The only way to reach Viper Company of the 26th Regiment, First Infantry Division, is by helicopter. When I fly in, Capt. Jimmy Howell greets me. "I'm holding a shura [meeting of village elders]," he says. "We won't be shot at until they leave." The steep-sided Korengal Valley, 70 miles northeast of Kabul, is the scene of the war's fiercest fighting, claiming 57 American lives over the past three years.
Sure enough, an hour after the elders leave the shura, 30-millimeter shells strike the outpost. Cpl. Marc Madding, an Afghan army adviser, begins firing .50 caliber rounds at the enemy position, laughing as an Afghan soldier scurries from the latrine with shells bursting behind him. Capt. Howell adjusts mortar and artillery shells on the hillside, followed by an A-10 aircraft dropping 250-pound bombs. It's another afternoon in the Korengal, the hot spot in a district that's recorded some 1,990 similar engagements since mid-2005.
Overwhelming American firepower forced the wily fundamentalist insurgents to maintain a respectful distance. A few days earlier, an enemy unit had let down its guard and lost 15 combatants to a well-staged American ambush. Most of the fundamentalists killed were from villages that frequently receive food and medical aid from the U.S. Army outpost. The following day, an American soldier was killed outside a nearby village.
In what Rudyard Kipling called "the arithmetic of the frontier," fundamentalism and tribal hostility fuel persistent attacks, year after year, here in the Korengal. It's not well known stateside, but the Taliban are just one of many fundamentalist gangs waging war against our forces here. Like the U.S. Cavalry fighting the Apaches in the 19th century, it is problematical whether the Americans should push deeper into this treacherous valley or simply bottle up the local fighters.
Whatever the strategy in the Korengal, the broader war across eastern Afghanistan is showing signs of progress. Maj. Gen. Jeffrey J. Schloesser, commanding Joint Task Force 101, has deployed his forces in a 300-mile swath that runs from south of Kabul northeast to the Pakistan border. Partnered with Afghan units in over 100 patrol bases along the populated river valleys, JTF 101 has driven the fundamentalist fighters back into the hills and blocked the infiltration routes from Pakistan. The price for an AK-47 rifle smuggled in from Pakistan has doubled in the past four months. For Maj. Gen. Schloesser, the art of command hinges on applying sufficient power to prevent sanctuaries inside the remote valleys without diverting too much power from the populated areas. The restrained military goal is to control the majority of the population around Kabul and to the east, not to pacify the entire region.
The next challenge is to gain control over the southern portion of the country. In the next few months, 10,000 American soldiers and marines will join NATO forces down south. The steady gains by JTF 101 showed that enemy fighters are not fanatics determined to die. Similarly, by the fall the Taliban will be driven back from the populated areas in the south, as they have been in the east.
But as long as Pakistan is a sanctuary, U.S. forces here will be on the strategic defensive, no matter how skillful their military tactics. We can't stay forever. The basic question is: How to consolidate the battlefield gains? That depends upon how the mission is defined. President Barack Obama has avoided promising to build a vibrant democratic nation. "The achievable goal," he said recently, "is to make sure it [Afghanistan] is not a safe haven for terrorists." Such a minimalist policy can be achieved in one of two ways.
The first is to apply the classic counterinsurgency model: After the military push the enemy from a populated area, the police take over, while government appointees provide honest governance and basic services. This approach pursues the expensive nation-building that Mr. Obama has not endorsed. It requires thousands of additional police trainers and hundreds of civilian advisers in the districts. These advisers also serve as watchdogs against corruption, acting as a shadow government to restrain officials prone to skimming and payoffs. It's a sound approach that is slow and expensive.
The second option is to expand the role of the Afghan army to act as the facilitators and watchdogs of governance. Today, American commanders like Capt. Howell routinely participate in shuras or councils. They can gradually hand off such governance-related tasks to Afghan officers.
To do so requires funding a military pension plan conditioned upon retiring a generation of superannuated senior Afghan officers and promoting the younger generation. Afghan battalions would remain in set locales for years instead of rotating every few months as many now do. By homesteading, the Afghan army would develop sources to make arrests or deals beyond our ken. Unlike the police, they could ward off retaliatory attacks. In a de facto way, the military -- the most respected institution in Afghanistan -- would become the real backbone connecting the locals to the central government.
The new U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan is retired Gen. Karl Eikenberry, who commanded the NATO force there a few years ago. While lacking presidential envoy Richard Holbrooke's flamboyance and adulatory press, Gen. Eikenberry doesn't ruffle feathers and understands the political-military dynamic. In 2004, for instance, he deftly removed control over the fledgling Iraqi army from the incompetent Coalition Provisional Authority. As our ambassador in Kabul, he can facilitate an expanded managerial role for the military in government activities while fostering the civilian political process.
If that sounds like double-talk, it is. An activist Afghan military is reminiscent of earlier eras of shadow military influence in Turkey (or in Pakistan, Jordan, Mexico, Argentina, etc.). During internal strife, however, many governments have expanded the powers of their military. It should not be the job of America to build a European-style democracy in Afghanistan. The Afghan military is more trustworthy than either the police or the civilian bureaucracy.
Capt. Howell of Viper Company has been called out of the Korengal for a few days to receive the U.S. Army's highest award for leadership. Then it's back into the fray. There's a price we must pay to ensure the Taliban don't reclaim Afghanistan. But let's not add to the cost by expanding our national objectives. We can't manage the skein of tribal loyalties and jealousies. The fastest way to reduce the size of our involvement is to build up the Afghan Army and quietly encourage it to play an active, expansionist role in governance.
Saturday, May 09, 2009
Concentration Solar Power Module Integrates Into Side And Roof Of Buildings
This system has been developed by Daniel Chemisana, member of the research group in Agrometeorology and Energy for Environment, leaded by UdL lecturers Manel Ibáñez and Joan Ignasi Rosell.
This thermal-photovoltaic modular system has a solar concentration of 10 suns, that is, it only needs a tenth part of a standard system’s active surface to produce the same energy, be it electricity, heat, or both simultaneously. Besides the reduction in the surface of used solar cells and the cost reduction this implies, this new technology can generate cold by connecting a heat pump to the system.
Rosell highlighted the architectural integration that these modules will allow either in roofs or in façades, which will reduce their visual impact. They can be directly installed in roofs, on the closure of concrete or brick blocks, forming a curtain wall in the façades or as a part of the railings in terraces, "as if they were a building’s second skin". They can also be used in residential buildings, companies or farms.
The system, of which the international patent has already been requested, consists of a stationary lens and a linear absorber plate that concentrates sunlight to generate energy. This concentration system reduces the space that until now was needed with traditional plates, which move around in search of sunlight.
Rosell also underlined the global efficiency of energetic conversion in this module, which could rise above 60%. Researchers at UdL anticipate that the product could be commercialised in a year if companies opt for this technology. The prototype has financed by CIDEM and has the support of the UdL Technological Springboard.
This thermal-photovoltaic modular system has a solar concentration of 10 suns, that is, it only needs a tenth part of a standard system’s active surface to produce the same energy, be it electricity, heat, or both simultaneously. Besides the reduction in the surface of used solar cells and the cost reduction this implies, this new technology can generate cold by connecting a heat pump to the system.
Rosell highlighted the architectural integration that these modules will allow either in roofs or in façades, which will reduce their visual impact. They can be directly installed in roofs, on the closure of concrete or brick blocks, forming a curtain wall in the façades or as a part of the railings in terraces, "as if they were a building’s second skin". They can also be used in residential buildings, companies or farms.
The system, of which the international patent has already been requested, consists of a stationary lens and a linear absorber plate that concentrates sunlight to generate energy. This concentration system reduces the space that until now was needed with traditional plates, which move around in search of sunlight.
Rosell also underlined the global efficiency of energetic conversion in this module, which could rise above 60%. Researchers at UdL anticipate that the product could be commercialised in a year if companies opt for this technology. The prototype has financed by CIDEM and has the support of the UdL Technological Springboard.
Future Of Solar-powered Houses Is Clear: New Windows Could Halve Carbon Emissions
Professor John Bell said QUT had worked with a Canberra-based company Dyesol, which is developing transparent solar cells that act as both windows and energy generators in houses or commercial buildings.
He said the solar cell glass would make a significant difference to home and building owners' energy costs and could, in fact, generate excess energy that could be stored or onsold.
Professor Bell said the glass was one of a number of practical technologies that would help combat global warming which was a focus of research at the ISR.
"The transparent solar cells have a faint reddish hue but are completely see-through," Professor Bell said.
"The solar cells contain titanium dioxide coated in a dye that increases light absorption.
"The glass captures solar energy which can be used to power the house but can also reduce overheating of the house, reducing the need for cooling."
Professor Bell said it would be possible to build houses made entirely of the transparent solar cells.
"As long as a house is designed throughout for energy efficiency, with low-energy appliances it is conceivable it could be self-sustaining in its power requirements using the solar-cell glass," he said.
"Australian housing design tends to encourage high energy use because electricity is so cheap.
"But it is easy to build a house that doesn't need powered cooling or heating in Queensland."
He said the glass would be on the market in a few years.
Professor Bell said the solar cell glass was the subject of two Australian Research Council Linkage grants to QUT researchers to investigate ways to increase its energy absorption and to reduce the effects of "shadowing", where overcast skies and shadows from trees or other buildings can cause loss of collected power.
He said the solar cell glass would make a significant difference to home and building owners' energy costs and could, in fact, generate excess energy that could be stored or onsold.
Professor Bell said the glass was one of a number of practical technologies that would help combat global warming which was a focus of research at the ISR.
"The transparent solar cells have a faint reddish hue but are completely see-through," Professor Bell said.
"The solar cells contain titanium dioxide coated in a dye that increases light absorption.
"The glass captures solar energy which can be used to power the house but can also reduce overheating of the house, reducing the need for cooling."
Professor Bell said it would be possible to build houses made entirely of the transparent solar cells.
"As long as a house is designed throughout for energy efficiency, with low-energy appliances it is conceivable it could be self-sustaining in its power requirements using the solar-cell glass," he said.
"Australian housing design tends to encourage high energy use because electricity is so cheap.
"But it is easy to build a house that doesn't need powered cooling or heating in Queensland."
He said the glass would be on the market in a few years.
Professor Bell said the solar cell glass was the subject of two Australian Research Council Linkage grants to QUT researchers to investigate ways to increase its energy absorption and to reduce the effects of "shadowing", where overcast skies and shadows from trees or other buildings can cause loss of collected power.
Duke Energy to Build up to 400 'Mini' Solar Power Plants in North Carolina
Duke Energy will build between 100 and 400 electricity-generating mini solar power plants throughout North Carolina over the next two years in one of the first large-scale initiatives of its kind in the U.S., CEO Jim Rogers said today.
“Solar and wind are both going to be key parts of our strategy going forward,” Rogers told reporters following the company’s annual meeting.
The North Carolina Utilities Commission on Wednesday issued a decision allowing Duke Energy to proceed with its $50-million proposal to install solar panels on the roofs and grounds of homes, schools, office buildings, shopping malls, warehouses and industrial plants, starting later this year.
Collectively, the solar sites will generate enough electricity to power 1,300 homes.
The electricity will flow directly from the solar sites to the electrical grid that serves all customers.
Duke Energy’s solar initiative will be among the nation’s first and largest demonstrations of distributed generation, in which electricity is produced at numerous micro generating sites rather than at a large, centralized, traditional power plant.
“We are redefining our boundaries. We’re looking ahead and we’re looking around the corner,” Rogers told shareholders attending the meeting. “We believe the future is a low-carbon world. The 21st century mission of our company is to decarbonize our energy supply and provide universal access to energy efficiency.”
Duke Energy will own and maintain the solar panels during their expected 25-year lifespan. The company also will own the electricity generated.
It will pay a rental fee to property owners who host the panels for use of their roofs or land, based on the size of the installation and amount of electricity generated at any given site.
