Category Archives: Al Qaeda

NEWS & EDITOR’S COMMENT: The new Cambodia?

U.S. considers new covert push within Pakistan
By Steven Lee Myers, David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt, New York Times, January 6, 2008

President Bush’s senior national security advisers are debating whether to expand the authority of the Central Intelligence Agency and the military to conduct far more aggressive covert operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

The debate is a response to intelligence reports that Al Qaeda and the Taliban are intensifying efforts there to destabilize the Pakistani government, several senior administration officials said.

Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a number of President Bush’s top national security advisers met Friday at the White House to discuss the proposal, which is part of a broad reassessment of American strategy after the assassination 10 days ago of the Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. There was also talk of how to handle the period from now to the Feb. 18 elections, and the aftermath of those elections. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — It’s never enough just to know what was said; we need to know who was talking.

This is a report that illustrates well the need for newspapers to limit their use of anonymous sources. The key to unlocking the article’s significance is knowing who was talking to the New York Times. On that basis we could attempt to understand the sources’ motives for making this information public. For instance, if the sources are intelligence officials we’d have reason to think they might be talking to the press in an effort to kill a harebrained plan before it gains momentum. If on the other hand the sources are inside the White House, then we’d have to wonder whether a political agenda was trumping the need for operational security. Myers, Sanger, and Schmitt should know the answer, but of course their sacred duty to protect the confidentiality of their sources prevents them from adding meaning that currently only they are in a position to discern. Still, why call it reporting if the reporter is only willing to tell part of the story?

What’s more important? That the New York Times is able to protect the privilege of its access to those in power, or that it uses all its means to hold those in power accountable to the people they represent?

Since the Grey Lady is so firmly wedded to its institutional authority, what can we do but go back to parsing the Times as though we were reading Pravda.

This is what I’m able to glean. President Bush, who was in the White House on Friday, did not attend the meeting. The key players at the meeting are named in the article and since they didn’t include Bush, it seems reasonable to infer he wasn’t there. Too busy? We do know for sure that Defense Secretary Gates wasn’t there, so it looks like this was Cheney’s meeting.

Midway through the article, our steely reporters toss in an idle piece of speculation about why the discussions in the White House were taking place: “In part, the White House discussions may be driven by a desire for another effort to capture or kill Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri.” Does this mean that the Times was told by its sources, this was the main reason for the discussions, but you can’t attribute that to your sources, or was this just some journalistic day-dreaming? Let’s assume the former. And if that’s the case, this discussion may have more to do with domestic American politics than a desire to bring stability to Pakistan.

Perhaps the most revealing lines in the report are these: “The Bush administration has not formally presented any new proposals to Mr. Musharraf, who gave up his military role last month, or to his successor as the army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who the White House thinks will be more sympathetic to the American position than Mr. Musharraf…. But at the White House and the Pentagon, officials see an opportunity in the changing power structure for the Americans to advocate for the expanded authority [of the CIA] in Pakistan, a nuclear-armed country.” In this changing power structure, the administration’s focus remains unchanged: its interest in working more closely with Pakistan’s military than with its civilians. At the same time, the administration appears to want to communicate indirectly with Pakistan’s military by getting its ideas floated in the press. Is this a case of putting the word out to see if it provokes civil unrest?

It’s starting to sound like Cheney might be on the war path again. Iran is off the table, but maybe Pakistan will provide the CIA with an opportunity to help the administration pull its chestnuts out of the fire before November ’08. If they haul in or kill America’s most-wanted men, the presidential race might be nudged back onto national security, and maybe Bush and Cheney won’t go down in history as the men who destroyed the Republican Party.

Could Pakistan go up in flames in the process, al Qaeda’s leaders elude capture and the war in Afghanistan expand into a full-fledged regional war? These are all risks the vice president might be willing to take.

But I digress. The reporters at Pravda — I mean the Times — could do a bit more to enlighten us, couldn’t they?

NEWS & EDITOR’S COMMENT: Sibel Edmonds claims nuclear secrets have been sold

For sale: West’s deadly nuclear secrets
The Sunday Times, January 6, 2008

A whistleblower has made a series of extraordinary claims about how corrupt government officials allowed Pakistan and other states to steal nuclear weapons secrets.

Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency’s Washington field office.

She approached The Sunday Times last month after reading about an Al-Qaeda terrorist who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in Turkey.

Edmonds described how foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the support of US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions.

