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February 2008 - Posts
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In the global war against Jihad, America's recurring challenge is the unwillingness of its political leadership to confront the fact that political Islamism is an ideological basis for "Islamist terrorism", as defined in the 9/11 Commission Report. This week, while operational war tactics garnered most of the headlines, once again America's political leadership ignored the global challenge of political Islamism, and President Bush announced his selection of a new U.S. envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), Mr. Sada Cumber of Texas.
The OIC remains the largest international Islamist organization in the world, and it is an organization that consistently leverages political Islamism to attack freedom of speech and press, to attack freedom of religion, to deny that Palestinian and Lebanese Jihadist groups are terrorists, and to promote the anti-freedom ideology of Islamism. In June 2007, when President Bush first indicated plans of such an envoy to the OIC, his plans were met with praise by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation/Hamas trial), and met with condemnation by counterterrorism expert Steven Emerson.
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The 2008 edition of the International Narcotics Control Strategy Report was released by the U.S. State Department today. As in the 2007 edition, this year's report targets the explosive growth in opium production in Afghanistan and warns of the corrosive impact on counterterrorism operations there: "Narcotics production in Afghanistan hit historic highs in 2007 for the second straight year. Afghanistan grew 93 percent of the world’s opium poppy, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Opium poppy cultivation expanded from 165,000 ha in 2006 to 193,000 ha in 2007, an increase of 17 percent in land under cultivation... The export value of this year’s illicit opium harvest, $4 billion, made up more than a third of Afghanistan’s combined total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $11.5 billion. Afghanistan’s drug trade is undercutting efforts to establish a stable democracy with a licit economic free market in the country. The narcotics trade has strong links with the anti-government insurgency, most commonly associated with the Taliban. Narcotics traffickers provide revenue and arms to the Taliban, while the Taliban provides protection to growers and traffickers and keeps the government from interfering with their activities. During recent years, poppy production has soared in provinces where the Taliban is most active." This year's edition includes a new section titled, "Mobile Payments--A Growing Threat": "Unfortunately, while fighting the twin threats of money laundering and terrorist financing, we are also witnessing a plethora of new, high-tech value transfer systems that can be abused. Some of the most innovative are electronic payment products. FATF calls them “new payment methods” or NPMs. They are also sometimes called “e-money” or “digital cash.” Examples include Internet payment services, prepaid calling and credit cards, digital precious metals, electronic purses, and mobile payments or “m-payments.” Driven by a remarkable convergence of the financial and telecommunications sectors, the rapid global growth of m-payments demands particular attention. M-payments can take many forms but are commonly point of sale payments made through a mobile device such as a cellular phone, a smart phone, or a personal digital assistant (PDA)." The section describes a typical method of moving money through m-payments:
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On February 28, the USS Cole was deployed off the coast of Lebanon. Ostensibly, the presence of the warship is intended to demonstrate Washington's ongoing commitment to the democratically elected pro-West government vis-à-vis the Hizballah-led opposition and ally, Damascus. Hizballah and Syria are currently preventing presidential elections in Lebanon; the office has been vacant since October 2007.
Reports suggest that the USS Cole may soon be joined by the Nassau battle group, which among other things includes amphibious troop carriers. It’s unlikely that we’ll see US boots on the ground in Lebanon, but Syria and Hizballah are not pleased.
Senior Hizballah officials have described the USS Cole as "a threat." In October 2007, Hizballah officials threatened that if US troops ventured onto Lebanese soil, they would be treated as “occupation forces” and attacked. UNIFIL has been attacked three times since its deployment in 2006.
The situation is particularly tense in the aftermath of the assassination of Hizballah terrorist chief Imad Mugniyyeh earlier this month. Hizballah has vowed retaliation against Israel.
I wrote an article on Hizballah’s history of following through with threats against Israel, which was published yesterday and can be found here.
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In its latest effort to target al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) financial and logistical networks operating out of Syria, the Treasury Department designated today four members of a key terrorist facilitation network. Such facilitation networks have long operated out of Syria and have been the target of periodic designations. As recently as December 2007, Undersecretary of the Treasury Stuart Levey called on Syria to “take action to deny safe haven to those supporting violence from within its borders.” Today’s designation suggests Syria still has far to go in this regard.
Known as the “Abu Ghadiyah” network and run by Badran Turki Hishan al Mazidih (aka Abu Ghadiyah), the group designated today controls the flow of much of the money, weapons, personnel and other material through Syria into Iraq for AQI. According to the Treasury Department, the network “obtained false passports for foreign terrorists, provided passports, weapons, guides, safe houses, and allowances to foreign terrorists in Syria and those preparing to cross the border into Iraq.” Indeed, Badran reportedly received several hundred thousand dollars from his cousin, another member of the Abu Ghadiyah financial and logistical facilitation network, with which he supported insurgent activity targeting the U.S. military and facilitated the travel of AQI foreign fighters.
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I have written about the increased tendency of journalists to transform clear U.S. law enforcement victories into crushing defeats, by giving a platform to those who argue the government should not have prosecuted certain people who were ultimately convicted. To most, a conviction or guilty plea should wash this argument away. If not, we must allow the government to claim victory even when it loses a terrorism prosecution, something for which few rational people argue. Legal results matter, unless you are a nihilist.
This trend is on display in a Boston Globe article by Drake Bennett and in a forthcoming Mother Jones article by Eric Umansky, though neither of these articles are particularly disturbing. An article along these lines by Guy Lawson in Rolling Stone a few weeks about convicted terrorist Dareek Shariff, however, drew protest from FBI spokesman John Miller.
Miller’s letter (here) speaks for itself. However, it is important to consider the source of his consternation. Since when is Rolling Stone a source of hard news about counterrorism and public affairs? I appreciate its occasional attempts to be serious, and I have been known to sometimes rely on its music reviews. However, people should be wary about treating it as a reliable bellwether for hard news and political analysis.
Need proof of this? Consider the current issue, which has “Britney Spears: An American Tragedy” on the cover. If you read the article by Matt Taibi, entitled “The Chicken Doves,” you will readily see why Rolling Stone has such a long way to go before it is treated as a respectable source of enlightened political commentary. Here’s how Taibi concludes his article:
Even beyond the war, the Democrats have repeatedly gone limp-d___ every time the Bush Administration so much as raises its voice. Most recently, twelve Democrats crossed the aisle to grant immunity to phone companies who participated in Bush’s notorious wiretapping program. Before that, the Democrats caved in and confirmed Mike Mukasey as attorney general after he kept his middle finger extended and refused to condemn waterboarding.
. . . .
How much of this bulls___ are we going to take? How long are we supposed to give the Reids and Pelosis and Hillarys of the world credit for wanting, deep down in their molding hearts, to do the right thing?
Look, f___ your hearts, OK. Just get it done. Because if you don’t, sooner or later this con is going to run dry. It may not be in ’08, but it’ll be soon. Even Americans can’t be fooled again.
Like, right on, dude! Totally speaking truth to power. Now take a deep breath and ask yourself: is this the type of sentiment that passes for journalism in this day and age? Rolling Stone might tell us about Sheryl Crow’s new album or the upcoming Led Zeppelin tour, but perhaps it should stick to what it knows.
The views in this post are the author's own and do not reflect those of the Department of Justice.
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The Jerusalem Post today ran an article today containing a few quotes translated from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ February 27 interview with the Jordanian daily Ad Dustour.
The remarks reported by the Post do not inspire optimism regarding the future of the Annapolis negotiations. [Neither does the full interview in Arabic].
Of the few points mentioned by the Post, the following quote stands out:
"At this present juncture, I am opposed to armed struggle because we cannot succeed in it, but maybe in the future things will be different," he said.
In the full interview, Abbas speaks with pride about the PLO’s “legendary struggle” Israel, and how the PLO trained Hizballah in their camps. He also mentions how he personally withstood US and Israeli pressures not to allow Hamas to participate in the January 2006 elections. Today, he said, “I won’t reject dialogue with Hamas, and I won’t accept pressure from anyone.”
Secretary of State Rice heads to the Middle East on March 3rd to try and push these negotiations forward.
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 I have an article in the Middle East Times today examining rifts between the ARS (Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia) and the Shabab wing of the Somali insurgency. An excerpt: A communiqué recently issued by Abu
Mansoor al-Amriki, an U.S. jihadist aligned with Shabab, explains the
split between the two groups. Entitled, "A Message to the
Mujahideen in Particular and the Muslims in General," Amriki's
communiqué describes the ARS (which he continues to refer to as "the
Islamic Courts") as nationalist in orientation, while Shabab is more
religiously motivated. (Shabab leader Aden Hashi 'Ayro, for example,
trained at an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan.) " hile the courts had a
goal limited to the boundaries placed by the Taghoot [impure]," Amriki
wrote, "the Shabab had a global goal including the establishment of the
Islamic Khilafah [caliphate] in all parts of the world." This
represents not only a difference in strategic visions; Amriki also
condemns the ARS for their tactical choices. The ARS has been closely
aligned with Eritrea, and its leader Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed now lives
in Asmara. Amriki claims that "[t]here is no doubt" that Eritrea is
"not looking out for what is in our best interest or what is in the
best interests of the jihad." Though not much is
publicly known about Amriki, an American intelligence source tells me
that he was one of the former U.S. military personnel who fought in
Bosnia during the 1990s, is a high-ranking member of al-Qaida's East
Africa leadership, and is one of the Somali insurgents' lead trainers.
When he once appeared on al-Jazeera wearing a face mask, it was clear
that Amriki was Caucasian. In his critique of the ARS,
Amriki writes that the Shabab has adopted the manhaj (religious
methodology) "adopted by the Mujahideen in the rest of the blessed
lands of jihad," including that of Osama bin Laden, Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, and "the lion, the genius, the doctor" Ayman al-Zawahiri.
According to Nick Grace, who follows the jihadist web for ThreatsWatch,
global jihadist forums have taken note of the split, and opinion on
them generally runs against ARS.
You can read the entire Middle East Times article here. Also, I have attached a copy of Amriki's communiqué: Abu Mansoor al-Amriki.pdf.
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A few weeks ago while conducting research for a client; I came across a newspaper article from Toronto that immediately caught my attention. It reported the arrest of four men on charges of debit and credit card fraud for possessing numerous gift cards containing bank account and debit information from individuals in the United Kingdom (U.K.). Further investigation found laptop computers and memory sticks containing bank information for thousands of U.K. bank customers. What resonated was the fact the four subjects were believed to be associated with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) aka, the Tamil Tigers.
In November, I was in Toronto and met with a credit card fraud expert. I inquired as to whether he observed a nexus between credit card fraud and terrorists. He stated that Canada had a credit card fraud problem involving the Tamil Tigers. I knew there was a concern about the Tamil Tigers in Canada but I hadn’t previously been aware of the apprehensiveness about their involvement in credit card fraud.
The arrest of the two U.K. subjects above reminded me of the massive credit and debit card fraud case in the U.K. involving up to 200 British petrol (gasoline) stations. The subjects in that case were alleged to be Tamil Tigers. They obtained credit and debit card information at gasoline pumps through the use of skimming machines. The loss was estimated to be as much as $72,000,000.
Unfortunately, this problem does not receive the attention it deserves. It’s reminiscent to the Nigerian credit card fraud problem in the late 1970s. When I was a young Agent with the FBI, I worked Nigerian frauds. Invariably whenever an arrest was made the Nigerian subject had stacks of fraudulent credit cards in their possession. It was a quite epidemic that was never adequately addressed.
We should be extremely concerned about the scope of the credit card fraud problem involving terrorists. There is limited or no empirical data to gauge the extent of the problem. However, there are compelling signs that an epidemic permeates. Looking back at three specific cases, we get a snapshot of how serious the problem is.
1. Ali Al Marri was arrested in Illinois in December 2001 for having lied to FBI Agents about having contact with facilitators of the 9/11 terrorist attack. At the time of arrest, Al Marri had 36 credit card numbers and account information in his possession. A subsequent search of his computer found he had compiled over 1,000 credit card numbers and other identifying information.
2. Imam Samudra was the mastermind of the Bali bombing. Following his arrest he wrote an autobiography about his jihadist life. He wrote a chapter entitled “Hacking, Why Not.” In it, he urged fellow Muslim radicals to take holy war into cyberspace by attacking U.S. computers. Samudra described America’s computer network as being vulnerable to hacking, credit card fraud and money laundering. The chapter did not focus on specific techniques. It focused on how to find techniques on the internet and how to connect with people in chat rooms to perfect hacking and carding skills. It was a course of study for aspiring hackers and carders. Samudra discussed the process of scanning for websites vulnerable to hacking and then went on to discuss the basics of online credit card fraud and money laundering. One of the concerns posed by Samudra’s book was that it could serve as a roadmap leading terrorists to more accomplished hackers.
3. In the case of Younes Tsouli, aka Terrorist 007, and his two associates, Waseem Mughal and Tariq al-Daour, investigators in the United States (U.S.) and the U.K. determined the trio used computer viruses and stolen credit card accounts to set up a network of communication forums and web sites that hosted everything from tutorials on computer hacking and bomb making to videos of beheadings and suicide bombing attacks in Iraq. These individuals were not murderous terrorists like Samudra, but were facilitators for individuals who were, making them every bit as despicable. They raised funds through massive credit card information theft and fraud, which were used to support the communications, propaganda and recruitment for terrorists worldwide, as well as to purchase equipment for Jihadists in the field. One expert described their activities as “operating an online dating service for al-Qaeda.” The three men pled guilty to inciting terrorist murder via the internet.
The above cases are particularly troubling because of the upward trend of terrroists communicating on and using the internet as a learning tool. In both the Samudra and Terrorist 007 cases, they left their successful tradecraft on web pages and in chat rooms for aspiring terrorists to learn and grow from.
Congress should address this issue. There needs to be a series of hearings to assess the scope of the problem and the potential solutions, including the development of detective and preventive mechanisms such as enhanced credit card information security features. As part of this process, Congress should request the Government Accountability Office to conduct an investigation to determine the level of vulnerability that can be quantified concerning terrorist related credit card fraud and credit information theft.
Government agencies possessing investigative and intelligence information about terrorist related credit card fraud should go back into their open and closed case files. They should collect, collate and assess all terrorist related credit card information. For example, when terrorists are arrested, how many credit cards or how much credit card account information do they possess? Where and how did they obtain the information? What patterns or trends can be identified?
Epidemics are not eliminated by inaction or ignorance. The Nigerian credit card fraud problems of the late 1970s and 1980s attests to this. Epidemics can only be treated and eliminated through detective and preventive treatment.
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Jemaah Islamiyah member Mas Selamet bin Kasteri reportedly escaped from a Singaporean detention center on the evening of 27 February. Earlier this decade, Kasteri had been the head of a Singaporean cell within JI. He was renowned for his particularly violent plots against targets in Singapore (hijacking a plane and crashing it into Changi Airport, for example), though none were ever actually carried out.
After the 11 September 2001 attacks, and the crackdowns against JI in Singapore in Malaysia, Kasteri fled to Indonesia. He was eventually captured in Indonesia and repatriated to Singapore.
If the reports of his escape are correct and the past is any precedent, Kasteri may well be seeking sanctuary in Indonesia once again.
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 The NEFA Foundation has obtained a copy of a new video recording released today of Al-Qaida's Deputy Commander Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri mourning the recent death of Abu al-Laith al-Liby during a U.S. air strike in northern Pakistani. In his video statement, al-Zawahiri acknowledged the significance of the late Libyan commander but insisted that his loss would not deter the plans of Al-Qaida: "Every time a martyr falls, another martyr grabs the banner from him, and every time a chief goes down in blood, another chief completes the march after him... No chief of ours has died a natural death, nor has our blood been spilled without a response."
An English transcript of al-Zawahiri's latest message can be downloaded from the NEFA Foundation website.
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As I wrote today for Middle East Strategy at Harvard (MESH), this week’s news placed Hamas in the spotlight, with press coverage of key Hamas activity in the West Bank, Egypt and Jordan. While Hamas suffered significant setbacks at the hands of Israeli and Jordanian authorities, the group fared much better in Egypt. In the West Bank, the Israeli military shut a key Hamas charity. In Jordan, officials arrested a group of five Hamas operatives surveiling targets within the Kingdom. But in Egypt authorities released twenty-one Palestinians to Hamas custody this week, including several Hamas activists detained with explosives and weapons inside Egypt.
By all accounts, Hamas control of Gaza is the most significant obstacle to resuming serious Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. So while news of crackdowns on Hamas in the West Bank and Jordan is welcome, the news out of Egypt could prove to be the most significant of these three developments.
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This afternoon, Pat O'Brien, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for terrorist financing and financial crimes, spoke at a Washington Institute lunch.
Here is an excerpt of his remarks:
Last year, Treasury's Deputy Secretary Robert Kimmitt spoke to you about a "Treasury Transformed." Today, I would like to build on those remarks and provide further detail on Treasury's Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI).
I will explain TFI's perspective and strategic approach for combating not only terrorist financing, but also other threats to our national security, including WMD proliferation, rogue nations, kleptocracy, drug trafficking, money laundering, and organized crime more generally. I would then like to spend some time on TFI's efforts to combat terrorist financing and how those efforts advance the broader U.S. counterterrorism mission. Finally, I want to briefly update you on TFI's efforts to address the particular threats that we face from Iran, with respect to proliferation and its role as a state sponsor of terrorism. These efforts illustrate TFI's broad range of statutory authorities, its effective government and private sector relationships, and substantive expertise in developing a comprehensive strategy to disrupt the ongoing threat posed by Iran. . . . .
To read the rest of the speech, click here.
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This column is another in the ongoing series on the terrorist threat to India and the surrounding region by Frank Hyland and Animesh Roul.
Discussion of the terrorist threat in India’s troubled eastern region would not be complete without including the Communist Party of India-Maoist.
September 9th, 1976, marked the death of Mao Tse Tung, the iconic leader of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and an inspiration to millions of others throughout Asia and beyond. Mao’s ideas lived on, though, and persist even today in one of India’s most effective and most feared terrorist groups: The Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-M).
As it exists today, CPI-M is not yet four years old, having been formed in September of 2004. CPI-M’s progenitors, however, the Maoist Communist Center (MCC) and the People’s War Group (PWG) were highly experienced groups, both of which had carried out anti-state attacks in India for decades. CPI-M’s expressed goals remain those of MCC and PWG: nothing less than a PRC-like official end to societal classes through a peasant-led revolution in India. CPI-M’s strategy to achieve those ends, also mimicking Mao’s historic Long March, is the establishment of areas under its control known as Compact Revolutionary Zones. The areas would later be expanded until India in its entirety fell under CPI-M control. At present the group exerts a degree of such control over portions of Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh States, as well as in the surrounding areas of Bihar, Orissa, and West Bengal.
CPI-M is, far and away, the most redoubtable of India’s left-wing terrorist groups. The group presently fields an estimated seven thousand guerrillas, including youngsters, in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, and West Bengal. CPI-M has also caused a “ripple effect” beyond India’s borders, in neighboring Nepal, through its growing relations with Nepalese Maoists of the CPN-M. Before its first organizational anniversary, CPI-M and CPN-M combined forces in June 2005 to kill more than 20 victims in a joint attack carried out in Bihar State.
