister Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.

Zolqadr, whose comments came in a speech he made in Iran's Kurdistan province, said, "The threat is being implemented through the creation of instability and tension inside Iran as well as fanning ethnic and sectarian differences."

"The threat is being implemented through the creation of instability and tension inside Iran as well as fanning ethnic and sectarian differences," said Zolqadr.

Earlier Thursday, he said that his country would attack Israel and American targets throughout the world if Teheran were attacked over its nuclear program, Israel Radio reported.

According to the official Iranian news agency, the official, who deals with defense issues, said that no American would be safe from Iran's long-range missiles.

"We are prepared to fire tens of thousands of these missiles every day," he said.

He added that the Shahab 3 missiles, which have a range of some 2,000 kilometers, could hit Israel, as well as US Army bases in the Persian Gulf.

Meanwhile, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, expressed a more positive view of the situation, saying Thursday morning that Wednesday's talks with EU Foreign Police Chief Javier Solana had brought them closer to "a united view" of how to break a deadlock over Teheran's defiance of a UN Security Council demand to freeze uranium enrichment.

Larijani added that Iran was "aiming to reach out for a common paradigm."

The two reported progress after their six-hour meeting on Wednesday evening, and planned to meet again in two weeks' time.

"We had a good meeting," Solana told reporters. "We cannot make miracles, but we tried to move...the [nuclear] dossier forward."

jpost

Read more ...

US considering athlete exchange program with Iran

The US Olympic Committee is in preliminary talks with Iran to bring a few of that country's rowers and wrestlers to the United States to train for the 2008 Beijing Games.

The USOC has similar exchange agreements in place with many countries, including China. The US brought Iraqi boxers, wrestlers and archers to the country before the 2004 Olympics and could strike another deal with Iraq for this Olympic cycle.

The USOC is working with the US State Department on the negotiations with Iran, which are "in the very early stages of development," USOC spokesman Darryl Seibel said.

Read more ...

Two Chinese companies deny dealings with Iran, Syria

BEIJING, China(AFP) - Two Chinese companies, hit with fresh US sanctions aimed at stopping banned military dealings with Iran and Syria, denied Tuesday that they were doing business with the two nations.

"We don't have any military dealings with either Iran or Syria," Wang Qing, secretary of manager of Beijing-based China National Precision Machinery Import and Export Corporation, told AFP.

The Zibo Chemet Equipment Company (China), another company that is targeted by the sanctions announced by Washington on Monday, also denied any involvement.

"We used to have a little business with Iran and Syria, but no more now," said an official surnamed Wang, with the international trading department of the company that is based in the eastern province of Shandong.

The Shanghai Non-Ferrous Metals Pudong Development Trade Company, the last Chinese company on the list, was not immediately available for comment.

The three firms, along with another 11 entities from various countries, were accused by Washington of transferring to or buying from Iran or Syria materials related to cruise or ballistic missile systems or weapons of mass destruction.

Under the Iran and Syria Nonproliferation Act, the 14 are barred from doing business with or receiving aid from any US government agencies for two years.

US State Department officials refused to elaborate on specific charges against any of the named entities, saying this could reveal classified intelligence information.

The two Chinese firms contacted by AFP said they had not been officially informed of the new sanctions.

But Wang from China National Precision Machinery Import and Export Corporation said his company was already the subject of previous sanctions from the United States.

"We have been on their list for a long time. The old sanctions are not over yet. (The sanctions) hurt our business," Wang said.

Read more ...

Two Types of Splinter Groups Break from Moqtada al-Sadr

By Babak Rahimi

Moqtada al-Sadr
The recent rise of Sadrist splinter groups is a sign of a major shakeup in the Sadrist movement, so far mainly dominated by Moqtada al-Sadr. These splinter groups represent a deep-seated change in the Sadrist faction in both ideological and militaristic terms, which could have major implications for the future of Iraq. The increase in the number of these splinter groups since 2005 is mainly due to al-Sadr's growing relations with the Iraqi government and Tehran. These groups view al-Sadr as a traitor who has forsaken his father's stance against foreign threats for personal and political gain. The participation of al-Sadr's representatives in parliament and his flirtation with Tehran since 2005 have directly led to the creation of two distinct breakaway groups. These two groups are millenarian-cultic in ideology and gang-like in the organizational sense. They are mostly formed in such locations as Baghdad and southern Iraq and are made up of young men who maintain anti-occupation or anti-Sunni sentiments.

The followers of Abu Maha and Ismael al-Zerjawi represent the first type of Sadrist splinter groups (Terrorism Focus, October 10, 2006; Terrorism Monitor, November 16, 2006). They are the most anti-Sunni faction of the Sadrists, who broke away from al-Sadr primarily after the increase of sectarian tensions in 2005 (although some even splintered earlier). These groups can be found largely in Sadr City, where most of the Sunni-Shiite fighting takes place. Al-Zerjawi, also known as Abu Deraa, is best known for his attacks on the Sunni district of Adhamiya in northern Baghdad (Terrorism Monitor, November 16, 2006). Other Mahdi Army officers, like Hassan Salim and Haj Shimel, are veterans of the 2004 Sadrist uprising in Najaf against U.S. forces. These former commanders all maintain anti-occupation and anti-Sunni ideologies with an on-the-field military background.

The second type of splinter group, such as the Hussain Army, led by Mahmud al-Hassani Sarkhi, and the shadowy cult of Dhia Abdul Zahra and his Soldiers of Heaven, is the most cultic and sectarian. As Mahdistic movements, these groups are mainly led by young or middle-aged clerics who seek to overcome any form of Shiite orthodoxy, with claims to worldly power through military force. The origin of these groups dates back to the late 1990s after the death of Moqtada's father, Ayatollah Sadeq al-Sadr, who is believed to have been the most perfect representative of the Hidden Imam on earth. The bases of these groups are primarily located in southern cities such as Karbala and Basra, which have long histories of millenarian-mystical movements with anti-establishment ideologies. They represent the most anti-Iranian and Arab nationalistic currents in the Sadrist splinter groups as they vie for followers among both the tribal and urban population of southern Iraq. It is interesting to note that Sarkhi has also found followers in Iran, despite his anti-Iranianism. The conservative clerical establishment in Iran, however, identifies Sarkhi as a false representative of the Mahdi and even as an Israeli agent (Baztab, May 17, 2006).

The implication of the growing rise of these movements is complicated. First and foremost, these splinter groups can cause major instability in the Sadrist movement that is being gradually pacified by the Najaf clerical establishment. As members of the Mahdi Army break ranks and join these new groups, al-Sadr begins to lose more control of his followers and lessens the prospect of containing his movement within the boundaries of the Iraqi political process. Second, these groups can also unleash a major attack on the Shiite orthodoxy in Najaf, creating new cultic and sectarian movements in the Shiite community of Iraq that could lead to a new religious civil war.

The Najaf clerical establishment will most certainly play a major role in quashing these groups, as it did in January when, on the eve of one of the holiest days in the Shiite calendar, Ashura, the followers of Zahra were crushed by Iraqi and U.S. forces, tipped off by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's informants who had infiltrated the group (author interview with a seminary student in Qom, January 29). The key is to recognize that this new phenomenon is an internal Shiite problem and that the clerical establishment in Najaf is best prepared to match the rise of these splinter groups.

Read more ...

Mapping the electronic jihad

In the wake of the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, as al-Qaida and other jihadist groups lost their physical center, they turned to the internet to provide a virtual hub of communications, coordination, exchange and outreach. Simultaneously, a wave of radicalism surged through the Muslim world. Those swept up by it searched for portals into the world of radical Islam. The internet provided the access they sought. From RSIS.

By Rebecca Givner-Forbes and Clay Shwery for RSIS (25/04/07)

Jihadists stoked this support from hideouts and battlegrounds, flooding newly-created web forums with propaganda, statements, interviews and news from the field. What arose was an online jihadi presence, dynamic and energetic, which served to fill part of the gap left by the loss of a physical centre and to satisfy the new requirements of the burgeoning worldwide ideological movement.

A small, exclusive group of Arabic-language websites now forms the core of this virtual community. These forums serve as the point of interaction for active members and passive supporters worldwide. A crucial sense of community is fostered within these spaces, with members signing on daily to discuss the ongoing trials and tribulations of the international Jihad, develop consensus on current events, engage in theological debates, and even plan hypothetical attacks. This presence, dubbed "the Electronic Jihad" by its members, is fast coalescing into a virtual community of believers, steadily growing in strength, influence, and technological sophistication, and now proving as indispensable to the global jihadi movement as are guns and bombs.

While it was possible to identify this community in virtual space, the physical distribution of its membership remained a mystery. Some analysts speculated that the community was likely concentrated in European countries, where there are large Muslim communities and high internet penetration. Others pointed to the religiously conservative but technologically modern Persian Gulf states. Meanwhile, content analysis hinted at the possibility of a far-flung global distribution of membership. But speculation and content analysis had extensive limitations, and hard data on the geographic distribution of jihadi website visitors remained elusive.

A new, publicly available online tool now allows for a better assessment of where the members of this virtual jihadi community are physically located. This tool - the traffic-tracking website www.alexa.com - extrapolates from a smaller sample a general approximation of the distribution of the visitors to a given website. Running this tool against the URLs of the primary websites of the Electronic Jihad provides a basic breakdown of their traffic.
Debunking old theories

Analysis performed using alexa.com debunks previous theories. It shows that the bulk of visits to jihadi websites come from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) – not the Diaspora communities of Europe. Nor are they significantly concentrated in the Persian Gulf states. However, the data also show that, though the majority may be located in the MENA region, at least forty countries on every inhabited continent have some representation in this truly global virtual community.

In an analysis of 10 of the most influential and important jihadi web forums, we observed that 78.1 percent of visits came from Middle Eastern and North African countries. Visits from nations in the Americas were at a distant second, at around 5.9 percent. Visits originating in European countries made up 4.8 percent of the total. Only 1.4 percent of visits to jihadi websites came from East Asia. Roughly 1.5 percent came from Pakistan, and another 1 percent from Australia (the remaining came from countries whose visit numbers on each site were too small to produce data in the alexa.com program).
text

Because data were unavailable for a significant portion of the traffic (see text box), this picture of distribution represents only a rough approximation. Still, it is more information than has been available previously, when analysis of the visitors to a given website was a painstaking matter of mining content for colloquialisms specific to the dialects of certain regions, or references to specific locations, currencies, or commercial products – a process which failed to yield enough data for an overview of distribution. The data gleaned from the Alexa analysis, rough though it is, lends some contour to the fuzzy image of this mysterious community, even if it cannot provide a precise picture.

In addition to analyzing the distribution of extremist website traffic, we also studied the relative user activity for individual countries. To do so, we calculated an estimate of the total number of unique visitors per country for each website. Numbers of visits to different websites were summed up by country to obtain a number of total visits to all the included extremist websites for each country. (Because unique users to one website could access multiple included sites, this activity metric is a measurement of visits, not visitors). We divided each number by the total amount of Internet users for the same country, in order to obtain that country's measure of activity. This measurement of activity is presented as number of visits to extremist websites per hundred users, or visits/100 users. (The calculation of this activity metric relies on estimated Internet populations of different countries, and because of this our presented activity measurements should be treated as estimations.)
Intensity of users

The results of these measurements were illuminating. The Palestinian Territories displayed an activity level of 15.72 visits per 100 users. This level of activity is extraordinarily high; no other country exhibited a level higher than 11 percent of this amount. This finding is startling given that the Palestinian Territories lack an established Salafi-Jihadi organization.

The activity measurements for most MENA countries were high. Only Israel, Libya and Turkey exhibited activity levels of less than .1 visits/100 users (or 1 visit per 1,000 users). For comparison, this threshold of 1 visit per 1,000 users was broken only once by a country outside the MENA region (in Panama, which exhibited 2.2 hits per 1,000 users).

