One of the fascinating things about a spate of recent articles is that they point to how non-state armed actors acquire information and new, ever-more sophisticated techniques. Two examples are the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan and the more sophisticated of the Somali pirates.
This shows that these groups talk and learn from other groups, have networks to transfer technologies and "lessons learned" and greatly accelerate the speed of their learning curves. Unconstrained by laws, acquisition regulations and budgetary considerations, these groups can rapidly acquire whatever they can afford. Thanks to the fact that dozens of shipping companies have paid tens of millions of dollars to the different Somali clans and sub-clans that carry out the piracy, they are cash flush.
The Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) says the pirates, until recently, had attacked during the day and were relatively unsophisticated in their tactics. Now, however, "pirates have attacked vessels at night and have conducted attacks far off the eastern coast of Somalia," the CMF said. Using "mother ships" as staging platforms and night vision technology, they are able to operate much further from the Somali coast than before.
This means that extra territorial actors are providing the pirate groups with what they need, in a space that has had virtually no functional government for more than a decade. Just as the RUF, deep in the bush in Sierra Leone, could be found by U.S. European and African diamond merchants and weapons purveyors, the pirates can find the market or the market can find them.
The Taliban is also showing increasing sophistication in their attacks.
Two commando-style assaults in Pakistan in the past two weeks show militants can now pierce the iron-fortified gates, concrete barricades and cordons of armed guards that are meant to secure hotels, housing compounds and even police stations across the country.
The level of organization and sophistication of the attacks has been rarely seen in Pakistan. They are designed to send a message that if the military launches an offensive against the Taliban's stronghold near the Afghan border it will face a highly determined and well-prepared enemy, analysts say.
"It is an improvement in their tactics; they are trying to enter the target through use of force," Mahmood Shah told The Associated Press. "It appears that they are in a hurry and they are becoming more aggressive."
One can trace the evolution of these tactics to the cross training, both on the ground and in cyberspace, that the Taliban has shared with other militant groups, including al Qaeda and Hezbollah. The terrorist organizations have the express intent of sharing tactics, strategies and lessons with each other, and spend a great deal of time in doing that. They have money from poppies and private donors that allows them to dedicate time and resources studying, sharing and acquiring the best off the shelf products, with no need for competitive bid contracts and the like.
But, as David Ignatius writes in today's Washington Post, our side seems to be somewhat fixated on internal wars and turf fights in a system that has not grown more streamlined since 9-11.
While there are some efforts put into transmitting lessons learned on the U.S. side, those efforts are sporadic and almost never cross over to those of lessons we could learn from our allies. One of the most interesting things in watching Latin America is how little the Colombian efforts against the FARC have been studied and taught.
Non-state actors have a built in advantage because they are not accountable to anyone, have no use for transparency and are not slowed by the niceties of democratic debate. And, as Ignatius notes, "There's a world of scary people out there, and the country can't afford this turf war any longer."
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Why Apple Keeps iPhone Specifications Quiet by Prince McLean
In marked contrast to the PC market, where differention primarily centers around gigabytes, GHz, and Intel Inside branding, Apple is working to keep attention on the iPhone's software, with a curious avoidance of any mention of the make or specification of its internals, apparently for competitive reasons.
The specifications of the iPhone and iPod touch, as well as the internal details of other integrated products sold by the company such as Apple TV, aren't being kept secret to keep competitors from knowing what's inside, as the components are quickly discovered in a simple tear down. Instead, Apple is working to keep consumers' attention focused on what's unique to its iPhone and other devices, which is often the company's unique software, rather than the commodity hardware the company commonly uses and which competitors can much more easily duplicate.
The unique software capabilities of the iPhone, including its ability to run the 50,000 titles on the App Store, is far more important from a marketing standpoint than the hardware specifications of the iPhone that any manufacturer can match or exceed with little effort. The company faced similar issues in working to sell the original Macintosh against DOS PCs, which were marketed primarily as having a given number of megabytes and MHz rather than having the functionality or usability of the Mac's graphical user interface.
Rather than being compared on the basis of MHz and MB of RAM, the numbers Apple would prefer to have consumers and pundits contemplate are the installed base of more than 40 million users, the tens of thousands of apps available from thousands of developers, and the number of free regular updates that Apple ships to enhance and secure the iPhone's operating system. Those are numbers that phones using Android, BlackBerry OS, Symbian, WebOS, and Windows Mobile are hard pressed to match.
