A daily, open source, around the world tour of international security-related news.
By Professor Joseph B. Varner
Global War on Terror
U.S.-led coalition forces killed several militants and a female civilian in an operation targeting two insurgent leaders in eastern Afghanistan, a military statement said Friday. The fighting happened in Zurmat district of Paktia province on Thursday. The coalition statement said it launched airstrikes after its forces came under fire as they searched compounds for two militant leaders believed behind attacks by foreign fighters on Afghan and coalition forces. Several militants and a woman who was located in the same building the militants were firing from were killed, it said. One militant detonated a suicide-vest, killing himself. A suicide car bomber attacked a coalition convoy Friday in eastern Nangarhar province, but only the bomber died. Also Friday, more than 2,000 Afghans staged a peaceful protest claiming U.S. troops at a remote base in eastern Kunar province had burned a copy of Islam’s holy book.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Afghans protested the alleged burning of a Quran at a remote U.S. military base. The coalition denied the allegation. (Source: AP)
This week’s controversial American incursion into Pakistan is prompting new questions about whether the U.S. must change its strategy in the war on terrorism and is putting the shaky US-Pakistan alliance under even greater pressure. On Tuesday, the U.S. dropped at least three precision bombs just inside Pakistan on the Afghanistan border, reportedly killing 11 people. U.S. forces had been fighting a group of militants in Afghanistan’s Kunar Province near the border, pursuing them when they fled into Pakistan, the Pentagon said. Pakistan’s government strongly condemned the attack; the Pentagon maintained that the operation had been coordinated with the Pakistanis beforehand and that U.S. forces had successfully targeted militants.
But U.S. officials left open the possibility that members of the Pakistani military were among those killed. Complicating the picture were statements from the U.S. State Department regretting the loss of life, suggesting the operation had occurred in error. Military officials were still investigating the incident on Thursday. In some military circles, recognition is growing that security in Afghanistan is tied to Pakistan’s ability to rein in militants within its own borders. Groups that have fomented unrest across the border continue to seek refuge inside Pakistan, they say. The NATO alliance has been limited in its response to the problem by its inability to take the fight across the border and inside a sovereign country that has been an important U.S. ally. (Source: CSM)
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday he has invited Afghanistan and Pakistan to be part of a U.S. investigation into an air strike that Pakistani officials say killed 11 of their troops. The Pentagon chief said he thinks all the usual procedures were followed during the military operation against what other U.S. officials have called “anti-coalition forces” on the Afghan side of the border who fled to the Pakistan side of the border. (Source: Washington Times)
Suspected separatist militants threw a grenade on Friday at a crowded marketplace in Indian Kashmir wounding at least 12 people. No militant group claimed responsibility for the attack, aimed at an army patrol. The attack took place in Baramulla town, 55 km (34 miles) north of Srinagar, Kashmir’s summer capital. “The grenade was aimed at an army vehicle, but missed the target and exploded in the busy market.” Violence involving Indian troops and separatist militants has declined in Kashmir after India and Pakistan, who claim the region in full but rule in parts and have fought wars over it, began a peace process in 2004. But people are still killed in daily shootouts and occasional bomb attacks. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the Himalayan region since a revolt against Indian rule broke out in 1989. (Source: Reuters)
Suspected Al Qaeda-linked militants freed a cameraman for the Philippines’ largest TV network, but his two colleagues remained captive on a southern island, officials said Friday. Abductors released ABS-CBN’s Angelo Valderama late Thursday, negotiator Isnaji Alvarez, mayor of Indanan township on troubled Jolo Island, said in a telephone interview Friday. Popular anchor and senior reporter Ces Drilon and cameraman Jimmy Encarnacion were still being held by suspected Abu Sayyaf rebels. The three were intercepted Sunday on Jolo Island by gunmen believed to be led by Abu Sayyaf commander Albader Parad and Gaifur Jumdail, who belongs to another armed group. (Source: AP)
Algerian government forces have reportedly killed 11 Al Qaeda gunmen in a series of battles. Eight suspected members of the terrorist network were reported killed in an ambush in the mountainous region of Tizi Ouzu east of Algiers, the source told KUNA news. They were said to be headed for Boumerdas, where three other reputed terrorists died in separate incidents. (Source: UPI)
Algerian courts appear to be making greater use of the death penalty, though there hasn’t been an execution in Algeria since 1993. About 30 Islamic insurgents have been sentenced to die, all but one believed to belong to Al Qaeda and all but two in absentia, the Med Basin Newsline reports. All were convicted of terrorist offenses, including attacks on security forces. One suspect convicted in absentia in eastern Algeria allegedly killed a mayor and seven members of the paramilitary Village Guards.
