An open source, around the world tour of international security-related news.
By Professor Joseph B. Varner
Global War on Terror
An official says police have killed five Taliban fighters in a gunbattle in southern Afghanistan. Abdullah Khan, who is the deputy police chief of Kandahar province, says the militants ambushed a police patrol in Panjwayi district Monday.
Khan says officers fired back and killed five of the attackers. He said no police were wounded. Southern Afghanistan is a focus for Taliban-led militants who are stepping up their campaign against the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai. (Source: AP)
Six years after being driven from power, the Taliban are demonstrating a resilience and a ferocity that are raising alarm here, in Washington and in other NATO capitals, and engendering a fresh round of soul-searching over how a relatively ragtag insurgency has managed to keep the world’s most powerful armies at bay. The mounting toll inflicted by the insurgents, including nine American soldiers killed in a single attack last month, has turned Afghanistan into a deadlier battlefield than Iraq and refocused the attention of America’s military commanders and its presidential contenders on the Afghan war. But the objectives of the war have become increasingly uncertain in a conflict where Taliban leaders say they do not feel the need to control territory, at least for now, or to outfight American and NATO forces to defeat them, only to outlast them in a region that is in any case their home. The Taliban’s tenacity, military officials and analysts say, reflects their success in maintaining a cohesive leadership since being driven from power in Afghanistan, their ability to attract a continuous stream of recruits and their advantage in having a haven across the border in Pakistan. The Taliban’s reclusive leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, a one-eyed cleric and war veteran, is widely believed by Afghan and Western officials to be based in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan Province in Pakistan, near the border with Afghanistan. He runs a shadow government, complete with military, religious and cultural councils, and has appointed officials and commanders to virtually every Afghan province and district, just as he did when he ruled Afghanistan, the Taliban claim. He oversees his movement through a grand council of 10 people, the Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahed, said in a telephone interview. Mullah Bradar, one of the Taliban’s most senior and ruthless commanders, who has been cited by human rights groups for committing massacres, serves as his first deputy. He passes down Mullah Omar’s commands and makes all military decisions, including how foreign fighters are deployed, according to Waheed Muzhta, a former Taliban Foreign Ministry official who lives in Kabul and follows the progress of the Taliban through his own research. The Taliban even produce their own magazine, Al Somood, published online in Arabic, where details of their leadership structure can be found. But while the Taliban may be united politically, the insurgency remains poorly coordinated at operational and strategic levels, said General David D. McKiernan, commander of the NATO force in Afghanistan. Taliban forces cannot hold territory, and they cannot defeat NATO forces in a direct fight. They also note that scores of senior and midlevel Taliban commanders have been killed over the past year, weakening the insurgents, especially in the south. Three senior members of the grand council were killed in 2007, and others have been detained. The military council has lost 6 of its 29 members in recent years. (Source: New York Times)
Police locked down Kashgar, cut Internet access in China’s westernmost major city and detained journalists after an attack yesterday by members of the Uighur ethnic group killed 16 officers, according to media reports. Web access was shut today in the city, Agence-France Pressereported, citing the staff of Yiquan Hotel, across the road from where yesterday’s attack occurred. Two reporters working for Japan’s Chunichi newspaper and Nippon Television Network were detained by police for two hours and beaten before being released, Kyodo English News said, citing the journalists’ employers.
(Source: Bloomberg.com)
Mortar shells slammed into a residential area in Somalia’s capital, killing at least 10 people, including a mother and her child, witnesses and a hospital official said Tuesday. The bloodshed Monday came as Ethiopian troops backing Somalia’s shaky government battled Islamic insurgents who have been fighting an Iraq-style guerrilla war for more than a year. Thousands of civilians have been killed. (Source: Washington Times)
Iraq
Roadside bombs killed two American soldiers and wounded a third Monday as their patrol drove through eastern Baghdad. The attack occurred at 9:30 a.m. in the mostly Shiite enclave of New Baghdad. Earlier this year, U.S. troops and Shiite militiamen of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army fought each other in and around the neighborhood. The U.S. military did not provide further details about Monday’s attack.