A listing of CPI-M attacks, its motives, and its victims illustrates well the degree of the threat:
- On February 28, 2006, nearly 25 people were killed when CPI-M cadres triggered a landmine blast at Eklagoda, in Chhatisgarh’s Dantewada district; more than 40 others were injured;
- An attack by CPI-M on a government-run relief camp in Errabore, Dantewada, on July 17, 2006, probably to demonstrate the fate of those who relied on the Indian Government, resulted in the massacre of more than 30 people;
- In what is considered to be CPI-M’s biggest-ever strike targeting Indian security forces, the group stormed the Rani Bodli Police outpost with grenades and indiscriminate gunfire on March 15, 2007, killing approximately 55 police personnel;
- CPI-M attacks in the latter part of October 2007 were emblematic of its expressed aims. In one, the group killed villagers who had gathered for a cultural event, including the nephew of a former Chief Minister of Jharkhand State. In the other, in order to display its political control over the area, villagers were accused of being informers for Indian Police authorities and executed;
- The following month, and in a further demonstration its control, CPI-M killed sixteen security force personnel patrolling near Pamedu in Bijapur (Chhattisgarh);
- Just two weeks ago, on February 15th, fifteen people, most of them police personnel, were killed when heavily armed Maoist cadres, both men and women, attacked three police establishments in Nayagarh, Orissa State.
The Indian response - official and non-official - has met with mixed results. The Indian Government has arrested a number of CPI-M’s members under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. The group has also been banned by at least three of the affected states - Orissa, Andrha Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh. On the non-official side, vigilante groups have arisen in a number of areas in an attempt to respond to the CPI-M violence. Attacks, as noted above, continue.
As did Mao’s People’s Liberation Army -- as did the MCC and PWG -- CPI-M retains a penchant for violence, showing no quarter whatsoever to its victims. Also reminiscent of its Maoist heritage, CPI-M’s targeting focus is squarely on those it considers to be representative of the Indian State - governmental officials, members of public security forces, and teachers. Although to the present only a small portion of CPI-M’s victims, tourists have been among the group’s victims. It would not be surprising, however, to see that situation change. As has been the case in numerous other nations, anti-state attacks that include tourism, such as in Turkey, Egypt, and Spain, have had a devastating effect on countries’ revenues. While the focus will remain on Indian State targets, foreign firms in India should be vigilant at all times.
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I was actually somewhat surprised when, in January, State Department counterterrorism coordinator Dell Dailey described al-Qaeda's top leadership as isolated in a manner reminiscent of discussions of the group circa 2004 or 2005, when it was in vogue to call them "a fragmented terrorist group living on the run in the caves of Afghanistan." In a January talk with a group of defense reporters, Dailey said that al-Qaeda's senior leaders have "much, much less central authority and much, much less capability to reach out." My colleague Kyle Dabruzzi and I recently published an article in Middle East Quarterly about the strength of al-Qaeda's senior leadership that was adapted today into a shorter piece at the Daily Standard. We do not share Daily's conclusions about the group. An excerpt:
AL QAEDA ITSELF HAS FACED INTERNAL debates about its future. Abu Musab
al-Suri, one of the most prolific jihadist ideologues, in recent years
has argued for a decentralized combat model. In contrast, Abu Bakr
Naji, another prominent ideologue, calls for a more centralized model.
Suri's 1600-page manifesto, The Call for Global Islamic Resistance,
argues that the centralized, hierarchical model of jihadism cannot
overcome the U.S.'s technologically advanced military, and that
regional security cooperation--such as the alliance between Washington
and Islamabad--makes a hierarchical structure dangerous. He suggests
that decentralization immunizes terror cells from detection through the
capture and interrogation of members of other cells. Suri's
prescription for decentralization would mean replacing the old training
camp model with one in which fighters are trained "in homes and mobile
camps."
In contrast, Naji's The Management of Savagery
argues that once the jihadists hold territory, they should erect a
governing apparatus to enforce Islamic law and provide security, food,
and medical care. A high command would ensure that efforts are not
needlessly duplicated, and would prioritize actions against various
groups or nations. Naji's argument has carried the day within al
Qaeda's hierarchy. Though there are many reasons for this, perhaps the
most significant factor has been external events. As al Qaeda gained
new safe havens in Pakistan and beyond, Naji's model seemed most
fitting. EXTERNAL EVENTS ASIDE, THE PREFERENCE of al Qaeda's
leadership for Naji's approach over Suri's reflects a long-standing
inclination for centralization. Osama bin Laden originally formed al
Qaeda to keep the vanguard of jihad alive after the Soviet Union's
defeat in Afghanistan. West Point's Combating Terrorism Center has
translated a number of documents captured during the Afghan and Iraq
campaigns that the Department of Defense has declassified from its
Harmony Database. These documents depict a clear al Qaeda hierarchy
dating back to bin Laden's residence in Sudan between 1992 to 1996.
One document,
entitled "Interior Organization," delineates al Qaeda's hierarchical
structure, from the commander and ruling council down to organizational
committees. It explains that the commander must have been a member of
al Qaeda for at least seven years, have a sufficient understanding of
Islamic law and jihad, and "have operational experience from jihad."
The document also enumerates five separate committees: military,
political, administrative and financial, security, and surveillance. Other documents detail members' duties, salaries, and even vacation time. Bachelors
qualify for a round-trip ticket home after a year, although they have
the option of using it for hajj (religious pilgrimage) instead. An application to train in al Qaeda camps inquires about the applicant's education
level, professional experience, medical history, and how much of the
Qur'an he has memorized.
Our Daily Standard piece can be read in full here.
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The All-India anti-terrorism conclave held on February 25 by the famed Darul Uloom ( Deoband, India) seminary issued an edict denouncing all forms of terrorism as 'un-Islamic'. This edict received positive reactions from all section of Indian society, including political parties like the BJP. Many think that this kind of voice would eventually discourage the radical elements to take the path of jehad, in the name of religion. To many, there should be follow up actions, (e.g. fatwas against terrorist leaders who have hijacked Islam already) to exert continuous pressure on terrorist leaders. However, the edict made a dig at the West and urged the Indian Government not to malign the madrasas and Muslims. The conclave, in its declaration, also appealed [all] intellectuals, writers and media persons to 'independently and honestly' analyze the national and international affairs and avoid to biased and partial attitudes.
Read full text of the Declaration below (highlighted by the author of this post):
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The trial of Mohammed Hamid one of the leading organizers of terrorism in the UK has ended. Hamid along with three of his followers has been convicted using new legislation introduced in 2006, which criminalizes attendance at a place used for terrorist training. There was no evidence presented in this trial of weapons or explosives, simply the covert video tape of Mohammed Hamid and his followers performing what was described as ‘military training’, over a two-year period. The police investigation (Operation Overamp) relied on skilled technical surveillance and the undoubted bravery of an undercover officer. Hamid was found guilty of organizing terrorist camps and encouraging others to murder non-believers. The men later convicted of the failed July 21 attacks on London’s transport system were among those who attended his camps.
Hamid’s terrorist career is highly illustrative of the radical conditions that existed within the UK in the late 1990s and beyond. Hamid was born in Tanzania to an Indian family and grew up in Yorkshire in the north of England. He move to London when he was 12 getting involved in petty crime before being jailed for robbery. Following a period as a crack addict he turned to Islam. By the mid-90s he had opened his own bookshop in east London and was leafleting passers-by in central London. He was an occasional member of Abu Hamza’s congregation at Finsbury Park mosque, while also preaching extremist rhetoric at Speaker’s Corner in London’s Hyde Park. When the war started with Afghanistan he organized aid shipments to Pakistan and returned to the UK further radicalized. He developed a long list of contacts and his innovation was to create training camps for terrorism within the UK. Hamid’s career-path seems all too familiar now.
Hamid was clearly a key radicalizing influence within the UK, one of many that have existed from the mid-1990s. What this prosecution shows, more than anything, is that the UK has arrived at a legislative and operational framework, within which to finally address these key recruiting and radicalizing influences. This was previously not possible, one only needs to look as far as the mangled attempts to prosecute Abu Hamza over the years. Sadly, extremists are likely to learn from this trial and reject future attempts to ‘train’ in the UK -- it is of course much harder to monitor training camps in Pakistan. The prevention of terrorism is a clear strand in Britain's counter-terrorism strategy (known as CONTEST) and this conviction is a significant victory. To continue achieving preventative success, the legal and operational responses will need to remain fluid in order to address variable future versions of, ‘terror recruiters’.
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I just wrote a piece for the Middle East Times on Qatar's diplomatic strategy.
You can read the whole piece here.
Here is an excerpt:
Two major projects that were undertaken at the start of the reign of the new sheik were the TV channel al-Jazeera (launched in 1996) and Qatar Airways (really started in 1997). In just a few years, al-Jazeera has become a household name. Qatar Airways is now a huge multinational with 12,000 employees, 58 planes and 70 destinations and it just ordered 80 Airbus A350s and five A3BOs - incidentally, a Qatari investment fund was just authorized by French authorities to invest in the European consortium EADS (European Aeronautic Defense and Space) that manufactures Airbus planes - and 22 Boeing 777s. Doha has the goal of welcoming 50 million passengers by 2015.
The emir's main ambition for his country is to become a diplomatic superpower.
That is why for example Qatar has been heavily financing the reconstruction of southern Lebanon, mediating at one point between the Palestinian Hamas and Fatah, and also doing the same between the al-Huthi rebels (supported by Iran) and the Yemeni regime.
Qatar is sometimes in a paradoxical situation, befriending enemies such as, for example, Israel and Hamas (its leader Khaled Meshaal is a regular in Doha), or Fatah and Hamas. Right after Hamas' coup in Gaza, Muhammad Dahlan, Fatah's ex-security chief accused: "Qatar also gave Hamas $400 million that was used to slaughter Palestinians."
Also Qatar is at the same time home to many ex-Iraqi Baathists and Saddam Hussein's widow, Sajida, and the largest U.S. base in the Middle East.
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The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, an influential policy research institute based in Washington, has released a sobering assessment of the Global War on Terror. Titled, "The Global War On Terrorism: An Assessment," the 292-page report provides a summary of the history and capabilities of the "Sunni-Based, Salafi-Jihadi Threat" and of "Violent Shi’a Extremists - 'Khomeinism;'" assessments of the jihadist threat in each region of the world, and offers the following summary statement (page 131): "While the United States and its partners in the war on terrorism have made important strides in combating terrorist groups worldwide since 9/11, they have not weakened the jihadis’ will or their ability to inspire and regenerate. To date, the high-water mark for the United States in the war on terrorism was arguably reached by 2002-2003... Since then, the overall US position in the GWOT has slipped. To be sure, the United States has made considerable progress capturing or killing terrorist leaders and operatives, disrupting terrorist operations, seizing assets, and building partner CT capabilities. Those gains, however, have been offset by the metastasis of the al Qaeda organization into a global movement, the spread and intensification of Salafi-Jihadi ideology, the resurgence of Iranian regional influence, and the growth in number and political influence of Islamist fundamentalist political parties throughout the world. In short, both the Sunni-based Salafi-Jihadi and Shia-based Khomeinist branches of Islamic radicalism have spread rather than receded over the past four years.
It is very difficult to assess country, regional, and global balances in the war on terrorism accurately owing both to their extreme volatility and, in many cases, the lack of credible intelligence. That being said, it appears that the jihadist threat has, on balance, remained constant or declined slightly in four regions: Africa, with the notable exception of Somalia; Russia and Central Asia; Southeast Asia; and the Americas. In contrast, it has intensified, in some cases sharply, in Southwest Asia, South Asia, and Europe." For those not acquainted with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, its influence in national security circles is in no small part thanks to the reputation of its President, Dr. Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr.. Dr. Krepinevich is a veteran national security analyst who worked under three Defense Secretaries, has authored numerous books and articles, and testified often before the U.S. Congress. In the fall of 2005, he offered a critical assessment of the President's Iraq war strategy and a proposed change which, when compared to the current trends, was quite an accurate forecast: "To date, U.S. forces in Iraq have largely concentrated their efforts on hunting down and killing insurgents. The idea of such operations is to erode the enemy’s strength by killing fighters more quickly than replacements can be recruited. Although it is too early to tell for sure whether this approach will ultimately bring success, its current record is not good: even when an attack manages to inflict serious insurgent casualties, there is little or no enduring improvement in security once U.S. forces withdraw from the area.
Instead, U.S. and Iraqi forces should adopt an “oil-spot strategy” in Iraq, which is essentially the opposite approach. Rather than focusing on killing insurgents, they should concentrate on providing security and opportunity to the Iraqi people, thereby denying insurgents the popular support they need. Since the U.S. and Iraqi armies cannot guarantee security to all of Iraq simultaneously, they should start by focusing on certain key areas and then, over time, broadening the effort—hence the image of an expanding oil spot. Such a strategy would have a good chance of success. But it would require a protracted commitment of U.S. resources, a willingness to risk more casualties in the short term, and an enduring U.S. presence in Iraq, albeit at far lower force levels than are engaged at present. If U.S. policymakers and the American public are unwilling to make such a commitment, they should be prepared to scale down their goals in Iraq significantly." Elsewhere, Dr. Krepinevich has discussed the prospects for cyber warfare and the need for an asymetric approach to the jihadist threat (see Douglas Farah's post on "soft power," the new "hot term" in the community). Expect this new GWOT assessment to help shape the future debate in Congress and the nation.
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Today was the opening day in the trial of former U.S. Navy sailor, Hassan Abu-Jihaad, on charges of providing material support to terrorists by sending classified information on naval ships to Baber Ahmad, the British computer expert who operated the Azzam.com jihadist websites. Contributing Expert Evan Kohlmann, who will appear this Friday at the Counterterrorism Foundation panel on terrorism and the virtual world, provided expert testimony on al Qaeda, jihadist recruitment, their activities in several countries, and the role of Azzam Publications among jihadists.
But first, Evan had to survive his usual opening ritual in terrorism-related federal trials, a challenge by the defense to his qualification as an expert. That took place last week in what is known as a "Daubert hearing," in which the judge hears from both sides on the qualifications of the expert. In the Abu-jihaad case, the judge ruled to allow his testimony with the following: "Mr. Kohlmann is certainly qualified to provide expert testimony on the issues he proposes to address, and Mr. Abu-Jihaad does not contend otherwise. Mr. Kohlmann's CV was marked as an exhibit at the Daubert hearing. He has published a book entitled Al Qaida's Jihad in Europe: The Afghan-Bosnian Network, which was cited as an authoritative source in the 9/11 Commission's Report. It is also used in courses taught at Harvard University and at Johns Hopkins University, among others. Mr. Kohlmann has published peer-reviewed articles on the subjects about which he intends to testify, including articles for Foreign Affairs. He also regularly lectures and speaks on these subjects. Mr. Kohlmann has testified as an expert in seven trials held in the United States and in several cases before foreign courts.
In this Circuit, two judges of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York have expressly concluded that Mr. Kohlmann is qualified to provide expert testimony on terrorism similar to that which he intends to provide in this case. United States v Sabir, 2007 WL 1373184, at * 1; United States v. Paracha, 2006 WL 12768, at *18. In Paracha, Judge Sidney Stein found that Mr. Kohlmann "possesses sufficient education, training and experience to qualify as an expert on the origins, leadership and tradecraft of the al Qaeda organization." 2006 WL 12768, at *20. And in Sabir, Judge Loretta Preska found that Mr. Kohlmann was qualified to offer testimony on the origins and history of al Qaeda as well as Azzam Publications. See 2007 WL 1373184, at *8-*9; see also Aref, 2007 WL 603508, at *16 (holding that Mr. Kohlmann could provide expert testimony on political groups in Bangladesh). The Court agrees with Judges Stein and Preska. Mr. Kohlmann is qualified by means of his education, training, background, and experience to testify as an expert on terrorism and Azzam Publication's role in international terrorism.
Mr. Abu-Jihaad's principal attack on Mr. Kohlmann's proposed testimony is that it is not based upon sufficient facts or data and is not the product of reliable principles and methods. The Court disagrees. Mr. Kohlmann has conducted first-hand interviews of several leaders of terrorist organizations and has reviewed reams of information about al Qaeda, Azzam Publications, and the other subjects on which he will offer testimony. Indeed, though he is relatively young to be an expert, it is apparent that these subjects are Mr. Kohlmann's life work, and he has, therefore, acquired a considerable amount of information and documentation on these subjects. He testified that he applies to his expert testimony the same social science methodologies that he learned at Georgetown University and that are applied to other subjects that cannot be tested scientifically. Mr. Kohlmann's work receives a considerable amount of peer review from academic scholars and others, and by all accounts, Mr. Kohlmann's work is well regarded."
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Here's a novel idea for people who follow counterterrorism: let's have the mainstream media ask the current presidential candidates to commit that they will not pardon anyone who has been convicted of killing an American, where their guilt is beyond dispute. This may seem like a no-brainer, but it may be necessary to provide clarity and to raise an issue that rarely gets discussed in presidential politics.
The pardon authority is political, and both parties have been guilty of excesses. Bush I did it with Casper Weinberger, Oliver North and others, one Christmas Eve in the early 1990s (and I recognize that these particular pardon recipients do not fit within my parameters, since their acts did not kill any Americans - though selling arms to Iran was pretty obnoxious). Pardon decisions are often soft-headed, and involve paid advocates, promises, polling, and Powerpoint presentations. The authority is generally exercised by presidents when they reach the point of political unaccountability, like Bill Clinton circa 2001.
Why now? More than ever, we live in a time of politico-religious violence, and we need more certainty than we might have previously demanded. If you think that no president would consider pardoning terrorists, consider the good op-ed written by 9/11 survivor Debra Burlingame.
Let me put my cards on the table: I want a new president who is on record saying he/she will not Free Mumia, nor emancipate Leonard Peltier, or any other left-wing hero who might be mentioned in an acceptance speech in tonight's Oscar Awards. If a Republican is elected, he should not use Castro’s retirement to score points with with anti-Castro violent criminals in our prisons. (For the record, I would also rather not see Scooter Libby un-felonized. Same with Jonathan Pollard.)
Critics of my idea might say that the Executive Branch needs unfettered authority to deal with other countries on the issue of political prisoners. That's fine. However, it's high time that we assess costs, in advance, for giving pardons to "political" prisoners. If their incarceration is political, let's treat it as such and seek a commitment from the current candidates on their plans, so the American voting public act accordingly.
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 The NEFA Foundation has obtained and transcribed a copy of an audio recording released on February 13 of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the leader of Al-Qaida's "Islamic State of Iraq" (ISI). In his audio statement, al-Baghdadi was sharply critical of the Hamas terrorist organization in the Palestinian territories, accusing it of being responsible for "a chain of treacheries"--including recognizing the authority of international organizations such as the United Nations; entering into "peculiar alliances with the apostate regimes" in Egypt, Syria, and Iran; and displaying "rampant hostility towards the Salafi Jihadists", such emerging regional Al-Qaida factions like Fatah al-Islam and the Army of Islam. Abu Omar al-Baghdadi expanded his argument further, accusing Muslim Brotherhood organizations across the Middle East of the worst forms of treachery: "The armed organizations that belong to the Muslim Brotherhood, and Hamas above all others—save for some remaining faithful from amongst the [Izzadeen] al-Qassam [Brigades]--have truly betrayed our religion and the Islamic nation, and they have abandoned the blood of the martyrs... Their brothers in Iraqi Hamas and from the [Iraqi] Islamic Party and the Islamic Army [of Iraq] (IAI) fight today side-by-side with the crusaders against the followers of al-Tawheed." Al-Baghdadi called upon those from the armed wing of Palestinian Hamas, the Izzadeen al-Qassam Brigades, who remain faithful to the concept of jihad to assemble their forces and encourage others within Hamas to defect to the cause of the Salafi Jihadists. Addressing the proper role of the ISI in supporting the jihad in Palestine, al-Baghdadi indicated to Palestinian militants that "we are ready to assist you with what meager fortunes we have at our disposal, and we are ready to train your comrades, starting with explosive devices and concluding with manufacturing rockets.”