Platform Size
While RIM, Symbian and Microsoft advertise sales of more phones than Apple, none of them have a comparably large installed base of modern phones that all run the same software. That's why Apple could compare its iPhone app library against only 5,000 apps for Android, and even fewer software titles for phones such as Nokia's, which sell in much greater quantity but have fractured software platforms where each phone only runs specific titles.
Similarly, Microsoft's highly publicized 50 million Windows Mobile phones are fractured between Pocket PC devices with a full touch screen and those the company referred to as "Windows Smartphones," which have no touch screen and only limited button control. Writing software to take advantage of both form factors requires more work with little payoff for developers.
Apple's cohesive iPhone platform is now being tested to see how well the company will be able to introduce significant new hardware features without similarly fracturing its platform, potentially resulting either in software titles that only run on specific models or, alternatively, a "lowest common denominator" barrier that prevents developers from really using any of the new features.
The iPhone Upgrade Cycle
Last year, Apple improved upon the original iPhone's hardware by adding key missing features, including GPS and 3G mobile data service. It also added the increased overhead of push messaging and installing and running third party applications and graphics intensive games, without addressing any of those processor intensive software functions with hardware processing improvements.
This year's iPhone 3G S focuses on hardware performance improvements with its faster general purpose ARM and PowerVR graphics processor cores and increase in its internal RAM from 128MB to 256MB. Apple has oddly enough kept the internal specifications of the iPhone hidden, which is curious given the fact that they won't be secret for long once the device goes on sale.
It's also a bit unusual in that specification numbers have long driven purchasing decisions in the PC market, often pointlessly. A decade ago, consumers were so driven by marketing efforts to demand greater clock cycles regardless of actual performance that it coined the term "Megahertz Myth." Intel was eventually forced to back down from its marketing-oriented clock cycle engineering on the Pentium 4 and start over with a new design that delivered real performance and efficiency at lower clock speeds with the Core architecture.
Apple's marketing has focused on the usability and utility of the iPhone, particularly its extensive library of mobile applications on the iTunes App Store. The company is pushing developers hard to ensure that their existing apps work without a hitch on the new model and under the new iPhone 3.0 software release, giving them early access to the golden master version of iPhone 3.0 and allowing a couple days between the new software release and the first sale of new iPhone 3G S. People familiar with the gold master say the included App Store application will identify which applications have been quality tested with iPhone Software 3.0 and which have not, as can be seen in the below image.
Keeping Software Compatible isn't Easy
Last year, the introduction of new hardware features such as GPS did not result in two classes of software, one that required a GPS model and one that could not take advantage of the new feature. Instead, Apple paved over the differences in the platform using hardware abstraction. In the case of GPS, the iPhone's Location Services allowed devices with GPS to obtain more accurate positioning, while devices lacking GPS could still triangulate their position using cell phone towers and WiFi base stations with known positions.
Similar efforts have kept other hardware changes from causing serious software incompatibilities. By making new technologies optional but accessible in the platform, Apple's third party developers can easily incorporate the latest features in the iPhone 3G S while leveraging the large base of existing users by remaining seamlessly compatible. That solves a major Catch-22 that has commonly plagued computing platforms: how to introduce something really new without losing your existing users. Apple has been learning how to do that for over thirty years. It's not easy.
The iPhone OS has to seamlessly manage the new phone's faster processor speed to accelerate the animated interface while preserving proper timing for things that can't run twice as fast, such as video playback and certain animations. While these are fairly elementary aspects of managing a software platform, rival software platforms from Nokia, Microsoft, Google, RIM, and Palm have demonstrated serious problems in delivering both developers and end users a simple, cohesive, and yet progressive platform.
Palm's early design decisions in its Palm OS devices resulted in the platform tanking as the company shifted back and forth on strategies for moving it ahead, ranging from migrating the old interface from the 68000 chip to a new ARM processor without being able to take much advantage of the new CPU, to introducing new operating system revisions that the market and developers simply ignored, such as Palm OS Cobalt 6.0. During all of this the Palm OS was allowed to stagnate in terms of new features.
Microsoft experienced similar problems with Windows CE/Windows Mobile. First, it attempted to support too many hardware configurations, from Handheld PCs to Pocket PC PDAs to several smartphones form-factors, non of which really became popular enough to support a viable software business. The company also chose to make major architectural changes in Windows Mobile that jettisoned support for previous devices' hardware, forcing developers to either cater to a tiny installed base of new models, or the now obsolete market of existing devices.