Last month, five American troops died as a result of combat in Iraq, by far the lowest monthly U.S. death toll since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. At least 4,130 members of the U.S. military have died in Iraq in the past five years. In other violence, a roadside bomb on Palestine Street, a busy thoroughfare in eastern Baghdad, killed two Iraqis, including a policeman, and injured 23. In the southeastern enclave of Dora, another roadside bomb targeted a police patrol, injuring two officers. In Diyala province, north of Baghdad, a roadside bomb detonated in the town of Khanaqin, killing two policemen and injuring three others. (Source: Washington Post)
Gunmen killed a senior leader of a U.S.-allied Sunni group and six of his guards in an ambush south of Baghdad, a group member said Tuesday. Roadside bombings also killed another person and wounded a dozen Tuesday, in a second consecutive day of bombings in the capital. Unknown gunmen attacked the convoy of Sheik Ibrahim al-Karbouli in Youssifiyah on Monday, said the group member who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fears for his own security. The sheik was a senior leader of the so-called awakening council in the town, which is a former Al Qaeda stronghold about 12 miles south of Baghdad. (Source: Seattle Times)
United States
The Pentagon said Monday it has shut down a secretive counter-intelligence outfit that aroused controversy over tracking the activities of anti-war groups. The so-called Counter-Intelligence Field Activity (CIFA) is being absorbed into a new Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) center that will be in charge of both espionage and counter-intelligence activities, the Pentagon said in a statement. CIFA was created under former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld in 2002 as a separate entity to conduct counter-intelligence efforts against suspected terrorists in the United States. It came under fire in December 2005 following disclosures that it had kept unverified surveillance reports of anti-war activists in a database. CIFA was empowered to conduct counter-intelligence investigations, but most of its operations remain classified. It reportedly grew to employ about 1,000 people. (Source: AFP)
The Army may begin paying a retention bonus of as much as $150,000 to Arabic speaking soldiers in reflection of how critical it has become for the US military to retain native language and cultural know-how in its ranks. Only one other job in the Army, Special Forces, rates such a super-sized retention bonus. Now, as the military makes a fundamental shift toward rewarding the linguistic expertise it needs the most, it is expanding a program to train and retain native Arabic and other speakers from the same regions in which it is fighting. After the invasion of Iraq and the insurgency that followed, the US military recognized its dearth of linguistic competence in the country it had just toppled, and it scrambled to identify Arabic and other linguists. (Source: CSM)
Bruce E. Ivins, the government’s leading suspect in the 2001 anthrax killings, borrowed from a bioweapons lab that fall freeze-drying equipment that allows scientists to quickly convert wet germ cultures into dry spores, according to sources briefed on the case. Ivins’s possession of the drying device, known as a lyopholizer, could help investigators explain how he might have been able to send letters containing deadly anthrax spores to U.S. senators and news organizations. The device was not commonly used by researchers at the Army’s sprawling biodefense complex at Fort Detrick, Md., where Ivins worked as a scientist, employees at the base said. Instead, sources said, Ivins had to go through a formal process to check out the lyopholizer, creating a record on which authorities are now relying. He did at least one project for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency that would have given him reason to use the drying equipment, according to a former colleague in his lab. (Source: Washington Post)
The evidence amassed by FBI investigators against Bruce Ivins, the army scientist who killed himself last week after learning that he would probably be charged in the anthrax letter attacks of 2001, was largely circumstantial, and a grand jury in Washington was planning to hear several more weeks of testimony before issuing an indictment. While genetic analysis had linked the anthrax letters to a supply of the deadly bacterium in Ivins’s laboratory at Fort Detrick, Maryland, at least 10 people had access to the flask containing that anthrax, the source said Sunday. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the investigation. Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation also have no evidence proving that Ivins visited New Jersey on the dates in September and October 2001 when investigators believe the letters were sent from a mailbox in Princeton. The source acknowledged that there might be some elements of the evidence of which he was unaware. And while he characterized what he did know about as “damning,” he said that instead of irrefutable proof, investigators had an array of indirect evidence that they argue strongly implicates Ivins in the attacks, which killed 5 people and sickened 17. (Source: IHT)