The solar plan is one of several renewable and clean-energy initiatives announced by Duke Energy in the past 12 months, including:
Solar
• The purchase of the entire electricity output (16 megawatts) from what will be one of the nation’s largest photovoltaic solar farms, to be built in 2009-2010 in Davidson County, N.C.
Wind
• The opening of three new electricity-generating wind farms in Texas and Wyoming.
• A plan to build two more wind farms in Wyoming in 2009.
• The potential development of 5,000 additional megawatts of wind energy in 14 states over the next several years.
• An agreement with Wal-Mart to supply wind-generated electricity to up to 15 percent of the retail chain’s 360 stores and other buildings in Texas.
Biomass
• The creation of a joint venture with AREVA to build power plants fueled by wood waste – the first “biopower” (biomass to electricity) partnership in the U.S. between two major energy companies.
Landfill Gas
• The purchase of electricity generated by combusting methane naturally emitted from decaying garbage at two large landfills in North Carolina and South Carolina.
Electric Vehicles
• Partnerships with General Motors and several other automakers to help lay the groundwork for the deployment of vehicle-charging stations – critical for the large-scale launch of plug-in electric cars and trucks.
Energy Efficiency
• Major energy efficiency programs to help Duke Energy’s 4 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky use less electricity and save money.
• An investment of at least $1 billion to improve the efficiency of its substations, power lines and electric and gas meters, using advanced digital “smart grid” technology.
“Solar and wind are both going to be key parts of our strategy going forward,” Rogers told reporters following the company’s annual meeting.
The North Carolina Utilities Commission on Wednesday issued a decision allowing Duke Energy to proceed with its $50-million proposal to install solar panels on the roofs and grounds of homes, schools, office buildings, shopping malls, warehouses and industrial plants, starting later this year.
Collectively, the solar sites will generate enough electricity to power 1,300 homes.
The electricity will flow directly from the solar sites to the electrical grid that serves all customers.
Duke Energy’s solar initiative will be among the nation’s first and largest demonstrations of distributed generation, in which electricity is produced at numerous micro generating sites rather than at a large, centralized, traditional power plant.
“We are redefining our boundaries. We’re looking ahead and we’re looking around the corner,” Rogers told shareholders attending the meeting. “We believe the future is a low-carbon world. The 21st century mission of our company is to decarbonize our energy supply and provide universal access to energy efficiency.”
Duke Energy will own and maintain the solar panels during their expected 25-year lifespan. The company also will own the electricity generated.
It will pay a rental fee to property owners who host the panels for use of their roofs or land, based on the size of the installation and amount of electricity generated at any given site.
The solar plan is one of several renewable and clean-energy initiatives announced by Duke Energy in the past 12 months, including:
Solar
• The purchase of the entire electricity output (16 megawatts) from what will be one of the nation’s largest photovoltaic solar farms, to be built in 2009-2010 in Davidson County, N.C.
Wind
• The opening of three new electricity-generating wind farms in Texas and Wyoming.
• A plan to build two more wind farms in Wyoming in 2009.
• The potential development of 5,000 additional megawatts of wind energy in 14 states over the next several years.
• An agreement with Wal-Mart to supply wind-generated electricity to up to 15 percent of the retail chain’s 360 stores and other buildings in Texas.
Biomass
• The creation of a joint venture with AREVA to build power plants fueled by wood waste – the first “biopower” (biomass to electricity) partnership in the U.S. between two major energy companies.
Landfill Gas
• The purchase of electricity generated by combusting methane naturally emitted from decaying garbage at two large landfills in North Carolina and South Carolina.
Electric Vehicles
• Partnerships with General Motors and several other automakers to help lay the groundwork for the deployment of vehicle-charging stations – critical for the large-scale launch of plug-in electric cars and trucks.
Energy Efficiency
• Major energy efficiency programs to help Duke Energy’s 4 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky use less electricity and save money.
• An investment of at least $1 billion to improve the efficiency of its substations, power lines and electric and gas meters, using advanced digital “smart grid” technology.
Friday, May 08, 2009
Report: Foreign Intelligence Analysts Contradict US on Iran Bomb Progress by Desmond Butler
Congressional investigators say some foreign intelligence analysts believe U.S. intelligence is underestimating Iran's progress toward designing a nuclear warhead before Tehran halted its program in 2003.
The foreign analysts believe that Iran ended its work because it had made sufficient progress, not because of international pressure, as the 2007 U.S. national intelligence assessment concluded.
The report by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee did not identify its sources, referring only to "intelligence analysts and nuclear experts working for foreign governments." It says some research was conducted in Israel, which has been publicly critical of the 2007 U.S. assessment.
The foreign analysts believe "intelligence indicates Iran had produced a suitable design, manufactured some components and conducted enough successful explosives tests to put the project on the shelf until it manufactured the fissile material required for several weapons," the report says.
The revelations by the committee, headed by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., come as President Barack Obama is promising direct engagement with Iran and seeking diplomatic openings. The report backs the Obama administration's approach but recommends balancing new openings with continued pressure.
In an introduction to the report, Kerry wrote that a major obstacle the administration will have to negotiate "is the suspicion surrounding Iran's nuclear program."
The report also provides new details on Iran's nuclear program and its attempts to thwart U.N. inspectors. Citing an unidentified official at the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, it says that Iran reneged at the last minute on an agreement last summer to allow inspectors to visit suspected nuclear workshops.
"Unclassified U.S. intelligence assessments and staff interviews with government officials and diplomats in Washington and foreign countries leave little doubt that Iran has the technological and industrial capacity to eventually develop an atomic bomb," the report concludes.
The report examines material provided to the IAEA by U.S. intelligence from a laptop computer that reportedly was smuggled out of Iran. In 2005, U.S. intelligence assessed that information as indicating that Tehran had been working on details of nuclear weapons, including missile trajectories and ideal altitudes for exploding warheads.
The material on the laptop also included videos of what intelligence officials believe were secret nuclear laboratories in Iran. Iran has accused the United States of fabricating the material. The report says that U.N. and non-U.S. intelligence officials told committee investigators that they could not rule out an intelligence ruse, but they say other documents corroborate some of the information from the laptop.
The report says that officials the committee talked to concluded the documents "appear to be authentic, right down to the names, addresses and telephone numbers of the workshops."
Iran insists that its nuclear program is purely to provide electric power, not weapons.
The report also reveals that Iran agreed to allow the IAEA to inspect the workshops last August. After a senior IAEA official arrived in Tehran, however, the agency was told that the government had changed its mind.
The report concludes that Iran continues to use front companies to look for important components on the black market. It says that it is particularly eager to obtain carbon fibers and specialized metals for use in advanced centrifuges.
The foreign analysts believe that Iran ended its work because it had made sufficient progress, not because of international pressure, as the 2007 U.S. national intelligence assessment concluded.
The report by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee did not identify its sources, referring only to "intelligence analysts and nuclear experts working for foreign governments." It says some research was conducted in Israel, which has been publicly critical of the 2007 U.S. assessment.
The foreign analysts believe "intelligence indicates Iran had produced a suitable design, manufactured some components and conducted enough successful explosives tests to put the project on the shelf until it manufactured the fissile material required for several weapons," the report says.
The revelations by the committee, headed by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., come as President Barack Obama is promising direct engagement with Iran and seeking diplomatic openings. The report backs the Obama administration's approach but recommends balancing new openings with continued pressure.
In an introduction to the report, Kerry wrote that a major obstacle the administration will have to negotiate "is the suspicion surrounding Iran's nuclear program."
The report also provides new details on Iran's nuclear program and its attempts to thwart U.N. inspectors. Citing an unidentified official at the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, it says that Iran reneged at the last minute on an agreement last summer to allow inspectors to visit suspected nuclear workshops.
"Unclassified U.S. intelligence assessments and staff interviews with government officials and diplomats in Washington and foreign countries leave little doubt that Iran has the technological and industrial capacity to eventually develop an atomic bomb," the report concludes.
The report examines material provided to the IAEA by U.S. intelligence from a laptop computer that reportedly was smuggled out of Iran. In 2005, U.S. intelligence assessed that information as indicating that Tehran had been working on details of nuclear weapons, including missile trajectories and ideal altitudes for exploding warheads.
The material on the laptop also included videos of what intelligence officials believe were secret nuclear laboratories in Iran. Iran has accused the United States of fabricating the material. The report says that U.N. and non-U.S. intelligence officials told committee investigators that they could not rule out an intelligence ruse, but they say other documents corroborate some of the information from the laptop.
The report says that officials the committee talked to concluded the documents "appear to be authentic, right down to the names, addresses and telephone numbers of the workshops."
Iran insists that its nuclear program is purely to provide electric power, not weapons.
The report also reveals that Iran agreed to allow the IAEA to inspect the workshops last August. After a senior IAEA official arrived in Tehran, however, the agency was told that the government had changed its mind.
The report concludes that Iran continues to use front companies to look for important components on the black market. It says that it is particularly eager to obtain carbon fibers and specialized metals for use in advanced centrifuges.
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Backyard Scientists use Web to Catalog Species, Aid Research (iPhone) by John Sutter
As a hobby, Suzie Jirachareonkul, a teacher and mother of two, spends many of her nights searching for endangered toads on the country roads near her home outside Cape Town, South Africa. Volunteers in South Africa are collecting data on the Western Leopard Toad, which is endangered. She often finds them flattened on the street.
"They're so beautiful and it's just really hard to live with, especially when you're living on the road right here," the 33-year-old said of the toad deaths. "So we started doing something about it. We started saving them off the road in the middle of the rain."
When a scientist caught onto her efforts, Jirachareonkul and a friend assembled about 20 volunteers -- a group she calls the "Toad NUTS" -- to collect data on the endangered Western Leopard Toad.
The information they collect is being used in scientific research.
Each time Jirachareonkul comes upon one of the spotted, faintly iridescent creatures, she springs into action. She marks down GPS coordinates, measures the toad, makes notes on its behavior (Is a mate stuck to its back? Is it headed toward a pond?) and uploads the information so scientists can use it.
Oh, and she moves the toad out of traffic's way, too. While her nighttime hobby may sound a bit strange, Jirachareonkul is far from alone in her efforts to collect amateur scientific data. At a time when climate change and urbanization are poised to set off a new wave of extinction, some members of the scientific community are turning toward backyard biologists for the data they need to monitor ecosystems and protect struggling species.
This "citizen science" movement is not exactly new, but it has grown fresh legs as the Internet and social-networking sites help people with uber-specified and often bizarre interests gang up for a cause. Amateur-produced Web sites now serve as data hubs for squirrel sightings, bird photos, ant anthologies, snapshots of leaves, flowers and trees, water quality info, beetle hunts and firefly tracking, among others. "It's pretty random," said Cyndy Parr of the Encyclopedia of Life. "There's a lot of charismatic things that won't surprise you -- backyard birds, that sort of thing. But there are also thriving communities of people who like to take pictures of butterflies, centipedes, wildflowers, plants." Some of the sites have sweeping goals. The Encyclopedia of Life, which seeks to gather online information on all known species, has started taking public submissions through a public Flickr group. Some individual users have uploaded more than 2,000 photos.
Project BudBurst, out of Boulder, Colorado, aims to collect so much amateur data about plant species that scientists will be able to tell how climate change is altering the seasons in North America. The venture, managed by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, gathers "data that would not otherwise be collected," said Sandra Henderson, the project's director. "We have these additional sentinel eyes on the landscape, if you will. There aren't enough ecologists to be making all of these different plant observations."
National Science Foundation funding for citizen science dropped off significantly in 2002 but generally has been on the rise since, according to budget numbers compiled for CNN. Since that year, funding in the United States has increased more than 240 percent, to more than $3 million for 2008.
Several of the Web projects receive government funding, but others survive on their own merits.
In Spain, Josep del Hoyo founded the Internet Bird Collection, an international compilation of bird videos, sounds and photos that's funded solely by his company. He said the intense passion of birders around the world, plus some money from his publishing company, keep the site running.