Among the hours of covert tape recordings, she says she heard evidence that one well-known senior official in the US State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan.

The name of the official – who has held a series of top government posts – is known to The Sunday Times. He strongly denies the claims. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — According to Australia’s Luke Ryland (via The Brad Blog), the “well-known senior official” is Marc Grossman. For detailed background on Sibel Edmond’s efforts to make her story known, see David Rose’s Vanity Fair article from 2005, An inconvenient patriot.

NEWS & OPINION: The liability of dictatorship

False messiah of Pakistan
By William M. Arkin, Washington Post, December 31, 2007

Whether Benazir Bhutto was killed by a bullet to the head, shrapnel or a blow that resulted as her driver sped away from the scene, the challenge for the United States remains the same: how to pursue U.S. interests and the cause of international security in a country virtually everyone now labels “the most dangerous place on earth.”

Conventional wisdom goes that the terrorism threat is so great, with Pakistan just a hair’s breadth away from breakdown and nuclear chaos, that the U.S. must defer to the dictator in Islamabad to hold it all together. But the reality is that Bin Laden’s “al-Qaeda” is not the primary domestic or international threat in Pakistan, the nuclear arsenal is not that vulnerable, and relying on General Pervez Musharraf to deliver security and stability means continuing a failed policy. It’s time to change course. [complete article]

Elections face possible delay as Pakistani tensions grow
By Jane Perlez, New York Times, December 31, 2007

The most experienced opposition politician in Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, upped the ante in the coming confrontation with the ruling party on Monday, calling for President Pervez Musharraf’s immediate resignation and the formation of a government of national consensus.

The attack, the most stinging public rebuke of the president from Mr. Sharif since his return from exile, was delivered amid strong indications that the government would postpone elections scheduled for Jan. 8 because of the chaos following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the other leading opposition leader.

While the government will not decide officially until Tuesday, officials with the Pakistani election commission said the voting would probably be delayed until the end of January or early February, despite Washington’s entreaties to hold it as scheduled. [complete article]

See also, Delayed election will be disaster for Musharraf (Zahid Hussain).

Pakistan may not make it
By Peter Galbriath, The Guardian, December 31, 2007

Since Musharraf has certainly read the handwriting on the wall and yet still intends to stay in power, there is not much foreign leaders can do, in effect, to encourage his departure. Many Pakistanis – and most Sindhis – believe Musharraf and the army had a role in the Bhutto killing, which took place in a garrison city. Musharraf cannot be trusted to conduct an impartial investigation of the murder of his top rival. He has sacked Pakistan’s independent-minded judges and imprisoned its lawyers.

The US and Britain should take the lead in demanding a UN investigation: the facts in this case are every bit as compelling as those that led the UN to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Harriri. The Bhutto killing is tearing Pakistan apart. A UN investigation can help calm passions, but only the permanent departure of the army from power can provide a hope – and it is only a hope – of saving the country. [complete article]

New questions arise in killing of ex-premier
By Jane Perlez, New York Times, December 31, 2007

New details of Benazir Bhutto’s final moments, including indications that her doctors felt pressured to conform to government accounts of her death, fueled the arguments over her assassination on Sunday and added to the pressure on Pakistan’s leaders to accept an international inquiry.

Athar Minallah, a board member of the hospital where Ms. Bhutto was treated, released her medical report along with an open letter showing that her doctors wanted to distance themselves from the government theory that Ms. Bhutto had died by hitting her head on a lever of her car’s sunroof during the attack.

In his letter, Mr. Minallah, who is also a prominent lawyer, said the doctors believed that an autopsy was needed to provide the answers to how she actually died. Their request for one last Thursday was denied by the local police chief. [complete article]

EDITORIAL: The knot of uncertainty tightens

Who knows?
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, December 30, 2007

“Benazir Bhutto was so fearful for her life that she tried to hire British and American security experts to protect her,” The Sunday Telegraph reveals. Her entourage even approached Blackwater. They might have been able to protect her life but they would have destroyed her image. She was even directly receiving confidential U.S. intelligence about militant threats to her life. The intelligence was clearly inadequate.

