Category Archives: Issues

NYT reporter prevails in three-year fight over CIA leak

Bloomberg: New York Times reporter James Risen prevailed over the U.S. government in its three-year effort to force him to testify at trial about a confidential source as part of a CIA leak prosecution.

The request by prosecutors that Risen be dropped as a witness capped a longer battle to avoid revealing his sources. The fight reached the U.S. Supreme Court, focusing attention on the Obama administration’s aggressive pursuit of leaks. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder reacted to the controversy by issuing guidelines last year restricting the use of subpoenas and search warrants for journalists.

Risen told a judge Jan. 5 he wouldn’t answer questions that could help identify the sources for his report on a bungled Central Intelligence Agency program to give Iran false nuclear weapon development data.

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‘ISIS’ hackers love American folk-punk, don’t know the name of their own terror group

The Daily Beast: A group calling itself the Cyber Caliphate hacked the Twitter and YouTube accounts for the U.S. military’s Central Command on Monday. “I Love you ISIS,” the group posted atop CENTCOM’s Twitter page, along with threats to American soldiers and a cache of documents it claimed to have hacked.

But all is not what it seems with the cyber jihadis. Privately, defense officials told The Daily Beast they were skeptical that the hacking was conducted by ISIS but said it was too early to say who carried out the attack.

And there are early signs that the Cyber Caliphate may be more of a ruse than a group of hardline Islamic extremists. One of the seven Twitter accounts it followed was “Andrew Jackson Jihad,” a folk punk bank from the American Southwest.

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Experts cast doubt on Spiegel claim of Syrian nuclear facility

Christian Science Monitor: German news magazine Der Spiegel alleges that the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is operating a secret nuclear facility close to the Lebanese border.

Der Spiegel claimed on Saturday, citing the opinion of unnamed “western intelligence agencies,” that the Assad regime continues, with Iranian assistance, to seek a nuclear weapon more than seven years after Israel destroyed a covert Syrian nuclear reactor in the north-east of the country.

Nuclear weapons experts have voiced doubts about the claim. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Zarif dismissed the report as “ridiculous.”

The new alleged nuclear facility is located in a narrow valley, nine miles west of the town of Qusayr and only a few hundred yards north of the border with Lebanon, according to Der Spiegel.

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The birth of an international jihadi social movement?

Clint Watts writes: The jihadi movement may have finally become what its original luminaries always wanted it to be – and in Paris of all places. The amorphous connections between the Charlie Hebdo attackers, the Kouachi brothers – who attributed their actions to “al Qaeda in Yemen” – and kosher market attacker Amedy Coulibali – who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in a recently released online video – may reflect exactly what some early jihadi strategists intended: broad based jihad via a loose social movement. Terrorism researchers, obsessed with the writings of their academic adversary in jihad, Abu Musab al Suri, have for years suggested the social movement approach represented the ultimate vision of al Qaeda’s founding leadership.

This vision, however, does not seem to be shared by today’s al Qaeda chief, Ayman al Zawahiri, who for nearly a decade has sought to rein in the group’s disobedient affiliate in Iraq, which now also controls much of Syria in the guise of the Islamic State. Al Zawahiri also questioned the value of goofy self-recruits perpetrating attacks on behalf of al Qaeda without formal membership or direction from the group. Zawahiri’s resistance to freelance members may not be sufficient to quell the zeal witnessed by last week’s Charlie Hebdo attack. The manifestation of al Qaeda social movement theory may finally be realized by three forces: the growing development and global proliferation of social media, an unending call for jihad due to the intractable Syrian civil war, and the West’s failure to adapt to the wicked problem of non-state threats in a networked world.