In addition to the Palestinian Territories, high activity measurements were found in Jordan (1.72 visits/100 users), Qatar (1.05 visits/100 users), Kuwait (1.02 visits/100 users), Bahrain (.88 visits/100 users), Saudi Arabia (.65 visits/100 users), United Arab Emirates (.59 visits/100 users), Yemen (.51 visits/100 users) and Algeria (.48 visits/100 users).

The Palestinian Territories also topped the list in terms of absolute number of visits, in spite of their small population and relatively low Internet penetration. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan follow the Palestinian Territories in contributing the most visits to the websites analyzed. In East Asia, Indonesia, followed by Malaysia, has the most visitors to jihadist sites, followed by China and Japan. The US and the UK both showed significant traffic for non-Muslim countries, comprising 3.97 percent and .97 percent, respectively, of total traffic to extremist websites.

The near exclusive use of the Arabic language in these significant jihadi websites likely accounts for the concentration of activity in the Middle East and North Africa. But with a reach to more than 40 countries, the virtual community within these ten influential sites assumes a global significance. The international jihadi movement's use of the internet to fuel the exchange of ideological expansion and its corresponding influx of support will increase the vulnerability of many countries to the appeal of extremism.

Read more ...

Hezbollah Training in North Korea

Hezbollah is currently re-constituting its resources with support from Iran and North Korea.

According to security service sources in Lebanon, Hezbollah’s secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, paid a four-day visit to Tehran starting on April 2. He was accompanied by his political adviser, Hussein Khalil (IOL 537) and Iran’s ambassador to Syria, Hassan Akhtari. Nasrallah met with Iran’s spiritual leader, Ali Khamenei; president Mahmud Ahmadinejad; the commander in chief of the Revolutionary Guards (Pasdarans), gen. Yehia Rahim Safavi; the army chief-of-staff, gen. Hossein Firuzabadi; and Ali Larijani, secretary-general of Iran’s National Security Council.

The talks focussed essentially on a reorganization of Hezbollah’s military wing following the conflict with Israel last summer. Iran reportedly pledged to deliver new medium-range missiles to Hezbollah, such as the Al Fateh 110 (170-200 km), reputed to be more accurate than Zalzal missiles. Sam 7 and a few Stinger missiles recovered in Afghanistan will give Hezbollah some anti-aircraft cover as well.

Elsewhere, the Pasdaran leadership confirmed it had reached an agreement with Pyongyang to allow around 100 Hezbollah field commanders to attend training courses in North Korea. Some Hezbollah personnel arrived in North Korea in February for training in commando tactics with Pyongyang’s special forces and to bone up on intelligence and counter-espionage methods.

Indeed, Hezbollah’s new military format calls for each chief in a military zone to also act as head of security and counter-espionage. During the clash last summer, Hezbollah suffered greatly from a separation of military and intelligence functions.

Relations between Hezbollah and the North Korean regime date back some years. In September, for instance, Intelligence Online (IOL 529) revealed Hezbollah had learned the bunker strategy it used to resist Israeli attacks in North Korea.

Read more ...

How Iran Bankrolls its Projects

Western intelligence agencies are taking a close look on how Iran finances its major energy projects.

One of the mainstays of the funding effort is a Jersey-based Iranian firm Naftiran Intertrade Company (NICO), which set up its leading establishment at Pully near Lausanne in Switzerland in 2002. An affiliate of the National Iranian Oil Company, it has been run since 1999 by Majid Razavi Hedayatzadeh, former Iranian envoy to Rome where he formed tight ties with ENI. NICO, which enjoys large credit lines with major banks such as France’s BNP Paribas and Calyon and Japan’s JBIC, played a big part in financing the South Pars gas fields. It has just announced that it will shortly award three contracts for the Azadegan oil project near the border with Iraq and claimed the deals would be worth a total of USD 95 billion.That announcement, however, is certainly premature because of the strong pressing the U.S. is bringing to bear on international banks. In that context, NICO could be tempted to call on lesser- known banks with which it has worked in the past, like BLOM Bank in Lebanon, to put up part of the finance.

BLOM is run by Syria’s Azhari family, which holds a majority stake in the bank, and has long been entrenched in Geneva, Paris (its affiliate in the French capital, Banorabe, was formed in 1976), London, Dubai, Damas, Amman and elsewhere. Among prominent persons sitting on its board is the Saudi businessman of Turkish origin, Ghassan Ibrahim Shaker, who holds a high French distinction, remains close to the Saudi royal family and serves as personal consultant to the ruler of Oman, sultan Qaboos Bin Sayed (he is also Oman’s ambassador to London and Geneva).

One way of avoiding pressure on banks has been to conduct clearing operations between several capitals and a number of big international groups. A number of such operations have involved a highly discreet Iranian businesswomen who divides her time between Paris and London, Shakira Zanganeh. The wife of Adnan Khashoggi, she acts on behalf of several major European groups. Her father was one of the heroes of the Iranian revolution and she is related to a former Iran oil minister, Bijan Namdar Zanganeh (he held the post until 2006). The latter, like Hedayatrzadeh, is a stalwart supporter of the powerful chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council, Akbar Hashemi Rafsandjani.

INTELLIGENCE ONLINE N° 545

Read more ...

Spinning the Fighting in South Waziristan

Musharraf's government continues to promote its dangerous "peace deals."
by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross & Bill Roggio

THE PAKISTANI GOVERNMENT has entered into two agreements in the past seven months that promise to destabilize Afghanistan and provide a haven for terrorists to plan and train for catastrophic attacks.

Under the September 2006 Waziristan Accord, Pakistan agreed that its military would no longer operate in the tribal agencies of North and South Waziristan; since this left the Taliban and al Qaeda free to recruit, train, arm, and send fighters into Afghanistan, the security situation in Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan unsurprisingly deteriorated. On March 17, Pakistan entered a disturbingly similar agreement--handing the Bajaur agency over to Taliban-aligned tribes. But recent events show that Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf's government is intent on spinning both accords as successes.

There are somewhere between a few hundred to around a thousand militants from Central Asian republics in South Waziristan. On March 6, some of them were involved in a skirmish that saw a pro-government tribal leader clash with a group of Uzbeks and their Taliban supporters in a South Waziristan bazaar. The fighting left seventeen Uzbeks and a tribesman dead. Two weeks later, a local Taliban commander named Mullah Nazir entered the fray after accusations that the Uzbeks had killed a mid-level al Qaeda commander in his care named Saiful Asad. Why the Uzbeks killed Asad is unknown, but observers suggest there may have been a criminal dimension at play since Asad was known as a moneyman.

Perversely, Pakistan quickly painted Mullah Nazir's retaliatory attacks on behalf of an al Qaeda confederate as proof of the
Waziristan Accord's success--and the gullible international media echoed Pakistan's claims.

Shortly after Mullah Nazir became involved in the fighting, Pakistani interior minister Aftab Sherpao told the media that the bloodshed was "the result of the agreements the government made with tribal people in which they pledged to expel foreigners and now they are doing it." The Pakistani newspaper the Nation echoed Sherpao's spin, noting that "Islamabad says the offensive by about 1,000 conservative local tribesmen will cut cross-border attacks in Afghanistan, and shows the success of a peace deal in the South Waziristan Agency that was criticised by the West." Western journalists likewise repeated the line that the fighting stemmed from the tribes' desire to eject foreign militants from Pakistani soil.

Islamabad's spin is implausible and, in fact, dangerous. This is an internal conflict fueled by tribal rivalries, the Uzbeks' murder of al Qaeda agents, a disagreement in strategic priorities, and land. It was the combination of these factors that gave Mullah Nazir the impetus to fight.

The first of these factors, an inter-Taliban power struggle, centers on the rivalry between Mullah Nazir and a Taliban commander known as Mullah Omar (but not the Mullah Omar). The two have been at odds since Mullah Nazir replaced Mullah Omar as head of the Ahmadzai tribe--both because of Mullah Nazir's usurpation and also preexisting clan rivalries.

The rivalry between the two men was inflamed when the Uzbeks, with whom Mullah Omar had aligned himself, killed Arab al Qaeda operative Saiful Asad. The Uzbeks also reportedly killed Sheikh Asadullah, a Saudi who was described as "the moneybags in the entire tribal belt," although it isn't known when this killing took place. Mullah Nazir was incensed by these killings, as both men were under his care when their lives were taken.

A third factor is that the Uzbeks had different strategic priorities than the local Taliban and their tribal allies. While the tribes are eager to engage U.S. forces in Afghanistan, the Uzbeks prefer to fight the "near enemy" rather than the "far enemy": they want to engage the Pakistani government. This worried the Taliban, backed by Mullah Nazir, because attacks on the government could draw unwanted attention. They figured that Pakistan's government might only turn a blind eye to jihadist violence if that violence focused outward on Afghanistan, Kashmir, or India--not on Pakistan itself.

Fourth, the fighting may be a land grab. The tribal areas are essentially set up as a feudal society, with land serving as a key component of local power. Journalist Mobarak Ali told the Pakistani press, "I have heard of the Uzbeks and Tajiks holding large properties of which some were bought, some gifted by the local people who entered into relations with them, while some were taken forcibly." Ali said that one bone of contention between the Uzbeks and locals may be these properties, which some Uzbeks developed into model farms.

These four factors best explain the recent skirmishes in South Waziristan. The only party to argue that a general desire to push foreign fighters out of Waziristan was a factor is the Musharraf regime.

That argument does not withstand scrutiny. Although Mullah Nazir's tribesmen declared a jihad against some Uzbeks and their local supporters in South Waziristan, Arab al Qaeda were not included in this jihad--and the tribesmen didn't
even target all Uzbeks in the area. Pakistan's News International notes that the tribesmen are only fighting what they describe as the "bad Uzbeks," rather than the "good Uzbeks."

The bad Uzbeks are part of the Islamic Jihad Group, a faction that splintered from the terrorist Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) in 2004. Islamic Jihad Group militants in Waziristan are intent on fighting the "near enemy," including Pakistan's government, rather than U.S. and Coalition forces.

And the good Uzbeks? Rather than being part of the Islamic Jihad Group, they are affiliated with the main IMU, led by Tahir Yuldashev. This faction has closely aligned itself with al Qaeda and the Taliban. Yuldashev is believed to sit on al Qaeda's global shura council and maintains tactical control of about 500 fighters in Pakistan. Intelligence sources believe that some of these fighters serve on the Black Guard, bin Laden's personal corps of bodyguards. Yuldashev enjoys a close relationship with bin Laden, and his strategic preferences align with Mullah Nazir's: he also supports attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan. The fact that these are the "good Uzbeks" undermines Pakistan's claims about the recent fighting.

Moreover, Mullah Nazir's relationships with various al Qaeda operatives shows that he's not trying to drive Arab al Qaeda fighters from Waziristan. He has been a known ally of operatives Asad, Asadullah, and Khadr Al Kanadi, who had worked with al Qaeda for more than a decade and was reportedly one of Osama bin Laden's closer associates.

When the Pakistani government intervenes militarily to aid Mullah Nazir, it isn't helping the tribes push Islamic militants out of the country. Instead, the intervention is the equivalent of the U.S. government fighting the Tattaglias on the Corleones' behalf.

But, one might ask, isn't it good that the Taliban tribes and al Qaeda-aligned Uzbeks are fighting each other? Shouldn't we celebrate this schism? The answer is that the fighting is a positive turn for us, but the long-term impact may be relatively insignificant to al Qaeda. Like an internal mafia war, one family rises to the top in the end and the criminal enterprise continues.

But there is a real danger for the West. If the fighting is incorrectly viewed as a Waziristan Accord success story, it may lead some observers to believe that future Waziristan Accords are sustainable--and thus alleviate Western pressure to avoid such deals.

counterterrorismblog.org

Read more ...

Nine Chinese and 65 Ethiopians killed on Ethiopian oil field

Nine Chinese and 65 Ethiopian employees were killed on Tuesday in an attack by armed men on an oil field in eastern Ethiopia, a spokesman for Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told AFP.