Amateurs have posted video of never-before-seen birds on the site, he said, and some of the work has been the foundation for scientific articles.
Technology is amplifying this passion for citizen science, which has been around since scientists started cataloging species. Researchers at several universities are working on iPhone applications and computer programs that could analyze digital photos of plant leaves and automatically identify the plant's species.
When those photos -- from ordinary people all over the world -- are paired with the photographer's location and uploaded to a database, the information would be more valuable than anything scientists could come up with on their own, said John Kress, a botanist and research scientist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.
The information could help scientists know if a species is going extinct or dying off in certain regions as the climate warms. Identifying a plant species can be tricky, Kress said, so these technologies also would ensure that nonprofessional data is good enough to use for scientific research.
"When people do these things as citizen scientists you're always a little suspect as to, 'Are you getting it right?' " he said. "There's some plants out there that are maples and look like oaks -- and only I would know they're really maples. But with this system we would have a standard way of identifying the accuracy of this information." Some scientists said they're excited about the trend toward citizen-submitted data because it is impossible for scientists to document all of the changes going on around the world. "At some point it will really lead to almost a democratization of science, where the amateurs and the volunteers are having just as much of an impact on science as the professionals are," said Rick Bonney, who started a citizen science project with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in 1987. "It's just going so fast I can't keep up with it anymore."
Others find the movement limited or controversial. The relationship between formal science and citizen science is similar to that between professional news reporters and bloggers; some scientists worry that the information coming in from nonprofessionals will be inaccurate, said John Musinsky, a senior director at Conservation International. The citizen efforts are also limited in the sense that, at least for now, they're largely concentrated in North America and Europe, where there aren't nearly as many plant and animal species as in Latin America and Africa.
That's beginning to change, though, said Conrad Savy, a conservation science adviser at Conservation International. "It's gaining steam," he said of the global citizen-science movement. "It's working very well and it's a great way also to engage the community in conservation issues."
As photo-taking cell phones become more popular in developing countries, a more diverse group will join the efforts, said Kress, the Smithsonian botanist.
Jirachareonkul's group devoted to the Western Leopard Toad now works with the South African National Biodiversity Institute to promote understanding of the endangered species.
Dr. John Measey, a researcher with the institute, said by e-mail that some research on the toad would be possible without the volunteer efforts. But the "Toad NUTS" raise awareness and help scientists "obtain usable accurate data from a much wider area than we could possibly manage or fund," he wrote.
When Jirachareonkul started the project, she didn't know much about the toads -- they were just a creature she found squashed in front of her house.
Now she has a personal connection to them. She said citizen science is a way for people to connect with their local environment -- and to make a difference. "There are so many problems in the world, but I think the main problem is that everybody is worried about everybody else's problems that they don't focus in on their little areas," she said.
"They're so beautiful and it's just really hard to live with, especially when you're living on the road right here," the 33-year-old said of the toad deaths. "So we started doing something about it. We started saving them off the road in the middle of the rain."
When a scientist caught onto her efforts, Jirachareonkul and a friend assembled about 20 volunteers -- a group she calls the "Toad NUTS" -- to collect data on the endangered Western Leopard Toad.
The information they collect is being used in scientific research.
Each time Jirachareonkul comes upon one of the spotted, faintly iridescent creatures, she springs into action. She marks down GPS coordinates, measures the toad, makes notes on its behavior (Is a mate stuck to its back? Is it headed toward a pond?) and uploads the information so scientists can use it.
Oh, and she moves the toad out of traffic's way, too. While her nighttime hobby may sound a bit strange, Jirachareonkul is far from alone in her efforts to collect amateur scientific data. At a time when climate change and urbanization are poised to set off a new wave of extinction, some members of the scientific community are turning toward backyard biologists for the data they need to monitor ecosystems and protect struggling species.
This "citizen science" movement is not exactly new, but it has grown fresh legs as the Internet and social-networking sites help people with uber-specified and often bizarre interests gang up for a cause. Amateur-produced Web sites now serve as data hubs for squirrel sightings, bird photos, ant anthologies, snapshots of leaves, flowers and trees, water quality info, beetle hunts and firefly tracking, among others. "It's pretty random," said Cyndy Parr of the Encyclopedia of Life. "There's a lot of charismatic things that won't surprise you -- backyard birds, that sort of thing. But there are also thriving communities of people who like to take pictures of butterflies, centipedes, wildflowers, plants." Some of the sites have sweeping goals. The Encyclopedia of Life, which seeks to gather online information on all known species, has started taking public submissions through a public Flickr group. Some individual users have uploaded more than 2,000 photos.
Project BudBurst, out of Boulder, Colorado, aims to collect so much amateur data about plant species that scientists will be able to tell how climate change is altering the seasons in North America. The venture, managed by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, gathers "data that would not otherwise be collected," said Sandra Henderson, the project's director. "We have these additional sentinel eyes on the landscape, if you will. There aren't enough ecologists to be making all of these different plant observations."
National Science Foundation funding for citizen science dropped off significantly in 2002 but generally has been on the rise since, according to budget numbers compiled for CNN. Since that year, funding in the United States has increased more than 240 percent, to more than $3 million for 2008.
Several of the Web projects receive government funding, but others survive on their own merits.
In Spain, Josep del Hoyo founded the Internet Bird Collection, an international compilation of bird videos, sounds and photos that's funded solely by his company. He said the intense passion of birders around the world, plus some money from his publishing company, keep the site running.
Amateurs have posted video of never-before-seen birds on the site, he said, and some of the work has been the foundation for scientific articles.
Technology is amplifying this passion for citizen science, which has been around since scientists started cataloging species. Researchers at several universities are working on iPhone applications and computer programs that could analyze digital photos of plant leaves and automatically identify the plant's species.
When those photos -- from ordinary people all over the world -- are paired with the photographer's location and uploaded to a database, the information would be more valuable than anything scientists could come up with on their own, said John Kress, a botanist and research scientist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.
The information could help scientists know if a species is going extinct or dying off in certain regions as the climate warms. Identifying a plant species can be tricky, Kress said, so these technologies also would ensure that nonprofessional data is good enough to use for scientific research.
"When people do these things as citizen scientists you're always a little suspect as to, 'Are you getting it right?' " he said. "There's some plants out there that are maples and look like oaks -- and only I would know they're really maples. But with this system we would have a standard way of identifying the accuracy of this information." Some scientists said they're excited about the trend toward citizen-submitted data because it is impossible for scientists to document all of the changes going on around the world. "At some point it will really lead to almost a democratization of science, where the amateurs and the volunteers are having just as much of an impact on science as the professionals are," said Rick Bonney, who started a citizen science project with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in 1987. "It's just going so fast I can't keep up with it anymore."
Others find the movement limited or controversial. The relationship between formal science and citizen science is similar to that between professional news reporters and bloggers; some scientists worry that the information coming in from nonprofessionals will be inaccurate, said John Musinsky, a senior director at Conservation International. The citizen efforts are also limited in the sense that, at least for now, they're largely concentrated in North America and Europe, where there aren't nearly as many plant and animal species as in Latin America and Africa.
That's beginning to change, though, said Conrad Savy, a conservation science adviser at Conservation International. "It's gaining steam," he said of the global citizen-science movement. "It's working very well and it's a great way also to engage the community in conservation issues."
As photo-taking cell phones become more popular in developing countries, a more diverse group will join the efforts, said Kress, the Smithsonian botanist.
Jirachareonkul's group devoted to the Western Leopard Toad now works with the South African National Biodiversity Institute to promote understanding of the endangered species.
Dr. John Measey, a researcher with the institute, said by e-mail that some research on the toad would be possible without the volunteer efforts. But the "Toad NUTS" raise awareness and help scientists "obtain usable accurate data from a much wider area than we could possibly manage or fund," he wrote.
When Jirachareonkul started the project, she didn't know much about the toads -- they were just a creature she found squashed in front of her house.
Now she has a personal connection to them. She said citizen science is a way for people to connect with their local environment -- and to make a difference. "There are so many problems in the world, but I think the main problem is that everybody is worried about everybody else's problems that they don't focus in on their little areas," she said.
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Ahmadinejad's Abrupt Cancellation of Latin American Trip by Douglas Farah
Iran’s president Ahmadinejad has abruptly postponed his much heralded trip to Brazil, due this week, with neither side anxious to give any explanation.
Ahmadinejad has long tried to visit Brazil, and, until this most recent trip was finally accepted, had been politely rebuffed because of Iran’s international pariah states and state sponsorship of terrorism, including attacks carried out in Latin America.
Brazil, Latin America’s largest economy by far, and aspiring to be taken seriously as a major player on the world stage, could not be bothered.
When Ahmadinejad was visiting the neighborhood and wanting to drop by, Brazil’s president Lula always found that he had no space in his very busy agenda to accomodate the request. But Lula had relented, given Iran’s undeniable influence in the region. Until this sudden snafu.
It should be remembered that Brazil has explicitly refused to sell Venezuela nuclear technology because of Venezuela’s insistence that Iran be involved in the technology transfer.
Lula has rebuffed Chavez and Iran in other small ways in the past, but seemed prepared for an exchange of state visits, given Iran’s growing clout and the seeming inability of the United States or its allies to offer a viable strategy for containment.
The embrace of Ahmadinejad was drawing internal criticism even from Lula supporters. As the article notes, Acceptance by Lula, the leader of the Latin America’s biggest economy, puts Iran on a new diplomatic plane in the region.
“It’s a mistake and inappropriate,” said Roberto Abdenur, who was Lula’s ambassador to Washington from 2004 to 2007. “What this man says and represents completely contradict what Brazil stands for, its commitment to peace and its repudiation of anti-Semitism.”
It seems, my sources in the region say, that Lula, unlike his counterparts in Venezuela and Bolivia, actually has to pay attention to the electorate, because, unlike them, he is committed to stepping down at the end of his term and allowing free and fair elections to be held.
And many of his constituents are unhappy with the visit by a conservative, homophobic, anti-Semitic theocrat. Somehow that seems to clash with the values of tolerance, freedom and progress that Brazil prides itself on. Following protests in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo last week, Lula apparently pulled the plug.
So, the entourage of more than 100 ministers, businessmen and intelligence operatives decided to cancel the entire trip (which was to have included Venezuela-of course-and Ecuador).
It is hard to know if there is a larger message in this. Maybe the magic of Iran’s endless but empty promises of large-scale investment and marketing opportunities are finally wearing thin. Maybe someone realized that they don’t have to play with Iran if they find the leadership and its actions unsavory. Maybe Lula just realized it was added freight he did not have to carry.
Whatever it was, it was a setback for Iran in the region. And that is not a bad thing.
Ahmadinejad has long tried to visit Brazil, and, until this most recent trip was finally accepted, had been politely rebuffed because of Iran’s international pariah states and state sponsorship of terrorism, including attacks carried out in Latin America.
Brazil, Latin America’s largest economy by far, and aspiring to be taken seriously as a major player on the world stage, could not be bothered.
When Ahmadinejad was visiting the neighborhood and wanting to drop by, Brazil’s president Lula always found that he had no space in his very busy agenda to accomodate the request. But Lula had relented, given Iran’s undeniable influence in the region. Until this sudden snafu.
It should be remembered that Brazil has explicitly refused to sell Venezuela nuclear technology because of Venezuela’s insistence that Iran be involved in the technology transfer.
Lula has rebuffed Chavez and Iran in other small ways in the past, but seemed prepared for an exchange of state visits, given Iran’s growing clout and the seeming inability of the United States or its allies to offer a viable strategy for containment.
The embrace of Ahmadinejad was drawing internal criticism even from Lula supporters. As the article notes, Acceptance by Lula, the leader of the Latin America’s biggest economy, puts Iran on a new diplomatic plane in the region.
“It’s a mistake and inappropriate,” said Roberto Abdenur, who was Lula’s ambassador to Washington from 2004 to 2007. “What this man says and represents completely contradict what Brazil stands for, its commitment to peace and its repudiation of anti-Semitism.”