Today’s jihadi threat, blended between al Qaeda and ISIS, networked by Facebook, and evolving based on conditions in hundreds of locations, produces attacks on three or more continents every day. On the surface this seems to indicate a stronger, unprecedented emerging jihadi threat to the West. Media coverage of the Charlie Hebdo attack and others suggest as much. We analysts and followers of jihadi activity, though, often give terrorists too much credit. Many, if not most, Western jihadis are deeply troubled souls, at times more confused about their intentions and motivations than we are – Omar Hammami, Zachary Chesser, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau are three of many such examples. Counterterrorism pundits, myself included, try to tease out order from chaos. But today’s counterterrorism landscape does not lend itself to such linearity. [Continue reading…]

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Obama gives speech on cybersecurity… @CENTCOM gets hacked

The Guardian reports: Barack Obama on Monday unveiled a slew of initiatives to improve Americans’ data security.

In a speech at the Federal Trade Commission, the president outlined proposals aimed at improving student data protection and protecting Americans’ financial health. They will, however, require approval from the Republican-majority Congress, which has already received three veto threats from the White House in less than a week in session.

“As we’ve all been reminded over the past year, including the hack of Sony, this extraordinary interconnection creates enormous opportunities but also creates enormous vulnerabilities for us as a nation,” Obama said.

Wired reports: Twitter and YouTube accounts belonging to the military’s US Central Command were hacked on Monday. Hackers supportive of the terrorist group Islamic State, also known as ISIS, took credit and issued a warning to the US military.

“AMERICAN SOLDIERS, WE ARE COMING, WATCH YOUR BACK. ISIS,” the hackers tweeted through the account for the US Central Command, which is the military command for the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia. The tweet included a link to a statement that read in part:

“While the US and its satellites kill our brothers in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan we broke into your networks and personal devices and know everything about you,” it read. “You’ll see no mercy infidels. ISIS is already here, we are in your PCs, in each military base. With Allah’s permission we are in CENTCOM now. We won’t stop! We know everything about you, your wives and children. U.S. soldiers! We’re watching you!”

The group also replaced the Twitter profile image with an image of a person wearing a black and white keffiyeh, and the text CyberCaliphate and “i love you isis.”

Forty minutes after the first hacked tweet, Twitter suspended the account.

According to news reports, the hackers also posted images of spreadsheets that purported to contain the home addresses and other contact information for retired US Army generals and other images purporting to be US military maps and plans. The Pentagon appeared to confirm the authenticity of the information, telling reporters that the exposed information was not classified and that the images came not from the government but from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. [Continue reading…]

The Washington Post adds: It is not clear whether the hackers are actually with the Islamic State, sympathizers with the militants, or simply pulling a prank on the Pentagon. But J.M. Berger, an analyst and non-resident fellow with the Brookings Institution, said there is reason to believe it could be someone affiliated directly with the Islamic State.

“ISIS has a team of hackers who are very deeply involved in ISIS the organization,” said Berger, author of the forthcoming book “ISIS: The State of Terror.”

“They have been practicing and recruiting for a while, and this has been going on for months and months,” Berger said.

But analysts added that just because the Islamic State hacked two social media accounts, it does not mean they threatened classified computer networks. Other hacker organizations, like the Syrian Electronic Army, have seized control of websites, and a group using the same “CyberCaliphate” name and photo seen in the hack against Centcom on Monday hacked the Twitter accounts of the Albuquerque Journal in New Mexico and the WBOC TV station in Salisbury, Md., last week.

“Let’s remember this is a social media account,” said Peter Singer, a strategist and analyst with the New American Foundation in Washington, of the attacks on Monday. “This is not a military command and control network. This is not a network that moves classified or even non-classified internal information back and forth. Essentially what they did is for several minutes take control of the megaphone.”

But Singer said the incident does amount to a public relations victory for the Islamic State, even if they were not directly involved. Embarrassing the U.S. government “is a feather in their cap in terms of pulling off something that other groups have not been able to do, no matter how silly it is at the end of the day.”

Whoever hacked the @CENTCOM account, there’s reason to doubt they are closely tied to ISIS — even though ISIS and its supporters will view this as a propaganda victory and make hyperbolic claims like “the landscape of jihad has changed.”

