An open source, around the world tour of international security-related news.
By Professor Joseph B. Varner
Global War on Terror
An Al Qaeda commander who escaped from a U.S. prison in Afghanistan has posted a Web video urging Muslims to kill the Saudi king for leading an interfaith conference. Abu Yahia al-Libi, who escaped from Bagram prison in 2005, said “bringing religions together … means renouncing Islam.”
Saudi King Abdullah sponsored this month’s dialogue in Madrid among Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus and Buddhists, and encouraged all faiths to turn away from extremism. But al-Libi said “equating Islam with other religions is a betrayal of Islam.” He called for “the speedy killing of this tyrant.”
The 43-minute video was posted late Monday on an Internet site often used by militants. Its authenticity could not be independently verified. (Source: Washington Post)
U.S.-led coalition troops killed several militants during a raid in central Afghanistan, while a suspected bomb maker and his family died in an accidental blast in the east, officials said Tuesday. Coalition troops were fired on as they were searching compounds in Giro district of Ghazni province on Monday. During the search, troops discovered bomb-making material and other weapons. Separately, a suspected bomb maker and four other people died in an accidental explosion inside a house in the eastern Kunar province. The blast in Chawki district killed the alleged bomber, his wife, two sons and a guest. Two other people were wounded. (Source: AP)
While U.S. commanders and both presidential candidates are pressing the Pentagon to send more troops to Afghanistan, several military and Afghanistan analysts say a surge there will not solve and could even worsen the problems of a country famous for resisting foreign interference. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters recently that commanders in Afghanistan want an additional three combat brigades, or about 10,000 troops. But given U.S. commitments in Iraq, he said, a decision on an increase of that size, nearly a 30 percent boost, would be left to the next administration in early 2009.
More forces are being pushed as politicians ask what went wrong in a campaign that ousted the Taliban in two months in late 2001 using a few hundred commandos, CIA operatives and waves of air strikes. More than six years later, violence is up and a resurgent Taliban seems to have a limitless supply of suicidal fighters. (Source: Washington Times)
An apparent U.S. missile strike on a compound in northwestern Pakistan killed six people early yesterday, including a man believed to be a top Al Qaeda operative and key figure in the terrorist group’s production of chemical weapons and conventional explosives. The death of Abu Khabab al-Masri, if confirmed, would be the most significant blow against Al Qaeda’s leadership in at least six months. The Egyptian-born chemical engineer is believed to have trained a generation of Al Qaeda fighters in bomb-making, and he once spearheaded the group’s efforts to make biological and chemical weapons. The strike coincided with a visit to Washington by Pakistan’s new prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gillani, whose government has complained repeatedly to the Bush administration about unilateral U.S. strikes against suspected terrorist bases in Pakistan’s tribal belt. The pre-dawn attack occurred on the grounds of a former religious school near Azam Warsak, a village in the autonomous province of South Waziristan less than three miles from the Afghanistan border. Local residents reported hearing the sound of a drone aircraft in the area shortly before the attack, followed by explosions, the Reuters news agency reported. Local officials reported six killed, including four Egyptian nationals and two Pakistanis.
(Source: Washington Post)
Suspected Islamic militants abducted about 30 police and paramilitary troops in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, a day after three intelligence agents were killed there in an ambush. Security was deteriorating in the Swat Valley despite a peace deal reached in May between the provincial government and pro-Taliban militants. Insurgents overpowered the security forces who were manning a security post in Swat’s Deolai area. The army said that 27 troops and police were missing. Most were feared kidnapped, though it appeared that a few of them had managed to flee and hide. (Source: AP)
Police investigating deadly bombings last weekend in western India focused Tuesday on a suburb of India’s financial capital where four cars used in the blasts were stolen and an e-mail claiming responsibility originated. Twenty-two bombs tore through the historic city of Ahmadabad in Gujarat state around dusk Saturday, killing 42 people and wounding 183 others. It was the second series of blasts in India in two days. Ahmadabad police said Tuesday it appeared that 22 bombs exploded, not 16. The death toll was lowered to 42 from 45 because several cases had been reported twice amid the confusion.
An e-mail claiming responsibility for the attack was traced to the computer of Kenneth Haywood, an American citizen living the suburb of Navi Mumbai or “New Mumbai.”