It seems, my sources in the region say, that Lula, unlike his counterparts in Venezuela and Bolivia, actually has to pay attention to the electorate, because, unlike them, he is committed to stepping down at the end of his term and allowing free and fair elections to be held.
And many of his constituents are unhappy with the visit by a conservative, homophobic, anti-Semitic theocrat. Somehow that seems to clash with the values of tolerance, freedom and progress that Brazil prides itself on. Following protests in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo last week, Lula apparently pulled the plug.
So, the entourage of more than 100 ministers, businessmen and intelligence operatives decided to cancel the entire trip (which was to have included Venezuela-of course-and Ecuador).
It is hard to know if there is a larger message in this. Maybe the magic of Iran’s endless but empty promises of large-scale investment and marketing opportunities are finally wearing thin. Maybe someone realized that they don’t have to play with Iran if they find the leadership and its actions unsavory. Maybe Lula just realized it was added freight he did not have to carry.
Whatever it was, it was a setback for Iran in the region. And that is not a bad thing.
Taliban Using Swat Emerald Money to Fund Terrorism by Ani
The money earned from mining and selling gemstones in Swat and Shangla district of Pakistan is used by the Taliban for terrorism, according to local entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurs in a Gem Bazaar, organised by the Pakistan Gems and Jewellery Development Company at Namak Mandi, said that the Taliban were using the money for terrorist activities in Swat, Buner and Dir districts of Malakand division.
Babu Khan, an entrepreneur from Swat who had displayed emeralds in the bazaar, said that Taliban had started extensive mining through hired labourers and were selling the precious stones in the black market.
He said plunderers had also taken over several mines of high quality gemstones, one of which had earned the government about Rs 90 million in a single auction in the past.
Another entrepreneur from Swat, Muhammad Ali, said that the Taliban had also taken over the Mingora emerald mine.
The Shamozai emeralds mine, and the Gujaro Killay emerald mine in the adjacent district of Shangla, are also under the control of the Swat Taliban, the Daily Times reported.
Stones extracted from these mines are auctioned in the premises of the Mingora mine every Sunday, where dealers from all over Pakistan come to shop, he said.
The federal and provincial governments have not taken any action over "this looting and plunder of state property," Muhammad Ali said.
Imran Inam, a senior official of the Gems and Jewellery Development Company, said that the US is also concerned over the Taliban occupation of emerald mines in Swat and Shangla and had talked to the Pakistani government.
Entrepreneurs in a Gem Bazaar, organised by the Pakistan Gems and Jewellery Development Company at Namak Mandi, said that the Taliban were using the money for terrorist activities in Swat, Buner and Dir districts of Malakand division.
Babu Khan, an entrepreneur from Swat who had displayed emeralds in the bazaar, said that Taliban had started extensive mining through hired labourers and were selling the precious stones in the black market.
He said plunderers had also taken over several mines of high quality gemstones, one of which had earned the government about Rs 90 million in a single auction in the past.
Another entrepreneur from Swat, Muhammad Ali, said that the Taliban had also taken over the Mingora emerald mine.
The Shamozai emeralds mine, and the Gujaro Killay emerald mine in the adjacent district of Shangla, are also under the control of the Swat Taliban, the Daily Times reported.
Stones extracted from these mines are auctioned in the premises of the Mingora mine every Sunday, where dealers from all over Pakistan come to shop, he said.
The federal and provincial governments have not taken any action over "this looting and plunder of state property," Muhammad Ali said.
Imran Inam, a senior official of the Gems and Jewellery Development Company, said that the US is also concerned over the Taliban occupation of emerald mines in Swat and Shangla and had talked to the Pakistani government.
Monday, May 04, 2009
As the U.S. Retreats, Iran Fills the Void by Amir Taheri
Convinced that the Obama administration is preparing to retreat from the Middle East, Iran's Khomeinist regime is intensifying its goal of regional domination. It has targeted six close allies of the U.S.: Egypt, Lebanon, Bahrain, Morocco, Kuwait and Jordan, all of which are experiencing economic and/or political crises.
Iranian strategists believe that Egypt is heading for a major crisis once President Hosni Mubarak, 81, departs from the political scene. He has failed to impose his eldest son Gamal as successor, while the military-security establishment, which traditionally chooses the president, is divided. Iran's official Islamic News Agency has been conducting a campaign on that theme for months. This has triggered a counter-campaign against Iran by the Egyptian media.
Last month, Egypt announced it had crushed a major Iranian plot and arrested 68 people. According to Egyptian media, four are members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Tehran's principal vehicle for exporting its revolution.
Seven were Palestinians linked to the radical Islamist movement Hamas; one was a Lebanese identified as "a political agent from Hezbollah" by the Egyptian Interior Ministry. Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah, claimed these men were shipping arms to Hamas in Gaza.
The arrests reportedly took place last December, during a crackdown against groups trying to convert Egyptians to Shiism. The Egyptian Interior Ministry claims this proselytizing has been going on for years. Thirty years ago, Egyptian Shiites numbered a few hundred. Various estimates put the number now at close to a million, but they are said to practice taqiyah (dissimulation), to hide their new faith.
But in its campaign for regional hegemony, Tehran expects Lebanon as its first prize. Iran is spending massive amounts of cash on June's general election. It supports a coalition led by Hezbollah, and including the Christian ex-general Michel Aoun. Lebanon, now in the column of pro-U.S. countries, would shift to the pro-Iran column.
In Bahrain, Tehran hopes to see its allies sweep to power through mass demonstrations and terrorist operations. Bahrain's ruling clan has arrested scores of pro-Iran militants but appears more vulnerable than ever. King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa has contacted Arab heads of states to appeal for "urgent support in the face of naked threats," according to the Bahraini media.
The threats became sensationally public in March. In a speech at Masshad, Iran's principal "holy city," Ali Akbar Nateq-Nuri, a senior aide to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, described Bahrain as "part of Iran." Morocco used the ensuing uproar as an excuse to severe diplomatic relations with Tehran. The rupture came after months of tension during which Moroccan security dismantled a network of pro-Iran militants allegedly plotting violent operations.
Iran-controlled groups have also been uncovered in Kuwait and Jordan. According to Kuwaiti media, more than 1,000 alleged Iranian agents were arrested and shipped back home last winter. According to the Tehran media, Kuwait is believed vulnerable because of chronic parliamentary disputes that have led to governmental paralysis.
As for Jordan, Iranian strategists believe the kingdom, where Palestinians are two-thirds of the population, is a colonial creation and should disappear from the map -- opening the way for a single state covering the whole of Palestine. Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have both described the division of Palestine as "a crime and a tragedy."
Arab states are especially concerned because Tehran has succeeded in transcending sectarian and ideological divides to create a coalition that includes Sunni movements such as Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, sections of the Muslim Brotherhood, and even Marxist-Leninist and other leftist outfits that share Iran's anti-Americanism.
Information published by Egyptian and other Arab intelligence services, and reported in the Egyptian and other Arab media, reveal a sophisticated Iranian strategy operating at various levels. The outer circle consists of a number of commercial companies, banks and businesses active in various fields and employing thousands of locals in each targeted country. In Egypt, for example, police have uncovered more than 30 such Iranian "front" companies, according to the pan-Arab daily newspaper Asharq Alawsat. In Syria and Lebanon, the numbers reportedly run into hundreds.
In the next circle, Iranian-financed charities offer a range of social and medical services and scholarships that governments often fail to provide. Another circle consists of "cultural" centers often called Ahl e Beit (People of the House) supervised by the offices of the supreme leader. These centers offer language classes in Persian, English and Arabic, Islamic theology, Koranic commentaries, and traditional philosophy -- alongside courses in information technology, media studies, photography and filmmaking.
Wherever possible, the fourth circle is represented by branches of Hezbollah operating openly. Where that's not possible, clandestine organizations do the job, either alone or in conjunction with Sunni radical groups.
The Khomeinist public diplomacy network includes a half-dozen satellite television and radio networks in several languages, more than 100 newspapers and magazines, a dozen publishing houses, and thousands of Web sites and blogs controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The network controls thousands of mosques throughout the region where preachers from Iran, or trained by Iranians, disseminate the Khomeinist revolutionary message.
Tehran has also created a vast network of non-Shiite fellow travelers within the region's political and cultural elites. These politicians and intellectuals may be hostile to Khomeinism on ideological grounds -- but they regard it as a powerful ally in a common struggle against the American "Great Satan."
Khomeinist propaganda is trying to portray Iran as a rising "superpower" in the making while the United States is presented as the "sunset" power. The message is simple: The Americans are going, and we are coming.
Tehran plays a patient game. Wherever possible, it is determined to pursue its goals through open political means, including elections. With pro-American and other democratic groups disheartened by the perceived weakness of the Obama administration, Tehran hopes its allies will win all the elections planned for this year in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.
"There is this perception that the new U.S. administration is not interested in the democratization strategy," a senior Lebanese political leader told me. That perception only grows as President Obama calls for an "exit strategy" from Afghanistan and Iraq. Power abhors a vacuum, which the Islamic Republic of Iran is only too happy to fill.
Iranian strategists believe that Egypt is heading for a major crisis once President Hosni Mubarak, 81, departs from the political scene. He has failed to impose his eldest son Gamal as successor, while the military-security establishment, which traditionally chooses the president, is divided. Iran's official Islamic News Agency has been conducting a campaign on that theme for months. This has triggered a counter-campaign against Iran by the Egyptian media.
Last month, Egypt announced it had crushed a major Iranian plot and arrested 68 people. According to Egyptian media, four are members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Tehran's principal vehicle for exporting its revolution.
Seven were Palestinians linked to the radical Islamist movement Hamas; one was a Lebanese identified as "a political agent from Hezbollah" by the Egyptian Interior Ministry. Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah, claimed these men were shipping arms to Hamas in Gaza.
The arrests reportedly took place last December, during a crackdown against groups trying to convert Egyptians to Shiism. The Egyptian Interior Ministry claims this proselytizing has been going on for years. Thirty years ago, Egyptian Shiites numbered a few hundred. Various estimates put the number now at close to a million, but they are said to practice taqiyah (dissimulation), to hide their new faith.
But in its campaign for regional hegemony, Tehran expects Lebanon as its first prize. Iran is spending massive amounts of cash on June's general election. It supports a coalition led by Hezbollah, and including the Christian ex-general Michel Aoun. Lebanon, now in the column of pro-U.S. countries, would shift to the pro-Iran column.
In Bahrain, Tehran hopes to see its allies sweep to power through mass demonstrations and terrorist operations. Bahrain's ruling clan has arrested scores of pro-Iran militants but appears more vulnerable than ever. King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa has contacted Arab heads of states to appeal for "urgent support in the face of naked threats," according to the Bahraini media.
The threats became sensationally public in March. In a speech at Masshad, Iran's principal "holy city," Ali Akbar Nateq-Nuri, a senior aide to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, described Bahrain as "part of Iran." Morocco used the ensuing uproar as an excuse to severe diplomatic relations with Tehran. The rupture came after months of tension during which Moroccan security dismantled a network of pro-Iran militants allegedly plotting violent operations.
Iran-controlled groups have also been uncovered in Kuwait and Jordan. According to Kuwaiti media, more than 1,000 alleged Iranian agents were arrested and shipped back home last winter. According to the Tehran media, Kuwait is believed vulnerable because of chronic parliamentary disputes that have led to governmental paralysis.
As for Jordan, Iranian strategists believe the kingdom, where Palestinians are two-thirds of the population, is a colonial creation and should disappear from the map -- opening the way for a single state covering the whole of Palestine. Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have both described the division of Palestine as "a crime and a tragedy."
Arab states are especially concerned because Tehran has succeeded in transcending sectarian and ideological divides to create a coalition that includes Sunni movements such as Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, sections of the Muslim Brotherhood, and even Marxist-Leninist and other leftist outfits that share Iran's anti-Americanism.