It turns out that the hackers posted pornographic photos:

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PEGIDA marchers in Dresden defy Germany politicians

BBC News reports: Thousands of protesters have gathered in Dresden for an anti-Islamisation rally called in the wake of the Paris terror attacks.

It came despite calls from senior German politicians for marchers to stay at home.

Justice Minister Heiko Maas had appealed for people not to attend the Pegida organisation’s rally.

And Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she will attend a protest in Berlin by Muslim organisations on Tuesday.

Mr Maas was one of several leading politicians to urge the Pegida march organisers not to “misuse” the deadly attacks on Charlie Hebdo magazine and a Jewish supermarket.

However the rally went ahead despite the calls for it to be cancelled.

Der Spiegel reports on the origin of the the anti-Islam movement: The proprietors of the Zentralgasthof, a concert and variety show venue in the town of Weinböhla in the Elbe River valley near Dresden, know what people of the region like. “Folk hits,” are part of their program as is a Dresden-based cabaret artist known for his imitations of Erich Honecker, the former leader of communist East Germany.

On a Friday evening last November, the stage was turned over to Thilo Sarrazin, the bestselling anti-Muslim author. Outside the entrance, some 50, mostly young demonstrators were gathered. They called Sarrazin a “misanthrope and a blusterer”; one poster read: “Those who believe what Sarrazin says also believe the world is flat.” But inside, there were 10 times as many people, cheering the author on as an iconoclastic thinker who has the courage to say what everyone feels. The audience was full of office workers, small businessmen and tradespeople. Normal folks.

Also in the audience were Siegfried Däbritz and Thomas Tallacker. They had both read Sarrazin’s wildly popular book “Deutschland Schafft Sich Ab” — or “Germany Is Doing Away With Itself” — about the supposed dangers of immigration. But they were no longer satisfied with simply reading about the issues addressed in the book. Late last autumn, Däbritz, a security guard, and Tallacker, an interior designer, began marching at the front of regular demonstrations held by the still largely unknown group calling itself Pegida, an acronym for “Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West.”

The two men are among Pegida’s foremost organizers: With eight others, they form the anti-Islam movement’s core and they regularly meet to talk about the group’s agenda and prepare the weekly marches, held every Monday evening. They also maintain contact with other protest groups across the country. Shortly before Christmas, they registered Pegida as an association. [Continue reading…]

BBC News reported on last month’s record turnout PEGIDA rally in Dresden:

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Charlie Hebdo: Why not mock Al Qaeda and ISIS?

IBT reports: The next issue of Charlie Hebdo will feature cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammed in the first copy of the satirical magazine to be published after the massacre of its cartoonists and other staff by terrorists enraged by previous cartoons of Islam’s most sacred figure.

Lawyers announced the typically combative move as they prepared a bumper issue of one million copies which will hit the news stands on Wednesday (14 January), exactly one week after gunmen claiming to be members of al-Qaeda stormed Charlie Hebdo’s Paris offices, killing 12 people.

“We will not give in to anything,” Charlie Hebdo’s lawyer, Richard Malka, told Le Figaro. “The spirit of ‘Je suis Charlie [I am Charlie] also means the right to blasphemy”.

I understand that the magazine refuses to cower in the face of the most extreme form of intimidation, but satire is a precision weapon. It won’t have the right effect if it’s aimed at the wrong target.

Last week, no one in Paris got killed by the Prophet Mohammed. France is not under attack from Islam.

The killers were nihilistic, egotistical, young hotheads who by their own declarations acted in the name of Al Qaeda and ISIS and whose actions were applauded by the supporters of these two groups.

Satirists short on ideas for skewering those who deserve to be mocked, only need to turn to social media where an endless supply of often funny and often tasteless parody can be found from the likes of @CaliphIbrahimAR and @ISIS_Med.

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The new spectacular terror attack

TSG IntelBrief: Recent unsophisticated attacks by individuals or very small groups of people have achieved what the original core of al-Qaeda (AQ) has failed to achieve for almost a decade: each of these lone wolves or wolf packs conducted a “spectacular” — the term AQ also used to describe a devastating attack along the lines of 9/11, the Madrid train bombing, or the London Tube attacks. The new attackers achieved this by simply changing the definition of “spectacular,” applying it to the reaction instead of the attack itself. The focus has shifted from a high casualty count to a high response count. These attacks involve planning but relatively little skill, and are never judged to be failures, meaning they are ripe for copycats.

