An open source, around the world tour of international security-related news.
By Professor Joseph B. Varner
Global War on Terror
American intelligence agencies have concluded that members of Pakistan’s powerful spy service helped plan the deadly July 7 bombing of India’s embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, according to United States government officials.
The conclusion was based on intercepted communications between Pakistani intelligence officers and militants who carried out the attack, the officials said, providing the clearest evidence to date that Pakistani intelligence officers are actively undermining American efforts to combat militants in the region. The American officials also said there was new information showing that members of the Pakistani intelligence service were increasingly providing militants with details about the American campaign against them, in some cases allowing militants to avoid American missile strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Concerns about the role played by Pakistani intelligence not only has strained relations between the United States and Pakistan, a longtime ally, but also has fanned tensions between Pakistan and its archrival, India. Within days of the bombings, Indian officials accused the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, of helping to orchestrate the attack in Kabul, which killed 54, including an Indian defense attaché. This week, Pakistani troops clashed with Indian forces in the contested region of Kashmir, threatening to fray an uneasy cease-fire that has held since November 2003. The New York Times reported this week that a top Central Intelligence Agency official traveled to Pakistan this month to confront senior Pakistani officials with information about support provided by members of the ISI to militant groups. It had not been known that American intelligence agencies concluded that elements of Pakistani intelligence provided direct support for the attack in Kabul.
American officials said that the communications were intercepted before the July 7 bombing, and that the C.I.A. emissary, Stephen R. Kappes, the agency’s deputy director, had been ordered to Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, even before the attack. The intercepts were not detailed enough to warn of any specific attack. The government officials were guarded in describing the new evidence and would not say specifically what kind of assistance the ISI officers provided to the militants. They said that the ISI officers had not been renegades, indicating that their actions might have been authorized by superiors.
American officials say they believe that the embassy attack was probably carried out by members of a network led by Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani, whose alliance with Al Qaeda and its affiliates has allowed the terrorist network to rebuild in the tribal areas. American and Pakistani officials have now acknowledged that President Bush on Monday confronted Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, about the divided loyalties of the ISI. (Source: New York Times)
Fighting raged Thursday in a scenic valley in Pakistan’s troubled northwest, killing at least 17 civilians, including seven members of a family whose home was hit by a mortar shell. The violence, which broke out Tuesday, has been the worst in months in the Swat valley, about 100 miles from the capital, Islamabad. Militants seeking to impose a Taliban-style social code have been burning girls schools, attacking police posts and capturing paramilitary troops. (Source: Los Angeles Times)
Police say militants have overpowered a security post in northwestern Pakistan and kidnapped two officers. Local police chief Fazal Rabi says about 35 militants kidnapped the policemen on Friday on the outskirts of Khar, a town close to the Afghan border. Rabi said police have launched a search operation for the missing men. Khar is the main town in the Bajaur tribal region, where Taliban militants hold considerable sway. The region is a base for militants attacking government and foreign troops in Afghanistan and has been mentioned as a possible hiding place for Al Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri. (Source: AP)
Iraq
Five American troops died in July as a result of combat in Iraq, by far the lowest monthly U.S. death toll of the five-year war. The number of Iraq-related American troop fatalities in July, a total of 13 when noncombat deaths and the discovered bodies of two missing soldiers are included, is a dramatic drop from just over a year ago, when more than 100 troops a month were confirmed dead for several months in a row. In a brief statement at the White House early Thursday, President Bush suggested that the decreasing violence in Iraq would allow him to withdraw additional U.S. troops before he leaves office. He said that the top American commander in Iraq, General David H. Petraeus, would make recommendations in September for “further reductions in our combat forces, as conditions permit.” The last of five additional combat brigades sent to Iraq last year left in July, leaving about 140,000 U.S. troops in the country. About 130,000 were in Iraq before the buildup began. Starting Friday, Bush said, troop deployments in Iraq will shorten from 15 months to 12. The policy, first announced in April, applies to troops heading to Iraq but not those already stationed there. Bush’s statement came on the day the U.S. and Iraqi governments had originally set as a deadline for reaching a security agreement governing the future role of U.S. forces in Iraq. The talks, which began in March, became acrimonious and eventually stalled over the concerns of Iraqi leaders that American demands, for unilateral control over U.S. combat and detention operations, and immunity from Iraqi law for American troops and defense personnel, would violate Iraqi sovereignty and establish a permanent occupation. (Source: Washington Post)
An army spokesman says a roadside bomb attack has killed two Iraqi soldiers and wounded two others in northern city of Kirkuk. Colonel Salam al-Zobaei, the spokesman of the Iraqi army in Kirkuk, says the bomb struck an army patrol near the city on Friday.