RIM advertised its new iPhone-like Storm as "the first touchscreen BlackBerry," but it was only a BlackBerry in marketing. It didn't work much like earlier models, didn't run the same software, and developers needed to write all new titles to take advantage of its features. Most importantly, potential developers couldn't benefit from the large installed base of other BlackBerry users, giving them little reason to write apps for it until enough people had bought one, while potential buyers were left to realize that there was no real potential for a wide variety of Storm apps approaching that of the iPhone's.
Managing the Platform
Another aspect to keeping technical specifications out of the limelight is that Apple is careful to expose access to hardware components in a manageable, sustainable manner. If developers are allowed to write "to the hardware," the result is a broken platform where the vendor can't move forward without breaking the apps.
Apple experienced this problem in the clever hacks to the classic Mac OS which resulted in destabilizing the system, a problem that got progressively worse after the company sanctioned the system patches in System 7 under the name Extensions. In Mac OS X, reference releases have been plagued by Input Manager hacks that similarly caused some serious compatibility problems.
That has led Apple down the road of a tightly managed iPhone platform where the execution of third party software requires code signatures and sandboxing, and where access to hardware has been roped off until the company could perfect abstracted public access to features in a way that can accommodate new underlying changes as future models are released.
Users shouldn't need to know how much RAM is available to the operating system of a mobile device, or how fast its primary CPU core is clocked at; what they should care about is how usable the device is and what it allows them to do. That's the message Apple is working to control.
The specifications of the iPhone and iPod touch, as well as the internal details of other integrated products sold by the company such as Apple TV, aren't being kept secret to keep competitors from knowing what's inside, as the components are quickly discovered in a simple tear down. Instead, Apple is working to keep consumers' attention focused on what's unique to its iPhone and other devices, which is often the company's unique software, rather than the commodity hardware the company commonly uses and which competitors can much more easily duplicate.
The unique software capabilities of the iPhone, including its ability to run the 50,000 titles on the App Store, is far more important from a marketing standpoint than the hardware specifications of the iPhone that any manufacturer can match or exceed with little effort. The company faced similar issues in working to sell the original Macintosh against DOS PCs, which were marketed primarily as having a given number of megabytes and MHz rather than having the functionality or usability of the Mac's graphical user interface.
Rather than being compared on the basis of MHz and MB of RAM, the numbers Apple would prefer to have consumers and pundits contemplate are the installed base of more than 40 million users, the tens of thousands of apps available from thousands of developers, and the number of free regular updates that Apple ships to enhance and secure the iPhone's operating system. Those are numbers that phones using Android, BlackBerry OS, Symbian, WebOS, and Windows Mobile are hard pressed to match.
Platform Size
While RIM, Symbian and Microsoft advertise sales of more phones than Apple, none of them have a comparably large installed base of modern phones that all run the same software. That's why Apple could compare its iPhone app library against only 5,000 apps for Android, and even fewer software titles for phones such as Nokia's, which sell in much greater quantity but have fractured software platforms where each phone only runs specific titles.
Similarly, Microsoft's highly publicized 50 million Windows Mobile phones are fractured between Pocket PC devices with a full touch screen and those the company referred to as "Windows Smartphones," which have no touch screen and only limited button control. Writing software to take advantage of both form factors requires more work with little payoff for developers.
Apple's cohesive iPhone platform is now being tested to see how well the company will be able to introduce significant new hardware features without similarly fracturing its platform, potentially resulting either in software titles that only run on specific models or, alternatively, a "lowest common denominator" barrier that prevents developers from really using any of the new features.
The iPhone Upgrade Cycle
Last year, Apple improved upon the original iPhone's hardware by adding key missing features, including GPS and 3G mobile data service. It also added the increased overhead of push messaging and installing and running third party applications and graphics intensive games, without addressing any of those processor intensive software functions with hardware processing improvements.
This year's iPhone 3G S focuses on hardware performance improvements with its faster general purpose ARM and PowerVR graphics processor cores and increase in its internal RAM from 128MB to 256MB. Apple has oddly enough kept the internal specifications of the iPhone hidden, which is curious given the fact that they won't be secret for long once the device goes on sale.