Whenever a dramatic and unexpected event occurs, some journalists try and find out what happened, how it happened, and why it happened. Many more pick up the phone and hunt down some well-respected “expert” who’s only too happy to pump some certainty into a mighty void. Bruce Riedel, a former defense and intelligence official and currently senior fellow at the Brookings Institute is just such a person. The day Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, Riedel was quick to assert that this “was almost certainly the work of al-Qaeda or al-Qaeda’s Pakistani allies.” How did he know? He didn’t, but how many news editors would find fault in quoting the opinion of a Brookings sage? Three days later, many of the fast-talking experts are now starting to sound a bit foolish — Riedel’s own certainty quickly backed off into a “hunch” — so the only expertise still worth noting is that which underlines the uncertainty rather than makes the pretense of knowledge. Only now are the papers finding column space for a more considered and circumspect analysis. From an assassination which supposedly had “al Qaeda” written all over it, the signature is now acknowledged as being quite hard to decipher. As the Los Angeles Times notes:

Several analysts said the use of a handgun in addition to explosives is a departure for militant groups in Pakistan. “This is not by any means a signature killing by Al Qaeda,” security analyst Nasim Zehra said. “A targeted shooting, even in combination with a familiar suicide bombing, makes it look more like a political killing than one by some militant group.”

While facts remain hard to come by, a number of possibly useful observations can be made. Western politicians want to characterize Bhutto’s death in symbolic terms — this was an attack on democracy, an attack on the freedom and power of Muslim women, or some such pernicious act. But to see that as the effect is not to discern the intent. Much more likely this was first and foremost a successful attempt to prevent Bhutto becoming prime minister. This was indeed a political assassination and suspicion should fall first on those whose power is threatened rather than on those whose ambitions are expanding.

The jihadist signature was that the attackers gave up their lives, but it now seems unclear that that was the intent of the gunman. The fact that he wore dark glasses at least suggests that he might have entertained the hope that he was going to make a getaway. What his handlers hadn’t told him was that as soon as he completed his mission, a jihadist foot soldier — unknown to the gunman — was going to make sure that the assassin would never tell his tale.

As for what we can now say about the Bhutto family, the perpetuation of the dynasty and of the Benazir legend are upper most in their minds. The mystery surrounding her death provides yet more grist to their political mill.

Will we ever know the identity of the gunman in shades? Was he driven by dreams of an Islamic state or did he perhaps see himself as a latter day Carlos the Jackal?

EDITORIAL: The cover-up

The cover-up
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, December 29, 2007

If the Pakistani government is not engaged in a cover-up, they’re certainly doing a good job of making it look like a cover-up. First the crime scene was immediately hosed down removing any evidence. Then, after Benazir Bhutto had been pronounced dead, there was no autopsy. Then, after it had been widely reported that she had died from gun shot wounds, the Pakistan Interior Ministry claimed that she had not been shot — that she had died from a fractured skull resulting from her head hitting a lever.

But now Sherry Rehman, a close aide to Bhutto who bathed her body after her assassination, says, “There was a bullet wound I saw that went in from the back of her head and came out the other side.” And following the verbal testimony now we have the visible evidence: the image of a young man aiming a pistol at Bhutto moments before she died.

Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema, says, “This is not an ordinary criminal matter in which we require assistance of the international community. I think we are capable of handling it.” And the White House demurely says, “If Pakistani authorities ask for assistance we would review the request.” In Washington and Islamabad there seems to be much more interest in chanting the al Qaeda mantra than in finding out who was really behind the assassination.

NEWS: Bhutto’s party: Qaeda story being used as a diversion

Bhutto aides question militant link to killing
AP, December 29, 2007

An Islamic militant group said Saturday it had no link to Benazir Bhutto’s killing and the opposition leader’s aides accused the government of a cover-up, disputing the official account of her death.

The government stood firmly by its account of Thursday’s assassination and insisted it needed no foreign help in any investigation.

“This is not an ordinary criminal matter in which we require assistance of the international community. I think we are capable of handling it,” said Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema.

Bhutto’s aides said they doubted militant commander Baitullah Mehsud was behind the attack on the opposition leader and said the government’s claim that she died when she hit her head on the sunroof of her vehicle was ”dangerous nonsense.”
[…]
Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party accused the government of trying to frame Mehsud, saying the militant — through emissaries — had previously told Bhutto he was not involved in the Karachi bombing.

“The story that al-Qaida or Baitullah Mehsud did it appears to us to be a planted story, an incorrect story, because they want to divert the attention,” said Farhatullah Babar, a spokesman for Bhutto’s party.

After the Karachi attack, Bhutto accused elements in the ruling pro-Musharraf party of plotting to kill her. The government denied the claims. Babar said Bhutto’s allegations were never investigated. [complete article]

EDITORIAL: Who killed Benazir Bhutto?

