A daily, open source, around the world tour of international security-related news.
By Professor Joseph B. Varner
Global War on Terror
Canadian Defence Minister Peter MacKay says NATO has sent additional troops to the Kandahar City area in the wake of Friday’s brazen prison break that freed about 400 Taliban fighters.
About 400 Taliban militants were among the 870 who escaped following a coordinated attack on Sarposa Prison in Kandahar City on Friday. (Source: CTV.ca)
Afghan President Hamid Karzai threatened for the first time Sunday to send troops into Pakistan to fight militants, raising Afghanistan’s longtime criticism of its neighbor for not stopping cross-border attacks to a new level. President Karzai’s statement came as NATO and Afghan forces continued hunting for 870 prisoners, including some 400 Taliban militants, who escaped Friday after a spectacular assault on a high-security prison in Kandahar Province in southern Afghanistan. The prison break did not negate overall advances in security but could hurt public confidence, NATO spokesperson Mark Laity told the Monitor.
The incident did prompt the strongest rhetoric yet from Karzai, who like many Afghan officials has long blamed Pakistan for the insurgency in their country, claiming that Pakistan helps insurgents by providing them a haven if not actively supporting them.
Because militants come from Pakistan “to come and kill Afghan and kill coalition troops, it exactly gives us the right to do the same,” Karzai said at a press conference Sunday. The president singled out Taliban leaders Mullah Omar and Baitullah Mehsud, saying, “We will complete the journey, and we will get them and we will defeat them. We will avenge all that they have done to Afghanistan for the past so many years,” Karzai said. (Source: CSM)
The British government says it will send more troops to southern Afghanistan to fight the resurgent Taliban. Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s office says about 230 engineers, logistical staff and military trainers will begin a tour of duty over the next few weeks. The deployment will take the number of British forces in the country to more than 8,000, most based in Helmand province in the south. (Source: AP)
The British Foreign Office is warning British nationals in the United Arab Emirates that terrorists might be targeting countries patronized by expatriates. “There is a high threat from terrorism. We believe terrorists may be planning to carry out attacks in the U.A.E.,” a official travel notice on the office’s Web site said. The foreign office didn’t provide details about why it thought a more serious threat was possible than the general one issued before to British nationals, the BBC reported. Expatriates are a majority of the population of the oil-rich the United Arab Emirates, made up of seven emirates, including Dubai and Abu Dhabi. It is also a major tourist destination. The warning said attacks could happen any time and could target residential compounds, military, oil, transport and aviation interests. (Source: UPI)
An Australian terrorism suspect on Monday lost his bid to avoid a retrial on charges that he received money from Al Qaeda. Joseph Thomas, a 35-year-old Muslim convert dubbed “Jihad Jack” by the Australian media, was sentenced in March 2006 to five years in prison for intentionally receiving funds from a terrorist organization and holding a false passport. An appeals court overturned those convictions five months later, saying information Thomas gave to Australian police after his 2003 arrest in Pakistan was inadmissible. (Source: Washington Times)
Iraq
Aides to anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said Sunday that although his movement will not field an official slate of Sadrist candidates in upcoming elections, it could support individual Sadrists running for office. The strategy could be a way for Sadr to influence the provincial elections this fall despite moves by the Iraqi government to ban his movement from participating.
Sadrist leaders sought to modify statements made a day earlier that the movement would not take part in the local contests. They had previously said only that the movement would support slates of “technocrats and independent politicians,” but on Sunday they said those candidates could well be Sadrists. (Source: Washington Post)
U.S.-backed Iraqi forces launched major offensives this spring against extremists in the southern city of Basra and in Sadr City, the Mahdi Army stronghold in Baghdad, and have been solidifying their hold on both areas since cease-fires ended heavy fighting.
Iraqi forces are now preparing for a major security operation in Amarah, an al-Sadr stronghold 200 miles southeast of Baghdad and the purported center of weapons smuggling from Iran to Shiite extremists in Iraq. Iraqi police and soldiers have deployed in large numbers on the streets of Amarah, capital of Maysan province, and new checkpoints were erected in the city of some 450,000 people. As reinforcements move into the city, al-Maliki’s office announced a Wednesday deadline for people in Amarah to turn in heavy and medium range weapons to authorities in return for an unspecified monetary reward. A statement said the announcement was the “last chance for the outlaws to reconsider their stance and to participate in the security process and reconstruction of the province.”