It's also a bit unusual in that specification numbers have long driven purchasing decisions in the PC market, often pointlessly. A decade ago, consumers were so driven by marketing efforts to demand greater clock cycles regardless of actual performance that it coined the term "Megahertz Myth." Intel was eventually forced to back down from its marketing-oriented clock cycle engineering on the Pentium 4 and start over with a new design that delivered real performance and efficiency at lower clock speeds with the Core architecture.
Apple's marketing has focused on the usability and utility of the iPhone, particularly its extensive library of mobile applications on the iTunes App Store. The company is pushing developers hard to ensure that their existing apps work without a hitch on the new model and under the new iPhone 3.0 software release, giving them early access to the golden master version of iPhone 3.0 and allowing a couple days between the new software release and the first sale of new iPhone 3G S. People familiar with the gold master say the included App Store application will identify which applications have been quality tested with iPhone Software 3.0 and which have not, as can be seen in the below image.
Keeping Software Compatible isn't Easy
Last year, the introduction of new hardware features such as GPS did not result in two classes of software, one that required a GPS model and one that could not take advantage of the new feature. Instead, Apple paved over the differences in the platform using hardware abstraction. In the case of GPS, the iPhone's Location Services allowed devices with GPS to obtain more accurate positioning, while devices lacking GPS could still triangulate their position using cell phone towers and WiFi base stations with known positions.
Similar efforts have kept other hardware changes from causing serious software incompatibilities. By making new technologies optional but accessible in the platform, Apple's third party developers can easily incorporate the latest features in the iPhone 3G S while leveraging the large base of existing users by remaining seamlessly compatible. That solves a major Catch-22 that has commonly plagued computing platforms: how to introduce something really new without losing your existing users. Apple has been learning how to do that for over thirty years. It's not easy.
The iPhone OS has to seamlessly manage the new phone's faster processor speed to accelerate the animated interface while preserving proper timing for things that can't run twice as fast, such as video playback and certain animations. While these are fairly elementary aspects of managing a software platform, rival software platforms from Nokia, Microsoft, Google, RIM, and Palm have demonstrated serious problems in delivering both developers and end users a simple, cohesive, and yet progressive platform.
Palm's early design decisions in its Palm OS devices resulted in the platform tanking as the company shifted back and forth on strategies for moving it ahead, ranging from migrating the old interface from the 68000 chip to a new ARM processor without being able to take much advantage of the new CPU, to introducing new operating system revisions that the market and developers simply ignored, such as Palm OS Cobalt 6.0. During all of this the Palm OS was allowed to stagnate in terms of new features.
Microsoft experienced similar problems with Windows CE/Windows Mobile. First, it attempted to support too many hardware configurations, from Handheld PCs to Pocket PC PDAs to several smartphones form-factors, non of which really became popular enough to support a viable software business. The company also chose to make major architectural changes in Windows Mobile that jettisoned support for previous devices' hardware, forcing developers to either cater to a tiny installed base of new models, or the now obsolete market of existing devices.
RIM advertised its new iPhone-like Storm as "the first touchscreen BlackBerry," but it was only a BlackBerry in marketing. It didn't work much like earlier models, didn't run the same software, and developers needed to write all new titles to take advantage of its features. Most importantly, potential developers couldn't benefit from the large installed base of other BlackBerry users, giving them little reason to write apps for it until enough people had bought one, while potential buyers were left to realize that there was no real potential for a wide variety of Storm apps approaching that of the iPhone's.
Managing the Platform
Another aspect to keeping technical specifications out of the limelight is that Apple is careful to expose access to hardware components in a manageable, sustainable manner. If developers are allowed to write "to the hardware," the result is a broken platform where the vendor can't move forward without breaking the apps.
Apple experienced this problem in the clever hacks to the classic Mac OS which resulted in destabilizing the system, a problem that got progressively worse after the company sanctioned the system patches in System 7 under the name Extensions. In Mac OS X, reference releases have been plagued by Input Manager hacks that similarly caused some serious compatibility problems.
That has led Apple down the road of a tightly managed iPhone platform where the execution of third party software requires code signatures and sandboxing, and where access to hardware has been roped off until the company could perfect abstracted public access to features in a way that can accommodate new underlying changes as future models are released.
Users shouldn't need to know how much RAM is available to the operating system of a mobile device, or how fast its primary CPU core is clocked at; what they should care about is how usable the device is and what it allows them to do. That's the message Apple is working to control.