The English transcript of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi's speech is now available on the NEFA Foundation website. For more information on al-Baghdadi and Al-Qaida's "Islamic State of Iraq", see the NEFA Foundation report "State of the Sunni Insurgency in Iraq: August 2007."
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A series of talks I have had recently echoed this Walter Pincus story in the Washington Post about the sudden recognition that "soft power" must be a vital component of any successful strategy to fight terrorism.
"How do we and our allies counter the ideology that supports violent extremism?" asked Michael Leiter, the acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center, in a speech Wednesday at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
The goal, Leiter said, is "to prevent the next generation of terrorists from emerging," and one approach he suggested is "to show that it is al-Qaeda, not the West, that is truly at war with Islam."
My response is, can it really have to taken this long to come to grips with the fact we need to do this? Is it really not being done in any significant way?
For several years, going back to Don Rumsfeld's ruminations on whether more terrorists were being killed than created, there has been some recognition that military power is not going to make a huge or sustainable dent in the pool of people being radicalized by a variety of forces, and becoming convinced that their religion calls them to kill themselves for the cause.
And yet here is John A. Kringen, the CIA's deputy director for intelligence, admitting that despite military success in "disrupting and dismantling terrorist organizations . . . the supply of people wanting to join those organizations continues and in some areas continues to grow." My full blog is here.
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Shell companies present a serious systemic vulnerability as a facilitation tool for fraud, money laundering and terrorist financing. I posted an article on the Counterterrorism Blog addressing the vulnerability of shell companies in April, 2007.
Senator Carl Levin, Chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has drafted legislation intended to diminish the risk of misusing shell companies in furtherance of criminal activity, money laundering and terrorist financing. This is an extremely encouraging sign. As noted in the above referenced article, the only meaningful way to regulate shell companies would be through Congress enacting legislation.
Staff members for the Senate Banking Committee are assessing the issues concerning shell companies. As part of the process, they are meeting with subject matter experts.
Senator Richard Shelby, Ranking Member of the Senate Banking Committee is considering co-sponsoring the proposed legislation with Senator Levin. Indications are that the Treasury Department and Department of Justice are in favor of the legislation.
This is an important step forward. However, it is likely the process will be very challenging. At the present time, shell companies are registered at the state level. Shell companies represent a source of revenue for states. Potential legislation could threaten this revenue stream, as well as cause states to dedicate resources to regulating shell companies. In consideration of the above factors, states would likely oppose potential legislation.
It is important that Congress resist pressure and move forward with meaningful legislation. Shell companies, which are used for illicit purposes, represent a significant threat to our economy and national security.
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The NEFA Foundation has published an paper looking at the January indictment of nine Pakistani and one Indian citizen for allegedly planning terrorist attacks near Barcelona, Spain. The paper looks at the case in the context of the rise in Spain of the threat of radical Islamist terrorist attacks. Spain, al Andalus in Islamist world view, is rightfully part of the Islamic word and therefore attacks there justified as "defensive jihad" to recoup Muslim land, rather than offensive jihad, a much more controversial theological tenet.
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Over the past several years, Iran's nuclear activities have commanded the attention of the international community. But the recent assassination of Hizballah foreign operations chief Imad Mughniyeh is a reminder that Iran has been -- and continues to be -- a key player in global terrorism, as its explicit sponsorship of Hizballah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) demonstrates. Moreover, a recent terrorism case in Bahrain suggests that Iran's assistance to al-Qaeda operatives may still be continuing today, echoing the regime's implicit support of the group in the past.
Michael Jacobson and I recently returned from a 10 day research trip to Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE. Our complete article is available here.
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The famous (and otherwise) Darul Uloom, India’s premier madarsa (Islamic School/religious seminary) located in Deoband in Uttar Pradesh, will be hosting a National Conclave next week (Feb 25). Islamic scholars and representatives of at least 6,000 madarsas from all over India will be meeting to discuss how to incorporate educational subjects like mathematics and general science into existing Islamic curriculum. Besides, the conclave aims to discuss growing Islamic radicalism in India and elsewhere which is often linked to madarsa education and training (part of terror indoctrination). There will be representatives of all Islamic sects, movements and practices, despite prevalent schism, among Barelvis, Nadwis, Ahl-e Hadith and also from Jamaat-e-Islami Hind.
Voice Against Terrorism:
Maulana Mahmood Madani, General Secretary of Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind.
"We have condemned terrorism earlier. But this time we felt that as an institution, the Darul Uloom had to take an initiative to make it clear that Islam does not sanction terrorism and that Deobandis do not believe in this either."
Qazi Usman, Deputy Rector, Darul Uloom
"We want to say that what happens in Pakistan madarsaas, is their business. We are keen to make it clear that killing innocents, let's say someone walking on the road, is not justified in Islam."
This is a welcome event. The voice and thinking against the radical Islam is though too little, its not too late for a spark within Islam. Any positive outcome from this much needed conclave will help in changing the existing notions about Islam which doesn’t sanction violence in the name of Jehad, and it is not part of Islamic religious duty. This would be the first of its kind in the country which will try at least, to deconstruct the notion that Indian madarsas are not terror factories, what they call it in Bangladesh or Pakistan.
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The basic, public premise of the Muslim Brotherhood's strategy for the conquest of Europe hinges on creating Muslim enclaves that are exempt from national laws and under sharia law-then steadily expanding those areas. So it is not surprising the group headed by the Muslim Brotherhood's chief theologian would embrace the call from the Archbishop of Canterbury to actually implement such a plan.
The International Union for Muslim Scholars, led by Yousef al-Qaradawi, laments the "fierce attacks" in Britain against Archbishop Rowan William's statement that sharia law could be implemented in family matters and other issues.
If one followed that logic, then the physical abuse of women could be legal in Muslim circles, as Qaradawi has gone to considerable lengths to describe how, under sharia law, a man can hit his wife, how he should not leave marks, etc.
Would honor killings then be okay if the family chose to try them under sharia law?
The main point, however, is that this opening is exactly what the Muslim Brotherhood has been seeking for some time. TRR William's ignorance of this as a cornerstone of their strategy is clear. But it does not make what he said any less damaging.
As Lorenzo Vidino pointed out in a Hudson Institute piece in 2006, since at least 1990 Qaradawi has outlined this strategy, and done so publicly.
My full blog is here.
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Just a week after the President signed Executive Order 13460, the Treasury Department used this new authority to designate Rami Makhluf - President Bashar al-Assad's cousin - for benefiting from official Syrian corruption. Targeting the kelptocratic nature of the regime is critical, since it is this corrupt business environment which benefits the Assad family, the security services, and key elements of the elite tied to the regime. These circles form a tightly knit community of privileged elite. For example, Rami Makhluf's brother, Hafiz Makhluf, is an official in the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate who was designated in November 2007 under Executive Order 13441. The control these cliques exert over the Syrian economy, to their exclusive benefit and to the detriment of the average Syrian, create circles of powerful individuals who depend on the regime for their access to acquire exclusive licenses and obtain contracts not available to the rest of the business community. For example, Makhluf is a dominant player within Syria's telecommunications, commercial, oil, gas and banking sectors.
The Syrian regime continues to engage in a long list of illicit behaviors, from harboring terrorist groups to working on WMD programs and more. But more than anything else, the corruption of the Syrian regime resonates within the influential Syrian business community and could be a powerful means of leveraging the regime to change its behavior. Designating Rami Makhluf is a step in the right direction.
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This column is another in the ongoing series on the terrorist threat to India and the surrounding region by Frank Hyland and Animesh Roul.
All seven of India’s northeastern states have been plagued by militancy, with the states of Assam, Nagaland and Manipur remaining the most violence-prone states of India, after Jammu & Kashmir State (J&K).
Assam: In 2007, Assam witnessed more civilian casualties - 286 (65%) out of 439 total casualties (State Police Source) due to terrorist attacks, in comparison with the more infamous J&K which garners far more of the media coverage around the world. The United Liberation of Front of Assam, or Asom, (ULFA) is blamed for perpetrating most of the terrorist strikes targeted at State-run Oil and Tea infrastructures, non-indigenous migrant workers and Indian security forces. It also triggered sabotage attacks on oil pipelines and communication lines. The recent arrests of ULFA militants (one of them identified as Manoj Tamuly of ULFA’s 709 battalion) and their subsequent interrogation revealed that the group has developed a ‘Plane Hijacking Unit’ under the patronage of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISID). Its cadres had undergone training near the India-Bhutan border and at least fifteen ULFA cadres had moved to bordering Bangladesh, Myanmar or Nepal. ISID has been trying its best to make the Northeast a hub of Islamic terrorism, along with its Bangladesh counterpart, DGFI. Police sources also claimed that ULFA works hand in hand with Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul-Jihadi Islami (HuJI) in its latest hijack planning. The latest foiled plan as per Tamuly’s confession was that the group had planned to hijack a plane from Borjhar and to take it to an undisclosed location in Pakistan. The ULFA has been bringing in weapons and explosives through Bangladesh by taking advantage of the porous international border. Assam police have found that it uses river channels to ship arms cargo to its cadre inside Assam State. ULFA, along with a lesser known outfit -- the Karbi Longri National Liberation Front (KLNLF), unleashed deadly attacks across Sibsagar, Tinsukia, Dibrugarh and Dhemaji districts in early January 2007, killing nearly 70 people, mostly from neighboring Bihar state.
ULFA has been fighting for an independent homeland in Assam since 1979. It operates several camps in Bangladesh and Myanmar and its top leaders are presently based in Bangladesh. The growing affinity of ULFA for Islam has been evident, as it is patronized by ISID and has actively associated with Islamic groups such as the Muslim United Liberation Front of Assam (MULFA) and Muslim United Liberation Tigers of Assam (MULTA).
Another tribal militant group based in Assam’s Golaghat, Kokhrajhar and Karbi Anglong districts is the All Adivasi National Liberation Army (AANLA). The AANLA claims to be fighting for tribals and their rehabilitation. Headed by David Tirkey a tribal from central Indian State of Jharkhand, AANLA has achieved a name for itself by attacking oil tankers moving through the state, train networks, and by resorting to high profile abductions for ransom. AANLA has carried out a number of attacks on railway infrastructure targets. In December 2007, AANLA triggered an explosion aboard the Delhi-bound Rajdhani Express train in Assam's Golaghat. Five people were killed and four others were injured in that incident. A week before that event, AANLA targeted another train (Kamrup Express) near Bokajan in the Karbi Anglong district. State Intelligence sources have claimed that the outfit has operational linkages with Naga outfit NSCN-IM and ULFA.
Manipur: According to one estimate, in Manipur there were some 550 incidents of terrorist violence in the region, with nearly 130 civilian deaths recorded in 2007. More than 15 tribal militant outfits with transnational linkages are active in Manipur. Groups such as the United National Liberation Front (UNLF), the People's Liberation Army (PLA), and the People’s Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK) which have been spearheading violence in the state for years, have formed an umbrella organization called the Manipur Peoples’ Liberation Front (MPLF). The major Kuki militant groups operating in Manipur are the Kuki National Front-President (KNF-P), the Kuki National Front-Military Council (KNF-MC), the Kuki Revolutionary Army (KRA), the United Kuki Liberation Front (UKLF), and the Kuki Liberation Army (KLA). The Manipur-based Islamic militant group People's United Liberation Front (PULF) also has ties with the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba and with ISID.
Nagaland: In Nagaland, efforts have been underway to bring two warring Naga militant groups -- the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak-Muivah (NSCN-IM) and the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Khaplang (NSCN-K) together. Factional Violence between the two rival groups intensified in 2007. The NSCN-K, with bases in Myanmar, has been blamed for recruiting people and taking them to camps in that country for training. Early this month, the group reportedly abducted over 50 youths in Arunachal Pradesh; however, many of them later escaped. Under the leadership of S. S. Khaplang, NSCN-K strives for the establishment of a ‘Greater Nagaland’ comprising Naga-dominated areas in the region. NSCN-K, which opposes any kind of utilization (what it terms exploitation) of natural resources of the State, recently warned the oil exploration consortium -- composed of the Canadian firm Canoro Resources Ltd and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) of India -- against developing oil fields in Nagaland. The State-run ONGC had suspended its operations in 1994 following threats from NSCN-IM. The Indian government is currently observing a truce with both groups and is in talks with NSCN-IM, though the government has admitted the pace of the peace talks has slowed recently. However, India’s National Security Adviser M. K Narayanan has stated that the peace parleys can move forward only if the Naga group agrees to accept a solution with the broad parameters of Indian union, promising maximum autonomy and freedom.
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While I agree with my colleagues, Dennis Lormel and Jeffrey Breinholt, that renewal of the Protect America Act should be considered by Congress as urgent and serious business, it’s misplaced to ascribe current delays to merely “playing politics.”
Few pieces of legislation before Congress carry such gravity and importance when it comes to the twin goals of protecting our national security and preserving our civil liberties. Such matters should be considered with gravity and thorough deliberation. And there is much in this act which deserves further deliberation. Many of its current provisions were adopted previously under an atmosphere of high tension and great pressure from the White House. The only pressure now is that President Bush threatens to veto any further temporary extension of the current act. A temporary extension would certainly keep in place sufficient authority to keep tabs on the potential terrorists within our midst as Congress worked through the act thoroughly.
And, as Richard Clarke wrote earlier this month in the Philadelphia Inquirer:
“Let me be clear: Our ability to track and monitor terrorists overseas would not cease should the Protect America Act expire. If this were true, the president would not threaten to terminate any temporary extension with his veto pen. All surveillance currently occurring would continue even after legislative provisions lapsed because authorizations issued under the act are in effect up to a full year.
“Simply put, it was wrong for the president to suggest that warrants issued in compliance with FISA would suddenly evaporate with congressional inaction. Instead - even though Congress extended the Protect America Act by two weeks - he is using the existence of the sunset provision to cast his political opponents in a negative light. “For this president, fear is an easier political tactic than compromise. With FISA, he is attempting to rattle Congress into hastily expanding his own executive powers at the expense of civil liberties and constitutional protections.”
So what is the current debate in Congress really about? It’s about just how deeply we really need to encroach on our civil liberties to assure our national security, and on the extent of the protections, checks and balances, that should remain in place to limit police power infringements of civil and privacy rights to those truly warranted by the circumstances. History has shown, including our own national history, that we must constantly assure that such adequate protections, checks and balances, are in place. And, I believe, that using our courts to hold those that usurp or violate these inherently dangerous authorities responsible, is an essential protection. The 52 lawsuits now pending before the US courts would test, specifically, whether such usurpation actually occurred. And, if a government agency, or those complicit with it, did usurp or abuse their authority, or make a serious mistake, unduly infringing our rights(and I hope that it will be found that this is not the case), they should pay for their misdeeds just as we would expect any of our neighbors or business colleagues to do.
It is this ability of simple citizens to hold government and private entities and individuals liable for their misdeeds that best assures that they will act responsibly.
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Dennis Lormel is absolutely right in his recent post about the FISA renewal bill being held hostage to politics. I think there’s something going on that is even more worrisome.
When the PATRIOT Act was going through its controversy, I accepted an invitation to participate in a debate hosted by the Long Beach City Human Rights Commission in Southern California. Before the event, I had a short conversation with a woman in attendance, an opponent of the PATRIOT Act, who described her group’s goal of making individual police officers think twice before exercising their discretion. Audaciously, she expressed the hope that cops would weigh the prospect of being sued if they undertook certain actions authorized by the PATRIOT Act.
Is this something we really want? Cops know they can be liable for brutality, and that evidence they unconstitutionally seize can be suppressed. However, to increase the stakes with the threat of tort liability for acting in a way that is ostensibly authorized by law is a sure way of building a risk-averse police culture and jeopardizing public safety.
I realize that there are plenty of lawyers suing the telecoms these days who are also involved in courageous lawsuits against terrorists, and that the issue of company liability for cutting corners in a regulated field is not a exactly analogous to cops being sued for acting in accordance with the PATRIOT Act. However, I have written about the dangerous trend of using litigation to discourage civic responsibility. The Arizona imams who were pulled off the Minnesota flight after their suspicious activity was noted by fellow passengers started their lawsuit by suing the passengers, in addition to the airlines. In another case from last year, a woman sued a bank teller for calling the police after noticing the cashier’s check she was trying to deposit was counterfeit. The message behind these actions was that people should think twice (or three or four times) before cooperating with the government. It is a terrible message to send, and I fear it’s being stoked by the debates over the immunity provisions for the telecoms.
Of course, I am not saying that there is no room for compliance in regulated industries, and that commercial entities should ignore rules relating to how they must handle private information. Still, when we are talking about corporate efforts to assist sincere government actors in the age of terrorism, immunity seems not too big of a stretch. Something tells me that most Americans share this view, and that the bill will eventually be enacted with the immunity provisions in place. At least that is my hope.
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First, we nailed Al Qaeda commander Abu al-Laith al-Liby (or al-Libi, depending on your dictionary). Then someone (the Israelis? the Syrians?) stuck Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh, "the Bin Laden of the 80s," in his well-deserved coffin. Now comes word that the Filippino Army has probably found the remains of Dulmatin, a top Jemaah Islamiah member suspected of planning the 2002 Bali bombings which killed over 200, in a grave in the southernmost tip of the Philippines. Dulmatin was apparently killed in a battle there on January 31 between government troops and a group of Abu Sayyaf, the terrorists who gave him refuge after he fled Indonesia. The FBI is assisting in the DNA check, but the authorities are quite confident. The Manila Times article on his death provides other details on him: "Dulmatin carries the highest bounty of all fugitives known to be hiding in the Philippines, $10 million—dead or alive—offered by the US government.
Dulmatin—whose real name is Joko Pitono but was also known as Ammar Usman—is a Malaysian engineer from a wealthy family. He is the suspected mastermind of the bombings of a beach resort in Bali, Indonesia, on October 10, 2002, that killed 202 people, mostly Australian tourists.
Together with fellow Jemaah Islamiah member, Umar Patek, an Indonesian bomb expert, Dulmatin had sought refuge with the Abu Sayyafs in Jolo, Sulu, also in Mindanao, before being sighted in Tawi-Tawi." Here is a Philippine Star article with more details of the successful attack and current forensic examination. Dulmatin's death, coming a few months after deadly Abu Sayyaf bombings (see Zachary Abuza's posts on the attacks at the Philippine House of Representatives and a large shopping mall in the central financial district), is a big victory and an encouraging sign for the counterterrorism efforts of the US, Philippines, and Indonesia.
The Good Guys are on a hot streak.
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Fidel Castro’s announcement that he is formally giving up power will eventually revive proposals that the U.S. Government should remove Cuba from the list of countries that support international terrorism. Although the Castro government has not sought removal from the terrorism list, North Korea has been seeking removal for several years as part of the price for being more forthcoming in the nuclear disarmament negotiations talks which resumed today.
Formal designation by the Secretary of State as a state sponsor of international terrorism for “repeatedly supporting acts of international terrorism,” triggers a variety of economic sanctions, including bans of foreign assistance, denial of tax credits for American individuals and companies earning income in terrorism list countries. It also requires 30-day advance notification to Congress (and possible opposition in Congress) of export licenses for dual use goods and services that could enhance the designated country’s military capability or ability to support terrorism.