About 200 unidentified gunmen launched an attack on the oil field in Somali state where China's Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau was exploring for oil, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The attackers engaged more than 100 soldiers protecting the field in a fierce 50 minute gun battle, the report said, citing Xu Shuang, the manager of Zhongyuan petroleum, a subsidiary of China's oil giant Sinopec.

The attack was also confirmed by China's embassy in Ethiopia, Xinhua said.

The oil field is located in Abole, a small town about 120 kilometres (75 miles) away from the Somali state capital of Jijiga, it said.

China has stepped up investment and exploration in African oil fields in recent years as its appetite for energy has boomed along with its growing economy.

Chinese workers have also been plagued by a spate of killings and kidnappings in Nigeria in recent months where Beijing is also aggressively seeking to develop the nation's oil reserves.

Read more ...

Criticism mounts over Iran headscarf crackdown

The police force were facing increasing criticism on Tuesday for their handling of a nationwide crackdown aimed at making women abide by Iran's Islamic dress code.

Thousands of women have been warned and hundreds arrested for wearing overly loose headscarves or excessively tight coats, prompting warnings in the press that the authorities should be focusing on other economic priorities.

Even the overall head of the judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, who is appointed by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, urged police against heavy-handed actions against women found to have broken the rules.

"Hauling women and young people to the police station will have no use except to cause damage to society," the reformist Etemad Melli newspaper quoted Shahroudi as telling a meeting of local governors.

"Tough measures on social problems will backfire and have counter-productive effects," he warned.

Witnesses have said that the drive, launched on Saturday, has not been universally popular on Tehran's streets, with parents of the women apprehended in particular unafraid of making their feelings clear to the police.

Reformist newspapers and the ISNA student news agency reported that 2,000 students at a prestigious university in the southern city of Shiraz staged a protest on Sunday night over new restrictions on conduct and clothing.

The protests were triggered by a new code of conduct banning the students from wearing shorts and sleeveless vests outside rooms in their strictly segregated dormitories and an extended curfew.

It is not clear whether the new directive was in line with the nationwide clampdown on dressing, which also applies to men.

Critics in the media also complained that the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had more important issues to deal with, citing the country's soaring inflation and high unemployment rates.

"Mr President, I wonder if what the police, supervised by your interior ministry, are doing to women stems from a misunderstanding?" asked Masih Alinejad, a columnist in the Etemad Melli daily.

"Or are people's major problems of injustice and poverty have been resolved?" he asked.

Alinejad recalled that Ahmadinejad asked during his 2005 electoral campaign whether the problem "in our country was two strands of women's hair or fighting poverty, creating jobs and implementing justice?"

Two-thirds of Iran's 70-million population is under 30 and the official unemployment rate stands at about 11 percent. Economists have warned against rising inflation, estimated to hit 24 percent in the current Iranian year.

Even the hardline daily Kayhan said that "being badly-veiled is not the only vice" in the country.

"There are major vices such as going to bed hungry, being deprived of higher education, unemployment and the inability of a large number of people to provide for their basic needs," it said.

"The officials should prove they have plans to resolve these as well," wrote Kayhan, whose chief editor in also appointed by Khamenei.

Some conservatives have applauded the crackdown as important at a time when many women are pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable by showing off naked ankles and fashionably styled hair beneath their headscarves.

But Ahmadinejad's government on Tuesday sought to distance itself from the clampdown, which it said was being carried out by police as "agents of the judiciary".

"The police work as agents of the judiciary to confront crimes. The government as an executive body does not interfere in the affairs of the judiciary," government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham told reporters.

Iran has issued 3,500 warnings nationwide and detained around 200 women in the new drive launched on Saturday, according to the latest police figures quoted by local media.

The campaign is aimed primarily at women seen to infringe the rules of covering their heads and bodily contours that have been in place since the Islamic revolution in 1979.

afp

Read more ...

Turkey's military prepares for May invasion of N. Iraq

ANKARA — Turkey has drafted plans for a major military operation in northern Iraq within days or weeks.

On April 20, Turkey's NTV television said the Turkish military has set a "specific timetable" for the offensive against the Kurdish Workers Party in Iraq. NTV said the proposed force would attack PKK camps in the Kandil mountains.
Turkish sources said a force of at least 10,000 troops, backed by main battle tanks, armored vehicles, helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, was being formed for the invasion. They said the operation could take place in May.

NTV said the military would monitor the PKK insurgency campaign until May. At that point, the military would be ready to send forces into Iraq.

Over the last two weeks, Turkish military commanders have been urging the government of Prime Minister Recep Erdogan to approve an offensive against the PKK. The commanders were said to have assessed that U.S. efforts to block PKK activities in northern Iraq failed.

At this point, the Erdogan government has refused to approve the invasion. Instead, the military was being allowed to operate along the Iraqi border.

A senior Turkish official, however, discussed the prospect of an invasion of northern Iraq with the Bush administration. Turkish coordinator of Kurdish affairs, Adip Bashar, was said to have told the administration that Turkey would wait till the end of April before deciding on the invasion.

The Turkish military has assessed that about 500 PKK operatives were in secret bases in southeastern Turkey. Another 5,000 have crossed into Turkey from Iraq and were attacking Turkish troops and police.

world tribune

Read more ...

Russia to build eight nuclear submarines by 2017

MOSCOW: Russia will build eight nuclear submarines armed with Bulava intercontinental missiles by 2017, junior Defence Minister Alexi Moskovski said Sunday as the first of them was launched.

"Seven submarines of the Borei (type 955) will be built and launched by the navy between now and 2015. The eighth will be received in 2017," the Interfax news agency quoted him as saying.

The Yuri Dolgoruky submarine, launched at the northwestern naval base of Severodvinsk, is the first strategic nuclear submarine built in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The Bulava missiles can carry 10 nuclear warheads with a range of up to 8,000 kilometres (5,000 miles).

Read more ...

Iraq economy: Kurdish promise

FROM THE ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT

You would be hard pushed to find an area keener on attracting foreign investors than Iraqi Kurdistan. The region is almost entirely dependent on imports, as the authorities search for ways to rebuild an economic base that was all but destroyed during the Anfal campaign of Saddam Hussein in the late 1980s.

Local industry and, especially, agriculture (once the dominant employer in Kurdistan) were all but annihilated by the time Kurdistan gained its autonomy in late 1991. Large parts of the local population had been forcibly evicted from their razed villages to the towns by Saddam, and subsequently employed in the public sector in an effort to ensure their dependence on Baghdad (even now some 1.1m people out of the Kurdistan population of 5m still work in the public sector). Meanwhile, infrastructure was left to deteriorate, and several universities and schools closed. From such an unpromising beginning, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) was born, comprising the three governorates of Dohuk, Erbil (the regional capital) and Suleimaniyah. A civil war between the two main Iraqi Kurdish parties--the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)--between 1994 and 1996 hardly helped matters, and led to a splitting of the administration into their respective strongholds in Erbil and Suleimaniyah. Since that time, however, the region's fortunes have revived, as the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and the descent into anarchy in Baghdad and much of central Iraq, combined with a rapprochement between the PUK and the KDP (most state ministries are now merged and located in Erbil), has seen the KRG area emerge as a relative haven of stability.

Gateway

This has allowed the KRG to project itself as a "gateway to Iraq", aiming to draw in foreign companies seeking to take advantage of the reconstruction opportunities in "Arab Iraq", but which are deterred by the lack of security throughout much of the rest of the country. However, even this is proving a challenge. Despite there having being only two bomb attacks in Kurdistan since the fall of Saddam in 2003, the region's image continues to suffer from the headline-grabbing horrors witnessed daily in other parts of the country, and Western officials and businessmen still often prefer to hire private security firms to ferry them around. Such attitudes exasperate some in the KRG--as well as the general public--and it is easy to sympathise with their frustration. At least in the cities, the Peshmerga maintain a reassuring, albeit somewhat pervasive, presence, and the locals are friendly, and, as such, Westerners are often seen walking unaccompanied.

The government has sought to supersede security concerns by passing one of the most foreigner-friendly investment laws in the entire Middle East. Under the investment law of 2006, foreigners not only enjoy some of the advantages on offer in various other Arab states--such as a ten-year tax holiday, and free repatriation of capital—they can also purchase land (for only a "symbolic" fee), which will be theirs for perpetuity. The law has been widely praised by both local and foreign businesses in the area, and, according to the head of the Board of Investment, Herish Muhamad, as of March some 17 firms had already registered. Yet his admission that most of these were connected to property projects highlights the unbalanced nature of the region's current economic recovery.

Real estate boom

The property sector in Kurdistan is booming. The massive US$1bn "Nishtiman" shopping mall is under construction in the centre of the Erbil, and a swathe of housing projects, including notably "Dream City" on the outskirts of the city, are presently in-build. A leading local businessman, Ahmed Rekami, whose US$20m "New City"--which boasts a shopping mall, and 52-room hotel--recently opened in the centre of town, likens the situation to Dubai in the 1990s. Indeed, the bullish Mr Rekami relates that he has turned down the opportunity to move to the emirate because the opportunities in Kurdistan are so vast.

Yet, with this economic upturn has come associated inflationary pressures--according to Professor Almas Heshmati, head of the department of economic and finance at the newly-constructed University of Kurdistan Hawler, house prices have doubled over the past few years--and Mr Rekami says that the price of cement has risen from US$50/tonne in 2003 to US$170/tonne. A new cement plant built by Egypt's Orascom Construction Industries (in partnership with the local Farouk Rasool Group) near Suleimaniyah is set to open in August, but this will provide only partial respite. In addition, not all the blame for inflation can be laid at the door of the property sector--intermittent influxes of budgetary cash from Baghdad cause sudden fluctuations in the money supply, and fuel prices have leapt because of a shortage of refined products (leading to a thriving black market). However, perhaps more importantly, it is not excess cash but the supremacy of cash that is holding back the Kurdistan economy at present.

Cash economy

The banking sector in Kurdistan is severely underdeveloped. Cash dominates, to such an extent that when asked what people buy their houses with, Adham Darwesh, the general manager of the Central Bank of Kurdistan, replied (through a translator): "piles of cash". In interviews, the trade and planning ministers, as well as the head of the investment board, all acknowledged the lack of a developed financial system as a serious hindrance. However, there may well be room for optimism. Although Mr Rekami's complaint that the banks offer little more than a money transference service may be true at present, the arrival of new foreign banks, including Dar Es Salam (80% owned by HSBC) and most recently Lebanon's Byblos Bank, should help increase capacity. The head of the investment board also revealed that another Lebanese bank, Bank Audi, is in negotiations about setting up in the region, and he argued that the banking situation will be "sorted out very soon". Achieving this will be crucial, and not just because of the extra support it will offer to private-sector ventures. The opacity associated with having to deal almost solely in cash can often prove a deterrent to foreign businessmen, and corruption in Kurdistan is a widely-acknowledged problem.

However, for those within Kurdistan, the most urgent need is for substantial foreign investment. The government is seeking foreign money to finance the huge infrastructure upgrades needed—including a proposed road linking all three of Kurdistan's main towns with their borders—and Mr Muhamad floated the intriguing option of "sharing management services" usually associated with the government, such as greater private-sector participation in the education sector, and even potentially PFIs in road and bridge construction. With the constitution confining sovereign debt issuance solely to the federal government, and the KRG allocated just 17% of federal oil revenue (after current spending)--the planning minister, Othman Shwani, among others, has argued that Kurdistan needs more, considering Saddam's legacy in the Kurdish areas—foreign money is desperately needed.

Local businessmen are extremely keen on forming partnerships with foreign firms, with Baz R. Karim, the president of local KAR Group, putting forward the argument that joint ventures are the most successful model for doing business in the country as a whole. His firm's record would seem to support his view, having completed a raft of projects across both the civil and oil sectors. For example, in partnership with USAID, the firm has supplied furniture to over 2,800 schools all over Iraq, successfully installed a fibre-optic cable in Baghdad and further north with Bechtel of the US, and says it is more than halfway through the US$175m Hamrin oilfield project, a joint venture with OGI Group of Canada, located south of Kirkuk. Yet finding sufficient foreign enthusiasm for such joint ventures is perhaps proving the greatest challenge.