Combating the Financing of Transnational Threats by Michael Jacobson
As the NEFA Foundation reported, Shaykh Mustafa abu al-Yazid (aka Shaykh Saeed), the former Al Qaeda finance chief and current head of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, recently released a statement again lamenting the poor state of his organization's finances. He explained how the lack of financing is affecting their ability to carry out operations and to run the organization, and proclaimed that contributing money to the jihad is a religious obligation.
Shaykh Saeed's statement highlights what has been one of the more effective aspects of the international counterterrorism efforts over the past eight years -- combating terrorist financing. In fact, targeting the finances of illicit actors has proven effective in other contexts as well, particularly Iran.
While ultimately no one tool will deter, disrupt or prevent the illicit activities of terrorists, proliferators, insurgents, or other transnational threats, combating the financing of transnational threats has shown particular promise, especially when used in concert with other policy tools.
My colleague Matt Levitt and I just completed a new study on this subject, which was published by the Emirati Center for Strategic Studies and Research. To read the study, click here.
Shaykh Saeed's statement highlights what has been one of the more effective aspects of the international counterterrorism efforts over the past eight years -- combating terrorist financing. In fact, targeting the finances of illicit actors has proven effective in other contexts as well, particularly Iran.
While ultimately no one tool will deter, disrupt or prevent the illicit activities of terrorists, proliferators, insurgents, or other transnational threats, combating the financing of transnational threats has shown particular promise, especially when used in concert with other policy tools.
My colleague Matt Levitt and I just completed a new study on this subject, which was published by the Emirati Center for Strategic Studies and Research. To read the study, click here.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Holocaust Museum shooting: A Spike in Domestic Extremism? Third fatal shooting by an extremist in 10 days. by Patrik Jonsson
The shooting at Washington's Holocaust Museum by a notorious white supremacist Wednesday, which left one security guard dead, underscores a growing concern among analysts and government officials about a potential rise in domestic extremism.
Authorities say James Von Brunn entered the museum with a rifle and began shooting, before he himself was shot, leaving the octogenarian in critical condition. Mr. Von Brunn's car, parked near the museum, has also tested positive for explosives, AP reports.
Von Brunn is well known to anti-extremist experts, having written countless invectives against Jews and blacks on the Web. He also was imprisoned in the 1980s for attempting to accost the Federal Reserve board members while waving a pistol – apparently angered by high interest rates and inflation.
Wednesday's attack is the third shooting by an extremist in the past 10 days in the United States. Experts say the shootings suggest that "lone wolf" extremism unaffiliated with any organization could be spreading, fueled both by overseas anti-American fervor as well as by homegrown right-wing groups angered by the state of the economy and the election of the nation's first black president.
Last Sunday, an anti-abortion activist killed a well-known abortion doctor in Kansas, leading to the closing of the clinic. The following day, an American convert to Islam opened fire on two US soldiers taking a break outside a Little Rock, Ark., Army-Navy recruiting office, killing one and injuring the other.
In a controversial document released earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security warned that "a number of economic and political factors are driving a resurgence in right-wing extremist recruitment and radicalization activity." The report was later retracted because it claimed that disgruntled veterans were possible converts to right-wing extremism – a point that infuriated veterans' groups. But it cited the economic downturn and the election of a black president as factors in a potential spike in extremist activity.
The "Obama effect ... [has] generated a backlash of white supremacy," Northeastern criminologist Jack Levin told CNN Wednesday. "Jews and blacks in the White House – that's threatening to someone who believes that blacks are subhuman and Jews are the children of the devil."
But Wednesday's shooting also highlights the difficulties of countering the "lone wolf."
The idea of encouraging violent action without actually giving overt directions was pioneered in America by the Ku Klux Klan. Recent adoptees include Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, the Unabomber (Theodore Kaczynski), and anti-abortion extremist Eric Rudolph. More recently, Islamic jihadists and groups like the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front have also embraced the tactic.
"If you go back to the original leaderless-resistance ideology ... the idea is you have two separate worlds, where above ground you have the organs of information that provide motivation and radicalization, but it has no direct contact at all with the guys doing illegal activity," says Scott Stewart, an analyst with STRATFOR, a global intelligence company in Austin, Texas.
"The idea is to operate within the confines of the First Amendment and use those freedoms to radicalize and point the illegal actors in the second camp," he adds.