A suicide bombing killed 25 people in the oil-rich city during a Kurdish demonstration on Monday. Tensions are running high in the multi-ethnic city where Kurds want the annexation of the regional capital Kirkuk and other areas to the self-ruled Kurdish region over the opposition of Arab and Turkomen residents. (Source: AP)
United States
A top U.S. biodefence researcher apparently committed suicide just as the Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against him in the anthrax mailings that traumatized the country in the weeks following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to a published report. The scientist, Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who worked for the past 18 years at the government’s biodefence labs at Fort Detrick, Md., had been told about the impending prosecution, the Los Angeles Times reported for Friday editions. The laboratory has been at the centre of the FBI’s investigation of the anthrax attacks, which killed five people. Just last month, the government exonerated another scientist at the Fort Detrick lab, Steven Hatfill, who had been identified by the FBI as a “person of interest” in the anthrax attacks. The government paid Mr. Hatfill more than $5-million to settle a lawsuit he filed against the Justice Department in which he claimed the department violated his privacy rights by speaking with reporters about the case. The Times said federal investigators moved away from Mr. Hatfill and concluded Mr. Ivins was the culprit after FBI Director Robert Mueller changed leadership of the investigation in 2006. The new investigators instructed agents to re-examine leads and reconsider potential suspects. In the meantime, investigators made progress in analyzing anthrax powder recovered from letters addressed to two U.S. senators, according to the report. Besides the five deaths, 17 people were sickened by anthrax that was mailed to lawmakers on Capitol Hill and members of the news media in New York and Florida just weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The victims included postal workers and others who came into contact with the anthrax. (Source: AP)
The military trial of Osama bin Laden’s former driver convened in a rare secret session Thursday to hear testimony from two defense witnesses that the government deemed highly classified. Navy Captain Keith J. Allred, the military judge, cleared the courtroom as the uniformed U.S. Army officers took the stand. Their entire testimony, other than their names and positions, was secret, though a redacted unclassified transcript is expected to be released later. The driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, and his attorneys were in the courtroom at the U.S. detention facility here. The classified testimony adds a new layer of controversy to a military justice system that critics contend is essentially rigged to secure convictions. Hamdan is the defendant in the first U.S. military commission since World War II, and virtually all of the trial had been open until now. Prosecutors, who rested their case Thursday, say the commissions are a fair way to bring accused terrorists to justice. (Source: Washington Post)
A detainee assaulted the Navy admiral in charge of the Guantanamo Bay detention center with a “cocktail” of bodily fluids on a recent tour inside the razor wire, military officials said Thursday. The inmate used a water bottle to splatter Rear Admiral David Thomas with feces as he walked the cell block in mid-July, said Navy Commander Jeffrey Hayhurst, a senior member of the guard leadership. (Source: AP)
U.S. federal agents have been given new powers to seize travelers’ laptops and other electronic devices at the border and hold then for unspecified periods, the Washington Post reported on Friday. Under recently disclosed Department of Homeland Security policies, such seizures may be carried out without suspicion of wrongdoing, the newspaper said, quoting policies issued on July 16 by two DHS agencies. Agents are empowered to share the contents of seized computers with other agencies and private entities for data decryption and other reasons. DHS officials said the policies applied to anyone entering the country, including U.S. citizens, and were needed to prevent terrorism. The measures have long been in place but were only disclosed in July, under pressure from civil liberties and business travel groups acting on reports that increasing numbers of international travelers had had their laptops, cellphones and other digital devices removed and examined. The policies cover hard drives, flash drives, cell phones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes, as well as books, pamphlets and other written materials. (Source: AP)
The Bush administration unveiled new operating guidelines for the nation’s intelligence community yesterday in a move that boosted the authority of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) while triggering protests from lawmakers who complained that they weren’t properly consulted. The changes affirmed the DNI’s role as head of the 16 U.S. spy agencies and expanded its power to set priorities and coordinate the sharing of intelligence. The DNI also was given an expanded role in foreign intelligence collection and in the hiring and firing of senior intelligence officials. The changes were part of a long-awaited overhaul of Executive Order 12333, a Reagan-era document that establishes the powers and responsibilities of U.S. intelligence services. Most of the revisions merely reflect changes already in place since the DNI was established by Congress three years ago, partly as a response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. (Source: Washington Post)