Although Turkish firms have poured into Kurdistan over the past ten years, the much sought-after Western firms, with their up-to-date technology and high-quality products, have so far proved more reticent. Legal concerns have deterred the arrival of new oil firms--although five small- and medium-sized companies have signed contracts with the KRG--as the federal oil law awaits approval in Baghdad.

Meanwhile, security concerns also still appear to predominate, and not just among Western companies. Despite the warm words of Western governments towards the KRG, these sentiments do not seem to be shared by their visa offices. Dara Jalil al-Khaymat, the president of the Erbil Chamber of Commerce, highlighted EU countries' regular refusal to issue local businessmen with visas as a major impediment, while Mr Muhamad pointed out that one of his keynote official speakers could not attend a business forum in London because UK immigration had refused his visa request. Meanwhile, direct bilateral aid has been in short supply and often misdirected--a finance official in Suleimaniyah said that the area has received only US$80m from the US in direct aid, most of which was spent on police stations they did not want. A plan to set up two free zones in the region may help, although it is not entirely clear what extra incentives these could provide beyond those included in the Investment Law. As such, the KRG is still struggling to attract the Western firms and finance it so desperately needs. Although the old lament that the Kurds have "no friends but the mountains" may no longer be entirely true, it appears, at the moment at least, that some in Kurdistan still need convincing.

Read more ...

Iran politics: Ahmadinejad's show

FROM THE ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT

The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has enjoyed one of his finer moments of populist political theatre in announcing the release of the 15 British sailors and marines captured by Iranian naval forces on March 23rd. By taking charge of the issue, which had hitherto been handled with little evident authority by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr Ahmadinejad has given the impression of mastery over key political decisions in Iran. However, the abrupt resolution of the affair could also signify that the radical wing of the Iranian regime, of which Mr Ahmadinejad is the figurehead, had been placed under pressure from other power centres anxious at the implications of a prolonged stand-off.

Softly softly

The original incident is likely to have been planned by Iran, or elements within the regime, with a number of objectives in mind. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which forms an important part of Mr Ahmadinejad's power base and whose naval units were involved in the capture of the British personnel, had good reason to take action of this kind as a means to bring pressure on the US for the release of five of its officers who were arrested in the Iraqi Kurdish town of Erbil in January. It has been suggested that the US operation may have been aimed at capturing two senior IRGC figures who had been in the area at the time. Other factors may have included the passage of fresh UN sanctions on Iran in light of its nuclear programme, with Iran intent on showing that it would not be passive in the face of this growing pressure on it to trim its nuclear policy. The incident could also be construed as an attempt by Mr Ahmadinejad to hit back at critics of his confrontational approach in both foreign and domestic policy.

The UK's initial reaction to the crisis was to assert in forceful terms that the Iranian action was illegitimate, as the interception took place in Iraqi waters, and to secure international support through the UN and the EU. Thereafter, the UK took a more subtle approach, perhaps heeding counsel from within Iran and, reportedly, from Syria that confrontation would merely play into the hands of Mr Ahmadinejad. While rejecting any notion of an apology, let alone a deal, the UK expressed "regret" that the incident had occurred. This left open the interpretation that it could have been the result of a misunderstanding. Iranian honour was also partially assuaged by the release of one of its diplomats, who had been abducted by Iraqis in Baghdad, and the Iraqi government said that it had asked the US to allow Iranian consular access to the five suspected IRGC officers arrested in Erbil.

Mr Ahmadinejad said that Iran had decided to release the British sailors and marines as a seasonal goodwill gesture, marking the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed and the impending arrival of Easter. On the occasion of his speech he also pinned medals on commanders of the IRGC coastguard, commending them for their valour in confronting the alleged UK incursion.

The decision to bring the affair to a rapid close could also have been influenced by concern that the deliberate, and illegitimate, nature of the original operation could have been exposed if proposals to set up an independent international commission of inquiry to adjudicate between the British and Iranian claims had been put into practice.

Mr Ahmadinejad has once more shown his flair for the occasion, but it is by no means clear that he has advanced his cause within the Iranian political system. Iran's professional diplomats, by contrast, have offered a hint of flexibility in their dealings with the crisis, which could yet prove to be significant as the wider disputes over the nuclear programme and Iran's regional role develop.


The Economist Intelligence Unit

Read more ...

Fears That New Chinese Warhead Could Seep into Iraq

By John C.k. Daly
Two months ago, Chinese arms company Xinshidai (New Era) displayed its latest weapons products at the International Defense Exhibition arms show in Abu Dhabi, seeking to establish its own niche in the world's lucrative arms market. Xinshidai is a conglomerate of several Chinese state-run armament manufacturing enterprises. Given Xinshidai's interest in expanding its presence in the Middle Eastern market and its ties to Iran, the possibility exists that weaponry sold to the region could "bleed" into Iraq. Xinshidai's prior record of flouting international regulations on arms trafficking makes it unlikely that the company would insist on tight export controls. Especially worrying is that the company has reportedly developed a thermo-baric fuel air explosive warhead for the RPG-7 handheld anti-tank grenade launcher; the warhead is known as the WPF 2004.

Xinshidai's new shoulder-fired warhead weighs seven pounds and has a reported accuracy range of 650 feet (International Defense Review, March 16). The new missile warheads would allow users an increased capability not only against buildings, but also against forces deployed in bunkers or underground facilities. The warhead's explosive potential is far greater than a conventional round and could collapse a multi-story building while killing all inside. Since the Middle East is now China's fourth largest trading partner, and given Xinshidai's past role in illicit arms sales, it is possible that the new weaponry will eventually emerge in Iraq and be used against U.S. forces. Indeed, in September 2004, the U.S. Federal Register announced that Xinshidai was to be subjected to two years of U.S. sanctions for illicit sales of missiles and related goods to Iran.

The Russian-made RPG-7 is the most widely used RPG in the world and is a favorite among insurgents. Adding the WPF 2004 warhead to the RPG-7 would pose an even greater threat to counter-insurgent forces. In 1993, for example, RPG-7s downed the U.S. Black Hawk helicopters in Mogadishu during Operation Restore Hope. In Iraq, guerrillas regularly use the RPG-7; according to an April 1 report in Mafkarat al-Islam, Iraqi guerrillas launched an attack with RPG-7s in al-Hasy, just south of Fallujah, and allegedly killed four Iraqi soldiers. Moreover, Turkey just recently uncovered an arms cache belonging to the PKK that was well-stocked with RPG-7s, believed to have been brought into southeastern Turkey through northern Iraq (Today's Zaman, April 5). Given their relative inexpensiveness and availability, RPG-7s modified with the WPF 2004 warhead could give Iraqi insurgents a significant new cost-effective element in their arsenal of weapons to combat coalition forces.

While it is too early to tell, a previously sanctioned Chinese armaments company seeking to expand its market share in the Middle East with longstanding trade ties to Iran, combined with porous Iraqi borders, leads to the unsettling conclusion that it is perhaps only a matter of time before such inexpensive and potent weapons enter the insurgents' arsenal.

Read more ...

SPAIN: TWO ALLEGED AL-QAEDA MEMBERS 'FLEE FROM MOROCCO'

(AKI) - Spanish authorities are hunting for two Moroccans, both alleged al-Qaeda members believed to have attended an al-Qaeda training camp in Mali and to have recently fled from Morocco to Spain, daily ABC reported on Friday. Police believed the two militants know how to make an explosives belt and that at least one of them is hiding in the southern Andalusia region, the paper said. One entered Spain via a people trafficking network operating in northern Morocco, where security has been steppped up in the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla - both with significant Muslim populations - said ABC.

Spain's interior minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba on Thursday decided to boost security in the provinces where the highest number of ililegal immigrants arrive from North Africa and where the authorities fear Islamist extremists could infiltrate - Cadiz, Malaga, Almeria and Alicante - as well as in Ceuta and Melilla.

Despite this week's bombings in Algeria and in Morocco, Spain's authorities have decided not to raise the alert level from 'moderate' currently to 'high'. Twin bombings in the Algerian capital on Wednesday that killed 33 and injured over 200 came a day after a police raid in the Moroccan city of Casablanca in which three suspected Islamist militants blew themselves up after a police raid in which a fourth was shot dead.

The Moroccan authorities on Thursday announced they had arrested two suspects at least one which is believed to belong to an alleged Islamist terror cell cornered by police in Tuesday's raid on the al-Fida district of Casablanca. Morocco's interior minister Chakib Benmoussa said late on Wednesday he suspected three to four members of the suspected Casablanca cell might still be on the run.

A team of police and civil guard officers has gone to Morocco to assist their counterparts' investigation of an alleged plot to carry out suicide attacks in the country, ABC reported on Thursday.

The al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb claimed the Algiers attacks in a message sent to Arabic satellite TV network Al Jazeera. Morocco's interior minister Chakib Benmoussa has stated there was no link between Tuesday's raid in Casablanca and Wednesday's attacks in Algiers. Nontheless, the bombings are stoking fears of a widening conflict that could spread from North Africa to Europe, analysts say.

Spain raised its alert level to moderate in February when the trial of 29 people for the deadly 11 March 2004 train bombings opened in Madrid. Many of the defendants are of Moroccan and most of North African origins. The Madrid attacks - the deadliest in Western Europe since the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland - killed 191 people and injured over 1,000.

Read more ...

Mohammed VI: Morocco at risk of terror attacks

Moroccan King warns his country is potential target of terror attacks similar to Agliers’ deadly bombings.

RABAT - Morocco risks attacks similar to the "odious terrorist" bombings that struck Algeria, King Mohammed VI warned in a message Friday to Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

"We believe that your sister nation, Morocco, is also among the targets...", the king said in the message of condolence over Wednesday's suicide bombings in Algiers.

"We are convinced that the security of our neighbour, our sister Algeria, is an integral part of the security of Morocco, even the stability of the Maghreb region and in a wider sense of North Africa, of the southwestern Mediterranean and the Sahel and Sahara regions," he said.

Two suicide car bombings in Algiers on Wednesday killed 33 people and injured more than 220. They were claimed by Al-Qaeda's branch in North Africa, formerly known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC).

Those attacks came only a day after three suicide bombers blew themselves up and a fourth was killed by police in the Moroccan city of Casablanca, fueling regional fears of a resurgence in militant activity following crackdowns by north African governments.

Mohammed VI expressed his "strong condemnation" of the attacks in Algiers, which he termed "odious terrorist acts that go against all religions and all laws.

"We are all targets, and all those in the world who believe in religious values and in democratic norms, especially those advocating Islam, today constitute a potential target," he said.

Read more ...

One soldier, nine rebels killed in Turkey clashes

TUNCELI, Turkey (Reuters) - Nine Kurdish separatist guerrillas and one soldier have been killed in clashes in Turkey's restive southeast region, security forces said on Monday.

They were killed on Sunday in separate incidents during a military offensive involving 10,000 troops in the mainly Kurdish region against the rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

The clashes, which occurred in Tunceli, Siirt and Hakkari provinces, follow similar incidents over the past couple of weeks.

Spring usually sees a pick-up in violence, as the mountain snows melt and more rebels cross into Turkish territory from hideouts in northern Iraq.

Last week, the head of Turkey's powerful military General Staff called for an offensive against the rebels in northern Iraq, saying U.S. forces and the Baghdad government had failed to act against them despite Ankara's repeated pleas.

More than 30,000 people have been killed since the PKK launched its armed struggle for an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey in 1984. The United States and the European Union, like Ankara, classify the PKK as a terrorist organization.

Read more ...

Europol: Europe's potential FBI

As the EU discusses boosting Europol's reach to fight terrorism and crack down on organized crime, experts express concerns about civil liberties violations and the security implications of information sharing.