Secret evidence at the war crimes-trial of Salim Hamdan, Osama bin Laden’s driver, showed that Hamdan offered “critical details” to American forces “when it mattered most” in 2001, a defense lawyer said on Monday, during closing arguments at the first war crimes trial here. The defense lawyer, Lieutenant Commander Brian Mizer, suggested but did not explicitly say that Hamdan may have helped in the hunt for bin Laden, the Al Qaeda leader, or in some other vital operation during the early days of the war in Afghanistan, at a time when American forces were pursuing bin Laden. (Source: IHT)
An American-trained Pakistani neuroscientist with ties to operatives of Al Qaeda has been charged with trying to kill American soldiers and F.B.I. agents in a police station in Afghanistan last month, the Justice Department said Monday night. The scientist, Aafia Siddiqui, who studied at Brandeis University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was transferred to New York on Monday, and is to be arraigned Tuesday in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, the department said in a statement. Ms. Siddiqui, 36, disappeared with her three children while visiting her parents’ home in Karachi, Pakistan, in March 2003, leading human rights groups and her family to believe she had been secretly detained. But in interviews Monday and in a criminal complaint made public later Monday, American officials said they had no knowledge of Ms. Siddiqui’s location for the past five years until July 17, when Ms. Siddiqui and a teenage boy were detained in Ghazni, Afghanistan, after local authorities became suspicious of their loitering outside the provincial governor’s compound. (Source: New York Times)
Africa
The African Union said on Monday a move by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to indict Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for genocide and war crimes in Darfur was pouring “oil on the fire”. Africa’s top diplomat Jean Ping met Bashir and other officials in Khartoum and urged the U.N. Security Council to suspend the ICC investigation into the president to allow peace efforts to continue. Five years of war have brought humanitarian disaster to the western Sudan region, and campaigners accuse the world of failing to provide helicopters and other vital support for a struggling peacekeeping mission there. Some 9,500 mainly African troops are already deployed in a joint U.N.-AU peacekeeping effort (UNAMID), but U.N. bureaucracy and Sudanese delays have prevented the force from reaching its full strength of 26,000 troops and police. AU Peace and Security Commissioner Ramtane Lamamra said the force could reach 80 percent of its total by the end of 2009 if the international community showed goodwill towards the mission. (Source: Reuters)
Eight Darfur rebels convicted of terrorism offences for attacking the Sudanese capital have appealed against their death sentences, a member of the defence team said on Tuesday. Lawyer Muez Hadra also told Reuters they had lodged a case at Sudan’s highest Constitutional Court asking it to stay the execution orders on the basis that the special courts formed to try them contravened Sudanese laws. According to the rules of the special courts trying the rebels they have one week to make their only appeal against their sentencing before the execution order is signed by President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. The International Criminal Court last month moved to indict Bashir for genocide and war crimes in Darfur. Last week, three courts sentenced 30 accused rebels to death by hanging. (Source: Reuters)
Rwanda’s government is to reveal details of a report containing allegations of French involvement in the country’s 1994 genocide. The report is expected to contain the names of those alleged to be implicated and the accusations against them. Some 800,000 people were killed in just 100 days in the 1994 massacre. Earlier this year France’s foreign minister denied French responsibility in connection with the genocide, but said political errors had been made. (Source: BBC)
Americas