How this came about is the result of the merging of several terrorism and geopolitical trend lines over recent years. To be certain, explosives remain the tactic of choice for terrorists in weak-state areas such as Yemen, Nigeria, Iraq, Syria, or places that border theses areas, such as northern Lebanon and southern Turkey. But in places with well-established counterterrorism (CT) and law enforcement capabilities, the trend is to avoid plots that involve complicated steps such as mixing, preparing, and transporting explosives in favor of small arms attacks that are extremely difficult to detect or deter and that result in inordinately large responses and reactions. [Continue reading…]

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Meanwhile, Gideon Levy receives a death threat

Gideon Levy writes: “The European Court for Anti-Semitic Crimes. Court Execution squad.

“Re: Proceedings against participants in anti-Israeli activities.

“The Court has been asked to look at the activities against Israel by Gideon Levy, journalist.

“Witness Number 1 showed the article ‘Lowest deeds from loftiest heights’ (Haaretz, July 15, 2014) … Chairman of the court: The court has been convinced that pro-Nazi propaganda has taken place. Once this has been proved, the court has no discretion whatsoever as to the verdict, therefore the above culprit is convicted to death. Given the amount of damage he created, his elimination should take place shortly. Death by ‘accident’: poison, wasps, snakes, viruses, etc.

“P.S: The Pulsa Denura court has no connection with the Israeli security systems … This court is chasing the enemies of Israel wherever they are and verdicts are carried out by the court’s execution squads … Please place this letter in several places in your offices.”

This letter, written in English, arrived last week at Haaretz, in an envelope mailed in Tel Aviv. This letter was not written by a Muslim. At the bottom was written: “Orange pips mean death.” Pips had been stuck to the other side of the letter.

A Sherlock Holmes story is called “The Five Orange Pips,” and revolves around a death-threat letter. This is not the first threat against an Israeli journalist, and not the last.

The attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine last week was preceded by death threats. The massacre came in its wake. It could happen here, too. Anyone who was shocked by the attack on the freedom of the press in France needs to examine what is happening in Israel. [Continue reading…]

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Give democratic Tunisia the U.S. support it needs and deserves

Vance Serchuk writes: Tunisia is rightly hailed as the lone success story of the Arab Spring: the only country that has threaded a path from the uprisings of 2011 to genuine multiparty democracy today. Yet the future of freedom in Tunisia is far from assured. With the election of a new parliament and president in recent weeks, the most important experiment in Arab democracy is entering a difficult and potentially perilous new phase — one in which greater U.S. support and attention are urgently needed.

Tunisians are quick to cite a litany of challenges that could still derail their transition, including an unreformed economy that generates too few jobs and a persistent threat from terrorist groups such as Ansar al-Sharia. There’s also the failed state next door in Libya, a volcano of Syria-like potential that threatens to kick up a cloud of instability over its neighbors.

Yet easily the most significant question facing Tunisia concerns its new elected leadership and its commitment to democratic principles, human rights and inclusive, tolerant governance. [Continue reading…]

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Paris march: RWB condemns presence of representatives of states that suppress press freedom

Reporters Without Borders welcomes the participation of many foreign leaders in today’s march in Paris in homage to the victims of last week’s terror attacks and in defence of the French republic’s values, but is outraged by the presence of officials from countries that restrict freedom of information.

On what grounds are representatives of regimes that are predators of press freedom coming to Paris to pay tribute to Charlie Hebdo, a publication that has always defended the most radical concept of freedom of expression?

Reporters Without Borders is appalled by the presence of leaders from countries where journalists and bloggers are systematically persecuted such as Egypt (which is ranked 159th out of 180 countries in RWB’s press freedom index), Russia (148th), Turkey (154th) and United Arab Emirates (118th).

