A daily, open source, around the world tour of international security-related news.
By Professor Joseph B. Varner
Global War on Terror
Two explosions were heard in the Afghan capital on Tuesday, but it was not immediately clear what caused them or whether there were any casualties. Kabul has seen a series of suicide attacks by the resurgent Taliban in recent years, but demining agencies also sometimes carry out controlled explosions of detected landmines as well as ordinance, a legacy of the country’s three decades of war. (Source: Reuters)
Pakistani intelligence agents and paramilitary forces have helped train Taliban insurgents and have given them information about American troop movements in Afghanistan, said a report published Monday by a U.S. think tank. The study by the RAND Corp. also warned that the U.S. will face “crippling, long-term consequences” in Afghanistan if Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan are not eliminated. It echoes recent statements by American generals, who have increased their warnings that militant safe havens in Pakistan are threatening efforts in Afghanistan. The study was funded by the U.S. Defense Department. (Source: AP)
Sufi Muhammad, leader of the TNSM, on Monday survived a remote-controlled bombing initiated by local Taliban in NWFP. Police official Abdur Rehman said that four policemen were injured in the blast but Sufi Muhammad escaped unscathed. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility with spokesman Maulvi Umar saying that the incident was in retaliation to the killing of local Taliban in Tank and Bajaur. He said the attack had not targeted Sufi Muhammad. (Source: Daily Times-Pakistan)
Algeria’s Defence Ministry on Monday denied reports that a weekend bombing attack at a train station killed 13 people, saying that only two people died. A statement said a French citizen and his Algerian chauffeur were killed, as reported, in the double bombing at the Beni Amrane train station, about 100 kilometers southeast of Algiers. An Algerian security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity Sunday, said two blasts minutes apart had killed the French engineer, his driver, eight soldiers and three firefighters.
(Source: AP)
A hard-line Islamist leader rejected on Tuesday a peace agreement brokered by the United Nations in Djibouti between the Somali government and some opposition figures. (Source: AP)
Some analysts believe smaller, more radical groups like Abu Hafss’ secretive Jaysh al-Ummah (Army of the Nation) have benefited from the Hamas takeover to expand their membership. Despite an official Hamas policy of respecting the rights of Gaza’s small Christian minority, there has been an increase in attacks on Christians in the past year, apparently by Islamists not content with the extent of Hamas’s “Islamisation” of Gaza.
(Source: AP)
A bomb explosion in a cafe in Russia’s turbulent Chechnya region injured eight policemen and four other people on Monday night, investigators said on Tuesday. “It was a terrorist act,” said Maryam Nalayeva of the Chechen department of the Russian Prosecutor General’s Investigative Committee. (Source: Reuters)
Iraq
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki concluded a three-day visit to Iran after meeting Monday with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who warned that the continued presence of U.S. troops was “the main obstacle on the way to progress and prosperity in Iraq.” The session with Khamenei, Iran’s top religious and political authority, served to further highlight the delicate position of the Iraqi government, caught between the U.S. and Iran, each seeking to pull Iraq out of the other’s sphere of influence. U.S. officials have long accused Shiite Muslim Iran of playing a negative role in the affairs of its neighbor to the west, which has had a Shiite-run government of its own in the wake of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein. (Source: Los Angeles Times)
U.S. combat commanders are sending about 30 prisoners a day to the main U.S.-run detention centers in Iraq, with more of the detainees likely to be held for longer periods as security risks than those prisoners taken when the U.S. troop buildup first began last year, according to Maj. Gen. Douglas Stone Jr., the former head of the Iraq detention program. U.S. soldiers called in an airstrike Monday during an attack on a suspected hideout in a remote area of northwest Iraq, killing five men and capturing more than a dozen others. (Source: Seattle Times)
The U.S. State Department’s top Iraq adviser says he believes a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement will be finalized by the end of July. The pact would establish a long-term security relationship between Iraq and the United States. It also would provide a legal basis for keeping American troops in Iraq after the U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year. The State Department’s top Iraq adviser, David Satterfield, says he believes the agreement “can be achieved, and by the end of July deadline.” He spoke to reporters Tuesday in Baghdad. There have been reports in Iraq and in Washington that talks over the agreement were stalled, and that it would not be finished before President Bush leaves office. (Source: AP)
Iraqi police say the head of Saddam Hussein’s tribe has been killed by a bomb that was planted on his car. Sheik Ali al-Nida was the head of Iraq’s al-Bu Nasir tribe, a large Sunni Arab clan which includes Mr. Hussein’s family. An Iraqi police officer says Mr. al-Nida and one of his guards died in the explosion Tuesday morning. Three other guards were seriously wounded. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to media. He says the bomb exploded while Mr. al-Nida drove through the Wadi Shishain area of Tikrit, Mr. Hussein’s hometown, about 120 kilometers north of Baghdad. (Source: AP)