In Baghdad, the U.S. military said Sunday that Iraqi soldiers have found a large weapons cache including 90 rockets, Iranian mortar shells and an American unmanned drone in a feed warehouse in a mostly Shiite area of the capital. The munitions included “signature weapons” of Iranian-backed Shiite militia factions that have been blamed for attacks against the U.S.-protected Green Zone and other targets. Sporadic violence continued elsewhere in Iraq on Sunday, with a roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi army patrol in the northern city of Kirkuk, killing a soldier and a civilian walking near the site. Three other soldiers were wounded. Elsewhere in northern Iraq, gunmen killed a college professor and wounded two of his sons in a drive-by shooting in Mosul. Gunmen also broke into the home of a displaced Sunni family in Baghdad’s mainly Sunni Adil district, killing a retired army officer, his wife and their 19-year-old daughter and wounding their 10-year-old son. (Source: AP)
George W Bush is urging British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to delay the withdrawal of troops from Iraq until the security situation has improved significantly. The President’s advice to Britain follows reports that the Ministry of Defence was drawing up plans to announce by the end of the year preparations for the withdrawal of virtually all the remaining 4,200 troops in Iraq. Bush said any move by Brown to bring forces home should be “based upon success”.(Source: Telegraph-UK)
United States
The forced resignation of the top two officials in the United States Air Force (USAF) will have a ripple affect across the defence industry, potentially putting thousands of jobs in Britain at risk. Michael Wynne, the Secretary of the Air Force, and General T. Michael Moseley, the Chief of General Staff, stepped down last week, prompting speculation that key projects could be scrapped. Robert Gates, the U.S. Secretary of Defence, asked for their resignations after a number of blunders, including the accidental shipment of ballistic missile fuses to Taiwan and the flying of live nuclear weapons across the United States in a B52 bomber.
Analysts believe that the departures of Wynne and General Moseley have put a number of USAF projects in doubt, such as the continued production of the F22 Raptor, the world’s most sophisticated fighter. Gates has questioned the need for the F22 – which costs more than $150 million (£76.9 million) per aircraft, given that it has not been used in either Iraq or Afghanistan. (Source: The Times-UK)
As the United States continues its long manhunt for Osama bin Laden, victims of September 11, 2001, are in the midst of their own bin Laden pursuit, this one for his family’s vast fortune. Victims and survivors of the 2001 attack and insurance companies say the bin Laden family failed to cut off ties with their infamous relative after learning he was devising terrorism plots. (Source: CTV.ca)
Organizers of the largest and most complicated Homeland Security exercise ever conducted declared it a success yesterday as they wrapped up five days of hunting fake mines and fighting simulated terror attacks. “The exercise really showed that we are indeed one team, one fight,” said U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Jim McPherson, commander of the Coast Guard’s Northern New England sector. “All participating agencies, military and civilian alike from the United States and Canada, came to this week’s exercise with a shared mission focus to ensure we can decisively and appropriately handle maritime security threats.” About 3,000 U.S. and Canadian military personnel and civilians from a slew of government agencies participated in Frontier Sentinel, a one-week exercise to beef up maritime security along the East Coast. Much of the activity revolved around Portsmouth, where participants were still pulling fake mines out of the harbor yesterday, “planted” by terrorists starting Monday. (Source: UnionLeader.com)
The discovery of designs for a compact nuclear bomb has raised fears that Iran and North Korea might have obtained blueprints enabling them to mount long-range strikes with nuclear-armed missiles. Designs for a nuclear device small enough to fit on a ballistic missile were found on computers linked to the international smuggling ring that supplied nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea, a top US expert says. “These advanced nuclear weapon designs may have long ago been sold off to some of the most treacherous regimes in the world,” David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and International Security, wrote in a report provided yesterday to The Washington Post. The blueprints were among some 30,000 heavily encrypted documents found in 2006 on computers linked to the now-defunct smuggling ring run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the “father” of Pakistan’s atomic weapons project. (Source: The Times-UK)
Africa