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In France, there is not a Muslim community, but a Muslim population

Olivier Roy writes: The attack against the Paris satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo has re-launched an ongoing debate in France about the compatibility between Islam and the West. The issue is more fraught in Western Europe than in the United States because of the huge number of Muslims who are not only settled there, but who also have citizenship.

By a strange coincidence, on the same day of the deadly attack on Charlie Hebdo, we saw the long awaited release of the most recent novel by the bestselling French author Michel Houellebecq, titled “Submission.” The book imagines the victory of a moderate Muslim party in the 2022 French presidential and parliamentary elections.

The issue of the compatibility between Islam and French or Western political culture is no longer confined to the usual suspects: the populist right, conservative Christians or staunch secularists from the left. The issue has become emotional and now pervades the entire political spectrum. The Muslim population — which does not identify with the terrorists — now fears an anti-Muslim backlash.

Roughly speaking, two narratives are conflicting: the dominant one claims that Islam is the main issue, because it puts loyalty toward the faith community before loyalty to the nation, it does not accept criticism, does not compromise on norms and values and condones specific forms of violence like jihad. For the adherents of this narrative, the only solution is a theological reformation that would generate a “good” Islam that is a liberal, feminist and gay-friendly religion. Journalists and politicians are always tracking the “good Muslims” and summoning them to show their credentials as “moderate.”

On the other side, many Muslims, secular or believers, supported by a multiculturalist left, claim that radicalization does not come from Islam but from disenfranchised youth who are victims of racism and exclusion, and that the real issue is Islamophobia. They condemn terrorism while denouncing the backlash that could in turn radicalize more Muslim youth.

The problem is that both narratives presuppose the existence of a French “Muslim community” of which the terrorists are a sort of “vanguard.” [Continue reading…]

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Paris policeman’s brother: ‘Islam is a religion of love. My brother was killed by terrorists, by false Muslims’

The Guardian reports: Ahmed Merabet, the police officer gunned down in the Charlie Hebdo attack, was killed in an act of barbarity by “false Muslims” his brother said in a moving tribute on Saturday, where he also appealed for unity and tolerance.

Speaking for a group of relatives gathered in Paris, Malek Merabet said the terrorists who ignored his brother’s plea for mercy as he lay wounded on the street may have shared his Algerian roots, but had nothing else in common.

“My brother was Muslim and he was killed by two terrorists, by two false Muslims,” he said. “Islam is a religion of peace and love. As far as my brother’s death is concerned it was a waste. He was very proud of the name Ahmed Merabet, proud to represent the police and of defending the values of the Republic – liberty, equality, fraternity.”

Malek reminded France that the country faced a battle against extremism, not against its Muslim citizens. “I address myself now to all the racists, Islamophobes and antisemites. One must not confuse extremists with Muslims. Mad people have neither colour or religion,” he said.

“I want to make another point: don’t tar everybody with the same brush, don’t burn mosques – or synagogues. You are attacking people. It won’t bring our dead back and it won’t appease the families.” [Continue reading…]

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Muslim worker saved kosher store hostages

RFI reports: A Muslim employee saved the lives of hostages at the Paris kosher supermarket taken over by armed Islamist Amedy Coulibaly on Friday. His mother joined the family of slain police officer Ahmed Merabet in an appeal against Islamophobia and anti-Semitism in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attacks.

Between 15 and 20 hostages held in the Hyper Cacher supermarket on Friday owe their lives to one man: Lassana Bathily.

The 24-year-old Malian born grocery store employee was working when the assailant Amedy Coulibaly stormed in and he quickly took everyone downstairs to the cold store. [Continue reading…]

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In the new era of terrorism, Anwar al-Awlaki’s voice can still be heard

The New York Times reports: For more than five years now, as Western terrorism investigators have searched for critical influences behind the latest jihadist plot, one name has surfaced again and again.