Police on Tuesday said Haywood was not a suspect and it appeared his wireless network connection was accessed to send the e-mail. They said anyone on the two floors below Haywood’s 15th floor apartment could have accessed the network. Meanwhile, Navi Mumbai police chief Ramrao Wagh said that police have fanned out across the city to find the people who stole four cars used in the blasts. Wagh said all four cars were stolen in early July. Singh said two of the stolen vehicles had been used as car bombs, while two others had been discovered filled with explosives in the nearby city of Surat, a diamond-polishing hub about 175 miles south of Ahmadabad. Police found 10 unexploded bombs in Surat on Tuesday. They defused seven bombs and were working on the other three, he said. He offered no details about the kind of explosives found and said the investigation was ongoing. Police also released a sketch of a young man believed to be linked to one of the cars in Surat. An obscure Islamic militant group took credit for the Ahmadabad attack, and sent an e-mail to several Indian television stations minutes before the blasts began. The e-mail’s subject line said “Await 5 minutes for the revenge of Gujarat,” an apparent reference to 2002 riots that left 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, dead. Ahmadabad was the scene of much of the 2002 violence. Police said they believed Navi Mumbai had been used as the headquarters to plan the attack as it was a nondescript suburb and their activities would likely go undetected. (Source: AP)
Almost a third of British Muslim students believe killing in the name of Islam can be justified, according to a poll for the Center for Social Cohesion. The study also found that a third of Muslim students supported the creation of a world-wide caliphate or Islamic state, while two in five support the incorporation of Islamic sharia codes into British law. (Source: Sunday Times-UK)
Iraq
Four female suicide bombers attacked religious pilgrims in Baghdad and political protesters in ethnically mixed Kirkuk on Monday, killing dozens of people and wounding hundreds in a reminder of how raw Iraq’s divisions remain despite a sharp drop in violence. A four-year low in attacks has prompted senior U.S. officials in Iraq to describe Sunni Arab militants as a spent force no longer capable of toppling Iraq’s Shiite Muslim-led government. But Monday’s attacks on Shiites in the capital and Kurdish protesters, which ignited ethnic clashes in oil-rich Kirkuk, showcased extremists’ enduring ability to cause damage. The bombings also highlighted a sharp increase this year in the number of women who kill themselves in such attacks. The incidents appeared to be the deadliest since a truck bombing in June killed 63 people in the Shiite neighborhood of Hurriya, an attack the U.S. Army blamed on a militant Shiite group. A suicide strike two weeks ago in the northeastern province of Diyala claimed the lives of 28 Iraqi military recruits. According to U.S. Army figures, 27 suicide attacks this year have been carried out by women, compared with eight in all of 2007, when there were 242 such bombings. A tally by The Times indicates that about a quarter of all suicide attacks this year in Iraq have been conducted by women.U.S. officers believe militants have sought new tactics in response to the military’s successes, including its alliance with former insurgents and the proliferation of concrete walls sealing off districts and markets. In some cases, the military believes, Al Qaeda in Iraq uses tribal ties with the men and women it drafts to carry out suicide attacks. Officials say revenge for the deaths of relatives also is sometimes a motive. The increase in the number of women parallels an increase in the proportion of suicide bombers who are Iraqis. A sizable number of suicide attackers once were foreign men who came to fight the U.S., but that number has dropped because neighboring countries have tightened their borders with Iraq and because Afghanistan’s and Pakistan’s tribal areas are more attractive destinations. The bombing and ensuing melee left 25 people dead and 190 wounded, but it was not clear who died in the bombing and who died in the rioting. The bombing and reprisals provided a glimpse of the passions among Kurds, Turkmens and Arabs over the future boundaries of Iraq’s Arab north and its Kurdistan region. The problems in the city are the legacy of former dictator Saddam Hussein’s policy of forcibly displacing Kurds and resettling Arabs throughout northern Iraq’s key cities and other strategic locations. In Baghdad, militants turned their attention to the country’s Shiite majority. Three female suicide bombers blew themselves up over the course of an hour, targeting Shiite faithful on their way to a sacred shrine. At least 32 people were killed and 102 wounded. About a million Shiites were expected for the event commemorating the death in 799 of a religious leader regarded by Shiites as a saint. The bombings happened in the Karada district, a prosperous commercial area. The U.S. Army said one of the bombers was a teenager. (Source: AP)