Algeria has also sought to quell Al Qaeda-inspired unrest in prisons through transfers. (Source: UPI)
Russia’s volatile North Caucasus experienced one of its worst eruptions of violence in months with at least nine people killed in a series of attacks across the region, officials said on Friday. The Kremlin is struggling to contain a mix of Islamist insurgents, separatist rebels and organised crime in the North Caucasus, even though a separatist rebellion in one of the region’s hotspots, Chechnya, has largely been quelled. The latest violence included a blast in the Ingushetia region that killed four people, a remote-controlled bomb in neighbouring Dagestan that killed one man and a rebel raid in Chechnya that killed at least three. Former Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed when he took office eight years ago to end violence in the North Caucasus, home to a collection of impoverished and mainly Muslim mountain tribes who have periodically rebelled against Moscow’s rule. Though he succeeded in restoring control over most of Chechnya, when he handed the president over to his protege Dmitry Medvedev last month the North Caucasus remained a source of instability. (Source: Reuters)
British prosecutors say two suspected terrorists discussed creating an Islamist refuge in a remote part of Scotland. Aabid Khan and Sultan Muhammad, both residents of Bradford in West Yorkshire, are on trial with two other men in London, The Scotsman reported. In his opening statement, prosecutor Simon Denison said Khan and Muhammad e-mailed each other about the refuge. Muhammad allegedly began the discussion by saying people he had talked to were dubious about Scotland. “A group of Muslims can go to a remote place and set up a mini Sharia state and they can rule according to Sharia law, like this and stay there, building them up and their children up, preparing for fitness, and then launching jihad once they strengthen themselves,” Khan allegedly replied. Khan was arrested in 2005 as he returned to Britain from Pakistan. Muhammad was picked up in London a few days later after allegedly fleeing Bradford when he learned of his friend’s arrest. (Source: UPI)
Iraq
A U.S. soldier died after his vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in west Baghdad on Thursday. A roadside bomb inside a pickup truck killed one person and wounded three others in Yusufiya, 20 kilometer (12 miles) south of Baghdad. U.S. forces clashed with gunmen, killing five and capturing two suspected “special group” members during an operation near Hilla, 100 kilometer (62 miles) south of Baghdad, U.S. military statement said. “Special groups” is a U.S. military term for Shi’ite militants backed by Iran. A police officer was killed during an operation to free a hostage near Diwaniya, 150 kilometers (95 miles) south of Baghdad.