By Brooks Tigner in Brussels for ISN Security Watch (16/04/07)

The EU's goal to strengthen the European Police Office, otherwise known as Europol, could help to maintain the agency's more passive coordinating role vis-à-vis the bloc's 27 nations. But it also could expand investigative powers and create a new legal status that might eventually convert it into a European equivalent of the powerful US Federal Bureau of Investigation.

While most national law enforcement stakeholders support Europol's forthcoming transformation, civil liberty experts, members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and the EU's own data protection watchdog worry about the new kinds of personal data Europol will collect - and whether it will be handled responsibly when shared with other EU agencies, national authorities or non-EU countries.

One of their main concerns is the new freedom Europol would have to collect data from private bodies such as banks, retailers and private security companies. This possibility "calls for a great deal of thought, since such data may not have been obtained by safe, reliable means," says Spanish MEP Agustin Diaz de Mera, in a new draft report for the Euro-parliament's Civil Liberties Committee. "Additional safeguards - including judicial review - must be introduced."

At issue is a European Commission proposal, unveiled in December, to convert the 12-year-old Europol multilateral organization into a bona fide EU agency, paid and staffed from its resources. The proposal would strengthen Europol in three main ways, by:

* Extending its present mandate beyond investigation of organized crime to include other forms of so-called serious crime such as sex trafficking and child pornography, gun-running, terrorist activities and money-laundering

* Enabling it to receive information and intelligence from private bodies

* Authorizing Europol to participate in investigations with individual national authorities or in joint investigative teams.

The proposal would also require Europol to make its data-procession systems, and in particular the Europol Information system, interoperable with those of the 27 member states and with other EU bodies involved in investigative or judicial work. Examples of the latter are OLAF, the union’s anti-corruption watchdog, or Eurojust, the EU agency that coordinates national judicial activities.

"This will create the technical conditions for the smooth exchange of data, provided legal frameworks to allow such an exchange and without prejudice to basic principles of data protection," the European Commission blandly notes in the explanatory memorandum to its proposal.
Civil liberty concerns

Few dispute the need for a more organized pan-European approach to fighting terrorism or money-laundering. The number of terrorism investigations supported by Europol last year, for example, jumped 50 percent from 40 in 2005 to 60 in 2006.

But civil liberty proponents are especially worried about the privacy implications of two aspects in the proposal: allowing Europol to broaden the scope and sources of intelligence it can trawl and retain, and the notion of linking national law enforcement databases into what effectively will function as a super - and supranational - European database of information.

Europol and other public-sector officials argue this is a necessary condition if Europe is to deal with today's proliferating crime networks.

"We need a mandate wider than that for just organized crime. We are seeing more and more networks of criminals. We have to fight traveling hooligans, the distribution of child pornography and the movement of serial killers. The only way to confront these threats is to create networks of law enforcement authorities as a counterweight," Max-Peter Ratzel, Europol’s director, told a 10 April public hearing of the Civil Liberties Committee.

"We need to move from a need-to-know to a need-to-share basis [among law enforcement authorities in Europe]," he said.

Others are not so sure.

The EU's data privacy watchdog in Brussels, known as the European Data Protection Supervisor, say the proposal's requirement that Europol make its data system interoperable with national ones goes far beyond the mere technical challenge of linking the systems together.

In its 10 March opinion on the Commission’s proposal, the EDPS notes that once databases become interoperable "there will be pressure to actually use this possibility. This poses specific risks related to the principle of purpose limitation" since data can easily be used for purposes different from those for which it was collected.

Civil liberty proponents argue that such implications are all the more worrying in view of disparate national rules covering the collection of personal data by commercial entities, individual freedom-of-access rights to police and judiciary dossiers, and the transfer of intelligence to third countries.
Reputation to consider

Though expressing support for the Commission's proposal in general, Willy Bruggemann, professor at Benelux University Centre in Brussels and former senior deputy director of Europol, told the hearing, "I regret that the EU has no global view on security," regarding the way in which police intelligence should be shared and used.

EU member states are still doing "intelligence shopping," he said. "Sometimes they use Europol, sometimes Interpol [the global equivalent to Europol] and sometimes their own national and regional networks and databases. There's no consistency."

Paul de Hert, a law and criminology expert at the University of Brussels, pointed to another problem: Europol's lack of a proper "adequacy process" for evaluating whether the privacy/confidentiality rules and judicial procedures of third-countries are sufficient to justify sharing data with them. The European Commission applies adequacy procedures when dealing with third countries, for instance.

De Hert noted that EU member states still did not want Europol to have very much power, despite the proposal's provisions.

"If member states bear down too much on Europol [in terms of restricting what it can do with information] but not on themselves, then you may see Europol simply handing over requests from third countries for investigative data to those EU countries whose [less strict] rules allow them to meet the request. This could harm the reputation of the EU as a whole regarding data protection."

Europol officials admit they have an "adequacy problem."

Dietrich Neumann of Europol's legal affairs unit told the hearing that the organization's legal foundation "does fall a little short" of the adequacy criterion. "This is a legal gap," he said, but added that adequacy provision "are not very clear in other EU legal instruments and bodies either."

Calling for the Commission's adequacy process to be incorporated into Europol, de Hert went even further, suggesting that "maybe it would even be a good idea to let Europol handle and evaluate requests for transfers of data to third countries on behalf of all member states."

Another potential risk for personal privacy is Europol's forthcoming absorption of information and intelligence from private entities. In Europol's vastly expanded database "there is no way to separate data collected for counterterrorism purposes from data that citizens will have provide to private companies for other reasons. I repeat: no way to do this. We must address the issue of databases that are created for one purpose but mined for another," said Juliet Lodge, who works at the University of Leeds' Jean Monnet Centre.

"I see another problem, too, with divergent terminology. We need standard, common intelligence terms that everyone understands the same way," she said. "Take biometrics, for example. The US government considers that this includes information about behavior. That opens the door to profiling. Do we want that here in Europe? There must be EU rules on governance in this regard. I see an urgent need for a universal EU code on access to networked intelligence databases."

Read more ...

Report: China hopes Sudan will be flexible on UN

A Chinese Foreign Ministry official visiting Sudan said China hopes Khartoum will show flexibility over a UN proposal to stop the fighting in the country's Darfur region, state media reported Monday.

Xinhua News Agency said Zhai Jun, an assistant foreign minister, met Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir during his four-day trip, which started Friday.

China buys two-thirds of Sudan's oil exports and sells it weapons and military aircraft, but has been criticized for not using its influence to do more to stop the crisis in Sudan's Darfur region that has left at least 200,000 dead and forced more than 2.5 million from their homes since 2003.

The United Nations and Sudan agreed in November on a plan backed by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan for the incremental deployment of a joint African Union-UN force of 20,000 peacekeepers, but al-Bashir has since backed off the deal, saying he would allow only a larger AU force with technical and logistical support from the United Nations.

AP

Read more ...

Report: US Intelligence Says New Generation of Al Qaida Leadership Emerging

Report: US Intelligence Says New Generation of Al Qaida Leadership Emerging By VOA News 02 April 2007 A published report says the United States is aware that a new generation of al-Qaida leadership under Osama bin Laden is emerging in Pakistan's tribal areas. The New York Times reports Monday that U.S. intelligence officials say the new leaders rose within the group's ranks following the death or capture of operatives following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States. But authorities are quoted as saying they know little of how the new leadership in Pakistan communicates with bin Laden. The officials also say the new al-Qaida hierarchy is not reliant on constant contact with the terrorist group's leader.

Officials told the newspaper that new information has led the U.S. intelligence community to reassess al-Qaida's strength, and to realize its leadership has not been as badly crippled by counter-terrorism efforts as previously thought. Officials and analysts describe the new generation of terrorist leaders as being in their mid-30s, battle-hardened, and more diverse in their origins than previous al-Qaida leaders. The Times reports that experts say even though the group al-Qaida in Iraq is largely separate from the main al-Qaida organization in Pakistan, the fighting in Iraq will likely produce the terrorist network's future leaders. Officials say U.S., European and Pakistani authorities are learning about the new terrorist leaders from investigations, and from interrogations of terrorist suspects. Some information for this report was provided by Reuters.

Read more ...

Ukraine politics: Another constitutional crisis

FROM THE ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT

On April 2, Ukraine's president, Viktor Yushchenko, signed a decree dissolving the country's parliament, and setting fresh elections for May 27th. With parliament, dominated by Mr Yushchenko's opponents, promptly rejecting the decree, banning the government from funding the election, and ordering it to continue operating as usual, the country faces its biggest political crisis since the 'Orange Revolution' of late 2004.

The latest events are the culmination of eight months of tense relations between the president and the government of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, Mr Yushchenko's Orange Revolution rival. Mr Yanukovych returned to government in August 2006, thanks to the Orange parties' failure to put together a coalition following the March parliamentary elections of that year. Since then, the two men have been involved in an increasingly debilitating power struggle, as Mr Yanukovych has tested the president's authority at every level.

Constitutional loose ends

At the heart of the struggle lie the constitutional changes agreed in late 2004 at the height of the Orange Revolution, as a way out of the impasse. The changes came into force at the beginning of 2006, and transferred a number of presidential prerogatives to parliament, including the right to nominate the prime minister. Crucially, however, many of the constitutional provisions have proven open to interpretation, significantly increasing the rivalry as the president and prime minister have sought to define the rules in their own terms and challenge the legality of each other's actions. In recent months the government has also intensified the pressure on Mr Yushchenko by ousting nearly all of his allies from the cabinet, encroaching on his foreign policy remit, and challenging his authority in the regions. In January, parliament passed a Law on the Cabinet of Ministers, which further limits the president's powers, including the right to nominate the foreign and defence ministers. Mr Yushchenko views the law as unconstitutional.

Mr Yushchenko's erstwhile Orange ally, Yuliya Tymoshenko, has long been urging early elections as a way out of the deadlock. She remains a popular politician, and her party, the Yuliya Tymoshenko Bloc (YTB) would stand to gain the most from an fresh poll. Although the popularity of Mr Yushchenko's own Our Ukraine bloc is at record lows, he appears to have been persuaded to push for new elections following the recent defection of several Our Ukraine and YTB deputies to the ruling coalition, which is led by Mr Yanukovych's Party of Regions (PoR). As many as 11 are said to have defected, giving the coalition control of around 260 legislators in the 450-seat chamber—dangerously near to the 300 constitutional majority that would allow the government to overturn presidential vetoes and change the constitution. Mr Yushchenko has justified the dissolution of parliament by saying that the government acted unconstitutionally by accepting individual deputies into its ranks. He argues that the constitution provides for coalitions to be composed of factions, rather than individuals.

Calculations of self-interest

Mr Yushchenko's action has, unsurprisingly, been welcomed by Ms Tymoshenko. The PoR has opposed it. Although the PoR would likely win a new election, it already enjoys a more than comfortable position in parliament, and has little incentive to take on the risk of another vote. The PoR's main coalition partner, the Socialist Party, is also loath to risk its position and in particular, that of its leader, Oleksandr Moroz, as parliamentary speaker. The smallest party in the coalition, the Communists, would also be likely to lose seats in an early election.

The latest stand-off is unlikely to be resolved quickly. Although the government will challenge Mr Yushchenko's decree on dissolving parliament at the Constitutional Court—and faces a good chance of success, given that the grounds for dissolution appear far from solid—a ruling will take time. In the meantime, there is at least the possibility of dialogue: on April 3rd, Mr Yanukovych urged Mr Yushchenko to return to the negotiating table to "avoid the worst". However, such talks would also likely be protracted, and unproductive, given the stakes involved. Few had believed that the famously indecisive Mr Yushchenko would push things this far, but now that he has, he risks being virtually eclipsed if he climbs down—further defections from his camp could well follow.