Information published by Egyptian and other Arab intelligence services, and reported in the Egyptian and other Arab media, reveal a sophisticated Iranian strategy operating at various levels. The outer circle consists of a number of commercial companies, banks and businesses active in various fields and employing thousands of locals in each targeted country. In Egypt, for example, police have uncovered more than 30 such Iranian "front" companies, according to the pan-Arab daily newspaper Asharq Alawsat. In Syria and Lebanon, the numbers reportedly run into hundreds.
In the next circle, Iranian-financed charities offer a range of social and medical services and scholarships that governments often fail to provide. Another circle consists of "cultural" centers often called Ahl e Beit (People of the House) supervised by the offices of the supreme leader. These centers offer language classes in Persian, English and Arabic, Islamic theology, Koranic commentaries, and traditional philosophy -- alongside courses in information technology, media studies, photography and filmmaking.
Wherever possible, the fourth circle is represented by branches of Hezbollah operating openly. Where that's not possible, clandestine organizations do the job, either alone or in conjunction with Sunni radical groups.
The Khomeinist public diplomacy network includes a half-dozen satellite television and radio networks in several languages, more than 100 newspapers and magazines, a dozen publishing houses, and thousands of Web sites and blogs controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The network controls thousands of mosques throughout the region where preachers from Iran, or trained by Iranians, disseminate the Khomeinist revolutionary message.
Tehran has also created a vast network of non-Shiite fellow travelers within the region's political and cultural elites. These politicians and intellectuals may be hostile to Khomeinism on ideological grounds -- but they regard it as a powerful ally in a common struggle against the American "Great Satan."
Khomeinist propaganda is trying to portray Iran as a rising "superpower" in the making while the United States is presented as the "sunset" power. The message is simple: The Americans are going, and we are coming.
Tehran plays a patient game. Wherever possible, it is determined to pursue its goals through open political means, including elections. With pro-American and other democratic groups disheartened by the perceived weakness of the Obama administration, Tehran hopes its allies will win all the elections planned for this year in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.
"There is this perception that the new U.S. administration is not interested in the democratization strategy," a senior Lebanese political leader told me. That perception only grows as President Obama calls for an "exit strategy" from Afghanistan and Iraq. Power abhors a vacuum, which the Islamic Republic of Iran is only too happy to fill.
Sunday, May 03, 2009
U.S. Aims to Unify Efforts on Afghan Border by Jay Solomon and Peter Spiegel
President Barack Obama will seek a unified strategy to subdue Islamist militants in the tribal regions straddling Pakistan and Afghanistan when he meets with the presidents of the two nations in Washington this week.
The meetings with Presidents Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan come as the Obama administration grapples with how closely to embrace two, who are key allies but flawed leaders.
Many U.S. officials question Mr. Zardari's grip on power and whether his government is willing and able to fight Taliban militants who have gained control of more Pakistani territory in recent months. Some in Washington say opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, a former prime minister, would make a better partner, despite concerns about his Islamist alliances.
In Afghanistan, some U.S. officials criticized Mr. Karzai recently, saying he has undermined U.S. goals in the region through ineffective leadership and tolerance of corruption.
But many expect Mr. Karzai to win re-election in August, and some officials in the State Department and the Pentagon now say these public rebukes could undermine future U.S.-Afghan cooperation.
"We've not completely burnt that bridge, but it's black, and timbers are out," said a former senior U.S. military official who consults with the administration on Afghan strategy.
U.S. officials said Mr. Karzai has publicly moved closer to Iran and Russia in recent months, in what appeared to be a warning to the U.S. that he has other strategic partners.
The heads of the three countries' militaries, intelligence services and foreign ministries are slated to attend the meetings in Washington on Wednesday and Thursday, officials involved in the summit said. Mr. Obama is scheduled to hold bilateral and trilateral meetings with Messrs. Karzai and Zardari on Wednesday.
The U.S. wants to help Pakistan and Afghanistan unify their fight against the Taliban through better intelligence sharing, military cooperation and economic integration to aid the tribal areas.
Mr. Karzai and former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf regularly accused each other of not doing enough to fight the Taliban, but Pakistan and Afghanistan officials say relations have improved since Mr. Zardari took office.
Afghan and Pakistani diplomats said they would like to use the summit to put in place a larger number of joint border-control centers to guard against Taliban militants orchestrating cross-border raids.
Kabul and Islamabad are looking to firm up trade and transportation pacts aimed at stimulating economic growth in the impoverished tribal regions straddling both countries. The World Bank and its finance arm, the International Finance Corp., are expected to announce development projects for these areas during the meetings this week, while the State Department is preparing to fund agriculture programs aimed at providing Afghan farmers with alternatives to poppy cultivation.
Obama administration officials, increasingly concerned about Pakistan's stability, would also like to discuss acceleration of financial assistance to Islamabad's security forces. Last week, U.S. officials asked Congress to speed up approval of an $83.4 billion war-spending request that includes $400 million to help Pakistani forces fight the Taliban and other armed groups.
Washington has pledged $1 billion in aid to Islamabad as part of a five-year, $7.5 billion package that required Congressional approval. But Congress remains skittish about distributing aid to Pakistan due to past allegations by U.S. lawmakers of government corruption there.
Many U.S. and European officials question whether the international community can effectively distribute assistance into tribal areas where development agencies have difficulty operating.
"No one really knows what to do with this money," said a senior European official. "How do you really use it to improve the situation in the tribal areas?"
Summit attendants are also expected to reassess Pakistan's security situation. In recent days, some senior U.S. officials have publicly questioned whether Mr. Zardari's government could fall, after Taliban fighters seized areas just 70 miles from Islamabad. But a number of senior Pentagon officials are seeking to strike a less-alarmist tone in the discussions. "The threat can get lucky from time to time, and it looks like it has more prowess than it does," said a Pentagon official involved in formulating Pakistan policy.
Senior Obama administration officials said the crisis in Pakistan is among the most acute national security challenges Washington faces.
A peace deal between Islamabad and the Taliban in the Swat Valley has been strained by a militant effort to gain control of neighboring districts. Setting the stage for resumed fighting in Swat, the army Sunday accused militants in the valley of looting, attacking infrastructure and killing a soldier; the Taliban said it had started patrolling the valley's main town in response to moves by security forces there, the Associated Press reported.
The meetings with Presidents Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan come as the Obama administration grapples with how closely to embrace two, who are key allies but flawed leaders.
Many U.S. officials question Mr. Zardari's grip on power and whether his government is willing and able to fight Taliban militants who have gained control of more Pakistani territory in recent months. Some in Washington say opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, a former prime minister, would make a better partner, despite concerns about his Islamist alliances.
In Afghanistan, some U.S. officials criticized Mr. Karzai recently, saying he has undermined U.S. goals in the region through ineffective leadership and tolerance of corruption.
But many expect Mr. Karzai to win re-election in August, and some officials in the State Department and the Pentagon now say these public rebukes could undermine future U.S.-Afghan cooperation.
"We've not completely burnt that bridge, but it's black, and timbers are out," said a former senior U.S. military official who consults with the administration on Afghan strategy.
U.S. officials said Mr. Karzai has publicly moved closer to Iran and Russia in recent months, in what appeared to be a warning to the U.S. that he has other strategic partners.
The heads of the three countries' militaries, intelligence services and foreign ministries are slated to attend the meetings in Washington on Wednesday and Thursday, officials involved in the summit said. Mr. Obama is scheduled to hold bilateral and trilateral meetings with Messrs. Karzai and Zardari on Wednesday.
The U.S. wants to help Pakistan and Afghanistan unify their fight against the Taliban through better intelligence sharing, military cooperation and economic integration to aid the tribal areas.
Mr. Karzai and former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf regularly accused each other of not doing enough to fight the Taliban, but Pakistan and Afghanistan officials say relations have improved since Mr. Zardari took office.
Afghan and Pakistani diplomats said they would like to use the summit to put in place a larger number of joint border-control centers to guard against Taliban militants orchestrating cross-border raids.
Kabul and Islamabad are looking to firm up trade and transportation pacts aimed at stimulating economic growth in the impoverished tribal regions straddling both countries. The World Bank and its finance arm, the International Finance Corp., are expected to announce development projects for these areas during the meetings this week, while the State Department is preparing to fund agriculture programs aimed at providing Afghan farmers with alternatives to poppy cultivation.
Obama administration officials, increasingly concerned about Pakistan's stability, would also like to discuss acceleration of financial assistance to Islamabad's security forces. Last week, U.S. officials asked Congress to speed up approval of an $83.4 billion war-spending request that includes $400 million to help Pakistani forces fight the Taliban and other armed groups.
Washington has pledged $1 billion in aid to Islamabad as part of a five-year, $7.5 billion package that required Congressional approval. But Congress remains skittish about distributing aid to Pakistan due to past allegations by U.S. lawmakers of government corruption there.
Many U.S. and European officials question whether the international community can effectively distribute assistance into tribal areas where development agencies have difficulty operating.
"No one really knows what to do with this money," said a senior European official. "How do you really use it to improve the situation in the tribal areas?"
Summit attendants are also expected to reassess Pakistan's security situation. In recent days, some senior U.S. officials have publicly questioned whether Mr. Zardari's government could fall, after Taliban fighters seized areas just 70 miles from Islamabad. But a number of senior Pentagon officials are seeking to strike a less-alarmist tone in the discussions. "The threat can get lucky from time to time, and it looks like it has more prowess than it does," said a Pentagon official involved in formulating Pakistan policy.
Senior Obama administration officials said the crisis in Pakistan is among the most acute national security challenges Washington faces.
A peace deal between Islamabad and the Taliban in the Swat Valley has been strained by a militant effort to gain control of neighboring districts. Setting the stage for resumed fighting in Swat, the army Sunday accused militants in the valley of looting, attacking infrastructure and killing a soldier; the Taliban said it had started patrolling the valley's main town in response to moves by security forces there, the Associated Press reported.
U.S. Options in Pakistan Limited: Nation Rife With Security Issues, Infighting, Anti-American Sentiment by Karen DeYong
As Taliban forces edged to within 60 miles of Islamabad late last month, the Obama administration urgently asked for new intelligence assessments of whether Pakistan's government would survive. In briefings last week, senior officials said, President Obama and his National Security Council were told that neither a Taliban takeover nor a military coup was imminent and that the Pakistani nuclear arsenal was safe.
Beyond the immediate future, however, the intelligence was far from reassuring. Security was deteriorating rapidly, particularly in the mountains along the Afghan border that harbor al-Qaeda and the Taliban, intelligence chiefs reported, and there were signs that those groups were working with indigenous extremists in Pakistan's populous Punjabi heartland.
The Pakistani government was mired in political bickering. The army, still fixated on its historical adversary India, remained ill-equipped and unwilling to throw its full weight into the counterinsurgency fight.
But despite the threat the intelligence conveyed, Obama has only limited options for dealing with it. Anti-American feeling in Pakistan is high, and a U.S. combat presence is prohibited. The United States is fighting Pakistan-based extremists by proxy, through an army over which it has little control, in alliance with a government in which it has little confidence.
The tools most readily at hand are money, weapons, and a mentoring relationship with Pakistan's government and military that alternates between earnest advice and anxious criticism. As criticism has dominated in recent weeks -- along with reports that the administration is wooing Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari's principal political opponent, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif -- the partnership has grown strained.
"What are the Americans trying to do, micromanage our politics?" a senior Pakistani official said testily. "This is not South Vietnam."
As Zardari arrives this week for his first official visit with Obama -- part of a tripartite summit with Afghan President Hamid Karzai -- the administration has asked Congress to quickly approve hundreds of millions of dollars in emergency military aid for Pakistan. That money, and billions more over the next several years, is to come with new authority for the Defense Department to decide what to spend it on.
Obama has also backed a five-year $7.5 billion economic assistance package and is resisting congressional efforts to impose strict conditions on any aid to Pakistan. Last month, the administration orchestrated an international donors' conference in Tokyo that netted $5.5 billion in pledges for Pakistan.