Ottawa is facing an uphill battle to carry out a promised purchase of $17-billion in new military equipment because of stringent U.S. security rules and ballooning costs caused by a series of delays, newly released documents show. According to Foreign Affairs briefing notes, the government is blaming U.S. security measures that limit the export of military technology to Canada, as American authorities fear some Canadian workers will engage in espionage. In addition, documents from National Defence show the government will either have to pay an extra $300-million in “overrun cost” to purchase a fleet of 16 Chinook helicopters, or settle for less equipment. The Harper government announced in 2006 that it was purchasing three new fleets of aircraft, three new ships and hundreds of new trucks for the Canadian Forces. However, only one new fleet of planes, the giant Boeing C-17s, is operational, while another fleet of Hercules C130J cargo planes is on order. In addition, documents released by the Department of Foreign Affairs reveal government fears that the purchase of military equipment “is in jeopardy” because of U.S. regulations called the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. Under ITAR, employees from about two dozen countries, including China, Vietnam, Cuba and Haiti, cannot work on U.S. defence contracts in Canadian facilities. The heavily redacted documents show the Canadian government was nervous when a Chinese Canadian was arrested in the United States in 2006 on charges of espionage, and got ready for questions from American officials on the matter. (Source: Globe and Mail)
Omar Khadr’s U.S. military defence lawyer will try this month to have charges against his client tossed out, launching what may be the final legal broadside against the U.S. government before the detained Canadian’s trial is expected to start in October.
Lieutenant-Commander Bill Kuebler has filed three motions with the Guantanamo Bay military commission seeking dismissal of charges based on what the military lawyer describes as exertion of “unlawful influence” over the commission. (Source: Globe and Mail)
Asia
Until recently, the sight of a Japanese warship steaming toward Chinese shores or of a Chinese aircraft swooping low over Taiwan would have provoked alarm across Asia.
But when Japan’s navy made its first Chinese port call since World War II and a Chinese charter plane ferried mainland tourists to neighboring Taiwan this summer, they were symbols not of China’s dangerous rivalries, but of the diplomacy that President Hu Jintao has used to defuse them. After two years of intensive and often secretive overtures, Taiwan and Japan, two neighbors long viewed as the most likely to face a military threat from a rising China have been drawn closer into its orbit. Improved relations have not only reduced the chances of a flare-up that could disrupt China’s turn as an Olympic host, but also helped showcase China’s frequent claims to be a new kind of global power that intends to rise on the world stage without engaging in military conflict. (Source: New York Times)
Cambodia on Tuesday demanded that Thailand pull its troops back from a second temple site along their border, the latest in a series of territorial claims and counterclaims that have prompted armed tensions between the Asian neighbors. The dispute surrounding the 13th century Ta Moan Thom temple started when Cambodian officials said some 70 Thai soldiers started occupying the temple site last week and prevented Cambodian troops from entering. Thai military officials countered that their troops had been in the area for years. (Source: AP)
Sri Lankan troops killed 27 Tamil Tiger rebels in fresh fighting in the country’s far north, the military said on Tuesday, as government forces continued their push against the rebels’ northern stronghold. The fighting came days after the military claimed they had entered the rebels’ de-facto capital in the north of the island, amid a daily barrage of land, sea and air attacks in rebel-held territories in that area. (Source: Reuters)
Europe
Kosovo’s authorities have named a former guerrilla fighter as defense minister. Officials say Fehmi Mujota, 45, was named Monday to head Kosovo’s Security Force. It is a lightly armed force that will have 2,500 active members and 800 reservists. An international plan that paved the way for Kosovo to declare independence from Serbia on Feb. 17 says the yet-to-be-formed force will initially be responsible for crisis response and civil protection. NATO leads around 16,000 peacekeepers and will remain in charge of security in Kosovo. (Source: AP)
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is calling for Russia to regain its influence with Cuba, a former Cold War ally of the Soviet Union, Russian news reports said Monday. The statement was made amid persistent speculation about whether Russia was seeking a military presence in a country just 150 kilometers, or 90 miles, from the United States in response to U.S. plans to place parts of a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. (Source: IHT)