Who killed Bhutto?
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, December 28, 2007

The fact that al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for assassinating Benazir Bhutto really means nothing. After all, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, al Qaeda’s liason to the Taliban, can be confident that the Pakistani government is not going to deny his claim. Indeed, Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema told a news conference today, “We have intelligence intercepts indicating that al Qaeda leader Baitullah Mehsud is behind her assassination.” (The Interior Ministry also claims Bhutto was not shot!) Bhutto herself believed that Mehsud might have been behind the October bombing from which she escaped unscathed soon after her return to Pakistan. Mehsud had been quoted in the Pakistani press as having promised to “welcome” Bhutto with a suicide bombing. What received less attention was that the Waziristan tribal leader denied making any such threats to Bhutto. As Rahimullah Yusufzai reported in The News on October 18:

Though it is clear that Baitullah Mehsud hasn’t threatened Benazir Bhutto with suicide bombing, one should keep in mind that anyone intending to launch such an attack would not brag about it publicly. Benazir Bhutto has provoked the militants and Jihadis with some of her recent pro-US and anti-al-Qaeda and anti-Taliban statements and one should, therefore, not rule out the possibility of suicide bombings targeting her. But that could happen once she is in power and has the authority to order military operations against the militants. At present, she doesn’t possess the authority to cause harm to the militants and it appears that the latter would prefer to wait and see as to how she acts once she is in power.

Political pragmatism might not be what one would expect from an Islamic extremist, but tribal leaders such as Mehsud, even though they impose a harsh form of Islamic rule should be seen as territorial commanders. As such, they are not averse to deal-making. Whatever promises Bhutto might have made to her American friends, Mehsud and his allies would have had good reason to adopt a wait-and-see approach rather than follow the script that says that Bhutto, the Western-friendly, democratic Muslim woman, would, once in office, remain an implacable foe. After all, as prime minister of Pakistan she once led one of only three governments in the world that recognized the Taliban government of Afghanistan.

What is interesting about the Interior Ministry’s claim about Meshud’s involvement in Bhutto’s assassination is that although Bhutto herself lent credence to the claim by connecting Meshud with the October bombing, she also named others — names that we can be sure no Interior Ministry spokesman will ever link to her assassination: former Chief Minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi, former ISI chief Hamid Gul, Hassan Afzal, former Deputy Chairman of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), and Intelligence Bureau chief Brig (Retd) Ijaz Shah. Given that only a matter of weeks ago, Bhutto saw these men as a threat to her life, it appears a bit premature for so many analysts to have confidently concluded that al Qaeda is the culprit.

See also, Bhutto said she’d blame Musharraf if killed (CNN) and Who killed Benazir? (Noah Shachtman).

OPINION: Replacing Bhutto

The dangerous void left behind
By Ahmed Rashid, Washington Post, December 28, 2007

[Benazir Bhutto’s] longest-running battle was not with the extremists but with the army, whose leaders never trusted her. She was too secular, too worldly and perhaps too wise. Bhutto was killed leaving a political rally in Rawalpindi, just two miles from where her father, prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, was hanged by another military dictator 30 years ago. The tragedy of the Bhutto family — her brothers also died violently, one poisoned, one shot, and her husband spent seven years in prison — has become part of the saga and struggle by Pakistanis to create a viable democratic, modern state.

Yesterday, her party’s stalwarts were on the streets, accusing Musharraf and the military of perpetrating the latest murder of a Bhutto. That is extremely unlikely, not least because last night the government itself was in despair.

The classic use of a sniper to cut her down as at least one suicide bomber blew up her vehicle bore the hallmarks of a Pakistani suicide squad expertly trained by the al-Qaeda terrorists who are ensconced in northwest Pakistan.

Her death only exacerbates the problems Pakistan has been grappling with for the past few months: how to find a modicum of political stability through a representative government that the army can accept and will not work to undermine, and how to tackle the extremism spreading in the country.

If the elections are canceled, it is imperative that Musharraf drop his single-minded desire for power and establish a national government made up of all the country’s leading politicians and parties. Together, they may agree on how to conduct an orderly election while trying to beat back the specter of extremism that is haunting this benighted land. But Musharraf may not survive the fallout of Bhutto’s death. His actions have not been honorable, and none of the political opposition is willing to sit down with him. It is unlikely that they will accept Musharraf’s continued presidency.