When he sits down with Zardari on Wednesday at the White House, Obama will urge him to put more effort into building domestic support by meeting critical public needs and to resolve his differences with Sharif and others so that he can concentrate on governing, according to officials who discussed sensitive and fluid Pakistan issues on the condition of anonymity.
Of particular concern are hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis who have been displaced by fighting in the North-West Frontier Province, U.S. officials said.
Security proposals up for discussion with Zardari and other members of his high-level delegation include counterinsurgency training for Pakistani army troops at U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, the United States or elsewhere. The administration wants to expand a small, in-country training force -- now limited to about 70 Americans -- that is working with the Frontier Corps, the local, poorly-armed force in the border regions.
As 17,000 additional U.S. troops deploying to southern Afghanistan this spring and summer begin to push Taliban fighters toward the Pakistan border, there are hopes the extremists can be trapped in "hammer and anvil" operations with Pakistani forces in the southern province of Baluchistan. Right now, however, Pakistan fields only one army brigade and about 40,000 minimally trained and equipped Frontier Corps members in the vast region, according to U.S. officials.
In deference to Pakistani objections, the administration has not initiated covert ground attacks, approved by the Bush administration last year, in mountain villages farther to the north, in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, where it believes high-value al-Qaeda figures are located. But Obama authorized stepped-up attacks on the area by missiles launched from unmanned drone aircraft.
Although privately approved by the Pakistani government, despite its public denunciations, the missile attacks are highly unpopular among the public. As Zardari's domestic problems have grown, the Obama administration last month cut the frequency of the attacks. Some senior U.S. officials believe they have reached the point of diminishing return and the administration is debating the rate at which they should continue.
Always simmering, administration concern about Pakistani governance rose sharply last month when the Parliament approved an agreement between regional authorities and the Taliban to authorize sharia, or Islamic law, in the Swat Valley, located about 100 miles northwest of Islamabad. Rather than lay down their arms in exchange, Taliban forces began moving eastward. By the third week in April, they had established a presence in Buner district, 60 miles from the capital, with no apparent government resistance.
The day after the Buner reports surfaced, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton infuriated the Pakistani government by telling Congress it was "abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists" and that the situation posed a "mortal threat" to the world.
"Absolutely, they're getting irritated," a senior U.S. official said of the Pakistanis. Clinton, he said, "knows she went too far" in her unscripted testimony. "But on the other hand," he said, "it was that kind of statement that helped wake up the Pakistanis."
A Pakistani military offensive in the Buner region was underway Tuesday, even as Obama's national security team met at the White House, and continued through the weekend. Administration officials said they were watching to see whether the military followed through or would simply stop without finishing the job, as they have in the past.
Meanwhile, Pakistan's government says it is in no mood for criticism or conditions on aid. After "billions of dollars were poured into Pakistan under the dictatorship" of Gen. Pervez Musharraf by the Bush administration, Pakistani ambassador to Washington Husain Haqqani said yesterday, the Obama administration has produced little but promises and disapproval of the democratically elected government.
"It is unfair to blame the civilian leadership that is bravely mobilizing the nation against terrorism when it is our American partners who have also slowed us down in the war effort by slowing down the flow of assistance," Haqqani said. "We trust that President Obama's emphasis on Pakistan will also translate promises into deliverables."
"You can't spend more in Iraq and Afghanistan," he said, "and then wonder why the effort in Pakistan is lagging behind."
Beyond the immediate future, however, the intelligence was far from reassuring. Security was deteriorating rapidly, particularly in the mountains along the Afghan border that harbor al-Qaeda and the Taliban, intelligence chiefs reported, and there were signs that those groups were working with indigenous extremists in Pakistan's populous Punjabi heartland.
The Pakistani government was mired in political bickering. The army, still fixated on its historical adversary India, remained ill-equipped and unwilling to throw its full weight into the counterinsurgency fight.
But despite the threat the intelligence conveyed, Obama has only limited options for dealing with it. Anti-American feeling in Pakistan is high, and a U.S. combat presence is prohibited. The United States is fighting Pakistan-based extremists by proxy, through an army over which it has little control, in alliance with a government in which it has little confidence.
The tools most readily at hand are money, weapons, and a mentoring relationship with Pakistan's government and military that alternates between earnest advice and anxious criticism. As criticism has dominated in recent weeks -- along with reports that the administration is wooing Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari's principal political opponent, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif -- the partnership has grown strained.
"What are the Americans trying to do, micromanage our politics?" a senior Pakistani official said testily. "This is not South Vietnam."
As Zardari arrives this week for his first official visit with Obama -- part of a tripartite summit with Afghan President Hamid Karzai -- the administration has asked Congress to quickly approve hundreds of millions of dollars in emergency military aid for Pakistan. That money, and billions more over the next several years, is to come with new authority for the Defense Department to decide what to spend it on.
Obama has also backed a five-year $7.5 billion economic assistance package and is resisting congressional efforts to impose strict conditions on any aid to Pakistan. Last month, the administration orchestrated an international donors' conference in Tokyo that netted $5.5 billion in pledges for Pakistan.
When he sits down with Zardari on Wednesday at the White House, Obama will urge him to put more effort into building domestic support by meeting critical public needs and to resolve his differences with Sharif and others so that he can concentrate on governing, according to officials who discussed sensitive and fluid Pakistan issues on the condition of anonymity.
Of particular concern are hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis who have been displaced by fighting in the North-West Frontier Province, U.S. officials said.
Security proposals up for discussion with Zardari and other members of his high-level delegation include counterinsurgency training for Pakistani army troops at U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, the United States or elsewhere. The administration wants to expand a small, in-country training force -- now limited to about 70 Americans -- that is working with the Frontier Corps, the local, poorly-armed force in the border regions.
As 17,000 additional U.S. troops deploying to southern Afghanistan this spring and summer begin to push Taliban fighters toward the Pakistan border, there are hopes the extremists can be trapped in "hammer and anvil" operations with Pakistani forces in the southern province of Baluchistan. Right now, however, Pakistan fields only one army brigade and about 40,000 minimally trained and equipped Frontier Corps members in the vast region, according to U.S. officials.
In deference to Pakistani objections, the administration has not initiated covert ground attacks, approved by the Bush administration last year, in mountain villages farther to the north, in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, where it believes high-value al-Qaeda figures are located. But Obama authorized stepped-up attacks on the area by missiles launched from unmanned drone aircraft.
Although privately approved by the Pakistani government, despite its public denunciations, the missile attacks are highly unpopular among the public. As Zardari's domestic problems have grown, the Obama administration last month cut the frequency of the attacks. Some senior U.S. officials believe they have reached the point of diminishing return and the administration is debating the rate at which they should continue.
Always simmering, administration concern about Pakistani governance rose sharply last month when the Parliament approved an agreement between regional authorities and the Taliban to authorize sharia, or Islamic law, in the Swat Valley, located about 100 miles northwest of Islamabad. Rather than lay down their arms in exchange, Taliban forces began moving eastward. By the third week in April, they had established a presence in Buner district, 60 miles from the capital, with no apparent government resistance.
The day after the Buner reports surfaced, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton infuriated the Pakistani government by telling Congress it was "abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists" and that the situation posed a "mortal threat" to the world.
"Absolutely, they're getting irritated," a senior U.S. official said of the Pakistanis. Clinton, he said, "knows she went too far" in her unscripted testimony. "But on the other hand," he said, "it was that kind of statement that helped wake up the Pakistanis."
A Pakistani military offensive in the Buner region was underway Tuesday, even as Obama's national security team met at the White House, and continued through the weekend. Administration officials said they were watching to see whether the military followed through or would simply stop without finishing the job, as they have in the past.
Meanwhile, Pakistan's government says it is in no mood for criticism or conditions on aid. After "billions of dollars were poured into Pakistan under the dictatorship" of Gen. Pervez Musharraf by the Bush administration, Pakistani ambassador to Washington Husain Haqqani said yesterday, the Obama administration has produced little but promises and disapproval of the democratically elected government.
"It is unfair to blame the civilian leadership that is bravely mobilizing the nation against terrorism when it is our American partners who have also slowed us down in the war effort by slowing down the flow of assistance," Haqqani said. "We trust that President Obama's emphasis on Pakistan will also translate promises into deliverables."
"You can't spend more in Iraq and Afghanistan," he said, "and then wonder why the effort in Pakistan is lagging behind."
Fears of Yemen Turning into Another Afghanistan by Donna Abu-nasr
The cave tucked in the remote Saudi mountains near the Yemeni border was clearly a way station for Islamic militants, Saudi police say, pointing to the stock of guns and ammunition, nooks for holding hostages and cameras for filming them.
It even had buckets of sugar, rice and flour, as well as boxes of charcoal, candles, pasta and beans _ supplies for a long stay by al-Qaida fighters moving across the border to prepare attacks in the kingdom.
The discovery in early April reinforced a growing fear in Saudi Arabia: that Yemen could become another Afghanistan right on its doorstep, an out-of-control state where al-Qaida runs free and exports violence into its neighbor.
The United States shares the Saudis' fear. Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, told Congress in April that the weakness of Yemen's government provides al-Qaida a safe haven and that terror groups could "threaten Yemen's neighbors, especially Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states."
Yemen is the Arab world's poorest nation _ and one of its most unstable _ making it fertile territory for al-Qaida to set up camp. The country is also in a strategic location, next door to some of the world's most important oil producing nations. It also lies just across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia, an even more tumultuous nation where the U.S. has said militants from the terror network have been increasing their activity.
Al-Qaida militants, including fighters returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, have established sanctuaries among a number of Yemeni tribes, particularly ones in three provinces bordering Saudi Arabia known as the "triangle of evil" because of the heavy militant presence, Yemeni authorities say.
In January, militants announced the creation of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, a merger between the terror network's Yemeni and Saudi branches, led by Naser Abdel-Karim al-Wahishi, a Yemeni who was once a close aide to Osama bin Laden. Over the past year, al-Qaida has been blamed for a string of attacks, including an armed assault in September on the U.S. Embassy in San'a, as well as two suicide bombings targeting South Korean visitors in March.
Al-Qaida fighters in the country are believed to number in the low hundreds. But the presence is strong enough that Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh in February pleaded with tribesmen in the "triangle of evil" to turn in militants.
"You are the triangle of good, giving and loyal men. Fight terrorism and don't ignore it," Saleh told tribal members in Mareb province. "Does anyone here want to take us back to square one? To the days of ignorance, poverty and isolation?"
Yemen, the ancestral home of bin Laden's family, has long been an al-Qaida stomping ground. The country was the scene to one of al-Qaida's most dramatic pre-9/11 attacks, the 2000 suicide bombing of the destroyer USS Cole off the Aden coast that killed 17 American sailors.
But the difference now is that rather than just carrying out attacks in Yemen, a new generation of al-Qaida militants appears to be trying to establish a longterm presence here, uniting Yemenis returning from fighting in Iraq and Saudis fleeing the kingdom's crackdown. They have openly declared their aim to overthrow Saleh for his joining Washington's war on terror.
Unlike Afghanistan under the Taliban, al-Qaida doesn't have a government supporting it in Yemen. But it doesn't necessarily need it. Government control is weak over much of the mountainous, desert nation. Many areas are lawless, weapons are plentiful, and rampant poverty _ which is worsening with falling oil prices _ makes recruiting militants easy.
Many tribes are disgruntled with the government, and can be paid to provide havens for militants. Abdul-Karim al-Eryani, a political adviser to Saleh, says that the miltiants seem to be well-funded and that security forces are reluctant to move strongly against them because then "it becomes a war between the state and the tribes, which is not advisable."
Even tribesmen who are not sympathethic to al-Qaida are reluctant to hand over militants because of the traditional custom of generosity toward guests.
Ji'bil al-Deeman, a tribal leader in Mareb _ which along with Shabwa and Jof provinces make up the "triangle of evil" _ says he opposes al-Qaida because its attacks impede badly needed development projects. But if a militant showed up in his territory, al-Deeman said he would just order him out, not alert the police.