NATO said on Tuesday it was not aware of any troop buildup by its ally Georgia in or near the country’s breakaway South Ossetia region and called on all parties to reduce tensions. Russia said on Tuesday it would not remain indifferent if violence escalated in South Ossetia, given the presence of Russian citizens there, Interfax news agency reported, quoting a Russian diplomat. NATO spokeswoman Carmen Romero said the alliance was closely following the situation. Russian has accused Georgia of using excessive force in South Ossetia, but Romero said NATO was “not aware of any troop concentrations by Georgia in or near South Ossetia”. (Source: Reuters)
Middle East
The Palestinian Authority has dismissed 1,000 police and security officers suspected of being affiliated with Hamas, on the backdrop of fears that the recent clashes in Gaza would spread to the West Bank. A PA commission of inquiry into Hamas’ 2007 takeover in Gaza found that at least one-third of the PA security officers there served as Hamas agents. (Source: Ynet News)
A smuggling tunnel under the Gaza-Egypt border collapsed on Friday, killing at least five Palestinians and wounding 18, Palestinian officials said Saturday. Since the beginning of the year, 27 Palestinians have been killed in tunnel collapses. (Source: AP/Washington Post)
A Syrian general shot to death at a beach resort over the weekend was a top overseer of his country’s weapons shipments to Hezbollah, according to opposition Web sites and Arab and Israeli news media. Syria by late Monday had issued no reaction to widespread reports of the assassination of Brigadier General Mohammed Suleiman near the Syrian port city of Tartous on Friday night. Maher al-Assad, head of Syria’s Republican Guards and a brother of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, attended Suleiman’s funeral Sunday, the Reuters news agency said, citing unidentified sources. The Syrian president is on a state visit to Iran. His government enforces rigid secrecy about security matters. (Source: Washington Post)
Iran warned Monday that it could easily close a critical Persian Gulf waterway to oil shipments and said that it had a new long-range naval weapon that could sink enemy ships nearly 200 miles away. The warning, by the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, followed the weekend expiration of an informal deadline for Iran to respond to an offer of incentives from six world powers to stop enriching uranium. The United States, which has warships deployed in the Persian Gulf, has said new sanctions should be imposed on Iran for failing to respond to the deadline. On Monday, a State Department official said the six powers, the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany, had agreed to pursue new sanctions, but it remained unclear what they might be or which nations would take part. In comments carried by the semiofficial Iranian news agency, Fars, Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, the head of the Revolutionary Guards, said Iran was capable of imposing “unlimited controls” at the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, an important oil route. “Closing the Strait of Hormuz for an unlimited period of time would be very easy,” he was quoted as saying. “The Guards have recently tested a naval weapon which I can say with certainty that the enemy’s ships would not be safe within the range of 300 kilometers,” General Jafari was quoted as saying. “Without any doubt we will send them to the depths of the sea.” General Jafari gave no details about the type of weapon tested, but he said it was Iranian-built and “unique in the world.” (Source: New York Times)
An Iranian journalist convicted and sentenced to death on terrorism charges has been executed, the country’s judiciary said Tuesday. Yaghoob Mirnehad was executed Monday in the city of Zahedan after being sentenced to death earlier this year. (Source: AP)
Iranian Expediency Council Chairman Rafsanjani has announced that Iran is at the beginning of the first stage of nuclear fusion. He said that the West would again confront Iran for using nuclear fusion, but that “since we are still at the early stage they will not confront us (now).” He added that Iran must obtain advanced technologies in order to “break the monopoly of global powers over advanced technology.” (Source: MEMRI)
With a two-week deadline for an Iranian reply having passed over the weekend, senior diplomats of the five permanent UN Security Council member countries and Germany conferred by telephone and renewed their warning of further sanctions against Iran. State Department Spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said, “We agreed in the absence of a clear, positive response from Iran that we have no choice but to pursue further measures against Iran.” (Source: VOA News)
Joe Varner is Assistant Professor and Program Manager for Homeland Security at American Military University.
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