If rioting and political mayhem worsen, if the opposition refuses to cooperate with Musharraf and the United States finally begins to distance itself from him, then the army may be forced to tell Musharraf to call it a day. If that happens, it will be even more imperative that the world supports a national government, elections and a speedy return to civilian rule — and not another military dictatorship. [complete article]

Editor’s note: The following two articles were published a week before Benazir Bhutto’s assassination.

Aitzaz Ahsan replacing Benazir Bhutto in Washington?
By Zaid Hamid, AhmedQuraishi.com, December 20, 2007

The United States is silently patronizing another candidate for the post of Prime Minister or Senate or opposition leader in the next Pakistani parliament.

He is Washington’s ‘back up man’ in Pakistan. He can replace Benazir Bhutto in case she tumbles on the way due to any reason. Aitzaz Ahsan is the next horse Washington and the CIA are betting their future on in Pakistan.

He has so far shown the required defiance to President Musharraf and is well projected within the U.S. administration as well as in the media and liberal society in the country.

Why a ‘back up man’ for Mrs. Bhutto is becoming a necessity for Washington?

The answer is simple.

Mr. Musharraf has scuttled the “conspiracy” to throw him out of power, in which at least the U.S. media played a crucial role. Washington also exerted unbelievable pressures to ease Mr. Musharraf’s supposed replacement, Benazir Bhutto, in power in Islamabad. But that entire plan has been scuttled. And Mr. Musharraf is in fact consolidating his power. He might even end up having enough majority in the next parliament to change the constitution and transform Pakistan into a presidential democracy. From the American standpoint, Musharraf needs to be restrained, since his ouster does not seem possible for the time being.

Mr. Ahsan’s ambitions have extremely offended Mrs. Bhutto and her frustration is so obvious that it is even being noted on the streets. Mr. Ahsan remains part of PPP but the party leader continues to feel seriously threatened by him as he is now the next U.S. candidate to replace her in case she fails to deliver. [complete article]

Can a democrat like Mr. Aitzaz Ahsan answer these questions?
By Ahmed Quraishi, December 20, 2007

Mr. Aitzaz Ahsan, a Pakistani politician turned rights activist, is successfully pandering to an American audience that knows zilch about Pakistan, or about Mr. Ahsan’s own history. He can wow the Americans all he wants, but only we, the ordinary Pakistanis, know Mr. Ahsan’s undemocratic history within his own political party. Welcome again to Pakistan, where the hero-of-the-month is just another feudal politician fighting for his pie. [complete article]

See also, Anti-Bhutto army factions behind murder? (B. Raman), Sharif’s party to boycott elections (AP), and Nawaz Sharif holds Musharraf responsible for Bhutto killing (Indo-Asian News Service).

NEWS & OPINION: Pakistan bombing; Qaeda shift; nuclear vulnerabilities

Pakistan bombing toll rises above 50
By Laura King and Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times, December 22, 2007

As U.S. officials warned of a renewed focus by Islamic miliants on attacks in Pakistan, the death toll climbed above 50 on Friday in a suicide bombing that could herald a perilous election campaign and a harsh new confrontation between extremists and government forces.

Even at the close of a year that has seen dozens of suicide attacks across the country, Pakistanis were horrified by the circumstances of this one in Charsadda, in North-West Frontier Province. The attacker blew himself up in a mosque, killing and maiming worshipers as they gathered to mark one of the holiest days of the Muslim calendar. [complete article]

Gates warns of Al Qaeda shift
By Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times, December 21, 2007

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said today that Al Qaeda insurgents who were launching attacks in Afghanistan have now shifted their emphasis to Pakistan, increasing the threat in that nation.

Gates said the number of Al Qaeda insurgents and other fighters coming into Afghanistan from Pakistan was down about 40% in Regional Command East, the volatile section of the country controlled by U.S. forces.

Al Qaeda, Gates said, maintains its base in the loosely governed tribal areas on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan. But the Al Qaeda fighters, he said, were not focused on attacking Afghanistan from Pakistan. [complete article]

A nuclear site is breached
By Micah Zenko, Washington Post, December 20, 2007

An underreported attack on a South African nuclear facility last month demonstrates the high risk of theft of nuclear materials by terrorists or criminals. Such a crime could have grave national security implications for the United States or any of the dozens of countries where nuclear materials are held in various states of security.