"I won't hand him over to authorities. It's shameful to do so to someone who asks for my protection," said al-Deeman. "Anyone who did so would be considered a deficient tribesman and would bring shame to his tribe."
Other tribesmen also deny harboring al-Qaida, and blame the government's failure to address poverty for a rise in militancy behind recent attacks. Yemen, a country of 22 million people more than twice the size of California, has a 35 percent unemployment rate and a 50 percent literacy rate.
"We have a corruption problem in this country, we have a lawlessness problem," said Mufarreh Buhaih, a tribal chief in Mareb. "We worry that this country will turn into another Somalia and become a real sanctuary for terrorism."
At the same time, the government is caught up in other problems _ the possibility of a new flare-up in a Shiite uprising in the north and tensions in the south, where separatist sentiment is mounting.
Even in the capital San'a, where government control is tight, tensions are palpable. Random checkpoints crop up across the city, with troops searching cars and sometimes frisking passengers. Hotels are putting up fences and installing high-tech security devices. New security measures have been imposed at the international airport, even barring friends and family from entering the arrivals terminal to greet imcoming passengers.
The San'a government's weakness has made Washington hesitant to return dozens of Yemenis currently being held at the Guantanamo Bay military prison, which President Barack Obama has promised to shut down. The U.S. apparently fears the freed detainees could come under the sway of al-Qaida. Earlier this month, Obama counterterrorism adviser John Brennan met with Yemen's president and underlined the U.S. concerns, the State Department said.
In January, Saudi Arabia issued a list of its top 85 most wanted militants living abroad, most of them in Yemen, including al-Wahishi, the 33-year-old leader of the merged Yemeni-Saudi al-Qaida.
In the years immediately following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaida militants tried a direct assault on Saudi Arabia, carrying out a string of shootings and bombings against Saudi police, foreigners and infrastructure. A heavy crackdown largely crushed al-Qaida cells in the kingdom.
Now Saudi Arabia fears al-Qaida is trying again, this time through the backdoor via its southern neighbor.
The cave hideout illustrates the dangers. The border, running 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) through rough desert and mountain terrain, is highly porous. That makes it easy for militants to enter Saudi Arabia or for Saudis to cross into Yemen for a few days militant training, then return home.
In their April raid on the cave, Saudi police seized 11 suspected Saudi militants planning armed robberies, possibly on banks and shops in Saudi Arabia to finance their operations, Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Mansour al-Turki said. The cave included nooks set up apparently to hold hostages and film them for Web videos.
"The cave was a foothold for al-Qaida," said al-Turki. "It could've been used for logistical support, as a shelter or a holding area for infiltrators."
Those arrested at the cave are the most serious cell of militants caught so far in southern Saudi Arabia because of its "ready-to-execute plots, targets and capabilities," al-Turki said.
Al-Qaida, he said, is trying to lure young Saudis to get militant training in Yemen, instead of having to go all the way to Afghanistan.
"The youths can slip over to Yemen for a few days training and return home without raising their parents' suspicion because their absence won't be long," he said.
It even had buckets of sugar, rice and flour, as well as boxes of charcoal, candles, pasta and beans _ supplies for a long stay by al-Qaida fighters moving across the border to prepare attacks in the kingdom.
The discovery in early April reinforced a growing fear in Saudi Arabia: that Yemen could become another Afghanistan right on its doorstep, an out-of-control state where al-Qaida runs free and exports violence into its neighbor.
The United States shares the Saudis' fear. Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, told Congress in April that the weakness of Yemen's government provides al-Qaida a safe haven and that terror groups could "threaten Yemen's neighbors, especially Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states."
Yemen is the Arab world's poorest nation _ and one of its most unstable _ making it fertile territory for al-Qaida to set up camp. The country is also in a strategic location, next door to some of the world's most important oil producing nations. It also lies just across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia, an even more tumultuous nation where the U.S. has said militants from the terror network have been increasing their activity.
Al-Qaida militants, including fighters returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, have established sanctuaries among a number of Yemeni tribes, particularly ones in three provinces bordering Saudi Arabia known as the "triangle of evil" because of the heavy militant presence, Yemeni authorities say.
In January, militants announced the creation of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, a merger between the terror network's Yemeni and Saudi branches, led by Naser Abdel-Karim al-Wahishi, a Yemeni who was once a close aide to Osama bin Laden. Over the past year, al-Qaida has been blamed for a string of attacks, including an armed assault in September on the U.S. Embassy in San'a, as well as two suicide bombings targeting South Korean visitors in March.
Al-Qaida fighters in the country are believed to number in the low hundreds. But the presence is strong enough that Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh in February pleaded with tribesmen in the "triangle of evil" to turn in militants.
"You are the triangle of good, giving and loyal men. Fight terrorism and don't ignore it," Saleh told tribal members in Mareb province. "Does anyone here want to take us back to square one? To the days of ignorance, poverty and isolation?"
Yemen, the ancestral home of bin Laden's family, has long been an al-Qaida stomping ground. The country was the scene to one of al-Qaida's most dramatic pre-9/11 attacks, the 2000 suicide bombing of the destroyer USS Cole off the Aden coast that killed 17 American sailors.
But the difference now is that rather than just carrying out attacks in Yemen, a new generation of al-Qaida militants appears to be trying to establish a longterm presence here, uniting Yemenis returning from fighting in Iraq and Saudis fleeing the kingdom's crackdown. They have openly declared their aim to overthrow Saleh for his joining Washington's war on terror.
Unlike Afghanistan under the Taliban, al-Qaida doesn't have a government supporting it in Yemen. But it doesn't necessarily need it. Government control is weak over much of the mountainous, desert nation. Many areas are lawless, weapons are plentiful, and rampant poverty _ which is worsening with falling oil prices _ makes recruiting militants easy.
Many tribes are disgruntled with the government, and can be paid to provide havens for militants. Abdul-Karim al-Eryani, a political adviser to Saleh, says that the miltiants seem to be well-funded and that security forces are reluctant to move strongly against them because then "it becomes a war between the state and the tribes, which is not advisable."
Even tribesmen who are not sympathethic to al-Qaida are reluctant to hand over militants because of the traditional custom of generosity toward guests.
Ji'bil al-Deeman, a tribal leader in Mareb _ which along with Shabwa and Jof provinces make up the "triangle of evil" _ says he opposes al-Qaida because its attacks impede badly needed development projects. But if a militant showed up in his territory, al-Deeman said he would just order him out, not alert the police.
"I won't hand him over to authorities. It's shameful to do so to someone who asks for my protection," said al-Deeman. "Anyone who did so would be considered a deficient tribesman and would bring shame to his tribe."
Other tribesmen also deny harboring al-Qaida, and blame the government's failure to address poverty for a rise in militancy behind recent attacks. Yemen, a country of 22 million people more than twice the size of California, has a 35 percent unemployment rate and a 50 percent literacy rate.
"We have a corruption problem in this country, we have a lawlessness problem," said Mufarreh Buhaih, a tribal chief in Mareb. "We worry that this country will turn into another Somalia and become a real sanctuary for terrorism."
At the same time, the government is caught up in other problems _ the possibility of a new flare-up in a Shiite uprising in the north and tensions in the south, where separatist sentiment is mounting.
Even in the capital San'a, where government control is tight, tensions are palpable. Random checkpoints crop up across the city, with troops searching cars and sometimes frisking passengers. Hotels are putting up fences and installing high-tech security devices. New security measures have been imposed at the international airport, even barring friends and family from entering the arrivals terminal to greet imcoming passengers.
The San'a government's weakness has made Washington hesitant to return dozens of Yemenis currently being held at the Guantanamo Bay military prison, which President Barack Obama has promised to shut down. The U.S. apparently fears the freed detainees could come under the sway of al-Qaida. Earlier this month, Obama counterterrorism adviser John Brennan met with Yemen's president and underlined the U.S. concerns, the State Department said.
In January, Saudi Arabia issued a list of its top 85 most wanted militants living abroad, most of them in Yemen, including al-Wahishi, the 33-year-old leader of the merged Yemeni-Saudi al-Qaida.
In the years immediately following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaida militants tried a direct assault on Saudi Arabia, carrying out a string of shootings and bombings against Saudi police, foreigners and infrastructure. A heavy crackdown largely crushed al-Qaida cells in the kingdom.
Now Saudi Arabia fears al-Qaida is trying again, this time through the backdoor via its southern neighbor.
The cave hideout illustrates the dangers. The border, running 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) through rough desert and mountain terrain, is highly porous. That makes it easy for militants to enter Saudi Arabia or for Saudis to cross into Yemen for a few days militant training, then return home.
In their April raid on the cave, Saudi police seized 11 suspected Saudi militants planning armed robberies, possibly on banks and shops in Saudi Arabia to finance their operations, Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Mansour al-Turki said. The cave included nooks set up apparently to hold hostages and film them for Web videos.
"The cave was a foothold for al-Qaida," said al-Turki. "It could've been used for logistical support, as a shelter or a holding area for infiltrators."
Those arrested at the cave are the most serious cell of militants caught so far in southern Saudi Arabia because of its "ready-to-execute plots, targets and capabilities," al-Turki said.
Al-Qaida, he said, is trying to lure young Saudis to get militant training in Yemen, instead of having to go all the way to Afghanistan.
"The youths can slip over to Yemen for a few days training and return home without raising their parents' suspicion because their absence won't be long," he said.
Glossy Internet Magazine Targets Americans for Jihad Training by Eric Shawn (The Investigative Project)
It's been likened to Al Qaeda's "Vanity Fair," a new English-language Internet magazine called "Jihad Recollections" that focuses on the terrorist group, its founder, Usama Bin Laden, and how to commit jihad. It also predicts the demise of the United States.
“This is designed for Americans,” says noted terrorism expert Steven Emerson, founder of the Investigative Project on Terrorism in Washington, D.C., and author of the book "American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us."
“It’s not for Brits, not for Germans, not for jihadists in the Middle East. It’s designed for Americans and it’s designed to get them to convert to Islam or to carry out jihad acts of terror,” he said.
“What started off as some angry kids in their basement has transformed over the past several years into a robust Al Qaeda propaganda outlet right here in our backyard,” says Jarret Brachman, an Al Qaeda specialist and author of the new book, “Global Jihadism.”
Brachman says “it raises the bar for pro-Al Qaeda propaganda in English. Its presentation is flashier than any English language Al Qaeda propaganda that we’ve seen to date.” He also says “the publication shows how deeply embedded in the global Al Qaeda movement its editors are.”
It is not clear what connection, if any, the magazine has to Al Qaeda or its followers. It is published by the “Al Fursan Media Foundation,” but FOX News could not find such an organization or a way to contact them for comment.
Yet “Jihad Recollections” certainly highlights the terrorist group and the goals of Islamic jihad in a sophisticated and graphically slick presentation similar to any high quality Web site.
The magazine includes the speeches and writings of Bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Articles range from “Four Practical Steps to Expand the Global Jihad,” to “The Science Behind Night Vision Technology” and “Principles of Guerrilla Warfare.”
“The magazine is quite startling,” said Emerson. It is “a veritable manual on how to carry out terrorism. It’s quite shocking, and the question is whether it violates the law or not.”
The first issue says of the 9/11 attacks, that “the strategy was genius.” It calls America “one of the most atrocious and egotistical regimes to date,” and it accuses the United States of spreading corruption in Islamic countries through its embassies. “How can we expect from America any good?” it asks. “We only expect from it every evil and corruption.”
“Jihad Recollections” appears to prepare followers to engage in jihad. One section teaches aspiring jihadists how to stay in shape by doing exercise without weights. Articles with photographs of men dressed in white robes with their faces covered encourage them to exercise at home and stay away from American gyms because “they are full of music, semi-naked women, free mixing.” It warns of the dangers of “showing off” during a workout and even observes that protein shakes are too expensive and not worth the money.