It is unclear what Mr Yushchenko might demand in return for backing down on his dissolution threat, but clearly the issues at the forefront of the president's concerns are the poaching of his supporters and the erosion of his constitutional powers: before the latest developments, Mr Yushchenko had already applied to the Constitutional Court over the legality both of the original constitutional changes agreed in 2004, and of the more recent Law on the Cabinet of Ministers. He has also called for a national referendum to be held on the constitutional reform. Mr Yanukovych, for his part, has threatened to attempt to force early presidential elections should Mr Yushchenko not relent, although this would not be an easy thing to do: parliament would need to impeach the president, on the grounds that he had committed a "state treason or other crime", and the final resolution would need to be supported by three-quarters of the deputies in parliament, after review by both the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court. The PoR will also be aware that the popular Ms Tymoshenko would be a very strong contender for the presidency. With the next scheduled presidential contest in 2009 firmly in her sights, Ms Tymoshenko has recently been busy building her international image with a high-profile trip to the US.

Spilling onto the streets

If the crisis is indeed drawn out, the risk of it escalating to the levels seen during the Orange Revolution would increase. The key players—Messrs Yanukovych, Yushchenko and Ms Tymoshenko—have already mobilised their supporters onto the streets in Kiev. In a sign of how tense the situation already is, Defence Minister Anatoly Gritsenko, who is one of only two Yushchenko allies left in the cabinet, has seen fit to state that the country's armed forces would follow the president's orders, while the EU and Russia have expressed their concern. But although the PoR in particular has sufficient financial resources to mobilise considerable support, the population in general, disenchanted with the performance of the country's politicians since the Orange Revolution, appears far from the level of spontaneous political engagement seen then. And while brinkmanship may tempt both sides to talk up the danger of re-opening the ethnic and regional fault-lines that appeared during the Orange Revolution, an awareness of the risks should at the least be an inducement to limit the dispute to the legislative arena.

Although early elections are far from certain, they would in any case be unlikely to resolve Ukraine's political difficulties. Although the parliamentary configuration would certainly change, the fundamental problem would remain: the need for a decision on what kind of political system the country should have —parliamentary, mixed parliamentary/presidential, or presidential—and for the constitution to unambiguously delineate the authority of the respective branches of power accordingly.

Read more ...

Russia Rejects US Offer to Jointly Create Missile Defence System

Russia has no plans to allow a U.S. missile defense shield onto its soil, Reuters quoted Russian Foreign Ministry as saying on Saturday, after a senior source said Moscow was ready to discuss a collective system against any attack by rogue states.

“This information is incorrect and absolutely does not reflect Russia’s position on missile defense,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said in a brief statement.

On Friday a senior Russian Foreign Ministry source said Russia could host the shield on its own territory if the United States rethinks plans for a system on Russia’s borders.

President Bush telephoned his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, this week to offer consultations on his plan to base a radar station in the Czech Republic and a missile battery in Poland.

Washington says the system is needed as defense from “rogue states” like North Korea and Iran. Russia rejects that argument and says the shield threatens its security.

The senior foreign ministry source said he hoped the consultations would eventually lead to Washington switching to a collective defense system, involving Russia.

“If there is a threat from North Korea or Iran then it would make sense to use our territory. And why shouldn’t we do that?” said the source.

He said a year ago NATO and Russia had been in talks about a joint missile defense system but those negotiations had been broken off “apparently because the United States wanted to develop its own, unilateral system”.

Since Bush and Putin spoke on Wednesday “we are hearing from U.S. representatives a readiness for partnership on the missile shield”, he added.

Read more ...

Congress Considers Future of US Nuclear Weapons

WASHINGTON: Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives are considering Bush administration budget requests for building new nuclear weapons, a move supporters say will create safer warheads. Critics say the move could undermine global non-proliferation efforts. In Washington, where a House Appropriations subcommittee recently heard arguments for and against the new plan.

Democratic Congressman Peter Visclosky, who chairs the subcommittee responsible for funding U.S. nuclear-weapons programs, said the question under consideration is not whether the United States should have nuclear weapons at all.

"The United States will continue to rely on a safe and reliable nuclear weapons stockpile, as a national security deterrent, for the future," said Peter Visclosky. "However, that does not mean we need to have one more nuclear weapon than is necessary for that purpose."

Under consideration is a proposal to develop a so-called reliable replacement warhead, which supporters say is needed to ensure the future safety, reliability and security of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile. The new weapons would be certified without ground testing, which has been banned by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

The Department of Energy in March announced its design choice and has requested $89 million for the 2008 fiscal year to look into the design and develop cost estimates.

General James Cartwright heads U.S. Strategic Command, which is responsible for U.S. nuclear military assets and operations in outer space. He told lawmakers the new nuclear weapons design would lead to a smaller number of more modern warheads that are safer and less expensive to maintain than current stockpiles.

"There are 21st century manufacturing processes and approaches to business that allow us to manage these problems, not with huge inventories, but with smart manufacturing process, and drive down the cost associated with these inventories," said General Cartwright.

Experts have estimated the U.S. nuclear arsenal includes more than 9,000 operational and inactive warheads. The United States and Russia have signed a treaty to reduce the number of strategic nuclear warheads to about 2,000 each, by the year 2012.

Meanwhile, former Senator Sam Nunn, the co-chairman of the private organization called Nuclear Threat Initiative, spoke out against congressional funding for the new warhead.

"If Congress gives a green light to this program, in our current world environment, and I stress, in our current world environment, I believe that this will be misunderstood by our allies, exploited by our adversaries, complicate our work to prevent the spread and use of nuclear weapons, and make resolution of the Iran and North Korea nuclear challenges all the more difficult," said Sam Nunn.

He also expressed concern that if the United States developed a new nuclear weapon, it would make it harder for Washington to discourage other countries that are on the verge of developing their own nuclear arms.

Critics also say the new design is not necessary. They point to scientific studies concluding that the plutonium pits used in U.S. warheads can be counted on to remain in good condition much longer than had been expected - for 50 to 100 years.

Read more ...

An Iranian Financial Intelligence Unit: Less than Meets the Eye

By Michael Jacobson
April 2, 2007

The State Department's International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, released on March 1, offers a little-noted reference to a dubious claim: an Iranian government statement (made to the UN) that Tehran has established a Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU).
The report notes that Iran has provided no further details. Even if the Iranian claim were true, the creation of an FIU would do little to combat terrorism financing in the nation, given Tehran's official support for terrorist groups. In other countries, FIUs are an important element of effective counterterrorism policy -- though the record of key Middle Eastern nations is somewhat mixed in this regard.
Background

FIUs are centralized, national agencies responsible for detecting and fighting terrorism financing and money laundering. Most national units operate under the umbrella of the global FIU network, the Egmont Group (named after the Palais d'Egmont in Brussels, where the group's first meeting took place). Established in 1995, Egmont has grown rapidly, from fourteen participating countries to more than 100; the number of FIUs worldwide is even larger when one considers units that do not, or have not yet, qualified for Egmont membership. In the United States, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a bureau of the Treasury Department, serves as Washington's representative in the group.

An FIU's primary functions, as defined by Egmont, are to receive, analyze, and disseminate information about suspicious financial activity in the unit's respective country. FIUs are supposed to share this information not only with law enforcement in their own countries, but also with other units throughout the world.

The role of such units has evolved over time. It was not until 2004 that Egmont revised its definition to require that FIUs specifically focus on terrorism financing. Previously, their primary focus had been criminal activity in the financial arena, particularly money laundering.

An Iranian FIU?

Iran's claim to have established an FIU may indicate that it recognizes the growing importance of FIUs in the international arena. In fact, the State Department has outlined other related areas where Iran has demonstrated an "awareness of international standards" on these kinds of issues. According to the narcotics control report, Iran's central bank has issued anti-laundering directives that cover suspicious financial activity, while the Iranian parliament passed similar legislation in 2003. Neither initiative, however, has been implemented in any significant fashion.

Of course, whether or not Iran has actually created an FIU is an irrelevant question for several reasons. First, according to the State Department report, there are no meaningful anti-laundering controls actually operating within Iran's banking system. An FIU cannot exercise serious oversight in such an environment. Second, it is not clear how an FIU would combat terrorism financing in a country that U.S. government officials have described as the "central banker of terror," where support for terrorist groups is official government policy.

This is particularly true when the financial institutions themselves are owned or controlled by the government and are thus playing a role in furthering the government's illicit activity. For example, the U.S. government has found evidence that Bank Saderat -- one of Iran's largest state-owned banks -- has been involved in transferring funds to terrorist groups, including Hizballah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Bank Sepah, another large state-owned bank, has engaged in deceptive financial practices and facilitated Iran's efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. In response, the U.S. Treasury Department has taken enforcement action against both institutions.

FIUs in Other Middle Eastern Countries

The FIU question is far more relevant when it comes to other key players in the region. One of the core recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force -- the intergovernmental body tasked with setting international standards for combating money laundering and terrorism financing -- is that every country should have an FIU. A review of the status of FIUs in the Middle East indicates some progress, along with a need for much improvement.

The limited number of Egmont members in the region includes Egypt, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Lebanon, Bahrain, and Israel. Several key countries -- such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Kuwait -- are notably absent from the list. According to the State Department report, Jordan is in the process of creating an FIU, but legislation is still pending. More broadly, Amman recently passed a law prohibiting certain terrorism financing activities, but it still lacks anti-laundering legislation. It also has yet to establish a statutory basis for freezing the assets of UN-designated terrorist entities.

Saudi efforts to establish an FIU have been both well publicized and openly criticized. In 2005, Riyadh announced the opening of an FIU that was to report to the Ministry of the Interior, staffed by personnel from the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency and internal security service.

U.S. Congresswoman Sue Kelly, former chair of a House Financial Services subcommittee, described what she discovered about the Saudi FIU during a 2005 trip to the country. Despite being reassured by the Saudis that the unit was operational, she found that it consisted of "an empty floor in a building under construction." The kingdom has apparently made some progress since then. FinCEN, a cosponsor of the Saudis' Egmont application, performed its final onsite review in 2006, and the kingdom is being considered for possible membership in 2007. Meanwhile, the aforementioned State Department report noted a number of areas in which Saudi efforts against terrorism financing remain deficient. In particular, it cited the need for Riyadh to impose the same oversight on Saudi charities operating abroad as it has on domestic ones, and to increase its scrutiny of non-cash charitable gifts.

Kuwait, like Saudi Arabia, has an FIU, but it is not an Egmont member. Its unit is not an independent agency as required by Egmont, in that it has limited power to share the information it collects. The State Department reports that terrorism financing is still not a crime in Kuwait, assessing that such potential financing "through the misuse of charities continues to be a concern."

Although having an Egmont-certified FIU is an important element of effective financial counterterrorism strategy, this alone does not guarantee a sufficiently robust system. For example, the UAE is a member of Egmont but has still never convicted anyone for either terrorism financing or money laundering. This is problematic in a country where, as the State Department notes, "the threats of money laundering and terrorism financing are particularly acute."

Conclusion

Ensuring that key Middle Eastern countries are developing adequate measures to prevent terrorism financing should remain a top priority for U.S. policymakers. One key factor in making this determination is whether a country is an Egmont Group member (or is taking serious steps to become one). Beyond FIUs, policymakers should also closely monitor countries' success in criminalizing terrorism financing, prosecuting and convicting terrorism financiers, and overseeing the activities of charities and nongovernmental organizations. The United States can use a variety of multilateral forums to push this agenda, ranging from Egmont to the Financial Action Task Force to the UN. Although progress is likely to be gradual at best, policymakers' ongoing focus on these aspects of the fight against terrorism financing is time well spent, given how critical these issues are to U.S. security.

counterterrorismblog.org

Read more ...

China Space, Cyberspace War Gains Impress: US

China's development of modern modes of warfare including military uses of outer space and cyberspace have yielded impressive gains that require U.S. vigilance, experts told a congressional panel on March 29.

The officials and security analysts told the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission that China’s military modernization also raises alarms because the communist government in Beijing remains secretive about its intentions.

China’s test-firing of a ballistic missile that pulverized one of its own satellites about 537 miles (865 km) above Earth was not a surprise because it was Beijing’s third attempt, Gen. James Cartwright, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, said.

But he told the commission the much-criticized Jan. 11 anti-satellite test was "impressive how quickly they got the capability" and "should be a wake up call to others" about the systems China is pursuing in outer space.