Shortly after midnight on Nov. 8, four armed men broke into the Pelindaba nuclear facility 18 miles west of Pretoria, a site where hundreds of kilograms of weapons-grade uranium are stored. According to the South African Nuclear Energy Corp., the state-owned entity that runs the Pelindaba facility, these four “technically sophisticated criminals” deactivated several layers of security, including a 10,000-volt electrical fence, suggesting insider knowledge of the system. Though their images were captured on closed-circuit television, they were not detected by security officers because nobody was monitoring the cameras at the time.

So, undetected, the four men spent 45 minutes inside one of South Africa’s most heavily guarded “national key points” — defined by the government as “any place or area that is so important that its loss, damage, disruption or immobilization may prejudice the Republic.” [complete article]

NEWS: Viewing terrorism with a sense of proportion

Al-Qaeda ‘only one of many’ major security threats to UK
By Jamie Doward, The Observer, December 16, 2007

Britian’s outgoing intelligence chief believes there is a danger of exaggerating the threat posed by al-Qaeda at the expense of equally significant security issues, such as global warming.

Sir Richard Mottram, who has just stood down as Permanent Secretary in charge of Intelligence Security and Resilience, the body that advises the Prime Minister on the country’s response to emergencies, will use a lecture this week to call for individual citizens to play a new role in combating the risks associated with increasing globalisation.

Mottram, a career civil servant who, as chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, was responsible for evaluating the security threats posed to Britain, said there needed to be a ‘cultural shift’ to ensure the public played a broader role in making the country safe.

There was a danger, he said, of over-emphasising the spectre of international terrorism, which could play to al-Qaeda’s advantage and divide communities. [complete article]

NEWS: Al-Qaeda cell tried to assassinate Nasrallah

Report: Al-Qaeda planned hit on Hizbullah chief
By Roee Nahmias, Ynet, November 15, 2007

An al-Qaeda cell tried to assassinate Hizbullah Secretary-General Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah last summer, the Lebanese, Arab-language newspaper As-Safir reported Thursday.

According to the report, the Lebanese security services are currently conducting a vast investigation into al-Qaeda’s activities in Lebanon. Several al-Qaeda cell members have been arrested, and have admitted – among other things – to firing Katyusha rockets at Israel on several occasions.

The cells are also investigated in connection with a conspiracy to attack UNIFIL forces in southern Lebanon. The attack, which failed to materialize, was meant to look link the Hizbullah’s handiwork, deterioration further the fragile relations between the two.

Lebanese security services, said As-Safir, have uncovered three al-Qaeda cells operating in southern Lebanon. Search and seizure operation in the region further uncovered some 150 pounds of cyanide and other chemicals used to make explosive devices; several hundred pounds of explosive, said the report, have already been shipped back to Iraq. [complete article]

ANALYSIS & OPINION: There is no single story to al Qaeda

There’s no single story to al-Qaeda
By Jason Burke, The Observer, November 11, 2007

In the mountains of the Swat valley, in north western Pakistan, a militant cleric called Maulana Fazlullah has successfully carved himself a miniature version of a Taliban state. His most potent weapon has been his radio station. ‘It’s all about the message,’ one of his associates told me in Peshawar, the nearest city, last month.

Islamic militants around the world have long known this. ‘The battle will be fought in the media,’ said al-Qaeda’s chief strategist, Ayman al-Zawahiri. After a suicide bomb in Afghanistan last week killed women and children, Taliban spokesmen phoned correspondents within minutes to deny responsibility. The videos pouring out of al-Qaeda’s in-house production system may indeed be, as some optimistically say, a sign of operational weakness and a consequent reliance on propaganda, but they are still coherent and cleverly targeted and their strength is that they explain, in simple and unvarying terms, what the militants believe to be the cause of the violence: the supposed war on Islam by the West and their allies among heretic, apostate and hypocritical Muslims.

In contrast, media interventions by Western governments, militaries and security services tend to be flat-footed. Last week, a speech by the new head of MI5, Jonathan Evans, generated many headlines, largely frightening ones about al-Qaeda ‘grooming’ British youths and ‘more than 2,000’ dangerous individuals on our streets. Evans’s disappointment at this coverage was in some ways understandable, having made the effort to remind his audience of journalists that as ‘we are tackling a threat which finds its roots in ideology… we must pay close attention to our use of language’ and having pointed out that the more lurid coverage of terrorism made him ‘grit his teeth’. [complete article]