In the failed attack on an airliner over Detroit in 2009, the stabbing of a British member of Parliament in London in 2010, the lethal bombing of the Boston Marathon in 2013 and now the machine-gunning of cartoonists and police officers in Paris, Anwar al-Awlaki has proved to be a sinister and durable inspiration.

Two of those four attacks took place after Mr. Awlaki, the silver-tongued, American-born imam who joined Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, was killed by a C.I.A. drone strike in September 2011.

In the age of YouTube, Mr. Awlaki’s death — or martyrdom, in the view of his followers — has hardly reduced his impact. The Internet magazine Inspire, which he oversaw along with another American, Samir Khan, has continued to spread not just militant rhetoric but also practical instructions on shooting and bomb-making.

Times reporters and editors are providing live updates from the march in Paris that comes in the wake of the attacks on a satirical newspaper and a kosher grocery last week.

In effect, Mr. Awlaki has become a leading brand name in the world of armed jihad. [Continue reading…]

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Evidence points to continued existence of Syrian nuclear program

Der Spiegel reports: According to intelligence agency analysis, construction of the facility began back in 2009. The work, their findings suggest, was disguised from the very beginning, with excavated sand being disposed of at various sites, apparently to make it more difficult for observers from above to tell how deeply they were digging. Furthermore, the entrances to the facility were guarded by the military, which turned out to be a necessary precaution. In the spring of 2013, the region around Qusayr saw heavy fighting. But the area surrounding the project in the mines was held, despite heavy losses suffered by elite Hezbollah units stationed there.

The most recent satellite images show six structures: a guard house and five sheds, three of which conceal entrances to the facility below. The site also has special access to the power grid, connected to the nearby city of Blosah. A particularly suspicious detail is the deep well which connects the facility with Zaita Lake, four kilometers away. Such a connection is unnecessary for a conventional weapons cache, but it is essential for a nuclear facility.

But the clearest proof that it is a nuclear facility comes from radio traffic recently intercepted by a network of spies. A voice identified as belonging to a high-ranking Hezbollah functionary can be heard referring to the “atomic factory” and mentions Qusayr. The Hezbollah man is clearly familiar with the site. And he frequently provides telephone updates to a particularly important man: Ibrahim Othman, the head of the Syrian Atomic Energy Commission.

The Hezbollah functionary mostly uses a codename for the facility: “Zamzam,” a word that almost all Muslims know. According to tradition, Zamzam is the well God created in the desert for Abraham’s wife and their son Ishmael. The well can be found in Mecca and is one of the sites visited by pilgrims making the Hajj. Those who don’t revere Zamzam are not considered to be true Muslims.

Work performed at the site by members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is also mentioned in the intercepted conversations. The Revolutionary Guard is a paramilitary organization under the direct control of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. It controls a large part of the Iranian economy and also plays a significant role in Iran’s own nuclear activities. Not all of its missions abroad are cleared with the government of moderate President Hassan Rohani. The Revolutionary Guard is a state within a state.

Experts are also convinced that North Korea is involved in Zamzam as well. Already during the construction of the Kibar facility, Ibrahim Othman worked closely together with Chou Ji Bu, an engineer who built the nuclear reactor Yongbyon in North Korea.

Chou was long thought to have disappeared. Some thought that he had fallen victim to a purge back home. Now, though, Western intelligence experts believe that he went underground in Damascus. According to the theory, Othman never lost contact with his shady acquaintance. And experts believe that the new nuclear facility could never have been built without North Korean know-how. The workmanship exhibited by the fuel rods likewise hints at North Korean involvement.

What approach will now be taken to Zamzam? How will the West, Assad and Syria’s neighbors react to the revelations?

The discovery of the presumed nuclear facility will not likely be welcomed by any of the political actors. It is an embarrassment for everybody. [Continue reading…]

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To combat terrorism, better community relations may help police more than greater surveillance powers

Mark MacKinnon writes: France already had some of Europe’s toughest anti-terrorism measures in place, yet its security services failed dramatically this week when confronted by a plot hatched between two brothers in the confines of their shared apartment on the outskirts of Paris. The hard truth is there’s often little a Western democracy – even one such as France that has been confronting radical Islamist attacks for decades – can do to stop such a small cell from carrying out its plan until it is already unfolding.