These sanctions date back to the Export Administration Act of 1979 and the provisions (Sec. 6 (j) after Congress learned after the fact that Commerce and State Department officials issued export licenses for tank transporter trucks for Libya and C-130 cargo planes for Syria despite those two country’s threats to their neighbors.
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I wrote a piece for the Yale journal "The Politic" on the state of US and international efforts to crack down on terrorist financing. The United States and its allies have made considerable progress in tackling terrorist financing since 9/11, but serious challenges have emerged.
As governments have cracked down on terrorist financing, the growing number of terrorist cells and organizations have found new ways to raise, store, and move funds. Keeping pace with these rapid changes is an uphill struggle for government bureaucracies. International cooperation on these issues also continues to decrease as 9/11 grows more distant. Additionally, in spite of some positive steps taken by the Persian Gulf countries, the region remains a key source of terrorist funds, and European efforts in this area are still uneven. Addressing all of these issues will be essential for continued success in combating terrorist financing.
To read the entire piece, click here:
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I just wrote an article for the Middle East Times on Syria's possible involvement in Hezbolla's Imad Mugnieh's death.
You can read the full article here.
Here is an excerpt:
February 12 marked a point against radical Islam. The killing of Hezbollah's mastermind and legend, Imad Mughnieh, in Damascus should be considered a great victory. The death of one of the most sophisticated and bloody terror masters that had been in "business" for 25 years makes the world a much better place, commented a U.S. State Department spokesman. The question remains: who is ultimately responsible for this?
Increasingly, it seems that maybe Syria was behind the attack. Indeed, on Feb. 17, Mike McConnell, the director of National Intelligence, told Fox News: "There's some evidence that it may have been internal Hezbollah. It may have been Syria."
Let's review the chronology of what allegedly occurred on Feb. 12.
First, according to the well-informed Kuwaiti daily al-Seyassah, Mughnieh was reported to have attended a high-level meeting called by the head of Syrian security services and Syrian President Bashar Assad's brother-in-law, Assef Chawkat. The other participants to that meeting included top Syrian leaders, representatives from Hamas (including its top leader Khaled Meshaal), Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah. The purpose of that meeting was allegedly to select the potential targets to strike in Arab countries, if the latter refused to participate in the Arab summit set for the end of March in Damascus. It was purportedly during that meeting that Mughnieh's car was booby-trapped.
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While President Musharraf's allies are losing the Pakistan parliamentary election, two Pakistan papers are reporting that tribal elders in North Waziristan have reached a new "peace agreement" with the North Waziristan political administration against "extremism" and "terrorism." The Daily Times quotes a press release: "The political administration of North Waziristan and all sub-tribes and clans of Wazir and Daur tribes have agreed to jointly struggle against extremism and terrorism throughout the agency... “The agreement was signed in Miranshah (headquarters of North Waziristan)." The Dawn news agency reported on two key differences between the new agreement and the September 2006 agreement which ceded control of the NW provinces to terrorists: "Unlike the old agreement which had been signed by militants, the latest endorsement had come from 280-odd tribal elders who would also work to implement it in letter and spirit, instead of the old 45-member monitoring committee that had failed to oversee its implementation.
Also, they said, with the latest endorsement the terms of the agreement would extend to the whole of North Waziristan, including Miramshah and Mirali.
The old agreement held sway in Miramshah only, since a militant group led by Hafiz Gul Bahadar, had its influence limited to the regional headquarters only and had no control in Mirali, a sub-district, according to officials, was a hub of foreign militants." Daveed Gartenstein-Ross posted often on the September 2006 accords, beginning on the day after they were signed:
Pakistan's Peace Deal with Terrorist Factions a Major Blow to U.S.
State Department Endorses Pakistan's Retreat
N.Y. Times: Al-Qaeda Gaining Strength in Pakistan, Waziristan Accord Has Failed
We'll see how the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and their terrorist associates in North Waziristan react to this announcement. The Dawn article also noted, "Significantly, militants in North Waziristan remained neutral as security forces launched an operation in neighbouring South Waziristan against militants led by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Baitullah Mehsud." Paul Cruickshank posted on February 5 that "Baitullah Mehsud, the head of the Pakistani Taliban, whom the CIA believe ordered the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, also orchestrated a plot last month to attack Barcelona and other European cities." On January 14, Olivier Guitta posted that a Taliban leader in Waziristan stated, "It is impossible to stop us. We have spies all along the border who tell us about the U.S. patrols. We also have spies inside their military bases."
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The Senate did the right thing early last week and put politics aside. They passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). This legislation would have given the intelligence community broad authority to monitor telecommunications of suspected terrorists. Since having been named Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Mike McConnell has repeatedly stated that the intelligence community requires the broad collection and monitoring capabilities provided under the Senate legislation.
Disappointingly, The House of Representatives couldn’t get past politics and allowed the existing temporary legislation to lapse. House leaders, who let the FISA bill expire, strongly disagreed with Mr. McConnell’s assessment that not enacting FISA legislation weakened national security, thereby placing us at greater risk to terrorism. They opined that ongoing intelligence monitoring would not be affected, and therefore, we are at no greater risk. What they neglected to address was that intelligence collection and development is a 24/7 process. What this means is that newly developed intelligence information and identification of potential terrorists cannot be acted upon with the sense of urgency or time sensitivity required. Hence, we are at greater risk.
It’s unfortunate that certain House leaders chose to be disingenuous and allowed politics to override doing the right thing. In so doing, they have diminished our national security in spite of their assertions to the contrary. Every day they delay passage of the bill they make the job of the intelligence community more difficult to achieve.
An issue at the center of the debate is immunity for telecommunications companies that cooperated with the government. The actions of the telecommunications companies were to provide information to safeguard us from terrorism. They fully deserve immunity and our gratitude for their spirit of cooperation. Instead, they find themselves in the precarious position of being subjects of lawsuits for cooperating with the government.
If telecommunications companies do not receive immunity, it will send a chilling message to the entire private sector. The stark reality will be that companies will be forced into a position of resisting to cooperate with the government out of fear of being subject to litigation. For example, there are a number of ways the financial sector cooperated with the government following 9/11. Such cooperation was tremendously helpful in terrorist financing cases. Similar cooperation in the future would be unlikely with the precedent of the telecommunications lawsuits.
Congress accepted the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission and empowered the DNI. It is incumbent Congress provide the DNI with the tools necessary to safeguard our national security. It’s time to put politics aside and do the right thing.
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On February 12, I moderated a special panel titled, "The Evolution of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy" before a packed room at the U.S. Capitol building in Washington. Panelists were Prof. Yonah Alexander and Contributing Experts Michael Kraft and Jonathan Winer. The Counterterrorism Foundation co-sponsored this special panel with the Inter-University Center for Terrorism Studies, the International Center for Terrorism Studies at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, and the Inter-University Center for Legal Studies at the International Law Institute. The initiative for the panel, and the source of the title, was the publication of the three-volume work by the same name, co-edited by Prof. Alexander and Michael Kraft and published by Praeger Security International. This set provides the first comprehensive collection of key documents, statements, and testimony, dating back to the early 1970s, on U.S. government counterterrorism policies as they have evolved in the face of the changing terrorist threats. The following is a transcript of the event, beginning with my introductions of the panelists and continuing through their remarks (edited for grammar and using the panelists' written remarks when available) and the attendees' questions and the panelists' answers. We appreciate the assistance of Brett Wallace of the Potomac Institute in preparing the transcript.
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The Investigative Project has just reproduced an important letter from Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va) requesting information from the Saudi-funded Center For Muslim Christian Understanding of Georgetown University.
It is worth recalling that Saudi prince Alaweed bin Talal donated $20 million to the center, led by Dr. John Esposito, a long-time supporter of the international Muslim Brotherhood. Esposito has served on the boards of numerous Muslim Brotherhood-linked organizations (USAR in the United States, IIPT in Great Britain, run by open Hamas supporter Azzam Tamimi, etc.) while defending Sami al Arian, Yousef al Qaradawi, and on and on.
HRH bin Talal also late last year donated $1.48 million to the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA),one of the principle Muslim Brotherhood organizations operating in the United States.
Wolf's letter is important because it asks all the right questions, noting that "no changes have been made to the underlying legal authority relationg to non-Muslim worship that the Saudis have relied on to enforce these (restrictions on civil society and religious freedom) rules."
Given the Georgetown Center's role in training U.S. foreign service personnel, Wolf asks if the Center has "produced any analysis critical of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for example in fields of human rights, religious freedom, freedom of expression, women's rights, minority rights, protections of foreign workers, due process and the rule of law. My full blog is here.
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This month’s report by two U.S. government agencies, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigations, warning United States law enforcement agents of female terrorists inside the United States is both dated and exaggerated. Years ago, when I was a security analyst in the U.S. government, I first warned the U.S. President and other policymakers of the rising threat by female terrorists. The intelligence assessment I drafted, now a publicly available article called “Rocking the Cradle to Rocking the World,” published by the Journal of International Women’s Studies, highlighted the different ways women contribute to terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda and explained why Muslim women would strap on the bomb.
So why release this report now? The new U.S. government document is likely a reaction to the exponential increase in female suicide bombers in Iraq. Since the U.S. occupation in 2003, my data shows that there have been at least seventeen female bombers in Iraq, committing a total of fourteen attacks—six of which were committed in 2007, alone, and three so far this year. With a rate of increase at 28%, one can assume that more women will take part in suicide attacks in Iraq.
In the new report, the US government illustrates that women use prosthetics to deceive security officials of their intentions and disguise their operations. This practice is not unique. Secular national terrorist groups have been able to capitalize on a woman’s ability to feign pregnancy in order to evade an arrest, bypass security, and launch successful attacks. After all, most of society assumes that a pregnant woman is least likely to perpetrate an act of violence. A pregnant woman therefore commands sympathy, respect, and compassion from others. But the practice of faking a pregnancy is a common one; it has been skillfully applied by the women of Sri Lanka’s Liberation Tamil Tigers Elam, where female members of the terror network hide explosives beneath their saris (Indian dress) to shield their weapons from the public.
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With parliamentary elections in Pakistan only hours away, there are two relevant questions for the United States to consider: Will a newly elected Pakistani prime minister agree to work with Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf, America’s staunch ally on the war on terrorism? If the answer is no, what should the United States do in response?
To allay U.S. fears about the elections, Musharraf and his Pakistani friends in Washington repeatedly have told American policymakers that Monday’s elections will be “free, fair and transparent,” as well as on time -- a relatively new word attached to the infamous slogan.
No one doubts that elections will move ahead as planned, but many U.S. experts and officials are wary about whether the election will produce an honest result. From the U.S. State Department to the Washington-based think tank community, there are concerns that manipulation of the results may force the White House to make some tough choices.
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Fear of widespread violence has gripped Pakistan ahead of Feb 18 general election which will decide the fate of the country and its people. The parliamentary elections, originally scheduled for Jan 8, were postponed after the high profile assassination of PPP leader and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in late December 2007.
Three key political players, for whom this election is crucial, are Pervez Musharraf, PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif.
The country is in the clutch of Islamic extremists who are now carrying out suicide attacks at will, targeting pro- democratic political parties, their convoy, and government centers. Even there is widespread troop deployment at sensitive locations (over 80,000 troops and nearly 400,000 policemen) for maintaining peace and order during the elections, there were two deadly bomb blasts on the final day (Feb 16) of the election campaign. These twin blasts left over 50 people dead and over 100 injured . There are 19,380 polling stations (out of total 64,175 PS) declared ‘sensitive’. The number of ‘most sensitive polling stations’ stands at 8,928 including 3,787 in Punjab, 1,575 in Sindh, 1,094 in the North West Frontier Province, 1,350 in Baluchistan and 1,122 in Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA). The government has deployed 130,000 police personnel in Punjab, 100,000 in Sindh, 50,000 in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and 25,000 in Baluchistan.
High Risk Locations (identified by the government agencies):
- NWFP: Places like Swat, Shangla, Lower Dir, Malakand Agency, Hangu and Tankand Bannu
- FATA: South Waziristan Agency, North Waziristan Agency, Mohmand Agency, Bajaur Agency, FR Kohat, Darra Adam Khel and Bannu
- Sindh: Kacha Area
- Baluchistan: Kohlu, Dera Bugti and Killa Abdullah
Major Suicide Attacks on Political Parties:
- Feb 09: Suicide attack on the Awami National Party (ANP) rally where 25 people were killed and over 30 injured at Nakai near Charsadda town in NWFP.
- Feb. 11: A suicide bomber blew himself amidst a public gathering at Mirali in North Waziristan. A senior ANP leader, Haji Anwar Shah was killed among 9 others.
- Feb. 16: Nearly 46 people have been killed in the tribal town of Parachinar, the main hub of the troubled Kurram Agency, bordering Afghanistan when a car bomber rammed his explosive laden car into the election office of an Independent candidate, backed by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).
- Feb. 16: Three people were killed and over 15 others injured in powerful blast that rocked the Media Centre in the Mingora area(Swat).
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In the past couple of months, there have been two major international conferences on the Indonesian resort island of Bali. Both of these took place without incident.
Less widely reported, however, have been a couple of bombing incidents over the past two months on that same island. During the early morning hours of 5 February, a device exploded in a garage in the provincial capital of Denpasar. Two vehicles were damaged but there were no casualties.
Two days ago (15 February), a small bomb was hurled at a vehicle driving in the same town. The blast left 20 holes in the car and damaged a garage located a few meters behind the vehicle. The two persons in the car were taken to the hospital to be treated for massive burns.
In the first case, the police have said that the device was similar to bombs used by fishermen in nearby East Java. The police have also been quick to insist that the two incidents were probably linked to business disagreements, not terrorism. That said, nobody has been arrested for the 5 February event, and no suspects have been named for the 15 February bombings.
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There has been quite a bit of gloating over the last few years about so-called Department of Justice failures in terrorist financing enforcement since 9/11. These public statements typically claim that the government has failed to win any terrorist financing case, and they generally arise after prosecutors failed to win particular trials, even where the results were not outright losses. Prosecutions in Dallas, Chicago and Tampa are the prime examples of this, even though the defendants in those cases would be surprised to find out they were acquitted as they sit in their prison cells. It seems that no one has bothered to tell them that they are free to leave. Perhaps these critics know something that the courts and the Bureau of Prisons do not.
As a person who has more than a passing interest in the success of the Department of Justice’s terrorist financing program, I had planned to put up a website showing that successes in these cases outnumber the failures by a 10-to-1 ratio. Alas, Professor Robert Chesney of Wake Forest University beat me to the punch. Last week, his empirical study was published by the Lewis and Clark Law Review. Here’s what it shows:
We can judge the Department of Justice’s terrorist financing record since 9/11 by looking at how many people have been charged and convicted of the two main terrorist financing crimes: 18 U.S.C. §2339B and the terrorism-related economic sanctions cases brought under 50 U.S.C. §1705 (also known as the International Emergency Economics Power Act, or IEEPA).
Professor Chesney (who testified before Congress last week on the states secret privilege) notes that DOJ charged 44 individual defendants with at least one count based on IEEPA's terrorism-related regulations between September 11, 2001 and July 2007. Charges against 16 of these defendants remain pending (eight of the defendants are not yet in U.S. custody, while eight others are but await trial). Of the 28 defendants whose IEEPA charges have proceeded to disposition, 20 have been convicted on at least one IEEPA charge (seven by jury, one by bench trial, and 12 by plea agreement). Of the eight defendants who were not convicted, four had their IEEPA charges dismissed in connection with a plea to other charges, two were acquitted by a jury, one was acquitted by bench trial, and the charges against one were dropped after the defendant was killed overseas.
Between September 2001 and July 2007, a total of 108 individual defendants were charged with at least one count under § 2339B (including direct violations as well as conspiracies and attempts to violate the statute). The charges remain pending against 46 of these defendants at the time of Professor Chesney’s writing, with 23 of them not yet in U.S. custody and 23 others in custody but awaiting trial. Of the 62 defendants as to whom the § 2339B charges have been resolved, 39 have been convicted on at least one § 2339B-related count, with nine of these convicted by jury and thirty others convicted pursuant to a plea agreement. Another 11 defendants pled guilty to other charges, and had their § 2339B counts dropped as a result. The government moved to dismiss the charges against one additional defendant after the individual died overseas. Eight of the remaining defendants were acquitted on the § 2339B charges they faced (one by bench trial, seven by jury), and three others successfully moved to have the charges against them dismissed prior to trial.
Do you want to know the names of the people who fall in these categories? Professor Chesney delivers. His article contains charts in which the defendants, the case location, the case number, the charges and the dispositions are listed. It is a truly remarkable piece of work. I wish I had written it.
The same law review issue also contains an excellent article by my friend and former colleague, Kelly Moore, on how we ignore the criminal law enforcement tools in counterterrorism at our peril. Kelly is now a partner at the New York office of a major Philadelphia law firm, and she successfully prosecuted a prominent Yemeni religious leader for terrorist financing when she was a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, in a case that appeared unwinnable once the government informant literally immolated himself on the White House lawn to protest how he was being handled by the FBI. Kelly’s experience in this case - for which she and Pam Chen and the team of FBI agents richly deserved all the accolades they received - drives her argument, which is similar to what I have been preaching about the vital role of prosecutors in counterterrorism.
The Lewis and Clark Law Review issue containing these articles can be found online. These articles will undoubtedly be inconvenient for those who don't think lawyers deserve a place at the counterterrorism table.
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In a recent appearance al Jazeera, Muslim Brotherhood theologian Yousef al-Qaradawi took an interesting, but not unusual line on violent jihad-it is not wrong, but it is ineffective.
In the midst of a discourse on the Caliphate, the need to rotate leaders out of power (and why the Muslim Brotherhood does not, by his own admission, despite the preference of four to six year terms for the leader), al-Qaradawi turns his attention to violent jihad and armed revolution, which I put here as a lengthy excerpt, so that the full context is available. Each can choose their interpretation.
Al-Qaradawi says that "all the rules and laws of Islam contain all that is in favour of people in this life and the hereafter." He adds: "The Islamic shari'ah serves the interests of mankind in their life and religion." He says: "Among these are the political interests. What God decreed in the political field in terms of laws is aimed at establishing the truth and justice, safeguarding dignity, and taking care of people's rights. This is why it was very strict on the issue of revolting against the ruler. By revolting here I mean armed revolt. This is because this will pave the way for sedition and indiscipline. As a result, perhaps blood might be shed, people might be killed, and houses and property might be destroyed."
Al-Qaradawi adds: "The issue is not that if anyone becomes angry at a ruler he then should brandish his sword and revolt against him. No. It is true that Islam does not accept the culture of submissiveness and humiliation by the rulers, but it is also does not accept that if anyone becomes angry at another one he then should carry out an armed revolution, especially since this will lead to instability and pave the way for interference by others and foreigners in the country's affairs." Al-Qaradawi then gives examples of revolts against rulers from the Islamic history.
My full blog is here.
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I want to build on the very useful piece posted here by my colleague Jeff Breinholt, which describes the Bank Secrecy Act and the due diligence and suspicious transaction report responsibilities it imposes on US financial institutions. These responsibilities go well beyond terrorism financing and include money laundering, corrupt practices, financial fraud, and a whole range of other criminal activities.