Engineers of Jihad
Crooked Timber, November , 2007

While looking for something entirely different (research on the Italian mafia), I just came across this absolutely fascinating new paper (pdf) by Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog on engineers and Islamic terrorism. There’s been a lot of speculation about the visible elective affinity between education in certain technical disciplines and propensity to join Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, none of which has stopped some loons from claiming that the jihadists were led astray by trendy leftist post-modernist academics in the humanities and social sciences. Gambetta and Hertog use a combination of illustrative statistics, qualitative data and logistic regression to show not only that there is a strong relationship between an engineering background and involvement in a variety of Islamic terrorist groups, but to arrive at a plausible hypothesis as to why this relationship pertains. [complete article]

NEWS & ANALYSIS: Changes in Hamas; Israel’s continued expansion

Hamas and al-Qaida: The prospects for radicalization in the Palestinian Occupied Territories
By Khalid Amayreh, Conflicts Forum, November 7, 2007

The rise of the Islamic Resistance Movement — Hamas — in the Palestinian Occupied Territories of the West Bank and Gaza provided a challenge for Israel and the West. Israel, the United States and the European Union have responded to this challenge by failing to differentiate Hamas from other and more radical Islamist movements and networks. That policy, which includes economic and political sanctions, now threatens to radicalize Palestinian society, pushing supporters of Hamas into the arms of al-Qaida and other salafist organizations. What are the prospects that — should the Hamas political program fail as a result of these sanctions — the Palestinian population will turn to more radical Islamist groups? [complete article]

IDF reservists: Hamas men fight like soldiers, not terrorists
By Amos Harel, Haaretz, November 8, 2007

Reserve-duty paratroopers who completed a month of duty in the Gaza Strip last week say that facing militant groups such as Hamas was like taking part in a “mini-war.”

During the patrol company’s operations deep in Palestinian territory, four Hamas militants and one Israel Defense Forces soldier, Sergeant-Major (Res.) Ehud Efrati, were killed. “The people we killed weren’t terrorists, they were soldiers,” an officer in the company told Haaretz.

“In a direct confrontation, the IDF has superiority over them, but in all parameters – training, equipment quality, operational discipline – we are facing an army, not gangs,” he said. [complete article]

Israel flouts pledge to curb settlements
By Richard Boudreaux, Los Angeles Times, November 8, 2007

Israel is enlarging 88 of its 122 West Bank settlements despite an agreement to halt the spread of Jewish communities in Palestinian territory, the watchdog group Peace Now said Wednesday.

A report by the group, which documented the construction of new homes with aerial photography and on-site visits, heated up the debate here over a key issue for the U.S.-sponsored peace summit planned by year’s end.

Israel wants to keep large blocks of settlements in a final peace accord, but the Palestinians demand the entire West Bank for a future state. Under a 2003 U.S.-backed plan known as the “road map,” Israel agreed to stop the expansion of settlements as a first step toward negotiations on final borders. [complete article]

NEWS: Bin Laden calls for unity among insurgents

New audiotape from Osama Bin Laden urges Iraqi insurgents to put aside divisions and unite
AP, October 22, 2007

Osama bin Laden has scolded his al-Qaida followers in Iraq and other insurgents, saying they have “been lax” for failing to overcome fanatical tribal loyalties and unite in the fight against U.S. troops.

The message of his new audiotape reflected the growing disarray among Iraq’s Sunni Arab insurgents and bin Laden’s client group in the country, both of which are facing heavy U.S. military pressure and an uprising among Sunni tribesmen.

In the brief tape played Monday on Al-Jazeera television, the terrorist leader urged militants to “beware of division … The Muslim world is waiting for you to gather under one banner.” [complete article]

NEWS: Qaeda link suspected in Pakistan blasts

Qaeda link suspected in Pakistan blasts
By Carlotta Gall, New York Times, October 23, 2007

The explosions aimed at the opposition leader Benazir Bhutto last week resembled attacks by Al Qaeda and their allied Pakistani militants and were the work of two suicide bombers, the provincial governor said in an interview.

Ishrat ul Ebad Khan, the governor of Sindh Province, said investigators have found the heads of two men that were not claimed by relatives and almost certainly belong to the bombers.

The explosions, detonated close to Ms. Bhutto’s fortified truck as supporters flocked to welcome her home after eight years of self-imposed exile, were the deadliest of more than 50 suicide attacks in Pakistan in recent years. [complete article]

OPINION: Portents of a nuclear al-Qaeda

Portents of a nuclear al-Qaeda
By David Ignatius, Washington Post, October 18, 2007

Rolf Mowatt-Larssen is paid to think about the unthinkable. As the Energy Department’s director of intelligence, he’s responsible for gathering information about the threat that a terrorist group will attack America with a nuclear weapon.