(Source: Reuters)
United States
Imprisoned terror suspects at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, won a major legal victory on Thursday when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that they have the right to petition US courts challenging the legality of their open-ended detention. The ruling marks a substantial setback for the Bush administration, which had urged the high court to embrace the government’s view that Guantánamo detainees enjoy only a narrow range of legal options in disputing their classification as enemy combatants. The 5 to 4 decision strikes down a portion of the 2006 Military Commissions Act that sought to strip federal judges in the U.S. of the ability to hear legal appeals filed on behalf of the Guantánamo detainees. (Source: CSM)
A unanimous Supreme Court ruled yesterday that two U.S. citizens accused of terrorism-related crimes in Iraq cannot use American courts to challenge their transfer into foreign custody. Relatives of Shawqi Omar and Mohammad Munaf, who were captured by military forces on suspicion of terrorism links, had asked federal judges in the District to review their cases, citing the fear that they would be tortured. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. made clear that the men had the right to file habeas corpus petitions in U.S. courts attacking their detention. But he said that option offered little comfort for Omar and Munaf, as it would be inappropriate for American judges to bar the military from transferring accused criminals into the custody of foreign governments that wish to prosecute them. (Source: Washington Post)
Africa
The crackdown on the Opposition in Zimbabwe intensified yesterday with the arrest of its deputy leader on the charge of treason, as he arrived back in the country from a week-long trip to South Africa. Tendai Biti, the secretary-general of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), was met at Harare airport by five plainclothes officers who handcuffed him and led him to an unknown police station. The police said that Mr Biti was to be charged with publishing a “treasonous document” outlining MDC plans to return all land seized from white farmers and to dismiss all members of the military and police service if it won the presidential election at the end of this month. If found guilty, he could be sentenced to death. (Source: Washington Post)
Gunmen fatally shot a driver for the U.N. food agency in southern Somalia, the agency said Friday. The World Food Program said Hassan Abdi’s death near the village of Lego marks the third killing of a WFP-contracted driver in the country this year. Abdi was in a convoy of trucks carrying 362 tons of relief food Thursday morning to Bay and Bakool regions when he was gunned down, the agency said in a statement issued in neighboring Kenya. (Source: Washington Times)
America
A Taliban spokesman is urging Canadians to pressure their government to pull its troops out of war-torn Afghanistan. In an interview with CBC News, Qari Yousef Ahmadi said Canadians are involved in the war only because the United States influenced them to join. “I ask the Canadian people to ask their government to stop their destructive and inhumane mission and withdraw your troops,” said Ahmadi, speaking on his cellphone from an undisclosed location in Afghanistan. “Our war will continue as long as your occupation forces are in our land.” Ahmadi, considered by Western media outlets to be a legitimate representative of the Taliban central council, said the Taliban will continue to fight occupation forces until they are driven out of the country, just as the Afghan mujahedeen resistance continued to fight Russian troops until they withdrew in the 1980s. (Source: CBC)
As fuel prices skyrocket, the navy is actually planning on burning more of the increasingly precious substance. Its fuel budget for next year has jumped to $72.4 million, which is double what it spent four years ago on the naval distillate used to runs ships. “In spite of the increase in fuel costs over time, we’ve actually been increasing our sea days,” said Cmdr. Jeff Agnew, of navy public affairs. In 2006-07, the navy’s warships and submarines spent a total of 2,883 days at sea, he said. That burned up $45 million in fuel. In the past fiscal year, the navy’s vessels spent 2,931 days at sea, consuming $54 million in fuel. “In ’08-09, we’re projecting 3,131 days (at sea).” (Source: Chronicle Herald)
Father Stephen Harney is accustomed to providing solace to his poor Venezuelan parishioners who struggle to survive. But these days its the middle-class and wealthy families forced to pay protection money to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Colombia’s main rebels, who knock on his door for guidance. The 74-year-old Rosminian priest says the leftist guerrillas are increasingly taking extortion money from his flock in El Llanito, a small community outside of San Cristóbal, the capital of the Venezuelan state of the Táchira. Those who fail to pay up, he says, are either kidnapped for ransom or executed by local assassins hired by the FARC. (Source: CSM)
Asia
China recently conducted a test of its newest submarine-launched ballistic missile, the Julang-2 (JL-2), which will be deployed on Beijing’s fleet of new missile submarines, according to U.S. defense officials. The test launch took place May 29 from a submarine in Bohai Bay, off northern China, and landed in the Yellow Sea. The missile has an estimated range of about 5,000 miles and represents a new generation of strategic nuclear-capable weapons being outfitted on the Type 094 submarine, dubbed the Jin-class by the Pentagon. One defense official said the new JL-2 “shares features with the land-based Dong Feng-31 missile,” another new Chinese nuclear missile system. Officials confirmed the JL-2 after it was first reported last week in two Japanese newspapers that quoted Japanese military sources. “While the U.S. government provides insufficient informational warning about the JL-2’s capabilities, Asian sources have long commented it may eventually carry three to four warheads or a number of decoys,” said Richard Fisher, a military affairs specialist with the International Assessment and Strategy Center. “This means that five Type 094 missile submarines could account for over 180 warheads,” he said. (Source: Washington Times)
China is keeping a tight lid on the extent of damage caused by the recent earthquake to military radioactive sources. The Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy reported May 30 that Chinese authorities only announced some damage to sources of nuclear radiation, including small facilities like cement plants. “Because Sichuan is the most important area for China’s military nuclear industries and nuclear research, if those sources of radioactivity were to be damaged, they could cause further harm hundreds of thousands of times greater than the cement plants and other sources of radioactivity addressed by the official announcement,” the center said. “Yet China is still keeping the status of damage to these major sources of radioactivity a secret.”