Africa
The UN Security Council approved another year of peacekeeping in Sudan’s bloodied Darfur region Thursday night, but the U.S. abstained from a vote that reflected sharp divisions over genocide charges against the Sudanese president. The United States, despite support for the struggling peacekeeping mission, did not vote because of its opposition to any delay in efforts to prosecute Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. The resolution that was approved 14-0 carried language that noted an African Union request to freeze the International Criminal Court’s prosecution of Mr. al-Bashir.
Though the measure does not stop the prosecution, U.S. Deputy Ambassador Alejandro Wolff said that the language “would send the wrong signal” to Mr. al-Bashir and “undermine efforts to bring him and others to justice.” Luis Moreno-Ocampo, chief prosecutor of the international court, filed 10 charges against Mr. al-Bashir on July 14 related to violence in Darfur that the UN says has claimed 300,000 lives and driven 2.5 million people from their homes. (Source: AP)
Americas
The former Liberal government could have done more to help a Canadian imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, leader Stephane Dion said yesterday in a three-page letter that nonetheless takes aim at the prime minister over the plight of Omar Khadr. Dion wrote that Stephen Harper is in “an untenable position” in Khadr’s case because he hasn’t stood up for the Canadian’s rights after U.S. courts slammed the type of military commission that will try him this fall. Khadr is accused of killing a U.S. soldier with a grenade in Afghanistan in 2002 when Khadr was 15. Harper hasn’t requested his repatriation. (Source: Canoe News-CAN)
Asia
China’s military has deployed tens of thousands of soldiers to safeguard the Olympics from possible terrorist attacks, a senior officer said Friday, saying the gravest danger came from Muslim radicals in western China. However, underscoring China’s sometimes contradictory approach to such problems, a Xinjiang vice governor speaking separately downplayed the danger, saying such groups were tiny in number and highly disorganized.
(Source: AP)
China’s defense minister says Taiwan’s domestic situation has undergone “positive changes,” in a notable softening of rhetoric reflecting satisfaction with the election of Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou. In an address on the eve of Friday’s Army Day, Liang Guanglie reiterated Beijing’s goal of political unification with the self-governing island that it claims is an integral part of Chinese territory. But his comments were free of the bellicose tone that has sometimes characterized Beijing’s pronouncements toward Taiwan, which has refused Beijing’s unification advances since splitting from the mainland amid civil war in 1949. (Source: AP)
Singapore has shown interest in possibly buying up to 100 of the stealthy, multi-role F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) aircraft over coming decades, said the general in charge of the programme for the Pentagon. Said Air Force Major-General Charles Davis, the Pentagon’s programme chief: “The Israelis have said they’d take up to 100 aircraft. The Singaporeans have said basically the same thing.” Embassy spokesmen for the two countries had no immediate comment. The world’s most advanced fighter jet, the supersonic F-35 is designed to attack moving targets in any environment. It uses stealth technology to prevent detection by radar or infrared sensors. Development of the super- fighter was co-financed by Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, Canada, Australia, Denmark and Norway. Singapore, as a security cooperation participant of the multinational program, has access to proprietary information, including flight simulations. (Source: AP)
Europe
Purse-lipped and gaunt, Radovan Karadzic appeared before a U.N. war crimes tribunal for the first time Thursday and in sharply worded Serbian vowed to defend himself against genocide and other charges “as I would defend myself against any natural catastrophe.” In remarks that were cut short by the judge, the former Bosnian Serb leader suggested he would attempt to expose alleged double-dealing by the West, particularly the United States, in the wake of the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. That could presage the kind of political grandstanding that former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, who also represented himself, used to sidetrack his prosecution before he died in his cell at the tribunal’s detention center. (Source: Washington Post)
Middle East
Hamas forces seized the leaders of Fatah in Gaza early Friday, Fatah officials said, upping the stakes in a week of tit-for-tat arrests between the bitter Palestinian rivals.