Turkish warplanes attacked northern Iraq on Monday, Iraqi security officials said on Tuesday, bombing a mountainous area that is home to rebel Kurdish separatists. Jabbar Yawar, spokesman for Peshmerga security forces in Iraq’s largely autonomous Kurdistan region, said the warplanes struck an area near Nerwa Wa Rekan, a village in the northern province of Dahuk. There were no reports of any casualties. An Iraqi border guard said it was an artillery attack, not a bombing by airplanes. The Turkish military has regularly attacked rebel positions of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the mountains of northern Iraq, where several thousand militants are believed to be holed up. The PKK took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984 with the aim of establishing an ethnic homeland in mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey. Some 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict. (Source: Reuters)
United States
President Bush’s weeklong tour through Berlin, Rome, Paris and London appears every bit the glamorous old-style farewell tour with a leisurely schedule, jaunts to country castles and lavish dinners. But it’s actually a high-stakes diplomatic mission, spurred by Mr. Bush’s fear that Iran is an increasingly urgent threat and that Europe might not take it seriously enough. (Source: Washington Times)
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates took action Monday to dramatically reorient the leadership of the Air Force, calling for the nomination of the first non-fighter or bomber pilot to lead the service since its inception after World War II (1939-1945). His recommendation that Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, who began his military career as a cargo pilot, be nominated by President Bush as Air Force chief of staff marks a significant shift in Air Force leadership. Over time, the move could lead the service to give more emphasis to missions that support ground wars like those in Iraq and Afghanistan, such as cargo flights and in-air refueling, over more traditional roles like air dogfights. (Source: Los Angeles Times)
With Congress at an impasse over the government’s spy powers, Congressional and intelligence officials are bracing for the possibility that the government might have to revert to the old rules of terrorist surveillance, a situation that some officials predict could leave worrisome gaps in intelligence. That prospect seemed almost inconceivable just a few months ago, when Congressional negotiators and the White House promised a quick resolution to a bruising debate over the government’s surveillance powers. But the dispute has dragged on. Though both sides say they are hopeful of reaching a deal, officials have been preparing classified briefings for Congress on the intelligence “degradation” they say could occur if there is no deal in place by August.
The deadline is considered critical because of a series of secret one-year wiretapping orders that were approved last August under a controversial temporary wiretapping law. The law allowed the National Security Agency to use blanket court orders to focus on groups of suspected Qaeda terrorists based overseas. But those orders are growing staler by the day, officials said, and will begin to expire this August if nothing is done. (Wiretaps intended for Americans already require individual warrants issued by a secret court, known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court, or FISA court.) (Source: New York Times)
Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan has agreed to testify next week before the House Judiciary Committee about his assertions that top Bush administration officials misled him about their role in the leak of the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson. In his new book, “What Happened,” McClellan writes that then-White House political adviser Karl Rove and then-vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby deceived him about their involvement in the leak, prompting him to pass on inaccurate information to reporters. The disclosure drew the attention of Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.). He has expressed particular interest in McClellan’s assertion that he had been directed by then-White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. to vouch for Libby’s lack of involvement, as he had for Rove.
(Source: Washington Post)
Security procedures used by the FBI to check immigration and naturalization applicants have “serious deficiencies” that have resulted in large backlogs and raised questions about the reliability of the information, a Justice Department report said Monday. In a highly redacted 120-page report, the department’s Office of the Inspector General said that while the FBI generally was able to process millions of fingerprint checks “in an accurate and timely manner,” the bureau’s name check processes rely on “outdated and inefficient technology, personnel who have limited training, overburdened supervisors and inadequate quality assurance measures.” (Source: Washington Times)
Africa
Jacob Zuma, leader of South Africa’s ruling party, said on Tuesday he was alarmed and anxious about reports of widespread violence and brutality in Zimbabwe’s election campaign. Speaking during a visit to India, Zuma said in a speech released by his African National Congress in Johannesburg: “We cannot rest until the situation is resolved, as it affects all of us. We want to see the return of peace and stability in Zimbabwe as speedily as possible.”
U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said on Monday a fair presidential runoff vote in Zimbabwe was impossible as scheduled on June 27 because of a systematic campaign of murder and brutality by the government of President Robert Mugabe. It said at least 36 people had died in politically-motivated murders and 2,000 were victims of a campaign of killings, abduction, beatings and torture. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe in a March 29 election but fell short of the absolute majority needed for outright victory, necessitating the runoff later this month. (Source: Reuters)
Sudan will ask Interpol to arrest 20 rebel leaders it says supported an attack on Khartoum, state media reported on Tuesday. Those wanted include the leader of the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) Khalil Ibrahim, the organization’s London-based spokesman Ahmed Hussein and two other senior commanders, the state Suna news agency reported.