For those who thought the election of Barack Obama as president would assuage the militant world, the magazine makes it quite clear that is not the case.
“To the Muslims who voted for Obama and were optimistic that he would make a positive change ... nothing will change except things can only get worse,” the magazine proclaims. “Only Allah knows how much worse it will get.”
The magazine criticizes the Obama economic stimulus plan, calling it “flawed,” and ridicules the president as “Mr. Yes We Can,” whose policies will “continue to loot all the hardworking Americans wealth.”
It even includes the views of some prominent critics of the president’s polices, such as former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey, now an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute, and veteran Tennessee Rep. Zach Wamp, the ranking Republican on the House Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Subcommittee. Such references clearly indicate an awareness of American political discourse similar to the nation’s political policy magazines.
In fact, “Jihad Recollections” proclaims: “It is the first of its kind as it is geared towards the English speaking Muslims who are interested in gaining heights in their religious, political, economical, social, technological, strategic, historical, biographical and health awareness.”
The writing may be a bit flamboyant, and while it boasts that “The U.S. grows weaker every day,” there is no explicit call for violence against the country or against Americans. Emerson thinks the publication is “pushing the envelope of the First Amendment” by reporting on jihad issues, and he says it indicates that the Internet is being used as “one of the major sources for radicalization.”
“Thousands of people have accessed these pro-Al Qaeda websites,” notes Brachman. He says “this new journal is receiving more and more praise from within the English-language jihadist movement. The fact is that their movement is growing — their popularity is growing.”
More than 5,000 people have viewed “Jihad Recollections” and 11 people list it as one of their “favorites.” Who are its readers? And do they adhere to the jihad philosophy?
Whoever is behind “Jihad Recollections” has a strange mix of opinion with one focus: seemingly to spread the message of Islamic jihad at the expense of Americans. That such a publication is accessible at all speaks to the freedoms we enjoy in our country while, experts say, also serving as a warning of the danger that Islamic militants and radicals pose to our nation.
“This is designed for Americans,” says noted terrorism expert Steven Emerson, founder of the Investigative Project on Terrorism in Washington, D.C., and author of the book "American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us."
“It’s not for Brits, not for Germans, not for jihadists in the Middle East. It’s designed for Americans and it’s designed to get them to convert to Islam or to carry out jihad acts of terror,” he said.
“What started off as some angry kids in their basement has transformed over the past several years into a robust Al Qaeda propaganda outlet right here in our backyard,” says Jarret Brachman, an Al Qaeda specialist and author of the new book, “Global Jihadism.”
Brachman says “it raises the bar for pro-Al Qaeda propaganda in English. Its presentation is flashier than any English language Al Qaeda propaganda that we’ve seen to date.” He also says “the publication shows how deeply embedded in the global Al Qaeda movement its editors are.”
It is not clear what connection, if any, the magazine has to Al Qaeda or its followers. It is published by the “Al Fursan Media Foundation,” but FOX News could not find such an organization or a way to contact them for comment.
Yet “Jihad Recollections” certainly highlights the terrorist group and the goals of Islamic jihad in a sophisticated and graphically slick presentation similar to any high quality Web site.
The magazine includes the speeches and writings of Bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Articles range from “Four Practical Steps to Expand the Global Jihad,” to “The Science Behind Night Vision Technology” and “Principles of Guerrilla Warfare.”
“The magazine is quite startling,” said Emerson. It is “a veritable manual on how to carry out terrorism. It’s quite shocking, and the question is whether it violates the law or not.”
The first issue says of the 9/11 attacks, that “the strategy was genius.” It calls America “one of the most atrocious and egotistical regimes to date,” and it accuses the United States of spreading corruption in Islamic countries through its embassies. “How can we expect from America any good?” it asks. “We only expect from it every evil and corruption.”
“Jihad Recollections” appears to prepare followers to engage in jihad. One section teaches aspiring jihadists how to stay in shape by doing exercise without weights. Articles with photographs of men dressed in white robes with their faces covered encourage them to exercise at home and stay away from American gyms because “they are full of music, semi-naked women, free mixing.” It warns of the dangers of “showing off” during a workout and even observes that protein shakes are too expensive and not worth the money.
For those who thought the election of Barack Obama as president would assuage the militant world, the magazine makes it quite clear that is not the case.
“To the Muslims who voted for Obama and were optimistic that he would make a positive change ... nothing will change except things can only get worse,” the magazine proclaims. “Only Allah knows how much worse it will get.”
The magazine criticizes the Obama economic stimulus plan, calling it “flawed,” and ridicules the president as “Mr. Yes We Can,” whose policies will “continue to loot all the hardworking Americans wealth.”
It even includes the views of some prominent critics of the president’s polices, such as former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey, now an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute, and veteran Tennessee Rep. Zach Wamp, the ranking Republican on the House Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Subcommittee. Such references clearly indicate an awareness of American political discourse similar to the nation’s political policy magazines.
In fact, “Jihad Recollections” proclaims: “It is the first of its kind as it is geared towards the English speaking Muslims who are interested in gaining heights in their religious, political, economical, social, technological, strategic, historical, biographical and health awareness.”
The writing may be a bit flamboyant, and while it boasts that “The U.S. grows weaker every day,” there is no explicit call for violence against the country or against Americans. Emerson thinks the publication is “pushing the envelope of the First Amendment” by reporting on jihad issues, and he says it indicates that the Internet is being used as “one of the major sources for radicalization.”
“Thousands of people have accessed these pro-Al Qaeda websites,” notes Brachman. He says “this new journal is receiving more and more praise from within the English-language jihadist movement. The fact is that their movement is growing — their popularity is growing.”
More than 5,000 people have viewed “Jihad Recollections” and 11 people list it as one of their “favorites.” Who are its readers? And do they adhere to the jihad philosophy?
Whoever is behind “Jihad Recollections” has a strange mix of opinion with one focus: seemingly to spread the message of Islamic jihad at the expense of Americans. That such a publication is accessible at all speaks to the freedoms we enjoy in our country while, experts say, also serving as a warning of the danger that Islamic militants and radicals pose to our nation.
The Iran-Venezuela Military Relationship Rolls On by Douglas Farah
Two related items that should give the Obama administration pause as it seeks ways to engage Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and other countries in Venezuela’s sphere of influence (Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador primarily).
The first is the new Memorandum of Understanding signed between the militaries of Venezuela and Iran. According to the official FARS News Agency, Iran’s defense minister, in a visit to Caracas, “underlined Tehran’s all-out efforts to help Venezuela promote its defense capabilities and bolster its power of deterrence through bilateral Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) on military cooperation.”
Chávez, for his part, stated that “The Bolivarian and the Islamic Revolutions have a lot in common and these commonalities have consolidated the two countries’ bonds.”
Stressing that Iran has a special place in Venezuela’s foreign policy, Chavez referred to the two countries’ armies, and underlined that armed forces of the two countries should be reinforced in a bid to help strengthen sustainable security.
Secretary of State Clinton, as the Washington Post recently noted, has been talking about improving relations with Venezuela while remaining studiously silent on Chávez’s increasingly bold attacks on the legitimate opposition (something Bolivia’s Evo Morales is imitating).
It should be quite clear that Chávez values the ties to Iran far more than he does potential ties to Washington, and the recent MOU with Iran makes that clear.
At the same time, 17 people were arrested in the small Caribbean island (and Dutch territory) of Curacao on charges of transporting several tons of cocaine and sending some of the money to Hezbollah.
“We have been able to establish that this group has relations with international criminal organizations that have connections with the Hezbollah,” prosecutor Ludmila Vicento said.
Island officials said the US and the Netherlands are helping them to investigate the alleged Hezbollah connection.
Two shipments of cocaine totaling 2,000 kilograms (4,400 pounds) have been seized from the ring in Curacao since the beginning of last year. The traffickers used cargo ships and speed boats to import the drugs from Colombia and Venezuela for shipment to Africa and beyond to Europe, according to Curacao authorities.
Since Venezuela has become a no-go zone for virtually any type of international counter-narcotics efforts and seems to tolerate a great deal of cocaine traffic to Africa, one has wonder how this all ties together. This AFP story provides more details from the Dutch investigators.
“The group shipped containers with cocaine from Curacao to the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Jordan,” it said. “From Venezuela, containers with drugs went to West Africa and then to the Netherlands, Lebanon and Spain. Carriers smuggled the cocaine as airline passengers from Curacao and Aruba into the Netherlands.”
The proceeds were allegedly invested in several countries, said the statement. “The organisation had international contacts with other criminal networks that financially supported Hezbollah in the Middle East. Large sums of drug money flooded into Lebanon, from where orders were placed for weapons that were to have been delivered from South America.”
Since Venezuela’s blooming relationship with Iran has grown closer, the amount of cocaine coming through Venezuela has skyrocketed and the documented cases of Hezbollah activities have soared. It is hard to imagine, as many seem to, that this is all some big, unhappy coincidence.
The military relationship will bring with it a formal role for the Quds Force, which will bring in greater cover for Hezbollah’s activities. Weaning Venezuela away from Iran by being nice to Chávez, as Secretary Clinton proposes, is neither realistic nor wise.
The first is the new Memorandum of Understanding signed between the militaries of Venezuela and Iran. According to the official FARS News Agency, Iran’s defense minister, in a visit to Caracas, “underlined Tehran’s all-out efforts to help Venezuela promote its defense capabilities and bolster its power of deterrence through bilateral Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) on military cooperation.”
Chávez, for his part, stated that “The Bolivarian and the Islamic Revolutions have a lot in common and these commonalities have consolidated the two countries’ bonds.”
Stressing that Iran has a special place in Venezuela’s foreign policy, Chavez referred to the two countries’ armies, and underlined that armed forces of the two countries should be reinforced in a bid to help strengthen sustainable security.
Secretary of State Clinton, as the Washington Post recently noted, has been talking about improving relations with Venezuela while remaining studiously silent on Chávez’s increasingly bold attacks on the legitimate opposition (something Bolivia’s Evo Morales is imitating).
It should be quite clear that Chávez values the ties to Iran far more than he does potential ties to Washington, and the recent MOU with Iran makes that clear.
At the same time, 17 people were arrested in the small Caribbean island (and Dutch territory) of Curacao on charges of transporting several tons of cocaine and sending some of the money to Hezbollah.
“We have been able to establish that this group has relations with international criminal organizations that have connections with the Hezbollah,” prosecutor Ludmila Vicento said.
Island officials said the US and the Netherlands are helping them to investigate the alleged Hezbollah connection.
Two shipments of cocaine totaling 2,000 kilograms (4,400 pounds) have been seized from the ring in Curacao since the beginning of last year. The traffickers used cargo ships and speed boats to import the drugs from Colombia and Venezuela for shipment to Africa and beyond to Europe, according to Curacao authorities.
Since Venezuela has become a no-go zone for virtually any type of international counter-narcotics efforts and seems to tolerate a great deal of cocaine traffic to Africa, one has wonder how this all ties together. This AFP story provides more details from the Dutch investigators.
“The group shipped containers with cocaine from Curacao to the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Jordan,” it said. “From Venezuela, containers with drugs went to West Africa and then to the Netherlands, Lebanon and Spain. Carriers smuggled the cocaine as airline passengers from Curacao and Aruba into the Netherlands.”
The proceeds were allegedly invested in several countries, said the statement. “The organisation had international contacts with other criminal networks that financially supported Hezbollah in the Middle East. Large sums of drug money flooded into Lebanon, from where orders were placed for weapons that were to have been delivered from South America.”
Since Venezuela’s blooming relationship with Iran has grown closer, the amount of cocaine coming through Venezuela has skyrocketed and the documented cases of Hezbollah activities have soared. It is hard to imagine, as many seem to, that this is all some big, unhappy coincidence.
The military relationship will bring with it a formal role for the Quds Force, which will bring in greater cover for Hezbollah’s activities. Weaning Venezuela away from Iran by being nice to Chávez, as Secretary Clinton proposes, is neither realistic nor wise.
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