China’s chief military authority, the Central Military Commission, currently is investigating quake damage to nuclear warhead storage facilities, nuclear missile launch silos and nuclear raw material storage plants. Damage to defense facilities remains secret. Among the facilities in the earthquake zone in Sichuan are the Nuclear Industry 821 factory in Guangyuan, Sichuan, that produces nuclear reactor furnaces and nuclear fuel plates. Others include the Nuclear Industry 814 factory in Leshan, Sichuan, which produces nuclear raw material, and the Nuclear Industry 816 factory in Fuling, Sichuan, which is preparing to rebuild a nuclear power station. China is investing $115.5 million and using 20,000 PLA troops to excavate a mountain that will house a nuclear factory near the former 816 factory, which “is still buried a great deal of nuclear material.” Nuclear Industry factory 857 in Jianguo, Sichuan, “produces atomic bombs,” the report said.
The former 221 nuclear facility in Mianyang also contains buried nuclear material. The 585 nuclear institute at Leshan, Sichuan, is a nuclear fusion research institute. The 902 research institute in Mianyang is a nuclear weapons research institute, while Mianyang 839 is a nuclear industrial base. (Source: World Times)
Just seven days after Cyclone Nargis devastated Burma last month, the ruling military junta parceled out key sections of the affected Irrawaddy Delta to favored tycoons and companies, including several facing sanctions from the U.S. Treasury, according to a Burmese magazine with close ties to the government. Some of the most notorious business executives in Burma, including Tay Za and Steven Law, also known as Tun Myint Naing, were given control of “reconstruction and relief” in critical townships, under the leadership of top generals. Tay Za was identified by Treasury as a “regime henchman” this year when it slapped economic sanctions on hotel enterprises and other businesses he owns. All told, more than 30 companies and 30 executives are to divide up the business in 11 townships in areas affected by Nargis, according to the report. The document in the magazine is dated May 9, a time when the United Nations, aid groups and many countries were pleading with the Burmese government to allow access to affected areas in the aftermath of the storm, which killed as many as 130,000 people and left 2.5 million without homes. Despite promises of greater openness, the Burmese rulers have continued to impose restrictions on aid relief, including new and onerous identification requirements for aid workers, according to reports from the region. (Source: Washington Post)
The Sri Lankan military says a new round of fighting with Tamil Tiger separatists has killed 11 rebels and two soldiers. The military says several battles erupted Thursday in the Vavuniya and Welioya regions along the front lines separating government forces from the rebels’ de facto state in the north. Troops also killed a suspected rebel in the eastern town of Trincomalee after he tried to attack police with grenade during an attempt to escape from custody. (Source: AP)
Europe
General Nikolai Makarov has replaced tough, old General Yury Baluyevsky as the chief of staff of Russia’s armed forces and has been tasked with rapidly modernizing them. Despite all the stories of a run-down and demoralized military that regularly appear in the Western media, Russia’s armed forces remain the most powerful and effective land force across all of Eurasia. They don’t have enough modern equipment. But what they do have is state-of-the-art, especially in main battle tanks, heavy artillery and close ground tactical air support. Their multiple-launch rocket mortar forces are without parallel in any other armed force in the world. However, modernization has not been going remotely as fast as former Russian president and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would like. (Source: UPI)
Middle East
An Israeli woman was wounded in the Yad Mordechai area on Thursday as Palestinian terror groups launched a barrage of mortar shells and Kassam rockets against Israeli communities near the Gaza border. At least 40 mortars and 25 Kassam rockets landed in Israel. In addition, a Grad missile landed near Ashkelon. (Source: Ynet News)
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) foiled a large-scale Palestinian terror attack planned to coincide with a barrage of Kassam rockets and mortar shells fired from Gaza on Thursday. A heavy vehicle approached IDF troops stationed at the Gaza border fence at an alarming speed. The soldiers opened fire and forced the vehicle to stop. (Source: Ha’aretz)