U.S. and Iraqi forces launched a new operation Tuesday aimed at clearing Al Qaeda in Iraq from the volatile Diyala province, considered the last major insurgent safe haven near the capital. (Source: Los Angeles)
The United States
President Bush yesterday approved the execution of an Army private convicted of a string of vicious murders and rapes in North Carolina, marking the first time in half a century that a president has affirmed a military death sentence. Bush agreed to a request from the secretary of the Army to execute Ronald A. Gray, who has been on death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., since 1988. (Source: Washington Post)
The Department of Homeland Security is advising employees to be on increased alert beginning next month through next summer because of a series of upcoming high-profile events including the Olympics, both major parties’ nominating conventions, Election Day and the presidential transition. A department spokesman said a draft internal document will soon be released citing a “period of heightened alert” between August and roughly July 2009, urging DHS agencies to review emergency response plans and intensify coordination and intelligence analysis. Spokesman Russ Knocke said that the move is based on the nation’s increased vulnerability to a terrorist attack, not on any specific or credible new threat information. The department is not raising the national color-coded threat warning level from yellow, or elevated, nor is it changing its security posture or operations. (Source: Washington Post)
Jurors hearing the first war crimes case against a Guantanamo prisoner watched a graphic 90-minute film chronicling the history of Al Qaeda on Monday, which included footage of mangled corpses in the rubble of the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombing in Kenya. The disturbing images, including some not previously released by U.S. authorities, were part of a film produced and narrated by a prosecution witness under contract with the tribunal hierarchy, the Office of Military Commissions. The film was written, produced and narrated by Evan F. Kohlmann, who described himself as an international terrorism consultant who has conducted research for government agencies in the U.S. and several Western countries. Navy Captain Keith J. Allred, the judge presiding over the trial of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden, cautioned the jurors that the film was being shown to provide an understanding of Al Qaeda operations, and that Hamdan was “not alleged to have been involved in any of these attacks.” Most of the film, “The Al Qaeda Plan,” involved propaganda videos from Al Qaeda’s media wing, As Sahab, and much of the footage had been filmed and broadcast after Hamdan was arrested in Afghanistan in November 2001. (Source: Los Angeles Times)
Africa
Talks in South Africa on Zimbabwe’s political crisis broke up Tuesday with no power-sharing deal between President Robert Mugabe and his bitter rival Morgan Tsvangirai in sight. As negotiators flew home, South African President Thabo Mbeki, who is mediating the crisis, insisted discussions were still on track despite talk of a deadlock by Tsvangirai’s opposition Movement for Democractic Change (MDC). Tsvangirai flew to Johannesburg on Monday amid claims by his party that the talks had run into trouble.
Tsvangirai and 84-year-old Mugabe signed an accord on July 21 to begin talks on sharing power after a months-long election dispute. (Source: AFP)
Asia
The Indian army accused Pakistan Tuesday of a “serious” ceasefire violation along the Line of Control in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir after a fierce overnight gun battle. The fighting was sparked by an incursion and killing of an Indian soldier by a small unit of Pakistani troops in the mountains north of Srinagar. The fighting involved small arms fire but no heavy weapons, the army said. Indian media reports said four Pakistani troops were also killed, but neither side could confirm the deaths. In Islamabad, the Pakistani army’s spokesman said late Monday he had no information on the clash.