Hamas security officers seized around 15 senior Fatah members from their homes in the roundup, the Fatah officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear for their safety in Hamas-controlled Gaza. The men arrested Friday included three Fatah-affiliated district governors and the two highest Gaza representatives of the Palestinian president, Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas. (Source: AP)
About 3,000 Hizb ut-Tahrir supporters calling for a worldwide Islamic state and waving black flags marched through Gaza for the first time Thursday. Hizb ut-Tahrir seeks to establish a caliphate that would govern the world according to Islamic law. The group was founded in Jordan in 1953 and is banned in several countries, including Russia, Germany and some Arab states. The group opposes Hamas, which rules Gaza. (Source: AP/International Herald Tribune)
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s chief of staff, Yoram Turbowicz, submitted his resignation Thursday, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement. Turbowicz, one of the prime minister’s representatives in Israel’s indirect talks with Syria in Turkey, will stay on in a voluntary capacity as the prime minister’s special advisor until he leaves office. On Wednesday, Olmert announced that he will step down to make way for his successor after the Kadima party primary elections next month, in which he will not be a candidate. (Source: Ynet News)
“Israel and the peace process are awaiting the post-Ehud Olmert era,” the London-based Al-Hayat determined Thursday in the wake of the Israeli prime minister’s announcement that he would step down. Al-Hayat said Olmert’s move was likely to affect the continuation of the peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. (Source: Ynet News)
PA Prime Minister Salaam Fayad has asked the World Bank for emergency funding so that he can pay salaries to PA employees, PA officials in Ramallah said Wednesday. The Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction said this week that the PA had received only $900 million of the $7.7b. promised during the December 2007 Paris Donors’ Conference. PA officials said, “Most of the Arab countries are now setting conditions for providing us with financial aid. Some are saying that they will give us the money only after we end our differences with Hamas, while others are suddenly talking about the need for reforms and transparency.” (Source: Jerusalem Post)
U.S. diplomat William Burns, who joined envoys from other world powers for a July 19 meeting with Iran, hosted Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz on Thursday for routine bilateral consultations known as the “strategic dialogue.” Mofaz’s spokeswoman, Talia Somech, said, “He (Mofaz) urged the Americans to set firm conditions, such as a refusal to allow the Iranians to enrich uranium on their turf, and to be clear that the deadline must be preserved. The Iranians are simply looking for cracks to exploit.” Mofaz said that “all options against Iran should not only be on the table, but prepared,” Somech said. The State Department issued a statement after the meeting saying: “The United States and Israel share deep concern about Iran’s nuclear program, and the two delegations discussed steps to strengthen diplomatic efforts and financial measures to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapons capability….We also reaffirmed our strong mutual determination to counter Iran’s support for terrorism.” (Source: Reuters)
Iran on Thursday rejected any deadline to give its final response to a package drawn up by world powers seeking to end the nuclear crisis. Meanwhile the U.S. held back on Thursday from insisting on a strict deadline for Iran to give a final answer to the incentives package. “I didn’t count the days. It’s coming up soon,” said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack when asked if Saturday was the deadline for Iran to accept or reject the offer. Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili held talks with EU foreign policy envoy Javier Solana on July 19, at a meeting that was also attended by a top U.S. diplomat in a major policy shift by Washington. Solana said then that he expected an answer in a fortnight. (Source: AFP)
Joe Varner is Assistant Professor and Program Manager for Homeland Security at American Military University.
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