JEM forces travelled across hundreds of miles of desert and scrub to strike Omdurman, a suburb of Khartoum on May 10, the first time insurgents have reached the capital in decades. Sudan’s Justice Minister Abdel Basit Sabderat was quoted as saying the government had “began the adoption of procedures to retrieve 20 of the leaders of the Justice and Equality Movement through Interpol.” A number of foreign countries had cooperated by shutting down JEM offices. (Source: Reuters)
Asia
Students have clashed with security forces at a People’s Liberation Army artillery school in eastern China in a dispute over their degrees, the father of one of the students said Tuesday. About 50 students were wounded in last week’s clashes at the Artillery Corps Institute in Nanjing city, according to an account by parent Liu Qijun, and a Monday report from Radio Free Asia. They said some of the injured had head wounds and were taken to a hospital. (Source: AP)
A little known Sri Lankan rebel group claimed responsibility on Tuesday for recent bomb attacks on transport vehicles as revenge for what it said were government attacks and aerial bombings on innocent Tamil civilians. The military has blamed Tamil Tiger rebels for a series of train and bus blasts in capital Colombo and central Sri Lanka in which at least 32 people were killed and over 100 wounded. “We want to claim that we are responsible for the bomb attacks on the transport vehicles and other attacks,” Ellalan Force, which the military says is a Tiger-linked group, said in an e-mail to Reuters. The attacks have been carried out as a “stern reply” to the government forces’ Long Range Reconnaissance Petrol (LRRP) attack and aerial bombing on innocent civilians, the Ellalan Force said in the mail. (Source: Reuters)
Europe
The French navy canceled three summer missions Monday because of soaring fuel prices, including a counternarcotics exercise off the United States. The ripple effects of spiraling fuel prices also are being felt in Spain, where truckers and fishermen are striking in protest. The French ship De Grasse was to sail alongside U.S. vessels off the East Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico to train for preventing drug trafficking. Naval officials said to their best knowledge, this was the first time French navy missions had been called off because of the price of fuel.
French Rafale fighter planes, however, are still set to take part. The decision came as protests of rising fuel prices have broken out across Europe. For weeks, fishermen and truck drivers have rallied to press for government aid, saying the high prices threaten their livelihoods. (Source: Seattle Times)
Middle East
Egyptian police shot dead a Sudanese migrant on Tuesday as he tried to slip across the border into Israel. The man, named as Mohamed Taher Mersal, 30, was part of a group which refused to obey Egyptian police orders to stop. Police opened fire when the group ran off towards the Israeli side of the border. The police patrol detained three Sudanese from the same group. Egyptian police have killed at least 13 migrants this year as they tried to enter the Jewish state. Scores of others, mostly from Africa, have been detained.
London-based rights group Amnesty International says thousands of migrants try to cross into Israel from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula each year, with numbers rising since 2007.
(Source: Reuters)
Palestinians in Gaza on Sunday fired a barrage of Kassam rockets toward Israel. A foreign worker was hurt by shrapnel. Over the weekend, Palestinians fired 12 mortar shells and four rockets at Israel. One of the rockets on Friday exploded in the parking lot of Sapir College in Sderot, damaging some vehicles. (Source: Ha’aretz)
Palestinian Caught with Six Pipe Bombs at Nablus Checkpoint – Efrat Weiss
IDF soldiers manning the Hawara checkpoint near the West Bank city of Nablus on Sunday apprehended an 18-year-old Palestinian who was carrying six pipe bombs. (Source: Ynet News)
Die Welt reports that Syrian military intelligence chief Assaf Shawkat, Assad’s brother-in-law, attempted to seize power by force in February, but was arrested after Hizbullah leader Imad Mugniyah informed Assad of the plot. Shawkat was detained along with a hundred other Syrian intelligence officers. Mugniyah was assassinated in Damascus days later. (Source: Ynet News)
Iran has launched construction of seven oil refineries in an effort to boost its crude and gas refining capacity and achieve energy self-sufficiency. All seven refineries would begin operations by 2012. Iran is the world’s fourth-largest oil producer but lacks sufficient refining capacity and imports large amounts of gasoline which it then sells at a heavily subsidized price, imposing a heavy financial burden on the state. (Source: FarsNews.com)
Joe Varner is Assistant Professor and Program Manager for Homeland Security at American Military University.
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