The US has been at the forefront in putting together a workable and effective regulatory system that seeks to protect both legitimate privacy rights and national security interests. But, the greatest part of this task falls on the financial institutions themselves, and anything the government can do to assist them should be welcome. In this vein, Breinholt's observation that the government needs to do more to facilitate a two-way flow of information between the banking community and government agencies, and to provide security clearances to eligible bank compliance officers, should be taken up seriously by both Congress and the Administration.
The complexity of international financial transactions provides many opportunities for sophisticated terrorism supporting organizations, and other criminal enterprises, to mask effectively the transactions’ actual originators and/or ultimate recipients. Funds are often channeled through multiple overseas banks and accounts, making it near impossible for the banks themselves to identify and tag suspicious transactions. They often over compensate by providing a mountain of suspicious activity and other reports. As of June 30,2007 US banks and non depository financial institutions have filed some 4.7 million Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) with FinCen, the US government agency charged with mining the data collected under the Bank Secrecy Act and linking it with law enforcement, commercial, and other intelligence data sources. A breakdown of these figures indicates that 1.68 million dealt with possible money laundering (which might also include terrorism financing). Only 3,527 SAR’s (since 2003) have been classified as possible terrorism financing (736 in 2006 and 351 for the first half of 2007). It is not clear how many of these were actually deemed to warrant further investigation.
The bulk of international terrorism financing takes place overseas and has little to do directly with American banking institutions. US banks usually find out only after the fact that they have had some tangential involvement in such transactions, and are usually unable to steer clear of these transactions because they lack the intelligence information that might have forewarned them. This is not the case, however, for foreign banks which maintain branches in the United States, but whose overseas branches may engage regularly in such questionable activities. US branches of a handful of overseas banks have been implicated in terrorism financing, and have been used, knowingly, or unwittingly, to facilitate such transactions. The problem is that transactions considered as terrorism related, and illegal by the United States, are still viewed as quite legal by their foreign (non American jurisdiction) banking regulatory regimes.
The EU has just recently begun to replicate many of the requirements contained in the US Bank Secrecy Act. But, much of the rest of the world still lacks such control measures. This is particularly the case in Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf region in general. The Saudi Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) reportedly only got up and running in 2007 and there are still many questions as to its role and effectiveness in combating terrorism financing.
Working together with the EU and other committed foreign banking jurisdictions, US regulators and financial institutions could have a major impact on terrorism financing by holding foreign financial institutions accountable through the long reach arm of their own laws, and through imposition of increased due diligence requirements when it comes to treating with such banking systems. This was the original intent of FATF’s so called NCCT list. It’s a shame that practice has been reduced to almost nothing.
So, the fact is that we still have a long way to go, despite the obligations, recommendations, and provisions spelled out by FATF and in various UN Counter-terrorism resolutions, and the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorism Financing, in building an effective international control system when it comes to combating terrorism financing. This is a task we should commit ourselves to, not one we should abandon.
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We are very pleased to welcome Farhana Ali to CTB as a Contributing Expert. Ms. Ali joined the RAND Corporation in August 2005 as an Associate International Policy Analyst. Her research is focused on the evolution of global terrorism and political trends in key Muslim countries such as Pakistan. Ms. Ali has published several articles on the strategic U.S.-Pakistan alliance and presented her work to the National Defense University (Islamabad), Pakistan Institute of International Affairs (Karachi), and U.S. military audiences. She frequently visits Pakistan in support of RAND research to examine the current political climate in the country and assess the rise of Islamic extremism and international terrorist groups operating in the northern areas. She is a sought-after lecturer on terrorism and has presented her work to diverse audiences, including John Hopkins University, Oxford University, and the International Institute of Strategic Affairs in London, and has been invited as a guest lecturer to the United Arab Emirates and Switzerland. She also has appeared in numerous media outlets, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, Al-Jazeera television, BBC World News, CNN International and Headlines news, National Public Radio, ABC News, Canadian national television, Bloomberg television, and Voice of America.
Prior to RAND, she worked in the Central Intelligence Agency for five years. Before 9/11, she was the first American-Muslim woman to be hired into the Counter-Terrorism Department. Her unique understanding of conflicts in the Muslim world as well as Islamic doctrine did not go unnoticed. During her career, she received several Meritorious Awards. Upon her departure, she was recognized for her outstanding service to the department and the U.S. Government at large. Ms Ali is a graduate of The George Washington University with a Master’s in Security Policy Studies and is proficient in French, Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, and modern standard Arabic.
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The Counterterrorism Blog has carried some excellent commentary on terrorist financing. Posts by Matt Levitt, Mike Jacobsen, Dennis Lormel and others have provided some good perspective on the challenges of preventing it. An unrelated website, the Terror Finance Blog, is devoted to the issue.
I thought it would be a good time to get out some basics, so more of our readers might be able to understand the field and the terms that are thrown around in commentary, and form their own opinions. I want to focus on the main U.S. operational tool that is used to redress terrorist financing, the Bank Secrecy Act.
The Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) is actually a misnomer. It does not promote the sanctity of bank records as its name suggests. Rather, the statute enlists banks as the eyes and ears of the government in its efforts to prevent criminals from availing themselves of the civilized world’s financial system. It does this by defining the circumstances in which banks are required to report customer activity to the government, spontaneously and without a request. The reports take the form of official BSA-mandated filings, like “currency transactions reports” (CTRs), which banks and car dealers file whenever they are party to a transaction involving over $10,000 in the hands of their customers. The government entity that receives BSA-required reports is the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). It is the U.S. financial intelligence unit, an entity mandated by international law. This much is clear: banks do not have a privileged relationship with their customers, akin to lawyers or psychotherapists or priests. If they observe their customers involved in crime, they have an obligation to snitch on them.
If the Bank Secrecy Act does not assure that bank information is kept secret, there is another statute that does. It is called the “Right to Financial Privacy Act.” It says that banks cannot share customer information unless there is a request supported by adequate legal weight, like a subpoena. This means American banks are caught in the middle of conflicting laws. On the one hand, they are required to report on their customers, via BSA reports. Meanwhile, they are prohibited from sharing customer information with the government unless the government requests it through some legal process, like a grand jury subpoena. This strain is akin to the First Amendment, where the government cannot establish religion while simultaneouslty being prohibited from interfering with the free exercise of religion.
In the old days, it was unclear how much privacy attached to bank records of customer transactions. One customer actually appealed to the Supreme Court, when records obtained from his bank were used to convict him of fraud. He argued that the records should have been suppressed because the government did not obtain them with a search warrant. The Court rejected this argument, based on the idea that bank records were not subject to a reasonable expectation of privacy entitling the customer to Fourth Amendment protection. That was 1976.
The BSA was enacted in 1970, but it was not until 1986 that it really started being used and enforced. The latter year came during the War on Drugs, and BSA regulations started to require banks to file reports and examining them for dereliction. Among these reports was the CTR - which is triggered upon a clear financial transaction involving $10,000 or more - and reports of general suspicious activity by customers, referred to as “Suspicious Activity Reports” (SARs). These reports are not optional, even though SARs involve a certain amount of discretion. Banks that fail to file CTRs or SARs when they should have are punished by their regulators, based on the idea that their failure jeopardizes the reputation of the bank and therefore the safety and soundness of customer deposits.
What gives the bank the knowledge upon which to exercise discretion to file SARs? Banks have a regulatory obligation to “know their customers” well enough to notice anomalies in customer behavior. This means banks are obliged to engage in “due diligence” to determine whether their customers are engaged in activity warranting the filing of a SAR.
The bolstering of the BSA-mandated requirements spawned an entire industry known as bank compliance. These days, the major financial institutions have compliance departments consisting of people who understand their banks’ systems of records and what the law requires them to report to the government. They obtain their expertise by attending educational seminars and conferences, like those hosted by entities like Money Laundering Alert and Bankers' Toolbox.
I have couple of observations about the bank compliance industry, based on my experience after 9/11 as head of the Department of Justice’s terrorist financing criminal enforcement program, a position which required me to occasionally deal with banks. Compliance officers are often fighting cultural problems within their institutions, since what they do does not produce revenue. As a result, they often find it difficult to do what they believe the law requires and obtain necessary resources from their institutions. This sometimes results in attempts outsource their due diligence back to the government, through phone calls to their regulators and other government agencies. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) receives calls from banks, and they are trained not to opine. After all, due diligence and “know your customer” is the responsibility of the institutions. If the government assumes this burden, the BSA breaks down.
There is also a tendency to argue that the regulations are too esoteric, and difficult to understand. In response to this, I often note that Zacarias Moussaoui deprived us of the opportunity to charge him with bulk cash smuggling, because he actually filed a Currency and Monetary Instrument Report (CMIR) when he flew into the U.S. through Chicago O’Hare in February 2001 with in excess of $30,000 on his person. This means that al Qaida knows our Bank Secrecy Act, and trains its operatives in how to avoid trouble by not violating it. Bankers have little excuse to be ignorant.
A few days ago, I posted an article (here) in which I opined that the threat of civil liability in suits by victims of terrorism may cause banks to get better at identifying customers acting on behalf of front organizations for Hamas and Hizballah, a good thing. The calls and e-mails I received suggested that people may have been confused by my statement. What I was referring to was the certainty that the terrorist designation process results in terrorist groups engaging in tradecraft to avoid law enforcement scrutiny. How can this tradecraft be defeated? I believe it can be done by a system where bankers are incentivized to go beneath the surface and determine whether their customers are engaging in transactions involving terrorists, at which point they can file SARs. The key is due diligence, not watered down.
Have we arrived there yet? I don’t think so, in part because there are still elements that want to excuse banks from failing to uncover legitimate-looking transactions in the course of their BSA compliance. This tendency underlies the courts' starting to establish a “routine transaction” defense to wrongful death actions filed against banks allegedly involved in terrorist money movement. Like my student Stephen Landman, who wrote an excellent article on this issue (here), I believe this tendency cuts against efforts to promote better due diligence in the banking industry.
What is the answer? In many ways, I feel the compliance officers’ pain. They are fighting cultural battles within their own institutions. The government, when it chooses to make an example of a particularly unscrupulous bank, is very good at highlighting “worst practices” of the industry. There is little in the way of “best practices,” though the public release of the bank examiner’s handbook was a step in the right direction. The honest compliance officers inevitably suffer some sleepless nights, since institutional reputation is so easily lost through failure to uncover things that the BSA requires, and their necks are on the line.
For me, the answer is easy, though implementation will require a heavy dose of political will: start giving bank compliance officers security clearances. That way, the FBI may share sensitive real-time intelligence with our counterparts in the private sector. Can they be trusted? I think so. Do they deserve it? I believe they do. After all, compliance officers are the government’s eyes and eyes at the gates of the financial system. When they carry that burden, they are entitled to some benefits.
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Yesterday's assassination of arch-terrorist Imad Mughniyeh was welcome news in Washington, Buenos Aires, Tel Aviv, and, albeit quietly, Beirut and Baghdad. For Hizballah and Damascus, however, the loss of Mughniyeh -- who was a brilliant military tactician, a key contact to Tehran, and a successful political leader -- is a severe blow to their ongoing activities and operations.
But who was Imad Mughniyeh, and what kind of foreign operations was he responsible for outside of Lebanon? My colleague David Schenker and I address these issues in a Policywatch available here.
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On Friday, February 29, at noon, I will moderate a panel titled, "Meta-Terror: Terrorism and the Virtual World" in room B339 of the Rayburn House Office Building. Our panelists will be Ken Silva, Chief Technology Officer for VeriSign, the trusted provider of Internet infrastructure services for the digital world; Contributing Expert Roderick Jones, Vice President of Concentric Solutions International; and Contributing Expert Evan Kohlmann, a world-reknowed expert on jihadists' use of the Internet and a Senior Investigator for the NEFA Foundation. A limited number of boxed lunches will be served. The event is co-sponsored by the Counterterrorism Foundation and the GAGE International consulting firm in Washington, DC.
As VeriSign's Chief Technology Officer, Ken Silva oversees the company's infrastructure that enables and protects billions of interactions every day across the world's voice and data networks. Mr. Silva also oversees the management of two of the world's 13 Internet root servers, a.root-servers.net and j.root-servers.net, considered national IT assets by the U.S. government. He coordinates security oversight of the system that protects more than 900,000 Web servers with digital certificates, protecting the majority of secure Web sites on the Internet, including 93 percent of the Fortune 500 sites. He serves on the board of directors for the Information Technology, Information Sharing and Analysis Center (IT-ISAC) and is the Chairman of the board of the Internet Security Alliance. He also advises and participates in a number of national and international committees for organizations, including the National Infrastructure Protection Center, White House ISP Security Panel, the ICANN DNS Security Panel, the Network Reliability and Interoperability Council, and the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee.
Roderick Jones, a former member of the UK’s Special Branch, works daily at the intersection of technology, security and innovation. Roderick wrote a concept paper on the use of Massive Multi-player Online Role Playing Games (MMPORGs) by terrorists, which I posted on March 1, 2007 as "MetaTerror: The Potential Use of MMORPGs by Terrorists." That post drew considerable reaction in the broader tech community, resulting in my follow-up on March 12, 2007. You can read his CTB posts on his archives page.
Evan Kohlmann, one of our original Contributing Experts, has spent a decade tracking Al-Qaida and other terrorist groups. He has interviewed prominent Al-Qaida spokesmen and amassed one of the largest databases in the world of terrorist communiqués and multimedia. He has served as a private consultant in terrorism matters for intelligence and law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and around the world. He has also testified as numerous times an expert witness in terrorism trials in several countries. You can read his CTB posts on his archives page.
Please send your RSVP for this event to this e-mail address.
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The UN has just added three financiers to its terrorism list for providing financial support to al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. This would be heartening news but for the fact that it took the UN more than a year to do this, even though the US Treasury had designated the three Kuwaitis supporters of terrorism, a full 13 months ago.
Does such tardiness matter? Hardly, according to the political scientist Ibrahim Warde, whose latest book The Price of Fear denounces such efforts as a waste of time or worse, ruining innocents and hampering world trade. The hunt for terrorist money is more political grandstanding than effective policy, according to Warde and a host of other academic critics.
Even after six years of following and freezing terrorists' funds, intelligence officials in both the US and Europe warn that al-Qaeda still has both the intention and the capability to conduct potentially devastating attacks. But combating terror finance remains -- and should remain -- central to counterterrorism strategy.
The full article, which appears in today's European Voice, a Brussels-based paper published by the Economist, appears here.
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The killing of Imad Mughniyeh, the Hezbollah terrorist leader behind the death and kidnappings of hundreds of Americans, is a major development and a reminder of the painful Lebanon hostage traumas inflicted on the western world in the 1980’s, long before 9/11. In a precursor to the present, Mughniyeh’s terrorist acts were related to conflicts involving Iraq and Iran and utilized techniques that have been adopted by Al Qaeda.
The traumatic events, which wrapped the Reagan Administration around the terrorism axle, included the kidnappings of nearly 100 American and other western hostages in Lebanon during the 1980’s. Ten of the hostages died in captivity including the CIA Beirut station chief William Buckley and Col. William Higgins, assigned to Lebanon on a U.N. peace keeping mission.
Many misconceptions and attempts by some political leaders and con- men to exploit the human tragedy for political and mercenary motives surrounded the hostage situation. Attempts to free the hostages included the disastrous Iran-Contra missiles-for- hostage deals orchestrated by NSC staffer Oliver North that violated U.S. counterterrorism policies and arms export laws. This in turn prompted Congress to pass tougher arms control legislation that made it more difficult for the executive branch to remove a country from the terrorism list.
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Long-time Hezbollah operations director Imad Mughniyah has been a seminal figure in the evolution of modern terrorism. He has links to Arafat and bin Laden, and is believed to have masterminded suicide vehicle bombings in Beirut, Argentina, and Saudi Arabia. His demise by car bomb in Damascus is just (and fitting). It is an open question as to whether or not it will prove to be a major body-blow or inspire revenge attacks.
There may be reason to worry, but it is also possible that this was the best possible time to target Mughniyah.
Pyrrhic Victory?
Assassinating Mughniyah was an impressive operation. Israel (the most likely actor) managed to penetrate the notoriously difficult Hezbollah security network to get to Mughniyah and they carried out an operation in the heart of an Arab capital. Of course, many observers have noted that Israel’s assassination of Abu Jihad in 1988 was an impressive operation, but did little to stymie the First Intifada.
Formal studies of the targeted killing strategy are sparse - it is clear that some groups decline when their leaders are removed (Aum Shinrikyo, Sendero Luminoso, and Action Directe - to name a few.) Other groups are damaged, but come back - such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), which was hobbled after its leader Fathi Shqaqi was assassinated in Malta in 1995. PIJ made a comeback when it became an Iranian proxy, closely allied with Hezbollah.
Other groups are motivated by the death and capture of their leaders. Baader-Meinhof in Germany is one example. Hezbollah is another.
Read the complete post here.
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The killing of Imad Mughniye in Damascus, what ever is the context and whom ever are the executors, is a benchmark in the war between the Iranian Terror networks and their enemies. Mughniye has led the Iranian and Hezbollah operations against US personnel since 1983 and was the top planner in the Hezbollah-Israel war. He was seen as the principal link between the Pasdaran (Iranian Revolutionary Guard) power and its supported organizations around the world including Hezbollah in Lebanon and overseas. But as important, was his role in coordinating the Iranian Terror activities with Syria's intelligence services.
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The appeal court in London today overturned the convictions of five young Muslim men for possession of extremist literature. The success of the young men’s appeal is likely to have ramifications on other cases in the UK. The full judgment can be read here and is highly informative as it shows how precise the legal definitions surrounding terrorism need to be. Specifically at issue in this case was section 57 of the UK Terrorism Act 2000 - which states, that an individual commits a terrorist offence if they are in possession of an “..article in circumstances which give rise to a reasonable suspicion that his possession is for purposes connected with the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism”. The history of this offence goes back to 1996 when it was apparent that terrorists were making use of everyday items to make bombs.
The case against Irfan Raja, Awaab Iqbal, Aitzaz Zafar, Usman Malik and Akbar Butt was as follows. Four of the five men were students at Bradford University. The fifth, Raja was a schoolboy in Ilford. Raja made contact with Iqbal through the Internet messaging service MSN. On 24 February 2006 Raja left his home with his passport, leaving a martyrdom song on the family computer and a letter under his mattress stating that he had gone to take part in conventional warfare abroad. His family contacted the police who examined the contents of his computer. The hard drive of the computer revealed a significant amount of religious or political material, some of it described as extreme.
Raja had in fact gone to Bradford using his bus ticket paid for by Iqbal. He stayed in Bradford for a few days at a house Iqbal and Zafar lived and bought with him three discs he had made containing select material from his computer. His family convinced him to return home, which he did whereupon he was arrested. Subsequent police investigation led them to arrest the other four men who were also in possession of radical Islamic material. Further MSN IM chats were also found including a discussion between all four men and a cousin who lived in Pakistan (who was described by police as a foreign based terrorist). In the course of the IM’s they asked how to travel without raising suspicion.
The prosecution argued that possession of extremist literature in this case was a crime under section 57 of the Terrorism Act. However, the appeal focused on the fact that mere possession of extremist political or philosophical Islamic material (as opposed to bomb making instructions) was not in itself a crime. Timing was also a significant issue as it was not clear that their purpose was to act with immediacy and not at some remote point in time. As the case was made, the appeal judgment over-turning the convictions does seem reasonable. If possession of extremist literature were in itself a crime then many terrorist researchers would be having some serious concerns. However, there is little doubt that this group of men should have been under surveillance and disrupted - it is the timing of the disruption that remains the key and this is where the legal and security systems of western governments are still trying to find the right balance. In an age of suicide bombers is a very difficult operational decision when to make arrests. Clearly, if one of the members of the group had moved significantly toward traveling to Pakistan or Afghanistan then the offence would have been completed to a degree the court would have had little complaint with. The decision to disrupt this group at an early stage of their activities led to the subsequent reliance on weaker evidence.