"They have fielded a wide range of jamming and anti-satellite capabilities," Cartwright told a hearing in Washington a day after China called for a treaty to stop the spread of weapons in outer space.

In cyber warfare, China also had a well-organized program and "a long-term view, not a short-term view, in this activity and it will pay off," he said.

"Other nations are doing likewise, but I do not believe any have demonstrated the scale or the financial commitment to move in the direction that China has demonstrated," added Cartwright.

William Schneider of the Hudson Institute, a conservative Washington think tank, told the panel that China was "acquiring asymmetric capabilities that reflect a studied assessment of U.S. civil and military vulnerabilities."
These new capabilities complement China’s rapid build-up of conventional armaments such as missiles, warships and aircraft, he said.

"The scope, though not yet the scale of these investments, is consistent with global aspirations, but by most assessments, is excessive in relation to China’s regional security needs," said Schneider in remarks similar to Pentagon complaints.

"China has not responded to requests for greater transparency, leaving China’s defense modernization open to many alternative interpretations," he added.

Andrew Erickson of the China Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S. Naval War College told the commission China’s military build-up remained largely focused on Taiwan, the self-governing island over which Beijing claims sovereignty and has vowed to attack should Taipei declare independence.

"There is little evidence to show that the (Chinese navy) is developing the capabilities necessary to extend its ability to project power much beyond China’s claimed territorial waters," Erickson said.

Read more ...

Iran escalates crisis with Britain, saying it will not release female sailor

LONDON: Iran leveled new accusations against Britain in the crisis over 15 captured British sailors on Thursday and withdrew a promise to free a woman sailor, insisting that Britain admit fault before its naval personnel are released.

Now in its seventh day, the crisis seemed to have reached a point where both sides have left the other little room for a face-saving compromise. A senior Iranian official, moreover, has hinted that the captured sailors might be put on trial for unspecified offenses. It is not clear what further counter-measures Britain might take. Iran has not said where the captured sailors are being held so the prospects of a rescue attempt - similar to the failed American bid to free the embassy hostages in April, 1980 - seemed uncertain.

The increasingly intractable dispute turns on rival claims as to the whereabouts of the British sailors when they were seized. Iran says they were more than 500 yards inside its territorial waters, but Britain produced satellite navigation coordinates Wednesday to support its contention that the sailors were 1.7 nautical miles inside Iraqi waters on patrols approved by the United Nations and the Iraqi government.

IRNA, the official Iranian news agency, quoted an Iranian naval official as taking Teheran's accusations significantly further, saying the Britons, in two inflatable, high-speed patrol boats from the frigate HMS Cornwall, had entered Iranian waters several times before they were seized. The Iranian official was quoted as saying Iran had film of the alleged intrusions. The Royal Navy says the sailors were "ambushed" as they completed an inspection of an Indian-flagged merchant ship in Iraqi waters.

IRNA also quoted from a letter sent by the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the British Embassy in Teheran demanding British guarantees not to intrude into Iranian waters in the future.
Multimedia
Video: Faye Turney
» View
Map

» View
Related Articles
Texts of purported letter and statement from captured sailor
Britain increases pressure on Iran over sailors
Today in Europe
U.S. vote on Turkey casts shadow on relations
A paparazzo's shenanigans leave Italy rapt
New charges by Iran intensify crisis with Britain
<A HREF="http://ad.doubleclick.net/click%3Bh=v8/3525/3/0/%2a/o%3B20438110%3B0-0%3B0%3B10388918%3B6734-190/90%3B12112130/12130026/1%3B%3B%7Esscs%3D%3fhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com/products/timesselect/iht/overview.html?excamp=ts:iht_more" TARGET="_blank"><IMG SRC="http://m1.2mdn.net/518758/backup_iht_170x60.gif" WIDTH="170" HEIGHT="60" ALT="Click here..." BORDER="0"></a>

"The Islamic Republic of Iran severely protests against the violation of its territorial waters in the Persian Gulf and, while underlining the importance of international laws and respect for the sovereignty of nations, cautions the London government of the consequences of such violations," the letter was quoted as saying.

For its part, Britain said on Thursday that it would seek United Nations backing against Iran in the dispute, even as Iran hardened its stance over the planned release of Faye Turney, a 26-year-old mother of one, who is the only woman among the 15 sailors and Royal Marines captured in disputed waters on March 23.

Initially, Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, had indicated she might still be freed if Britain retreated from its intention to seek United Nations backing. He said that "if we are faced with a fuss and wrong behavior," Seaman Turney's release "would be suspended and it would not take place."

Later, though, the Mehr news agency quoted a military commander, Alireza Afshar, as saying: "The release of a female British soldier has been suspended. The wrong behavior of those who live in London caused the suspension."

The crisis again sent oil prices above $64 per barrel, close to six month highs.

Britain has already secured European Union support for its insistence that Iran acted illegally in seizing the 15 sailors on March 23 in the waters of the northern Persian Gulf. The latest exchanges between Tehran and London seemed to show the two countries in eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with neither side ready to blink.

A British official spokesman, speaking in return for customary anonymity, insisted that Britain would continue with efforts to coax the United Nations Security Council to support its demand for the release of the 15 captured sailors.

Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, attending a meeting in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, insisted that Britain must admit fault in the dispute to end the standoff, the Associated Press reported.

The dispute has added to the tensions between Iran and the West over Tehran's disputed nuclear program and other issues such as Iran's demand for the release of five Iranians held by American forces in Iraq.

On Wednesday, Britain said that it would freeze its official bilateral business with Iran. Iran responded by showing Seaman Turney on state-run television.

The crisis has left Prime Minister Tony Blair in a delicate position. Britain is in Iraq as a junior ally of the United States - a position that has cost him much of the political kudos he had accumulated when he took office almost 10 years ago.

He has promised to step down this summer so his final months could well be marred by the unpalatable vision of British sailors held by Iranian captors over whom he has no evident influence. The crisis this week has overshadowed completely what should have been a ringing success in Northern Ireland, where arch-rivals Gerry Adams and the Reverand Ian Paisley agreed to form a power-sharing government on May 8.

That would bolster Blair's ambitions to mold a legacy of achievement in a way that a protracted hostage crisis would not. British newspapers filled their front pages on Friday with photographs of Seaman Turney wearing a black Islamic head-scarf served to underline the awkward position Blair is in.

"The brutal truth is that Britain is not in a strong position," The Independent said in an editorial. "Whatever the complexities of maritime boundaries, whatever the position in international law, the reality is that Iran holds British sailors and, with them, most of the cards. Iran also has oil, and a contempt for international opinion that means any threat of further isolation will have only limited effect."

Read more ...

Ivory Coast rebel leader becomes PM

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast - Ivory Coast's president signed a decree Thursday naming a rebel leader prime minister as part of a power-sharing peace plan, a government spokesman said.

With the signature of President Laurent Gbagbo, rebel chief Guillaume Soro officially stepped into his new role under the plan to unite a country split between the rebel-held north and the government-controlled south.

After an attempted coup set off a brief civil war in 2002, Ivory Coast became divided. Numerous peace deals have failed to take hold.

The most recent accord signed March 4 in Ouagadougou, the capital of neighboring Burkina Faso, called for Soro to become prime minister and for elections within 10 months.

About 9,000 U.N. troops and 3,500 French soldiers are deployed in Ivory Coast, the world's largest cocoa producer, to ward off all-out civil war. Many patrol the giant buffer zone that runs east to west, dividing the country.

Gbagbo and Soro promised to organize a new government within five weeks and to pare down the buffer zone to a collection of checkpoints. They also agreed to start disarmament and to issue identification cards necessary for Ivorians to register to vote. The identity documents are an especially sensitive issue, because disputes over who was entitled to citizenship helped fuel the war.

Read more ...

U.S. won't hassle Mubarak over suppression of Brotherhood

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration has decided to maintain support of the regime of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak amid its crackdown on the opposition.

Officials said the State Department has directed the U.S. ambassador and other diplomats not to criticize Egypt. They said the Mubarak regime was besieged by the threat of the Muslim Brotherhood, deemed as extremely anti-American.
Officials said the administration has decided to refrain from criticizing Mubarak during his effort to revise the constitution. They said the State Department and White House have sought to avoid angering the 78-year-old Mubarak amid the U.S. effort to stabilize Iraq.

"We have found that criticism of Mubarak has always been counterproductive," an official said. "We don't want to be in the middle of what should be a domestic political event in Egypt."

As a result, the administration has been largely supportive of the Mubarak regime. Officials said that despite the crackdown on the opposition, Mubarak has been implementing democratic reforms in Egypt, which receives $1.3 billion in annual U.S. military aid.

"When you are able to at some point look back, you will see a general trend towards greater political reform, greater political openness, a more direct correlation between the will and needs and hopes of the Egyptian people and those whom they elect," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said March 20.

McCormack cited Egypt's multi-party presidential and parliamentary elections as well as the recent appointment of 31 female judges as positive developments. He said the 2005 elections have "changed [the] face of the Egyptian parliament."

"Despite its longstanding rhetorical support for democratic reform, Washington's response to date has been tepid at best," a report by the Washington Institute said.

Still, the State Department has criticized Egypt for the imprisonment of opposition leaders, including former presidential candidate Ayman Nour, as well as the conviction of blogger Abdul Karim Suleiman. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also expressed concern over the opposition boycott of Egypt's referendum on the revised constitution, scheduled for March 26.

"The hope was that this would be a process that gave voice to all Egyptians," Ms. Rice said on March 23 on her way to Cairo. "I think there's some danger that that hope is not going to be met. Right now I am concerned that it won't."

The Mubarak regime quickly responded and accused the United States of interfering in Egypt's domestic affairs. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Abu Al Gheit accused Ms. Rice of prejudging Cairo's reform process.

"Even if Egypt and the United States have a friendly, strategic relationship, Egypt can't accept interference in its affairs from any of its friends," Abu Al Gheit said.

Read more ...

Dissidents discover secret base is Bahraini royal playground

ABU DHABI — Bahraini dissidents, thanks to Google Earth, have discovered that a so-called closed island military base was actually a royal playground.
A dissident blogger, speaking to a Rand Corp. seminar, detailed a closed Bahraini island claimed by the military. The blogger, Mahmoud Yusef, said the so-called military base, entitled Mohamadiya, was actually a lush palace protected by the Coast Guard.
"The place has been appropriated by the rich with the Coast Guard providing protection against outsiders," Yusef said.

[The assertion was relayed as parliamentarians debated freedom of expression in Bahrain, Middle East Newsline reported. Twenty-five deputies have opposed an investigation into alleged sexual content in the Spring of Culture festival.]

In an address on March 15 in the Qatari capital of Doha, Yusef said Bahrainis learned of Mohamadiya through Google Earth, located on the Internet. Google Earth offers maps and satellite images for precise regional searches.

Yusef said the Sunni kingdom has sought to battle bloggers and other elements of the media. A critic of Bahrain's agriculture minister, Yusef said he was summoned for police investigation and charged with defamation in a blog in December 2006.

"I criticized someone from the government who is a moron," Yusef said. "The Bahrain Journalists Association got involved and a deal was struck where I would have to change a few offensive words. But when they asked me to change comments made by others, I refused."

Bahrain, a Sunni regime that presides over a Shi'ite majority, has been regarded as the most liberal of the six Gulf Cooperation Council states. Home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet, the kingdom allows alcohol and has served as the watering hole for Western military and diplomatic personnel in the Gulf region.

"Bahrain has strong influences from Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Iran," Yusef said. "Nowadays people don't ask if one is Bahraini, but whether Shia or Sunni. It [the Bahraini government] is trying to do whatever they can to marginalize one sect [the Shi'ites]."

Yusef said Bahrain's Information Ministry has banned the media from discussing allegations by a former senior official that the Manama regime paid Shi'ites to convert to Sunni Islam. He said the ministry has also tried to force websites to register.