Even as gunfire echoed through Dammartin-en-Goële and in the eastern fringe of Paris where a second, linked shootout took place, experts here were bemoaning the security services’ heavy focus on surveillance powers, and the seeming absence of old-fashioned good relations between police and the Muslim communities in the suburbs, or banlieues, which surround the French capital. While “counter-terrorism” will be the talk of the days ahead, stepped up efforts to integrate and deradicalize young Muslims must follow.

“These people, they don’t drop from the sky,” said Daniel Koehler, an expert on deradicalization in Berlin who has spent years counselling families how to dissuade relatives from the path of extremism. “Even if they are lone actors, they leave tracks, they interact with other people.”

A reconstruction of the lives of Saïd and Chérif Kouachi makes it clear, in hindsight, that better co-operation – and trust – between police and the Muslim community in the middle-class Paris suburb of Gennevilliers would have gone further in revealing what the brothers were planning than any additional surveillance measures.

The brothers were known locally for their overt displays of religiosity, as well as their loud opposition to the French state. Interviews conducted in Gennevilliers this week by The Globe and Mail revealed that [at] least some of their neighbours had been aware as long as two months ago that the Kouachi brothers (and another man and woman who shared an apartment with them) were stockpiling weapons.

Those anecdotes – had they been passed to police – make a compelling case for intervention when combined with other, publicly known facts about the two brothers. Chérif was convicted on terrorism charges in 2008, and both brothers were later named in court in relation to a 2010 plot to break the mastermind of the deadly 1995 Paris metro bombings out of jail. [Continue reading…]

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Charlie Hebdo and the right to be offended

Karl Sharro writes: As a satirist who focuses on the Middle East, I’ve bumped up against my share of boundaries. Two years ago, for example, I struggled with how to satirize the tendency of some Western observers to distort conflicts in the Middle East by attributing those conflicts to “ancient rivalries” rather than, say, contemporary political struggles. Ultimately, I decided that the best approach would be to push that logic to its absurd conclusion by writing a “tribal” guide to the region, which relied on familiar stereotypes about Sunnis, Shiites, Jews, and others. I hoped readers would understand that these caricatures were meant not to be crude and bigoted, but rather to show how disconnected the ancient-rivalries thesis is from reality. And readers did understand—for the most part. This ability to test the boundaries of good taste, and even to be offensive, is essential to effective satire. But it’s now under threat.

Following the attack on Charlie Hebdo’s offices in Paris and the cold-blooded murder of 12 people, a familiar refrain rang out in some quarters. The assault on the satirical magazine, so the argument went, represented a collision of cultures: a Western one that champions freedom of speech and an Islamic one that does not tolerate offenses to its religious symbols. But one of the real storylines here isn’t some clash of civilizations; it’s the steady erosion of freedom of expression and the rise of the right to be offended—in the West as well as other parts of the world.

The culture-clash interpretation of the horror in Paris transcends political divides in the West. On the right, some claim that Muslims’ beliefs are incompatible with modernity and Western values. On the left, some construe the attack as a retaliation for severe offenses, essentially suggesting that Muslims are incapable of responding rationally to such offenses and that it is therefore best not to provoke them. The latter explanation is dressed up in the language of social justice and marginalization, but is, at its core, a patronizing view of ordinary Muslims and their capacity to advocate for their rights without resorting to nihilistic violence. This outlook also promotes the idea that Muslims and other people of Middle Eastern origin are defined primarily by their religion, which in turn devalues and demeans the attempts of Arab and Middle Eastern secularists to define themselves through varying interpretations of religion or even by challenging religion and its role in public life. By seeking to present religion as a form of cultural identity that should be protected from offense and critique, Western liberals are consequently undermining the very struggles against the authority of inherited institutions through which much of the Western world’s social and political progress was achieved. [Continue reading…]

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