Simon Mann, the Old Etonian mercenary accused of plotting a coup against the president of Equatorial Guinea in 2004, will stand trial in the tiny oil-rich West African nation tomorrow amid signals that the legal process has been rigged against him. Mann’s Equatoguinean defence lawyer Ponciano Mbomio Nvo was unceremoniously stripped of his right to practice in the country last week coinciding with a sudden announcement that the trial was about to begin. Mbomio Nvó has been replaced by José Pablo Nvó, a lawyer who has been described as being a supporter of President Obiang’s ruling political party. Mbomio Nvó told The Times last week that it was impossible for Mann’s trial to begin any time soon because the correct legal procedures, based on the Spanish judicial system, have not been observed. (Source: The Times-UK)
Algerian officials say they’re leaning toward signing a deal with a French company to establish the nation’s first nuclear power plant. Algeria and France last year signed a nuclear cooperation agreement but have yet to consummate it with a deal. Now, unnamed sources said Algeria’s leadership is close to giving the nod to Areva to build the project, Med Basin Newsline reported Monday. The news agency said Algerian Energy and Mines Minister Chakib Khelil is expected to seal the Areva deal when French Prime Minister Francois Fillon visits the country this week and that the agreement would allow the company to exploit Algeria’s uranium reserves. Fillon’s visit is also expected to result in a further nuclear cooperation deal that envisions technical information sharing and financial assistance. (Source: UPI)
Chadian rebels said on Monday they had captured the eastern town of Biltine in their latest offensive against the forces of President Idriss Deby. There was no immediate reaction from the government or independent confirmation of the fall of Biltine to the rebels, who have said their aim is to advance towards the capital N’Djamena, some 700 km (450 miles) to the west. Biltine is the third eastern town which the rebels have attacked in the last few days in what they say is a major military advance to try to overthrow Deby, whose rule they denounce as corrupt and dictatorial. Chad’s government, while acknowledging rebel columns are on the move in the east, have played down the extent of the insurgent offensive, calling it “rebel propaganda”. Biltine lies just over 90 km (55 miles) north of Abeche, the main hub of international humanitarian operations in eastern Chad, which borders with Sudan’s Darfur region. Troops from both former colonial power France and from a European Union military force (EUFOR) are based at Abeche. On Saturday, a rebel column briefly occupied Goz-Beida, more than 200 km (125 miles) south of Abeche.
(Source: Reuters)
Asia
China has appointed a top terrorism expert to a leading public security post following a series of alleged plots against this summer’s Beijing Olympics, an official notice said Monday. Yang Huanning, 51, has worked for years in central government bodies dedicated to battling opponents in the restive western regions of Xinjiang and Tibet, according to his resume posted on official Web sites. Other past roles included managing China’s international image, often clouded by charges of human rights abuses, and working with the United Nations Office of Peacekeeping on deployments of Chinese forces. (Source: AP)
Nine Taiwanese coast guard vessels entered Japanese waters Monday near disputed islands in the East China Sea to accompany a ship of protesters angry over the sinking nearby of a Taiwanese fishing boat. Japan immediately denounced the incident as a violation of its territorial waters, amid a spike in tensions over the islands, known as Diaoyutai in Chinese and Senkaku in Japanese. Officials in Taiwan called it a mission to uphold its sovereignty over the disputed territory. The vessels and the protest ship were in Japanese waters for about two and a half hours near the islands, defying repeated warnings from Japanese patrol boats, the Japanese coast guard said in a statement. (Source: AP)
A suicide bomb attack Monday on a police station in northern Sri Lanka’s Vavuniya region killed 12 police personnel, including three women. The attacker, who was on a motorcycle, also injured as many as 40 others, the Colombo Page, a Sri Lankan Internet news site, reported, quoting military and hospital personnel. The pro-rebel TamilNet also reported the attack killed 12 people. It said the attacker rode into the police complex as a group of officers were leaving the facility. No one took responsibility for the attack but the Sri Lankan military blamed the Tiger rebels. On Sunday, Sri Lankan air force jets destroyed a Tamil Tiger combat-logistic facility in the Northeast. The report also quoted the military as saying other weekend clashes in the embattled region killed 19 rebels and two soldiers. (Source: UPI)
Europe