At least seven people were killed and 40 more wounded in a large explosion in northern Gaza on Thursday during a meeting at the home of Ahmed Hamouda, a member of the Izz al-Din al Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. Hamas sources said two of those killed were senior Hamas operatives. The IDF said its forces had launched no attacks in the area and that it involved a Palestinian “work accident.” (Source: Ynet News)
Brigadier-General (ret.) Amos Gilad, head of the Defense Ministry’s Security-Diplomatic Bureau, returned from Egypt Thursday after relaying Israel’s conditions for a temporary truce: Israel requires any truce in Gaza to include a total halt in terrorist and smuggling activity and the return of kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. Should the militant groups in Gaza adhere to these guidelines, Israel would cease its actions against the militias and reopen the crossings with Gaza. (Source: Ynet News)
The ongoing power struggle between Fatah and Hamas, as well as rivalries within Hamas itself, are largely responsible for the delay in reaching a cease-fire agreement between the Palestinians and Israel. Fatah is afraid that a cease-fire would consolidate Hamas’ grip on Gaza and encourage Hamas to try to extend its control to the West Bank. Within Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh has been pushing for accepting the Israeli conditions, first and foremost that abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit be part of a cease-fire deal. Other Hamas leaders, however, including Khaled Mashaal, Mahmoud Zahar and Said Siam, continue to insist that Shalit be dealt with only after a truce goes into effect. Furthermore, Islamic Jihad, Fatah’s Aksa Martyrs Brigades and the Popular Resistance Committees continue to express reservations about the Egyptian plan.
“Even if Hamas accepts the truce plan, there is no guarantee that it would be able to enforce its will on the other groups operating in Gaza,” said a Palestinian political analyst in Ramallah. In addition, Egyptian President Mubarak is desperate to prove that his country remains a major player in the Middle East. But it is highly unlikely that Syrian President Assad would allow Mubarak’s efforts to succeed. Relations between Assad and Mubarak have deteriorated to a point where the two have made it clear they will never agree to be seen in the same room. (Source: Jerusalem Post)
No large-scale military offensive is expected in Gaza in the coming months, absent a hit by a “strategic” Kassam rocket that exacts many casualties in Israel. According to the most optimistic IDF assessments, it would take many months of physical presence on the ground in parts of Gaza to bring about a significant decrease in attacks on the communities in the Gaza envelope. The army is not certain whether the public or the government can muster such patience, when it is obvious that the prolongation of any fighting will cost the lives of many soldiers. We can occupy parts of the territory, says a senior officer, with the aim of gradually reducing the rocket fire and preventing the strengthening of Hamas, which relies on weapons being smuggled in from Sinai. “However, under what arrangement will the territory be transferred into responsible hands? An answer of ‘It’ll be okay’ will no longer suffice in this round.” (Source: Ha’aretz)
Jordan’s military court has sentenced three Hamas militants to between five and 15 years in jail for conspiring to attack Israeli businessmen, Jordanian intelligence officers and other targets across Jordan. The three – Ayman Naji al-Daraghmeh, Ahmed Abu Rabee and Ahmed Abu Thiyab – are all Jordanians of Palestinian origin. They were charged with photographing the Israeli Embassy, the homes of the Israeli ambassador and his staff, and the offices of Jordanian companies dealing with Israeli firms. (Source: AP/Ha’aretz)
The United States warned a defiant Iran on Wednesday that “all options are on the table” to thwart its nuclear ambitions and the EU’s top diplomat prepared to travel to Tehran in the latest bid to resolve the dispute. As part of carrot-and-stick diplomacy, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he would be in Iran on June 14-15 to discuss an offer by major powers of trade and other benefits if it halts uranium enrichment. But the Islamic Republic made clear it had no intention of bowing to international demands and halting a nuclear program which it says is aimed at generating electricity but which the West fears is a covert drive to build bombs. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Western pressure had failed to stop Iran’s nuclear activities. (Source: Reuters)
Joe Varner is Assistant Professor and Program Manager for Homeland Security at American Military University.
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