With regard to the cyber-jihad this ruling is also important as it shows how online activity should be coupled with real-life action of some kind before a criminal offence has been committed. There are clear ways to now show this connection as Evan’s Kohlmann’s excellent work has demonstrated and I am sure he will continue to be in high legal demand. Above all this ruling shows that there is a long way to go until western legal systems have adapted to the threat from Internet based Islamist terrorism. It isn’t a major setback for the police, as some parts of the media have reported, it is a necessary correction.
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The killing of Imad Mughniyeh put Syria in the headlines today.
I had a piece on Syria that appeared in the Weekly Standard online today---not about Damascus’ provision of safe haven to terrorists like Mughniyeh, but about how Syria terrorizes its own people. The WS article focuses on leading Syrian dissident Riad Seif, and how his recent arrest essentially constitutes a death sentence for the 61-year old reformer.
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The assassination of top Shite militant Imad Mughniyeh is important for many reasons, not the least of which was his long-standing ties to Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda network and his crucial role as a link between the Iranian special forces and Hezbollah.
It is also interesting to note that Hezbollah, where Mughniyeh was a top strategist for many years, claimed him as their own immediately upon his death, despite denying responsibility in several of the actions for which he is most famous.
As Rohan Gunaratna wrote in his seminal book Inside al Qaeda, it was Mughniyeh's pioneering use of suicide truck bombs used in Lebanon in 1983 to bomb the Marine barracks and inflict mass casualties, was the model Osama bin Laden most wanted to emulate.
"It was Mughniyeh who inspired Osama to develop coordinated, simultaneous attacks as a regular modus operandi, and this has been the hallmark of most subsequent al Qaeda operations, including 9/11 and the East Africa bombings...," Gunaratna wrote. "Mughniyeh, who was especially close to the Iranians, helped al Qaeda develop its agent-handling system, having specialized in conducting long range operations." My full blog is here.
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This afternoon, Mike Leiter, the acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center, spoke at the Washington Institute. He discussed both NCTC's role in counterterrorism analysis and strategic operational planning, as well as the looming counterterrorism challenges the US and its allies are facing.
Here is an excerpt from his prepared remarks.
It has been six-and-a-half years since 9/11. More than seven years since the attack on the USS Cole. Almost ten years since the attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Nearly fifteen years since the first attack on the World Trade Center and twenty-five years since the bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut. Over that quarter-century, the threat we face from terrorism has constantly mutated, sometimes in tragically unexpected ways. This has compelled us to adapt and evolve as well. Today, I would like to speak to you about some components of that evolution -- in particular, the enhancements brought about by the creation of my organization, the National Counterterrorism Center or NCTC. I also want to speak to the challenges and changing landscape we anticipate in the future, and what we know we must do going forward to defeat this enemy. . . .
To read the rest of the speech, please click here:
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A car bomb in Damascus killed Imad Mughniyeh, leader of Hezbollah's military operations and a mass murderer. It was a fitting end for someone who planned and executed numerous deadly terrorist attacks, including the 1983 bombings of the U.S Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut and the 1994 bombing of the Buenos Aires, Argentina Jewish center. Mugniyah was indicted in the U.S. for his role in planning and executing the 1985, hijacking of TWA Flight 847, which resulted in the murder of one U.S. citizen.
Mughniyeh was also implicated in Hezbollah's kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers in 2006, which led to Israel's incursion into Lebanon. Contributing Experts posted several analyses at that time about his role in that conflict, including:
"Imad Mugniyah likely behind the capture of Israeli soldiers," by Bill Roggio, July 12: "The sophistication of this attack indicates Imad Fayez Mugniyah, Hezbollah's chief of military operations was directly involved. Mugniyah has a long history of successful military and terrorist operations across the globe. Mugniyah has a history of conducting similar snatch and grab operations against the Israelis."
"Inside Hizballah’s decision-making," by Magnus Ranstorp, July 14: "The file for handling special operations of this kind is usually left to Imad Mughniyeh, the elusive terrorist mastermind for Hizballah, who stands with one foot within Hizballah (reporting to Naserallah directly) and with one foot in Iran inside the architectures of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and the al-Qods unit within the Iranian Pasdaran.
Other CT Blog posts on Mughniyeh: Aaron Mannes posted last October on the history of "Force 17," the Palestinian terrorist group once led by Mughniyah, and which served as an early inspiration to Bin Laden. Olivier Guitta posted in June 2006 on a Syrian plot, led by Mughniyeh, to destabilize Qatar.
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On the fifth anniversary of the Department of Homeland Security, its second leader, Michael Chertoff, talked to me about his deepest fears about terrorist threats and why he frets over Europe and Canada more than Mexico. In the interview published Sunday in the New York Daily News, the secretary of Homeland Security said "more than a dozen" people linked to Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and other extremists have tried to enter the U.S. through ports of entry on the northern border, he said, while there have been almost no such attempts at U.S.-Mexico checkpoints.
Aboard his sleek Gulfstream V jet (callsign "Coast Guard One"), Chertoff also discussed America's growing complacency toward terror threats, why racial profiling at airports is "foolish" and explained how terror plots get hyped by some in the government.
The former prosecutor and judge often thrust into the political debate over illegal immigration denied that the Mexican border has been an easy way for Al Qaeda to penetrate the U.S.
"When we've had instances - and there have not been many - where we’ve caught terrorists trying to sneak in, it's been through ports of entry using false documents, and I think we’ve been more concerned about Canada as a platform than Mexico," he said.
Chertoff said "much more than a dozen" stopped at the Canadian border since the 9/11 attacks were connected to "a mix" of terror groups through "either a financial connection, maybe a family connection, maybe communications."
"I don't mean that they swore bayat to [Osama] Bin Laden, but [the link to terrorism was] something I would consider to be Al Qaeda-related," he explained.
Beyond America's land borders, Chertoff has made a point lately of warning that Europe is "what worries me the most."
The News reported late last year that counterterror officials were concerned about intelligence indicating a small number of white, Anglo-looking Europeans had joined Al Qaeda and received training in Pakistan's tribal region bordering Afghanistan - which Chertoff says is precisely why racial profiling "would be foolish."
"The enemy quite consciously tries to recruit people … who don't fit a particular image of what a terrorist looks like," he said. Officials are deeply alarmed by evidence "that Al Qaeda is recruiting Europeans who have clean papers and training them and sending them back, either to attack Europe or take advantage of the Visa Waiver Program and attack us."
"We're concerned about people who are European, or at least have European backgrounds, who are able to move around, that don't have a record and would fit in with local society and therefore are less likely to make a mistake that might call attention to them," he continued.
Security in airports tightened around travelers like a boa constrictor after a 2006 Al Qaeda plot to blow up U.S.-bound jetliners from London was disrupted. Security officials subsequently banned bottles of hairspray and other liquids, while some have noted that liquid explosives were in Al Qaeda's playbook going back 13 years, when terrorist Ramzi Yousef killed a Japanese businessman with a bomb aboard an airliner in a dry run for the "Bojinka" plot.
"We were looking for liquid explosives, but we had not gotten to the point where we were prepared to take as drastic a step as we took after London," Chertoff said in defense of his agency. "The London plot clearly put us over the edge… that was, to my mind, comparable to a potential 9/11."
Chertoff has often complained that Americans are growing complacent about terrorism, and - surprisingly - he was even willing to entertain the idea that their complacency might owe in part to the perception that the government hypes arrests of clumsy "mopes" from terrorism's back bench.
"I don't think I've actually ever hyped anything. I think some of the hype does come through inexperience rather than politics," Chertoff said. "Sometimes when prosecutors get in front of the press - particularly when they don't have a lot of experience - they get caught up in the whole media environment and they start to feel an obligation to give the media something really good to kind of satisfy them."
But, he added, "Sometimes people who are mopes can do a lot of damage - even the B-team."
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It looks like the Hollywood Writer’s strike is finally over, which is a good thing for those tired of prime-time game shows and “American Gladiator.” The labor dispute involved financial remuneration for the redistribution of entertainment programming. The writers’ problem is that their product is in such high demand around the world, and they want to assure that they are receiving fair compensation. If only we were all so fortunate. The fact that the appetite for American entertainment is so strong overseas raises a counterterrorism idea that some may dismiss as me being flippant, but is actually quite serious.
The idea hit me as I listened to Yonah Alexander’s comments at the excellent public forum co-hosted by the Counterterrorism Foundation on February 12, 2008 at the U.S. Capitol. Professor Alexander described how American counterterrorism efforts need to include more than just law enforcement and military tools, to win over youth in the Third World who are indoctrinated from an early age to hate American values. He suggested that this battle will last for 100 years, even if we start today, since today’s children are tomorrow’s terrorists. Why? For many of them, their daily intellectual diet includes Al Manar, the television station of Hizballah.
Does anyone else see the irony of this as American television writers put down their signs and retreat from the picket lines? Why can’t the U.S. government subsidize the distribution of regular American entertainment to the Arab World? I am not referring to the dry, policy-laden programming of Voice of America, nor to original pro-American shows that would inevitably involve consultations with American Muslim groups over whether the resulting productions violate politico-religious sensibilities. Let’s give them a heavy dose of what we give our own people, and which makes us so happy and wanting more. Not the pro-U.S. propaganda like what was produced in World War II. This would be “The Office,” “Desperate Housewives,” and “Friday Night Lights,” without apologies. That would mean more work and viewers for the Hollywood writers, and more reliable income. After all, U.S. government paychecks rarely bounce.
Think this is not possible in repressive regimes? The American entertainment industry has been ranting for years about the dangers of copyright infringement, to the point where they have convinced Interpol that intellectual piracy is used to fund terrorists. This means that even the best technological skills that money can buy cannot prevent illegal downloads onto IPods. I doubt the Mullahs in Iran have any better shot at it.
P.J. Rourke, I think, once said that the Berlin Wall came down not because of Minutemen Missiles and the Strategic Defense Initiative, but because of the Sony Walkman and Levi jeans. Johnnie Walker Red used to be a good tradeable commodity in remote parts of China, and probably still is. These items became things everyday Communists could not live without. People who realize they are living deprived are willing to risk everything for them, once they got a little taste. Throw lingerie-clad Eva Longoria at regular Arab viewers, and see how long they want to wear a hijab and insist that stoning is the proper punishment for adultery. I’m not sure our regular television programming rises to the level of an American treasure, but I seriously doubt that the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights will be able to claim that it amounts to U.S.-sanctioned torture.
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Two stories have just surfaced in the media that once again demonstrate the direct linkage of immigration issues and national security.
First, we learn the FBI and DHS are concerned about the possibility of Americans or Europeans trained by al-Qaeda in terror camps in the badlands of Pakistan making their way into the United States to conduct attacks against our homeland. US citizens would be able to enter the US on their US passports. European citizens would be able to enter under the Visa Waiver Program wherein citizens of some 27 countries, mostly western and northern European countries, are not required to obtain a US visa to enter the United States as a “temporary” visitor. Combined with this threat, there is a concern that such terrorists will include women suicide bombers more easily able to access their targets, especially women posing as being pregnant to hide their explosive devices.
Next, we have learned the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agency will begin to adjudicate (read “approve”) a huge backlog of pending immigration benefit applications and petitions, mostly for permanent residency (“green card” status), before full FBI and other security checks are completed. The given rationale is the vast majority of such applicants pass such checks anyway and those who ultimately do not will have their status revoked and, in the words of a USCIS spokesperson, “will be deported.”
Six plus years from the 9/11 attacks we now have senior counter-terrorism officials of the US Government finally recognizing, albeit somewhat indirectly, the Visa Waiver Program that was originally devised many years ago as a process to expedite international tourism for the travel industry is a genuine national security concern. Some others have been making this warning for quite a while, to include right here in this Blog.
The action, or better perhaps lack thereof, by USCIS in their adjudication process comes as no major surprise. What had been the Examinations Division of the old INS (the immigration benefits side of the INS) sometimes operated the same way when backlogs became overwhelming. During what was called “Citizenship USA,” a Clinton-era effort to naturalize as many new citizens as quickly as possible, thousands of naturalization petitions were approved without proper completion of criminal and security checks. That led to thousands of ineligible persons becoming naturalized US citizens. Virtually none were prosecuted nor had their citizenship revoked.
What is disappointing is the modus operandi of the supposedly “new” immigration benefits agency under the Department of Homeland Security has apparently changed little from the poorly managed agency it replaced. And when it comes to that claim of approved applicants later found to be ineligible “being deported”...well, there’s this bridge in Brooklyn that still needs to be sold. Even the very few that actually might find their way into some kind of revocation proceeding and ultimately into Immigration Court proceedings will likely spend years in immigration litigation and find themselves eligible for some form of discretionary relief from deportation in the end. Very, very few of those “ineligibles” will ever be deported with even fewer criminally prosecuted for fraud.
Make no mistake, this bureaucratic cave-in is nothing short of a sugar-coated admission of the agency being incapable of doing its mission. Immigrant advocates will be very pleased. Some politicians will be pleased. There are probably some sleeper cell alien terrorists out there anxiously awaiting their green cards who will be even more pleased.
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One of the fundamental truths of dealing with networks, terrorist or otherwise, is that they will morph quickly to survive and adapt as the environment around them changes.
This seems to be the case in Iraq, where, as we know from captured documents that al Qaeda linked groups there have been badly hurt in recent months.
The strategy may now be to move outside Iraq and wage a different type of war from surrounding countries.
The indicators, as outlined by Maj. Gen. Mark Hertling, are leaders leaving with cash and seeking refuge outside of areas of intense U.S. pressure.
If anyone remembers the drug wars in the Andes in the 1980s and 1990s (which I covered intensely for more than a decade), one will remember the great joy at the felling of the individual cartel leaders (Rodriguez Gacha, Pablo Escobar, the arrest of the Rodriguez Orejuela brothers etc.), and the inevitable statements that these actions would have a significant impact on the amount of cocaine entering the United States.
Of course, the flow of cocaine was never dented at all. The organizations simply regrouped, decentralized, became much more difficult to attack frontally, and business went on. My full blog is here.
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Books are an important source of information on American counterterrorism efforts. Unfortunately, many people who claim to be experts (and who are critical of these efforts) either do not keep up with revelations that come out in book form, or misunderstand what they say.
That was my impression when Ron Susskind's The One Percent Doctrine came out a few years ago. The title came from something Vice President Cheney reportedly said, about how we need to assume that the worst things that can happen are inevitable and act accordingly, even if they have only a one-percent likelihood. This quote probably came from standard risk assessment science, where you dedicate resources according to a formula in which the likelihood of something happening is multiplied by its consequences. Under this well-established idea, something that has a small chance of happening must still be anticipated, if the cost of the consequences is very high. No great revelation there.
However, it was not sufficiently explained by Susskind, and Cheney's quote was used as a great example of fanatical excess by many people who never bothered to read the book its entirety. How else can you explain the continued claims that the FBI has not done anything meaningful since 9/11 to keep American safe from terrorism? Want a great example of this tendency, alive and well in February 2008? Check out the article "Fear Factory," by Guy Lawson, in the February 7, 2008 edition of Rolling Stone.
The same is true of Ronald Kessler's latest book, Terrorist Watch. My sense is that, despite its importance, plenty of government critics will not bother reading it because they view Kessler as too much a pro-FBI partisan, which is a shame. My review of it can be found on the website of the Investigative Project on Terrorism. While I do not entirely agree with the comments of many of the people Kessler quotes in the book, Terrorist Watch is nonetheless a worthy contribution to public education. FBI Director Robert Mueller is quoted as saying that over 100 terrorist plots in the U.S. have been thwarted since since 9/11, and that is undoubtedly true. People who question this should read Terrorist Watch, to get an idea how much work is being done that is not always so obvious. In fact, I challenge Lawson to read it while maintaining his current position that the FBI is intentionally creating bogeymen.
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Rep. Tom Lantos, chairman of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee and a champion in the fight against terrorism, died earlier today. Rep. Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor to win a seat in Congress, was a consistent supporter of counterterrorism efforts and the victims of terrorism. Last year, his first as chairman of that influential committee, he moved the bipartisan Iran Counter-Proliferation Act and the Afghan Freedom and Security Support Act through the committee and the U.S. House. He was also one of the principal co-sponsors for the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act, the only House-passed bill which enables public companies to divest from business with Iran. Recently, he condemned the statement by the PLO's representative in Washington praising its founder, George Habash, upon his death. He was also vocal in pressing for aid to Darfur to save innocent civilians from slaughter and was one of five Congressmen arrested in 2006 for protesting outside the Sudanese Embassy.
The victims of terrorism across the globe always had a vocal supporter and solid vote for their interests in Tom Lantos. He will be missed.
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The NEFA Foundation has obtained copies of three communiqués issued by "Al-Qaida's Committee in the Islamic Maghreb" claiming responsibility for recent terror attacks in Algeria and Mauritania, and responding to the reported "martyrdom" of Libyan Al-Qaida commander Abu al-Laith al-Liby during a U.S. air strike in northern Pakistan.
- According to a statement dated January 29, 2008, "the brave martyr Hamza Abu Abdelrahman from the town of Lakatah… embarked on his mission... at 6:30 in the morning, driving his truck—packed with no less than 650 kilograms of explosives... The claims of our enemies that the mujahideen are targeting innocent Muslims are fraudulent lies, for those who died today are all from the apostate police."
- According to a statement dated February 2, 2008, "The mujahideen took the [Israeli] embassy [in Mauritania] by surprise by firing their weapons and setting off explosives, and they managed—thanks to Allah—to cause an undetermined number of casualties among the Jews and their guards. The Mauritanian government has kept silent about that number, and has only acknowledged that three French nationals were wounded. This attack has come at a time during which the wretched Jews are treating our brothers in Palestine unjustly, with an oppressive siege, tyranny, torture, murder, expulsion, and images that cause our hearts to break... By Allah, [we will trade] blood for blood and destruction for destruction.."
- According to a statement released on February 3, 2008, "Abu al-Laith left Libya, escaping with his religion and emigrating to Allah, and his star shone bright in the skies of Afghanistan. He truly became one of the lions of Islam and a hero—so much so that the mere mention of his name causes the Americans to tremble... Indeed, he was cut from the same cloth as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, may Allah have mercy on him. Thus, it is not a surprise for us to learn that there was a great friendship and admiration between these two men—they loved each other for their shared missionary work in the cause of Allah, and their jihad in the cause of Allah... There is no doubt that the death of Abu al-Laith al-Liby has saddened the Muslim faithful and has inspired delight in the hearts of their enemies. But... do they not realize that his blood, or the blood of any of our martyrs, is merely added fuel for the convoy of Islam?"
English translations of the three communiques can be downloaded from the NEFA Foundation website.
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One thing about extremist groups, particularly those that are based on religion, is that their members so believe that they are the exclusive possessors of the truth that they almost inevitably go to far, especially if they have power.
The alienation of the civilian population they are supposed to be converting or saving eventually grows so great that the groups' existence is threatened.