"The modus operandi is to muzzle journalists," Yusef said.

worldtribune

Read more ...

Russian intelligence sees U.S. military buildup on Iran border

MOSCOW, March 27 (RIA Novosti) - Russian military intelligence services are reporting a flurry of activity by U.S. Armed Forces near Iran's borders, a high-ranking security source said Tuesday.

"The latest military intelligence data point to heightened U.S. military preparations for both an air and ground operation against Iran," the official said, adding that the Pentagon has probably not yet made a final decision as to when an attack will be launched.

He said the Pentagon is looking for a way to deliver a strike against Iran "that would enable the Americans to bring the country to its knees at minimal cost."

He also said the U.S. Naval presence in the Persian Gulf has for the first time in the past four years reached the level that existed shortly before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Col.-Gen. Leonid Ivashov, vice president of the Academy of Geopolitical Sciences, said last week that the Pentagon is planning to deliver a massive air strike on Iran's military infrastructure in the near future.

A new U.S. carrier battle group has been dispatched to the Gulf.

The USS John C. Stennis, with a crew of 3,200 and around 80 fixed-wing aircraft, including F/A-18 Hornet and Superhornet fighter-bombers, eight support ships and four nuclear submarines are heading for the Gulf, where a similar group led by the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower has been deployed since December 2006.

The U.S. is also sending Patriot anti-missile systems to the region.

Read more ...

Iran: Britain Must Admit Navy Trespassed

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - Iran's foreign minister said Wednesday that Britain must admit that its 15 sailors and marines entered Iranian waters in order to resolve a standoff over their capture by the Mideast nation.

Manouchehr Mottaki's statement in an interview with The Associated Press came on a day of escalating tensions, highlighted by an Iranian video of the detained Britons that showed the only woman captive saying her group had "trespassed" in Iranian waters. Britain angrily denounced the video as unacceptable and froze most dealings with the Mideast nation.

The Iranian official also backed off a prediction that the female sailor, Faye Turney, could be freed Wednesday or Thursday, but said Tehran agreed to allow British officials to meet with the detainees.

Mottaki said that if the alleged entry into Iranian waters was a mistake "this can be solved. But they have to show that it was a mistake. That will help us to end this issue."

"Admitting the mistake will facilitate a solution to the problem," he said late Wednesday night in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he was attending an Arab summit.

It was the first time that Iran has publicly suggested a way to resolve the crisis, but British acquiescence appeared unlikely as the country has been insisting since the crisis began that its troops were in Iraqi waters and released a GPS readout on Wednesday to back up the claim.

Britain's military said the readout proved the Royal Navy personnel were seized 1.7 nautical miles inside Iraqi waters. But in the interview, Mottaki said Iran had GPS devices from the British boats that showed they were in Iranian territory.

There was no immediate comment from the British to Mottaki's statement. A call to Britain's Foreign Office in London was not answered early Thursday.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair's government announced it was freezing all dealings with Iran except to negotiate the release of its personnel, adding to a public exchange of sharp comments that helped fuel a spike in world oil prices.

At the United Nations in New York, Britain asked the Security Council to support a call for the immediate release of detainees, saying in a statement they were operating in Iraqi waters under a mandate from the Security Council and at the request of Iraq, according to council diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because the text was not released. The issue was expected to be debated Thursday.

Earlier Wednesday, a brief video of the captured Britons was shown on Iran's Arabic language satellite television station, Al-Alam.

One segment showed sailors and marines sitting in an Iranian boat in open waters immediately after their capture.

The video also displayed what appeared to be a handwritten letter from Turney, 26, to her family.

"I have written a letter to the Iranian people to apologize for us entering their waters," it said. The letter also asks Turney's parents in Britain to look after her 3-year-old daughter, Molly, and her husband, Adam.

The video showed Turney in checkered head scarf and her uniform eating with other sailors and marines. Later, wearing a white tunic and black head scarf, she sat in a room before floral curtains and smoked a cigarette.

Turney was the only detainee to be shown speaking, giving her name and saying she had been in the navy for nine years.

"Obviously we trespassed into their waters," Turney said at one point, her voice audible under a simultaneous Arabic translation. "They were very friendly and very hospitable, very thoughtful, nice people. They explained to us why we've been arrested. There was no harm, no aggression."

In backing away from predictions that Turney could be freed Wednesday or Thursday, Mottaki said in the interview that Iran will look into releasing her "as soon as possible."

He said earlier the reports of her imminent release were incorrect. "I was probably misquoted," he said.

Earlier in the day, Mottaki told the AP: "Today or tomorrow, the lady will be released." The Turkish television station, CNN-Turk, had also reported him saying Wednesday she would be freed "today or tomorrow."

But the talk of releasing Turney did little to calm British anger.

Before the video was broadcast, a spokesman for Blair said any showing of British personnel on TV would be a breach of the Geneva Conventions.

After the footage was aired, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said she was "very concerned about these pictures and any indication of pressure on, or coercion of, our personnel. ... I am particularly disappointed that a private letter has been used in a way which can only add to the distress of the families."

The third Geneva Convention bans subjecting prisoners of war to intimidation, insults or "public curiosity." Because there is no armed conflict between Iran and Britain, the captives would not technically be classified as prisoners of war.

Blair told the House of Commons that "there was no justification whatever ... for their detention, it was completely unacceptable, wrong and illegal."

"We had hoped to see their immediate release; this has not happened. It is now time to ratchet up the diplomatic and international pressure in order to make sure the Iranian government understands its total isolation on this issue," he said.

Beckett said Britain would focus all its efforts on resolving the issue.

"We will, therefore, be imposing a freeze on all other official bilateral business with Iran until the situation is resolved. We will keep other aspects of our policy towards Iran under close review and continue to proceed carefully. But no one should be in any doubt about the seriousness with which we regard these events," she said.

The statement appeared to refer to diplomatic dealings rather than business relations, but Britain's Department of Trade said the country does not buy oil directly from Iran.

Oil prices rose by more than $1 a barrel Wednesday to a six-month high amid worries about the standoff, which came as the U.S. Navy is carrying out its largest show of force in the Persian Gulf since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

President Bush discussed the 15 Britons with Blair over a secured video conference call Wednesday, White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said. "The president fully backs Tony Blair and our allies in Britain," she said.

British officials have said the 15 Britons were taken captive after completing a search of a civilian ship near the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway, which forms the border between Iran and Iraq.

In London, British military officials released new information about the seizure, saying satellite positioning readings showed the vessels were 1.7 nautical miles inside Iraqi waters.

Vice Adm. Charles Style gave the satellite coordinates as 29 degrees 50.36 minutes north latitude and 48 degrees 43.08 minutes east longitude. He said that position had been confirmed by an Indian-flagged merchant ship boarded by the sailors and marines.

He also told reporters the Iranians had provided a geographical position Sunday that he said was in Iraqi waters. By Tuesday, he said, Iranian officials had given a revised position 2 miles to the east, inside Iranian waters.

"It is hard to understand a legitimate reason for this change of coordinates," Style said.

AP

Read more ...

Iran ‘to try Britons for espionage’

FIFTEEN British sailors and marines arrested by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards off the coast of Iraq may be charged with spying.

A website run by associates of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, reported last night that the Britons would be put before a court and indicted.

Referring to them as “insurgents”, the site concluded: “If it is proven that they deliberately entered Iranian territory, they will be charged with espionage. If that is proven, they can expect a very serious penalty since according to Iranian law, espionage is one of the most serious offences.”

The warning followed claims by Iranian officials that the British navy personnel had been taken to Tehran, the capital, to explain their “aggressive action” in entering Iranian waters. British officials insist the servicemen were in Iraqi waters when they were held.

The penalty for espionage in Iran is death. However, similar accusations of spying were made when eight British servicemen were detained in the same area in 2004. They were paraded blindfolded on television but did not appear in court and were freed after three nights in detention.

Iranian student groups called yesterday for the 15 detainees to be held until US forces released five Revolutionary Guards captured in Iraq earlier this year.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat, a Saudi-owned newspaper based in London, quoted an Iranian military source as saying that the aim was to trade the Royal Marines and sailors for these Guards.

The claim was backed by other sources in Tehran. “As soon as the corps’s five members are released, the Britons can go home,” said one source close to the Guards.

He said the tactic had been approved by Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, who warned last week that Tehran would take “illegal actions” if necessary to maintain its right to develop a nuclear programme.

Iran denounced a tightening of sanctions which the United Nations security council was expected to agree last night in protest at Tehran’s insistence on enriching uranium that could be used for nuclear weapons.

Lord Triesman, the Foreign Office minister, met the Iranian ambassador in London yesterday to demand that consular staff be allowed access to the Britons, one of whom is a woman. His intervention came as a senior Iranian general alleged that the Britons had confessed under interrogation to “aggression into Iran’s waters”.

Intelligence sources said any advance order for the arrests was likely to have come from Major-General Yahya Rahim Safavi, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards.

Subhi Sadek, the Guards’ weekly newspaper, warned last weekend that the force had “the ability to capture a bunch of blue-eyed blond-haired officers and feed them to our fighting cocks”.

Safavi is known to be furious about the recent defections to the West of three senior Guards officers, including a general, and the effect of UN sanctions on his own finances.

A senior Iraqi officer appeared to back Tehran’s claim that the British had entered Iranian waters. “We were informed by Iraqi fishermen after they had returned from sea that there were British gunboats in an area that is out of Iraqi control,” said Brigadier-General Hakim Jassim, who is in charge of Iraq’s territorial waters. “We don’t know why they were there.”

Admiral Sir Alan West, the former head of the Royal Navy, dismissed suggestions that the British boats might have been in Iranian waters. West, who was first sea lord when the previous arrests took place in June 2004, said satellite tracking systems had shown then that the Iranians were lying and the same was certain to be true now.

times online

Read more ...

China, Venezuela to cement ties with oil deals

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela said on Saturday it was working on a raft of oil deals with China, giving impetus to President Hugo Chavez's attempts to break his country's dependence on oil exports to the United States.

The China National Petroleum Corp. will look to develop heavy crude oil production in the Orinoco Belt and cooperate with Venezuela in building three refineries in China and a "super-fleet" of crude tankers, the Information Ministry said.

"The United States as a power is on the way down, China is on the way up. China is the market of the future," Chavez was quoted as saying by an Information Ministry statement after meeting CNPC President Jiang Jiemin in Caracas.

China's economic expansion has turned it into the world's second-biggest oil consumer. OPEC member Venezuela was the fifth-biggest oil exporter to the United States in January. Analysts reckon it pumps about 2.7 million barrels per day.

Chavez has ambitious plans to lift oil exports to China to lessen its dependence on its arch-foe the United States, saying it hopes to send 1 million barrels per day to China by 2012.

This optimistic target follows an earlier goal of more than tripling oil exports to China of 160,000 bpd by 2009.

The Information Ministry said CNPC would sign on Monday a preliminary deal to take a 40 percent stake in various Venezuelan heavy crude projects.

CNPC is already working in the Junin 4 block but Chavez said the Chinese oil giant wanted to expand its Orinoco operations with "billions of dollars" of investment.

Chavez is pushing ahead with a nationalization of Venezuela's oil industry, stripping major U.S. companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM.N), ConocoPhillips (COP.N) and Chevron Corp. (CVX.N) of their majority stakes in heavy crude projects.

While sidelining such majors, Chavez is seeking to do more business with China, Russia and Iran, part of forming what he describes as a multipolar alliance against the United States.

He said the three proposed refineries in China would process 800,000 bpd of Venezuelan crude. The proposed new tanker fleet would not just run China-Venezuela routes but also operate in the Caribbean and take shipments to Africa, Chavez said.

Although Venezuela has signed many memorandums of understanding on commercial cooperation with countries in the developing world, many of the proposals have been very slow to turn into anything concrete.

In a sign that Venezuela's ties to China hinge on politics as well as commerce, Li Changchun, who sits of the Chinese Communist Party's omnipotent nine-member Politburo Standing Committee, will visit Venezuela next week.

Read more ...