French anti-terrorism police are investigating a series of bomb alerts targeting trains that could be linked to the extremist Italian Red Brigades, a judicial source said Monday. Paris investigators took over the probe from local police in the Alpine town of Chambery after firefighters and a newspaper received several calls over the weekend warning of bomb attacks on trains traveling in the Savoie region. A letter written in Italian and signed “in memory of the Red Brigades” was found Saturday in a telephone booth claiming responsibility for the alleged bomb plot, according to the source. France earlier this month moved to extradite to Italy former Red Brigade member Marina Petrella, who was arrested last year and is wanted in her home country for a series of crimes including the murder of a police officer in 1981. Italy’s most infamous far-left extremist group, the Red Brigades were blamed for hundreds of murders in the 1970s and 1980s. Their most notorious act was the murder of Christian Democrat leader Aldo Moro in 1978. (Source: AFP)
Kosovo’s Government adopted its new constitution yesterday in a low-key ceremony intended to mark the handover of UN administrative power to Pristina and the EU. The move was intended to cement the country’s independence and to complete the break-up of the former Yugoslavia after the conflicts of the 1990s. But Belgrade, backed by Moscow, insisted that it would never recognize Kosovo’s breakaway status, heightening fears of partition between the Serb-dominated north and the ethnic Albanians who make up about 95 per cent of the population. In reality, a full handover of UN authority could take many months and it is expected to remain a key player in the Serb half of the northern city of Mitrovica, where the EU has struggled to establish a presence. President Tadic of Serbia said he viewed the proclamation of the Kosovan constitution as illegal. “Serbia views Kosovo as its southern province,” he said. “It will defend its integrity by peaceful means, using diplomacy, without resorting to force.” (Source: The Times-UK)
One person was killed and four wounded in Georgia’s breakaway republic of South Ossetia during crossfire between Georgian and South Ossetian troops, the separatist authorities said on Sunday. Tskhinvali, the capital of the self-proclaimed independent republic, came “under intense fire” from automatic guns and grenade-launchers from nearby Georgian villages, the South Ossetian interior ministry said in a statement. South Ossetian troops “reacted by returning fire on Georgian positions,” the ministry added, saying that the exchange went on for “some four hours.” (Source: AFP)
Middle East
On Sunday, top Israeli defense officials and Israeli Defense Force (IDF) officers slammed two American-backed initiatives to deploy additional Palestinian forces in the West Bank, saying they are allowing terrorism to flourish. Defense officials say that since 600 PA soldiers trained by U.S. defense contractors in Jordan were allowed to deploy in Jenin last month, there has been an increase in terrorist activity in the city. On Sunday, a 20-kg. bomb detonated next to an IDF force in Jenin without causing any casualties. Terror suspects arrested by PA forces were usually released in a few days or just hours later, one defense official said. Weapons provided by the U.S. to the PA are finding their way to Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists in Jenin as well as in Nablus, a top officer in the IDF Central Command said. In addition, terrorists have infiltrated the ranks of the PA police and military. (Source: Jerusalem Post)
Saudi Arabia will raise oil production to record levels within weeks in an attempt to avert an escalation of social and political unrest around the world. King Abdullah signalled the commitment to the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, at the weekend after the impact of skyrocketing oil prices on food sparked protests and riots from Spain to South Korea. Next month, the Saudis will be pumping an extra half-a-million barrels of oil a day compared to last month, bringing total Saudi production to 9.7 million barrels a day, their highest ever level. But the world’s biggest oil exporters are coupling the increase with an appeal to Western Europe to cut fuel taxes to lower the price of petrol to consumers. (Source: The Independent-UK)
Iran said Saturday that a package of incentives offered by six countries was “out of the question” because it includes a demand for the country to suspend uranium enrichment activities. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana presented the proposal to Iranian authorities Saturday on behalf of the U.S., China, France, Germany, Britain and Russia. He told reporters in Tehran that the offer was “generous and comprehensive and a starting point for real negotiations” on the country’s nuclear program. But Gholam Hossein Elham, Iran’s government spokesman, said, “If the package includes suspension, it is not debatable at all….Any precondition regarding suspension would be out of the question.” (Source: Washington Post)
Joe Varner is Assistant Professor and Program Manager for Homeland Security at American Military University.
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