This seem to be the case of Al Qaeda-linked forces in Iraq. An extraordinary Washington Post story today provides a look into the disarray among the groups, who are now trying to soften their bloody image in order to regain a modicum of popular support.
Without that support, the ability of these groups to operate in virtually any populated area is considerably diminished. Terrorizing people by killing people they love is a useful tactic for a period of time, but only until people lose their fear. That clearly happened when the Anbar chiefs and others broke from the Islamists and accepted U.S. money and weapons to change sides.
While not calling for the end of killing Shiite Muslims, the groups are seeking to win back some level of support among the Sunni chiefs, who in effect switched sides when the abuses by the insurgents grew to be too much.
The result of the abuses (and why one of the principal goals of the new commanders in Iraq was to reduce civilian deaths), the Islamists have been very badly hurt. One can only hope that their efforts to adapt do not lead long to their survival. My full blog is here.
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In a frightening and bizarre turn, the two chief agencies tapped with safeguarding America's national security have started advertising in a publication that can only be described as objectively pro-terrorism.
The online edition of the Washington Report for Middle East Affairs (WRMEA), a publication linked to former Congressman Paul Findley, who once described himself as "Yasir Arafat's best friend in Congress," features recruiting advertisements seeking new agents for both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency.
WRMEA's history of support for Hamas, other terrorist groups and individual terrorists is well known. Currently on the front page of its website, right in the center, is an homage, constituting of a collection of articles and hagiographies, to convicted Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative Sami Al-Arian.
For the full article, click on "Looking Under a Rock: FBI and CIA Hit New Low in Recruitment Drive."
IPT Executive Director Steven Emerson also has a piece in the National Review Online, "Paper of CAIR: Glossing over Hamas ties":
Once again, New York Times reporter Neil MacFarquhar has proven himself to be the chief public relations mouthpiece for radical Islamic front groups in the United States.
In an article published Thursday titled, "Speakers at Academy Said to Make False Claims," MacFarquhar writes: The Air Force Academy was criticized by Muslim and religious freedom organizations for playing host on Wednesday to three speakers who critics say are evangelical Christians falsely claiming to be former Muslim terrorists.
The three men were invited as part of a weeklong conference on terrorism organized by cadets at the academy's Colorado Springs campus under the auspices of the political science department.
And who are the "Muslim and religious freedom" groups MacFarquhar cites? One outfit called the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and none other than the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). In fact, MacFarquhar twice in his article refers to "Muslim" and "Arab" organizations - in the plural - as objecting to the conference, but the only Muslim or Arab group he cites is CAIR, once again giving CAIR its desired, and undeserved, platform as the sole spokesman for the Arab and Muslim communities. Indeed, this whole "controversy" started with a CAIR press release on Tuesday, February 5, dutifully reprinted word for word by the some newspapers, and virtually parroted by the New York Times and MacFarquhar.
To read the rest, click here to visit the IPT's website.
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The massive rallies against the FARC earlier this week (between 500,000 and two millions people rallied in Bogota, along with parallel rallies worldwide) were a watershed in many ways. It was an indication of how low the FARC’s standing has fallen. Whatever legitimacy their critique of the Colombian government may have had in past decades has been decimated by their own brutality. Insurgencies feed off their causes, but the FARC is without cause.
It also shows the maturation of Colombia’s democracy. Democracies need internal consensus about core issues and broad rejection of violence as a means of settling political disputes. Again, whatever the merit of FARC’s initial cause (Colombia - like much of Latin America - continues to suffer from massive wealth inequality), the people of Colombia recognize that armed revolution is not the response.
But, after hearing for several years how effectively terrorists use the Internet, these rallies were a profound example of how the Internet can be a potent counter-terror tool.
Read the full post here
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I would ask that you read this news article that appeared in yesterday's edition of the Washington Times, which reported on testimony by Director of National Intelligence McConnell about Iran's increasing influence in Latin America. Clearly the situation where Iran making serious inroads into Latin America should give our nation's leaders serious cause for pause! Over 45 years ago our nation stood on the brink of a war with the former Soviet Union when missiles from that communist nation were found to be situated in the Western Hemisphere. That moment in history is remembered as the "Cuban Missile Crisis."
The news article and McConnell's testimony make it clear that Cuba and Venezuela are teaming up with Iran, a nation identified as being a part of the "Axis of Evil" by the President in the days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The entire world is alarmed at the prospect of Iran ultimately developing or otherwise gaining possession of nuclear weapons. It is also understood that narcotics trafficking has been historically used to fund criminal activities and terrorism. In order for drugs to enter the United States and then be sold on the streets of our cities. The drugs destroy the lives of those who become addicted to them. Often the addicts are young people whose lives are destroyed. The crimes that addicts commit to get their hands on the money they need often result in the death of innocent people and the destruction of their families. The violence that is associated with the drug trade is of legendary proportions. And the money that is generated by drug traffickers enable the drug trafficking organization to corrupt the governments of the countries in which they operate and enable them to often buy weapons and equipment that is superior to the weapons and resources used by governments that attempt to combat them, including our own country.
Additionally, in forming an alliance with countries in the Western Hemisphere and in working with drug trafficking organizations in Mexico, Iran has developed a relatively easy access to our nation's border. This would easily enable them to send terrorists and weapons of mass destruction across our souther border. It is also important to know that at present, it is estimated that there are some 6 million Muslims living in Latin America. I want to be clear about this, I do not believe that everyone who subscribes to Islam represents a threat to our safety, the issue is that even if only one percent of those six million adherents to Islam are radical in there beliefs, we are talking about quite a few people.
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One of the benefits of being on a sabbatical from my government job is more time to interact with students interested in careers in national security. I often tell them they should not assume their ideas have ever been considered by American counterterrorism officials, and they should get them out there and not be surprised when they find they are onto something unique and cutting-edge. After all, the Pentagon found that the expertise of one of the Doobie Brothers warranted giving him a consulting contract. Who would have predicted that?
Stephen Landman is a second year law student at the Catholic University of America, and he sent me a copy of a research paper on bank liability for transferring money to terrorists. The paper was so good that I encouraged him to let me publish it on the website of the International Assessment and Strategy Center (here).
Extending legal liability for terrorist attacks to banks is an important question, and one which is currently being considered by several federal courts. Steve puts the dilemma as follows:
Although it is easy to identify these groups on their face, realistically, a leader of Hamas does not walk into a bank in London and request to open an account in order to support the Intifada. What is more likely is that Hamas would use a front organization to set up their financial accounts. Although the U.S. and the international community must continue to unmask these front groups, financial institutions must deny services to the hundreds that have already been labeled.
I sometimes think that the prospect of terrorism liability will spawn new and rigorous techniques of due diligence and "know your customer" methods by regulated financial institutions that have never been contemplated. This prospect cuts in favor of holding banks responsible for the consequences of violent attacks financed through their systems' transactions, at least when it can be shown that the banks should have done more to put themselves on notice. It represents a counterargument to the "routine transaction" defense some federal judges have created as an affirmative defense to bank terrorism liability.
I am not fan of the "routine transaction" doctrine. After all, Hamas and Hizballah routinely kill people, and the fact that this is - to their twisted minds - "routine" makes it no less evil. It would seem that a clear consensus that financial transactions by Hamas and Hizballah and their ilk - including their front organizations - are never “routine” would lead to banks digging deeper to identify the fronts, which can then be reported to the government pursuant to the Bank Secrecy Act. More expensive for bank compliance departments? Sure, but terrorism can be pretty expensive to surviving family members of victims.
Meanwhile, lest anyone think that I am an enemy of the banking industry, it’s about time for someone to take the plunge, and it might as well be me: the U.S. should start granting security clearances to trusted banking officials, and share real-time classified intelligence with them so they can develop better due diligence algorithms. Unprecedented? Not when you consider that Booz Allen, SAIC, Boeing, Lockheed and Raytheon are granted this access in the course of their government contracts. The likely benefits exceed the risks. I say let’s do it.
I hope that the report by Stephen Landman - who can generally be found at every counterterrorism public event around Washington D.C., even while he maintains full course load working towards his law degree - will be considered by U.S. policymakers.
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A few comments following Jeff Breinholt’s excellent article concerning “secret” evidence in counter-terrorism cases, particularly since I was one of the prime-time players in the Al-Arian, et al caper that generated so much heat on the topic during the 1990s.
Jeff’s background and analysis is right on the mark. I would like to add, however, that related to such evidence in immigration proceedings, the fallout from the deportation case against Al-Arian’s brother-in-law Mazen Al-Najjar (also a PhD) was especially noteworthy. Professor David Cole was one of Al-Najjar’s defense attorneys in the deportation case. And by the way, neither Al-Arian nor his brother-in-law are US citizens; however, that did not stop either of them from registering to vote in Tampa, Florida and, in Al-Arian’s case, actually voting in one election. The two PhDs claimed it was all a big “misunderstanding”...they were “confused” by the system.
Quick background: Al-Najjar was originally placed under deportation proceedings as an alien who overstayed his student visa status in the early 1980s. Those proceedings were suspended when he failed to appear for a hearing in North Carolina (he moved to Tampa to be with Al-Arian). INS at the time made no effort to locate him. Al-Najjar became involved with Al-Arian running support front operations in Tampa for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. That was exposed publicly by Steve Emerson in his PBS documentary “Jihad in America” in 1994 and by Tampa Tribune reporter Mike Fechter in 1995. After “Jihad in America” in November 1994, INS launched an initial inquiry into Al-Arian that became a criminal fraud investigation that ultimately became part of a task force terrorism investigation with the FBI and other agencies that ultimately resulted in the disposition against him that exists now. Al-Najjar was identified in that investigation and his deportation proceedings reopened.
Al-Najjar was not taken into custody, however, until an Immigration Judge ordered him deported in May 1997. It was only at that point that INS sought to utilize classified evidence, in part, to keep Al-Najjar detained while he appealed his already issued deportation order. That process is what fueled the media and special interest firestorm concerning “secret evidence” from 1997 onward. Al-Najjar was ultimately deported in 2002. It took that long for the immigration appeals process (Immigration Court, Board of Immigration Appeals, US District Court and US Circuit Court of Appeals) to be completed. Ironically, the underlying immigration violation was a “simple” charge that he overstayed his student visa status. It took nearly two decades, millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours to deport one overstay student. That is the state of “immigration justice” in far too frequent circumstances. Al-Najjar, contrary to the stance of his many apologists, had his many days in court.
The use of any classified evidence in the Al-Najjar case was strictly limited to the issue of his detention, a discretionary request for relief from him, after he had already been found deportable by the court. That use, as Jeff Breinholt correctly describes, has been long established in US law. Beyond that, it was seldom utilized. It was the Al-Najjar case, and a handful of others during that same time period, that drew the attention of various persons and groups protesting this process who lobbied for its elimination. As Jeff notes, the law and regulations have survived.
That said, technical survival does not necessarily mean the process has thrived. The hue and cry against the use of “secret evidence,” as misdirected as it was, still had an effect on the High Command of the Reno Justice Department during the late 1990s. Very restrictive review procedures for the use of classified evidence in immigration proceedings were implemented by DOJ. Those procedures were so cumbersome they rendered the process virtually useless. The new regime at DOJ under the Bush Administration did not change those procedures, either.
Ironically, this same time period saw the development of a potentially powerful counter-terrorism weapon in the Government’s arsenal directly tied to the use of classified evidence. The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 authorized the creation of the Alien Terrorist Removal Court (ATRC). The Court was technically constituted in late 1996. The Court is comprised of several special US District Court Judges selected by the Chief Justice of the United States (Chief Justice of the Supreme Court). These special judges are granted the requisite Top Secret+ security clearances. Under special and limited rules, the ATRC is allowed to hear deportation cases against alien terrorist suspects and consider classified evidence in the merits portion of the case...the portion wherein the decision concerning to deport or not is made. ATRC cases require literal Attorney General review and approval before being submitted to the Court, and procedural rules are closely monitored by the Judges and subject to certain appellate review, as well.
The law creating the ATRC is contained in Titled V of the Immigration and Nationality Act. As of 2002, there had not been a single case brought before the ATRC and it is likely there have been no cases ever brought before the Court. Some argue procedural flaws have prevented any effective case presentation. Others believe the negative publicity generated by the Al-Najjar deportation case left senior Government decision-makers gun-shy. Having lived through the literal trials and tribulations generated by the fallout from much of that negative publicity, the political influence sought by those seeking restrictions on the use of “secret” evidence in immigration proceedings may have realized some degree of success.
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For those who follow the state of religious freedom, or more properly the extreme lack thereof, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and all the barbaric insanity that can and does flow from the extreme practice of Islam as it is practiced in "the Kingdom" the latest report of such lunacy from the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) should come as no surprise. It seems recently a 40 year old Saudi woman who is the mother of three and a financial consultant was in Riyadh on business when she committed the heinous offense of...having coffee with an unrelated male colleague in a Starbucks.
For that, she was arrested and detained by a member of the Saudi religious police, otherwise known as the "Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice." The woman was eventually released, but not after being interrogated in a prison, strip searched and forced to sign a "confession" that she had committed the crime of "seclusion with an unrelated man."
This kind of religious-based persecution, even against fellow Muslims, is commonplace in Saudi Arabia. Not long ago we were treated to reports of a Saudi woman who was the victim of gang rape and then "convicted" of the similar crime of being with unrelated males and sentenced to being whipped. Only international outcry embarrassed Saudi leadership into "commuting" the poor victim's sentence. How many other such victims, especially women, have suffered under these government sanctioned draconian religious rituals that have, unfortunately, remained hidden from international view? Additionally, the public practice of any religion than Islam is strictly forbidden and harshly dealt with in the KSA. One cannot even bring non-Muslim religious items, such as a bible or crucifix, into the country. Such behavior should never be sanctioned by a modern, civilized society; yet so many Western nations, including the United States, essentially give lip service to protesting the madness for fear of "offending" the sensitivities of an oil rich Arab "ally."
Saudi Arabia has consistently been ruled a significant violator of religious freedom and a Country of Particular Concern by the US State Department, as required by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. Just as consistently, our State Department has given the KSA waivers of sanction for its religious freedom violations, ostensibly "to further the purposes of the Act." The original waiver was a 180 day "temporary" waiver after the 2004 State Department report on religious freedom. That was supposed to give the Saudis time to improve their act. Three years later there has been little, perhaps arguably no improvement, yet the waiver of sanctions continues.
Those sanctions could include denying certain Saudi government officials visas to enter the United States. With some gumshoe investigative work in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (DHS/ICE) they could even include potentially identifying Saudi officials already in the US and targeting them for deportation. The US Immigration and Nationality Act, as amended by the Intelligence Reform bill of 2004, enhanced the Government's ability to go after foreign government officials who engage in particularly severe violations of religious freedoms. Clearly, there are Saudi government officials who would so qualify. Unfortunately, such officials continue to enjoy the protection of an official State Department waiver for their religious persecution.
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As my colleague Jeffrey Imm has recently noted, there has been a alarming few steps back in identifying the Salafist/jihadist threat we face in any way with a growing current of Islam.
The new threat assessment, the State of the Union, (as noted by Andrew Cochran here) both fail to mention Islamism by name.
Our government is not alone. The British government has has decided the Islamist radicals are now to be called criminals so Muslims won't be offended.
But as George Weigel rightly noted, we are fighting "jihadism, the religiously inspired ideology which teaches that it is every Muslim's duty to use any means necessary to compel the world's submission to Islam. That most of the world's Muslims do not accept this definition of the demands of their faith is true—and beside the point. The jihadists believe this. That is why they are the enemy of their fellow Muslims and the rest of the world."
Amidst this lack of fundamental understanding of what the war we are engaged in is really about, there is a small bit of good news.
A Pentagon source has confirmed reports that Maj. (Reserve) Steve Coughlin, a primary briefer on radical Islam in the Pentagon for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has been retained in some fashion.
Coughlin's contract with DOD was set to expire in March, and was not going to be renewed, in part because he clashed with those who felt he was too harsh in his assessments of Islamism. My full blog is here.
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U.S. Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell in his assessment very rightly warned his government on the terrorist threats and Al-Qaeda's growing capability inside the safe havens of Pakistan's tribal area. He was briefing the U.S. Select Senate Committee on Intelligence on an unclassified version of the Annual Threat Assessment. McConnell also warned future attacks by 'homegrown' extremists inspired by military Islamic ideology will remain a threat to the United States or against US interests overseas. While briefing various geographical locations where these threats could emanate particularly against US interests, he missed India and Bangladesh, where most of the future recruits will come to the terror fold. Of course he indicated that Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Kashmir-focused insurgent groups will continue to plan and execute attacks in India: "….. Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LT) and other Kashmir-focused groups will continue attack planning and execution in India. Shia and Hindu religious observances are possible targets, as are transportation networks and government buildings." Although McConnell briefed about Pakistan and the threat of terrorism there at length in this 47-page document, India received very little mention with "very general" observations on terrorist threats (leave aside Bangladesh: there is no single mention of this country, where Taliban and Osama have a mass following). Islamic terrorist groups (Pakistan-based) like LeT, Jaish-e-Muhammed and Al Badr are no longer centered around Kashmir and they have already spread tentacles around the country, down south especially. Kashmir is no longer their "focus" now. Recent terror strikes in the cities of Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh and the unearthing of terror cells from Karnataka and Kerala give enough evidence of their agenda. Looking at the threat they pose to India and the region, one can't ignore the hydra-headed "Islamic terrorism." Instead of just LeT, the assessment could have briefed Harkat-ul-Jihadi Islami (HuJi) as the present threat to Indian internal security and yes, the outfit has Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh connections. It is not only India's internal security alone, it's also for the US interests stationed here. There is no denying the fact that LeT and the suspected terror conglomerate (that includes Jaish, Al Badr, HuJi) will be assisting pro-Taliban/Al Qaeda affiliates in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
To me, this report fails to arouse debate or deliberation within the CT community focusing on South Asia. Of course it has one sentence on the subcontinetal nuclear issue (they - India and Pakistan - do not appear to be engaged in a Cold War-style arms race for numerical superiority) that could trigger enough discussions and brainstorming in this region.
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In one of the 2000 Presidential debates, Gov. George W. Bush bemoaned the fact that secret evidence was sometimes used in American immigration proceedings. Later, it was suggested that this reference was the result of lobbying by American Muslim organizations whose leaders included Professor Sami Al-Arian, whose brother-in-law was then a poster child for evils of secret evidence.
Fortunately, once elected, President Bush did not give these groups what they wanted. When the Holy Land Foundation was designated as a terrorist financier in December 2001, U.S. Treasury officials had to sit through complaints about how ungrateful the Bush Administration was to the Muslim groups which, they claimed, had put him over the top in Florida, where Al-Arian lived and was politically active. Fortunately, these officials withstood the political pressure, which was not the least bit subtle.
These days, Al-Arian sits in prison, which is a far cry from the White House, and his brother-in-law is under indictment and a fugitive. It’s doubtful that they will be able to play a role in the current election, which is a good thing. Last I checked, neither was an American citizen, which means they are not allowed to vote. Why should they be able to exert political pressure on Presidential candidates?
Inexplicably, one of Al-Arian’s causes survived. Now, almost eight years later, we are once again hearing about the unfair use of secret evidence. I want to put the issue into perspective so the current crop of Presidential candidates and American voters will not be fooled again, and so the public might view these bogus claims with sufficient skepticism. Hopefully, the issue of secret evidence will not be one which a candidate deigns to mention.