On Tuesday, Indian army spokeswoman Neha Goyal said the latest clashes halted with India proposing a “flag meeting,” or formal meeting by army officers from both sides at Teetwal, a frontline village about 170-kilometres (105 miles) north of Srinagar. (Source: AFP)
Europe
A court has convicted seven Bosnian Serbs of genocide committed in Srebrenica in 1995. Another four were acquitted. Three former policemen were sentenced 42 years in prison; another three former policemen received 40-year sentences and one was sent to prison for 38 years. Tuesday’s ruling was the Bosnian war crimes court’s first sentence related to Srebrenica, the worst massacre committed in Europe since World War II. The seven were convicted of killing of more than 1,000 captured Muslim Bosniak men after Bosnian Serb forces conquered the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica. (Source: AP)
The transfer of Radovan Karadzic to the war crimes tribunal in the Hague will be carried out covertly to avoid media attention and planned protests by nationalist supporters of the former Bosnian Serb leader. Karadzic, who faces charges of genocide during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, was arrested last week in Serbia after 11 years on the run. He is now being held in a Belgrade prison awaiting extradition. Security service sources say there are dozens of options for moving him unobtrusively, involving disguised vehicles, secret exits, dawn transfers and decoy motorcades to fool the television crews staking out the prison, court and airport. (Source: Washington Post)
Turkish warplanes attacked Kurdish rebels in Iraq’s north on Tuesday, killing a group of guerrillas gathered at a mountain cave. The Turkish strikes, which a pro-Kurdish news agency said were followed by shelling from Iran, came two days after bombs planted in an Istanbul neighborhood killed 17 people. The government blamed Kurdish rebels, who denied involvement in the deadliest attack on civilians in five years. The military said in a statement Tuesday that warplanes attacked rebel targets in northern Iraq, where the leadership of the rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, is based. The statement said many of a 40-strong rebel group outside a cave at Mount Qandil were killed. Firat News, a pro-Kurdish news agency, said the bombing was immediately followed by shelling by Iranian forces. Turkey’s military has said Turkey and Iran at times coordinate strikes against Kurdish rebels who use bases in northern Iraq as a springboard for attacks on their countries. PKK rebels, who seek autonomy for Turkey’s Kurds, have fought the Turkish state since 1984 in a war that has claimed tens of thousands of lives. In recent months, Turkish warplanes have repeatedly attacked suspected rebel positions in northern Iraq, and launched a weeklong ground offensive there in February. (Source: AP)
Middle East
Ayman Daraghmeh, who entered parliament on the Hamas list, says Hamas is the victim of a PA crackdown that has now reached the force of a “tsunami.” Over the past two days, the PA has detained several dozen members of Hamas in response to a crackdown on Fatah supporters in Gaza. Daraghmeh says Fatah, the party of PA leader Mahmoud Abbas, is out to “destroy” Hamas in the West Bank. (Source: Financial Times-UK)
Two human rights groups on Monday decried widespread torture of political opponents by Palestinian rivals Hamas and Fatah. An estimated 20-30% of the detainees suffered torture, including severe beatings and being tied up in painful positions, said Shawan Jabarin, director of the Palestinian human rights group Al Haq, citing sworn statements from 150 detainees. He said three died in detention in Gaza and one in the West Bank. “The use of torture is dramatically up,” added Fred Abrahams of Human Rights Watch, that is releasing its own report on abuse this week. Human Rights Watch said Abbas’ Fatah forces need to come under closer scrutiny because of the international support they enjoy. (Source: AP/ABC News)
Israel’s defense establishment has agreed to dismantle a 2.4-km. stretch of the West Bank separation fence north of Kalkilya in order to return 2,600 dunams of agricultural land to Palestinians. The dismantled stretch will be replaced by 4.9 km. of fencing closer to the “green line” at a cost of more than NIS 50 million. The High Court of Justice ruled in 2006 that the fence should be moved. (Source: Ha’aretz)
Israeli diplomatic officials were not overly impressed Monday by a seven-minute interview Syrian Ambassador to Washington Imad Mustafa gave to Americans for Peace Now, in which he called for “an end to the state of war.” “We have heard this type of thing from the Syrian ambassadors before in places like Washington and London,” one senior diplomatic official said. “But why doesn’t Syria’s ambassador in Cairo say the same thing? Why do we not hear it from others, from Damascus? They are speaking to their audience in the West, giving them what they want to hear. They are not speaking to us.” Another diplomatic official said the Syrians were “playing a double game. They are interested in a breakthrough with Washington, not with us. They want the process, not peace.” Moshe Maoz, a professor emeritus of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, downplayed the importance of Mustafa’s comments, saying they were “more of the same.” The fourth round of indirect talks between Israel and Syria, with Turkey as the mediator, is scheduled to take place this week in Turkey. (Source: Jerusalem Post)
Iran appears to have overstated the expansion of its uranium enrichment program at a sensitive juncture in talks with world powers, a diplomat close to the UN nuclear watchdog agency said on Monday. He said the International Atomic Energy Agency checked President Ahmadinejad’s announcement on Saturday that Iran had more than 5,000 centrifuges running and could verify just 4,000 were installed, 3,500 of which were regularly enriching uranium. These figures were only marginally higher than those given in the IAEA’s last monitoring report on Iran two months ago. (Source: Reuters)
Joe Varner is Assistant Professor and Program Manager for Homeland Security at American Military University.
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