With his shock of white hair and piercing eyes, Mowatt-Larssen looks like a man who has seen a ghost. And when you listen to a version of the briefing he has been giving recently to President Bush and other top officials, you begin to understand why. He is convinced that al-Qaeda is trying to acquire a nuclear bomb that will leave the ultimate terrorist signature — a mushroom cloud.

We’ve all had enough fear-mongering to last a lifetime. Indeed, we have become so frightened of terrorism since Sept. 11, 2001, that we have begun doing the terrorists’ job for them by undermining the legal framework of our democracy. And truly, I wish I could dismiss Mowatt-Larssen’s analysis as the work of an overwrought former CIA officer with too many years in the trenches.

But it’s worth listening to his warnings — not because they induce more numbing paralysis but because they might stir sensible people to take actions that could detect and stop an attack. That’s why his boss, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, is encouraging him to speak out. Mowatt-Larssen doesn’t want to anguish later that he didn’t sound the alarm in time. [complete article]

NEWS & EDITOR’S COMMENT: The administration that hides the truth and gives away the secrets

Qaeda goes dark after a U.S. slip
By Eli Lake, New York Sun, October 9, 2007

Al Qaeda’s Internet communications system has suddenly gone dark to American intelligence after the leak of Osama bin Laden’s September 11 speech inadvertently disclosed the fact that we had penetrated the enemy’s system.

The intelligence blunder started with what appeared at the time as an American intelligence victory, namely that the federal government had intercepted, a full four days before it was to be aired, a video of Osama bin Laden’s first appearance in three years in a video address marking the sixth anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001. On the morning of September 7, the Web site of ABC News posted excerpts from the speech.

But the disclosure from ABC and later other news organizations tipped off Qaeda’s internal security division that the organization’s Internet communications system, known among American intelligence analysts as Obelisk, was compromised. This network of Web sites serves not only as the distribution system for the videos produced by Al Qaeda’s production company, As-Sahab, but also as the equivalent of a corporate intranet, dealing with such mundane matters as expense reporting and clerical memos to mid- and lower-level Qaeda operatives throughout the world.
[…]
One intelligence officer who requested anonymity said in an interview last week that the intelligence community watched in real time the shutdown of the Obelisk system. America’s Obelisk watchers even saw the order to shut down the system delivered from Qaeda’s internal security to a team of technical workers in Malaysia. That was the last internal message America’s intelligence community saw. “We saw the whole thing shut down because of this leak,” the official said. “We lost an important keyhole into the enemy.”
[…]
The founder of a Web site known as clandestineradio.com, Nick Grace, tracked the shutdown of Qaeda’s Obelisk system in real time. “It was both unprecedented and chilling from the perspective of a Web techie. The discipline and coordination to take the entire system down involving multiple Web servers, hundreds of user names and passwords, is an astounding feat, especially that it was done within minutes,” Mr. Grace said yesterday. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — When news about this video first appeared, there was something strangely juvenile about the way in which it was being billed as a sneak preview. It seemed like a taunt: na-na-na-na-na – al Qaeda can’t control its communications. And President Bush himself gave the clearest indication of the administration’s motive for giving bin Laden’s message some extra time in the news cycle during the run up to the 9/11 anniversary. “I found it interesting that on the tape Iraq was mentioned, which is a reminder that Iraq is a part of this war against extremists,” Bush said while speaking to reporters in Sydney. “If al-Qaeda bothers to mention Iraq, it is because they want to achieve their objectives in Iraq, which is to drive us out and to develop a safe haven.” It was another opportunity to revive the spurious 9/11-Iraq narrative.

NEWS: War on terrorism boosts al Qaeda

Report says war on terror is fueling al Qaeda
By Kate Kelland, Reuters, October 8, 2007

Six years after the September 11 attacks in the United States, the “war on terror” is failing and instead fueling an increase in support for extremist Islamist movements, a British think-tank said on Monday.

A report by the Oxford Research Group (ORG) said a “fundamental re-think is required” if the global terrorist network is to be rendered ineffective.

“If the al Qaeda movement is to be countered, then the roots of its support must be understood and systematically undercut,” said Paul Rogers, the report’s author and professor of global peace studies at Bradford University in northern England. [complete article]