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The Spanish daily El Pais on Sunday reported that European intelligence services now believe that Baitullah Mehsud, the head of the Pakistani Taliban, whom the CIA believe ordered the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, also orchestrated a plot last month to attack Barcelona and other European cities.
According to intelligence sources quoted by El Pais, this operation was to be Mehsud's "international baptism of fire."
On Monday, the Washington Post, citing a European intelligence source, reported that Abu Laith Al Libi, the senior Al Qaeda commander killed in a Predator strike last week, was on the way to see Baitullah Mehsud, when he was killed, a report that if confirmed, underscores Mehsud's close ties with Al Qaeda.
In recent years Mehsud, who dominates much of South Waziristan, has allowed Al Qaeda to establish small training camps for jihadists in area under his control. In an article just published in the Guardian, I explain just how important such camps are to Al Qaeda's efforts to launch operations in the West. Although the organization has thousands of supporters in European countries, the hands-on training and indoctrination that it can provide in its small camps in western Pakistan, is crucial to its attempts to turn the merely radicalized into capable terrorist operatives.
Soberingly, Director of National Intelligence Admiral Mike McConnell in congressional testimony today stated that an "influx of new Western recruits into the [Pakistani] tribal areas since mid-2006" has allowed Al Qaeda to continue to improve its ability to attack the U.S.
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Another U.S. threat assessment has been issued that refuses to identify the enemy threatening us, and instead defines the enemy only as "extremists". Today's annual threat assessment from the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) fails to use the terms "Jihad", "Jihadist", "Islamism", or "Islamist" in identifying the enemy. The question must be asked how the U.S. can meaningfully assess threats, if it can't even identify the enemy. The term "radical Islamic" (used twice) and "militant Islamic" (used once) is the only term close to "Islamist", and such terms as "radical" and "militant" have very different meanings to different people. Predominantly, when describing the enemy, the DNI annual assessment today uses the term "extremist(s)" (used 18 times) or "extremism" (used twice). In effect, the DNI views that America is fighting a war against "extremism".
This follows last week's State of the Union message
where the term "extremist" was the primary definition of the
enemy, with the term extremism, extremist(s) used nine times in
defining the enemy (see recent columns on this by Counterterrorism
Blog's Andrew Cochran and by Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser,
the founder and Chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy).
Our national leadership continues to ignore political "Islamism" as defined in the 9/11 Commission report, and refuses to make the distinction, as per Dr. Jasser,
between "personal spiritual Islam from political Islam", but instead addresses threats from ambiguously defined "extremists" as its primary concern.
Jihadists and Islamists are also concerned about "extremists", which illustrates the non-value of the term "extremist" in referencing the enemy. For example, Osama Bin Laden is concerned about "extremists" in Iraq. Bin Laden made this clear in his October 22, 2007 message calling for Jihadists in Iraq unite. In that message, Bin Laden warns of the "ta'assub" (fanatics, extremists), who would sow dissension among Jihadist mujahideen. Islamists have the same concern about "extremists". For example, in the documentary Islam versus Islamists, Tempe Wahhabist Imam Ahmad Al Shqeirat views anti-terror Muslims like Dr. Zuhdi Jasser as an "extremist". Moreover, in the eyes of Islamists, those accused of "blasphemy", "apostasy", and any other challenge to the Islamist ideology are "extremists". When developing a United States threat assessment, is defining the enemy as "extremists" the best that the intelligence community has to offer? "Radical Islam" is similarly imprecise. Competing Islamist groups view each other as representing "radical Islam", much in the same way that Indonesian Islamists viewed the now-banned Al Qiyadah Al Islamiyah group that was viewed as "dangerous" because it practiced a different version of Islam. The definition of political "Islamism", as defined in the 9/11 Commission report, remains the keystone in addressing the ideology behind "Islamist terrorism" or "Jihad". Ambiguous terms only serve to facilitate vacillating on the difficult decisions that the United States must make in this war, and undermining our resolve to win it.
As George Weigel states in his recent commentary about the inability to name the enemy, "if the United States can't explain to the world why religious freedom, civility, tolerance and democratic persuasion are morally superior to coercion in religious and political matters, then America stands disarmed before those who believe it their duty to impose a starkly different view of the good society on us." On February 4, the UK media also reported that both the terms "Jihad" and "Islamist" are no longer to be used by UK government individuals, according to a new handbook issued by the UK government to all departments. The new handbook states that UK government individuals should no longer refer to Islamist extremism or Jihadi fundamentalism, but view terrorists as "criminals" or "extremists". When the United States begins treating the Jihadist threat like the United Kingdom does, we can be certain that we are losing the ideological war against the enemy. After all, we can't even state their name.
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A week from today, on Tuesday, February 12 from 2:00 to 3:30 pm, I will moderate a special panel titled, "The Evolution of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy" in room S-115 of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington. Panelists will be Prof. Yonah Alexander and Contributing Experts Michael Kraft and Jonathan Winer. Prof. Alexander, one of the most respected voices in the CT community, is the Director of the Inter-University Center for Terrorism Studies. Prof. Alexander has authored over 95 books on counterterrorism issues and has over 35 years of service as a professor and academic in counterterrorism studies. Michael Kraft co-edited the three-volume book, "The Evolution of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy," with Prof. Alexander, and was senior advisor for the State Department's Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Staff Director for the Senate Foreign Relations Middle East Subcommittee. Jonathan Winer, now a partner at Alston & Bird L.L.P. in Washington, served as the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Law Enforcement during the Clinton Administration. The Counterterrorism Foundation is very pleased to co-sponsor this special panel with the Inter-University Center for Terrorism Studies, the International Center for Terrorism Studies at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, and the Inter-University Center for Legal Studies at the International Law Institute.
To RSVP for this event, contact Brett Wallace at icts@potomacinstitute.org or call 703-562-4522. We will post a summary of the event.
Other recent CT Blog panel discussions:
Status of Terrorism Litigation After the Boim Decision, January 28
The Holy Land Foundation & the Muslim Brotherhood, December 11
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Every time a young man or woman falls in battle, it is a searing loss to their unit, their loved ones and their nation. Since the start of the war in Iraq, some 3,941 American men and women have made the ultimate sacrifice.
 Today, I want to remember just one young hero who died with honor this year. At a time when those who bleed and mourn are all too often separated from the rest of us, his death is, for me, a deeply personal reminder of the cost of the wars America is fighting against Islamic extremism.
Army Pfc. David H. Sharrett 2nd was the 3,925th member of the U.S. armed forces to die in Iraq. He was laid to rest last week at Arlington National Cemetery. But he is hardly a statistic to me. I grew up in McLean, Va. - a suburb outside Washington. And Pfc. Sharrett's father, David Sharrett, was my high school English teacher, a close friend and mentor. He was, as so many great English teachers are, a Shakespeare nut.
I never met Pfc. Sharrett as an adult, but I remember him vividly from 25 years ago. He was a cute little boy we called Bean. You see, sometimes Sharrett's baby-sitter would call in sick - and that meant he would bring little Bean into the classroom. He would crawl around under our desks as his dad read us a "Hamlet" soliloquy or taught us about existentialism and why we should reject such godlessness. All the cute girls in Dave's classes took turns substitute-babysitting lucky Bean.
That little boy grew up. We once helped watch over him; as a grown man, he helped protect all of us.
In August 2006, Dave 2nd - who had long ago shed his childhood nickname - enlisted in the Army, volunteering for parachute and air assault training. He was accepted by the Screaming Eagles of the fabled 101st Airborne Division.
Last fall, he deployed to Iraq. He operated first near the Iranian border, interdicting the most deadly of roadside bombs being smuggled in from Iran, the Explosively-Formed Penetrators, and undoubtedly saved American lives. With his father's beloved Shakespeare tucked into his rucksack, David and his unit moved to Balad. The base there is used as a springboard for key counterterror missions around Baghdad and north of the city in Diyala province, where Al Qaeda in Iraq has retreated from its former Al Anbar stronghold.
In recent weeks, the young soldier was involved in Operation Iron Harvest, which has hammered Al Qaeda positions south of Baghdad. On Jan. 14, he made his dad proud by helping roll up 15 terrorist operatives, including one man his outfit nabbed who the military described as a "high-value target" holed up 25 miles south of the capital.
The very next day, Sharrett and two comrades fell in a firefight. He was 27 years old when he died.
At the funeral, his father - ever the teacher - raised existentialism once more as he gazed at his son's flag-draped casket. His own waking existential reality now, he explained to the mourners, is that "Dave is gone."
Later, he would reveal to me why his boy not only joined the Army, but volunteered for one of the most dangerous jobs in it. It was to give his life meaning no other occupation could provide.
Pfc. Sharrett's call to service reminds me of a speech in "Hamlet" which we often discussed in class many years ago - including, no doubt, some days when Bean crawled across the floor. Polonius readies his son Laertes for the world with a few deceptively simple scraps of advice, notably urging him, "This above all: to thine own self be true." My English teacher told us to heed that advice, which was echoed by his musical hero Bob Dylan, who wrote, "Trust yourself, trust yourself to know the way that will prove true in the end."
I live near Fort Myer, Va., the home and guardian of Arlington National Cemetery. Each night I listen to the mournful call of Taps blowing over the old post, a daily reminder of the sacrifice wrought by war. David H. Sharrett 2nd, like his brothers and sisters in arms lost in Iraq and Afghanistan, will never be forgotten.
Welcome home, Bean.
NOTE: I don't typically clip anything I've written for the New York Daily News and simply paste it onto the CT Blog verbatim, since I prefer to post original reporting taken directly from my notebook. But I made an exception in this case, since it was published in the newspaper today as an op-ed. -JGM
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I just wrote an article for the Middle East Times on the meddling of Syria and Iran in Lebanese affairs and the total apathy of the West.
You can read the full article here.
Here is an excerpt:
The outpouring of emotion and rage following the brutal assassination of towering Lebanese figure Rafik Hariri on Feb. 14, 2005, triggered the hopeful Lebanese Cedar Revolution. The anti-Syrian movement behind it, the March 14 forces, succeeded in forcing tens of thousands of Syrian troops to leave Lebanon.
But that did not mean Syria was totally out of Lebanon. In fact, right after the Syrian withdrawal, the very well informed Kuwaiti newspaper Al Seyassah reported that, according to sources close to the Lebanese Ministry of Interior, tens of thousands of Syrians were naturalized, and among them were 5,000 Syrian intelligence personnel. And as of today, Syria is still very much in charge of Lebanon. What is the international community doing about this?
Not much, to say the least.
Indeed after the momentum of the spring 2005 revolution, it really looks like the West has given up on Lebanon and left the anti-Syrian forces in the mud. This trend has been quite clear in the past few months. Even after 29 terror attacks (since October 2004), targeting anti-Syrian personalities (mostly journalists and politicians), believed by many analysts to have been ordered by Damascus, the West is giving a free pass to the regime of Bashar Assad.
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I just wrote a piece for the Weekly Standard on the dangers coming from our northern border.
You can read the full article here.
Here is an excerpt:
The Canadian Peril
Why they're checking passports at the border now.
In terms of Islamic extremists in Canada [as] they regard the proximity of Canada to the U.S., it's making Canada a kind of Islamic extremist aircraft carrier for the launching of major assaults against the U.S. mainland.
--David Harris, former chief of strategic planning for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service
The above, slightly overdramatic statement is taken from an interview with Frontline all the way back in May 2001. Just last week, the United States finally got around to instituting identification checks on its sparsely patrolled 5,500-mile northern border. These replace the longstanding honor system beloved of frequent border crossers and aspiring terrorists alike.
As of January 31, U.S. and Canadian citizens age 20 and up must present proof of citizenship and identity to enter the country. The simple oral declaration that one is an American or Canadian citizen will no longer suffice.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), a service of the Department of Homeland Security, has its work cut out for it. In just three months last year, from October to December, CBP officers reported 1,517 instances of individuals stopped at the border falsely claiming to be U.S. citizens.
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A new video is available from the NEFA Foundation website featuring footage of senior Al-Qaida commander Abu al-Laith al-Liby supervising an Al-Qaida terrorist training camp somewhere along the Pakistani-Afghan border in approximately 2005. On January 31, the Al-Fajr Media Center announced that al-Liby had been "martyred" along with "a group of his brothers" on Pakistani territory, the apparent result of a U.S. missile strike.
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The recent death of Abu Laith al-Libi in Pakistan shows several interesting things about the _jihadist_ groups operating in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region, and their ties to Iraq.
The first is the prominent role that Libyans have been playing in recent times inside the al Qaeda structure and on its periphery. It is interesting to note that, in the CTC-West Point study of foreign fighters in Iraq Libyans were second only to Saudis (19 percent to 41 percent) in the number of people sent to fight.
"The obvious discrepancy between previous studies of Iraqi foreign fighters and the Sinjar Records is the percentage of Libyan fighters. No previous study has indicated that more than 4 percent of fighters were Libyan. Indeed, a June 2005 report by NBC quoted a U.S. government source indicating that Libya did not make a top ten list of origin nationalities for foreign fighters in Iraq."
As the study noted, Libya "contributed far more fighters per capita than any other nationality, (in the documents studied) including Saudi Arabia."
The report further noted that "The apparent surge in Libyan recruits traveling to Iraq may be linked the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group’s (LIFG) increasingly cooperative relationship with al‐Qa’ida, which culminated in the LIFG officially joining al‐Qa’ida on November 3, 2007."
This alliance was engineered by al-Libi, and seems to have paid almost immediate dividends for both the core al Qaeda in Afghanistan/Pakistan, and the Iraqi jihadis. This inter-connectivity now between the groups-the ability to transfer technology, training and recruits among different fronts-is one of the most dangerous developments of the past 12-18 months. My full blog is here.
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 The NEFA Foundation website is now offering a complete English translation of the Al-Fajr Media Center statement announcing the "martyrdom" of senior Al-Qaida commander Shaykh Abu al-Laith al-Liby "along with a group of his brothers on the earth of Muslim Pakistan." According to the statement, "although we mourn his loss, the legacy that he has left behind only increases the blazing fires that will burn the enemies of our faith and religion. How many brothers were there who he trained who turned to the path of jihad, and how often was he supervising the training camps, and how much did he help guide and provide instruction and planning, becoming an expert in all these aspects. He has led battles of pride and glory, destroying the infidel fortresses, and weakening the strength of their soldiers... We say to the infidels everywhere and the crusader army that... the death of our leaders serves as evidence of the propriety of our methods.... with their blood and bodies, our victory will be accomplished."
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The NEFA Foundation has obtained a copy of recent communique issued by the Nineveh province branch of Al-Qaida's "Islamic State of Iraq" (ISI). In the statement, the ISI denied responsibility for a deadly explosion on January 23 in the Zanjili neighborhood of Mosul, and strongly criticized "apostate agents" allegedly tasked with "the mission of blaming that repugnant crime on the mujahideen. But... their treachery has been exposed by orders of Allah, and their lies have been clearly revealed to everyone." The communique further called upon Muslims everywhere to aid in the imminent struggle for control of Mosul: "the battle is now in its final stages, and it will be a energizing victory for the Muslims, Allah willing. The enemy has begun to stagger, and now has reached its final page, so do not let the opportunity to participate in that historic battle pass you by."
An English translation of the communique can be downloaded from the NEFA Foundation website.
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As Americans are debating who among their candidates for the primaries can best confront the Jihadists or at least preempt their offensives worldwide, future Jihadi forces have in one day invaded an African country (under European protection), a key location for the Darfur forthcoming Peace missions. In less than 12 hours the so-called armed opposition of Chad, crossed the entire country from its Eastern frontiers with Islamist-ruled Sudan to the capital N'Djamena across from Northern Nigeria. The latest reports mention fierce battles around the Presidential Palace and back and forth inside the city. But at this stage the geo-political consequences are crucial for the next stages locally, regionally and internationally. The bottom line is that in one day, what could become the future Taliban of Chad have scored a strategic victory not only against the Government of the country (which was supposed to back up the UN plans to save Darfur in Sudan) but also against the efforts by the African Union and European Union to contain the Sudanese regime and stop the Genocide. Today's offensive, regardless of the next developments, has already changed the geopolitics of Africa. Outmaneuvering the West and Africans, those regimes and forces standing behind the "opposition" have shown that they are restless in their campaign against human rights and self determination on the continent. But even more importantly the events of today shows how unprepared are Europeans and Americans in front of Jihadi regimes which seem weak on the surface but highly able to surprise and crumble Western efforts of containment.
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In the ongoing battle against Jihad, the most important advances are not tactical, but rather those advances that allow us to define, address, and counter the ideology behind Jihadist actions. As the 9/11 Commission report states, "Islamist terrorism is an immediate derivative of Islamism." (Notes, Part 12, Note 3, page 562) Recently, a little-noticed advance in countering Islamist ideology was achieved in the one of the least likely places of all: the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
The UNHRC has a reputation of being used by its Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) nation members for an endless litany of condemnations exclusively on Israel; it has condemned Israel 15 times in less than 2 years. The UNHRC is also notorious for its refusal to condemn Hamas or any other Islamist organizations. Furthermore, the UNHRC's commissioner Louise Arbour recently welcomed the ratification of the Arab Charter on Human Rights which equates Zionism with racism; her office issued a separate statement noting the charter was "not in conformity with General Assembly Resolution 46/86, which rejects that Zionism is a form of racism."
But in a December resolution on protection of religions, the majority of the UNHRC broke ranks from the OIC's Islamist vision for a moment, offering instead a resolution that could be used to challenge both Islamism and Sharia. While it is not likely that UNHRC will use the "remedial measures" in this resolution to challenge Islamism, it provides a basis for such measures and for related debate that should be leveraged by those fighting Jihad and by those who seek to determine the role of political Islamism in Islamist terrorism. At a minimum, the UNHRC should be held accountable as to why it does not seek "remedial measures" regarding Islamist injustices, in accordance with its own resolution protecting religions. Most importantly, this provides another forum to draw the distinctions between Islam and political Islamism in the effort to address and confront the roots of Islamist terrorism, as part of a larger effort than merely addressing tactical operations of Jihadists.
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One of Colombia's main drug lords, who had a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head, has been found dead in Venezuela, where he had been living for some time.
Wilber Varela, AKA "Soap," was a leader of the massively violent and powerful Northern Valley cartel, a former hitman, who is now suspected of being killed by his own men.
Such is the life in one of the most violent of the cartels. Previous leaders (Ivan Urdinola, Diego Montoya etc.) earned their infamy by chopping up their victims with chainsaws and dumping the bodies in the Cauca River, earning the body of water the title of "River of Death." This was terrorism in the name of greed rather than religion.
But what is more interesting is that Varela seems to have been living in the Venezuelan city of Merida. My full blog is here.
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 On January 25, 2008, NEFA Foundation Investigator Claudio Franco conducted a telephone interview with Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid. During the interview, Mujahid discussed the recent suicide bombing of the Serena hotel in Kabul, noting that the attack was an attempt at targeting the Norwegian Foreign Minister. The Taliban spokesman again denied any role in recent turmoil in neighboring Pakistan, insisting, “our activities are inside Afghanistan. This election is an internal matter for Pakistan… we do not care who gets power.” When asked whether the Taliban was responsible for the recent kidnapping of American aid worker Cyd Mizell in Kandahar, Zabiullah responded, "We do not have an exact report as to who may have taken her, whether they were Mujahideen or somebody else. I cannot confirm it now."
An English-subtitled audio recording and an English-language transcript of Claudio Franco's interview with Zabiullah Mujahid are now available on the NEFA Foundation website.
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