Von Brunn, a World War II PT-boat captain, appears to be a textbook example.
The problem is understanding the radicalization process and at what point ideology clicks to spawn an actual operation, counterterrorism experts say. Isolating the "organs of information" that spark violent behavior is a complex task that is extremely difficult in a society governed by the First Amendment and civil liberty protections.
"Somebody yells, 'Kill the umpire!' in the first inning, and then somebody else kills the umpire in the ninth inning. You indict the guy in the ninth inning, but what about the guy who yelled in the first place?" asks Steven Emerson, the author of "Jihad, Inc."
In the cases of Von Brunn and Scott Roeder, who is charged with the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller, the suspects were known to law enforcement and anti-extremism groups. That highlights another reason for the effectiveness of the "lone wolf": It's difficult for law enforcement to interdict potential actors if they haven't openly broken laws or conspired with other people to commit violence.
Von Brunn, for one, had a long-standing association with white supremacists, according to the Anti-Defamation League. He had even penned a book hailing Adolf Hitler. He runs a website called Holy Western Empire, where he quotes Cicero: "A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitions. But it cannot survive treason from within."
"He's a well-known right wing extremist," says Frank Cilluffo, director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University. "It's tragic. The fact that you had someone in their '80s doesn't fit the demographic most people would think you'd have to worry about as far as terrorism is concerned."
Authorities say James Von Brunn entered the museum with a rifle and began shooting, before he himself was shot, leaving the octogenarian in critical condition. Mr. Von Brunn's car, parked near the museum, has also tested positive for explosives, AP reports.
Von Brunn is well known to anti-extremist experts, having written countless invectives against Jews and blacks on the Web. He also was imprisoned in the 1980s for attempting to accost the Federal Reserve board members while waving a pistol – apparently angered by high interest rates and inflation.
Wednesday's attack is the third shooting by an extremist in the past 10 days in the United States. Experts say the shootings suggest that "lone wolf" extremism unaffiliated with any organization could be spreading, fueled both by overseas anti-American fervor as well as by homegrown right-wing groups angered by the state of the economy and the election of the nation's first black president.
Last Sunday, an anti-abortion activist killed a well-known abortion doctor in Kansas, leading to the closing of the clinic. The following day, an American convert to Islam opened fire on two US soldiers taking a break outside a Little Rock, Ark., Army-Navy recruiting office, killing one and injuring the other.
In a controversial document released earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security warned that "a number of economic and political factors are driving a resurgence in right-wing extremist recruitment and radicalization activity." The report was later retracted because it claimed that disgruntled veterans were possible converts to right-wing extremism – a point that infuriated veterans' groups. But it cited the economic downturn and the election of a black president as factors in a potential spike in extremist activity.
The "Obama effect ... [has] generated a backlash of white supremacy," Northeastern criminologist Jack Levin told CNN Wednesday. "Jews and blacks in the White House – that's threatening to someone who believes that blacks are subhuman and Jews are the children of the devil."
But Wednesday's shooting also highlights the difficulties of countering the "lone wolf."
The idea of encouraging violent action without actually giving overt directions was pioneered in America by the Ku Klux Klan. Recent adoptees include Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, the Unabomber (Theodore Kaczynski), and anti-abortion extremist Eric Rudolph. More recently, Islamic jihadists and groups like the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front have also embraced the tactic.
"If you go back to the original leaderless-resistance ideology ... the idea is you have two separate worlds, where above ground you have the organs of information that provide motivation and radicalization, but it has no direct contact at all with the guys doing illegal activity," says Scott Stewart, an analyst with STRATFOR, a global intelligence company in Austin, Texas.
"The idea is to operate within the confines of the First Amendment and use those freedoms to radicalize and point the illegal actors in the second camp," he adds.
Von Brunn, a World War II PT-boat captain, appears to be a textbook example.
The problem is understanding the radicalization process and at what point ideology clicks to spawn an actual operation, counterterrorism experts say. Isolating the "organs of information" that spark violent behavior is a complex task that is extremely difficult in a society governed by the First Amendment and civil liberty protections.
"Somebody yells, 'Kill the umpire!' in the first inning, and then somebody else kills the umpire in the ninth inning. You indict the guy in the ninth inning, but what about the guy who yelled in the first place?" asks Steven Emerson, the author of "Jihad, Inc."
In the cases of Von Brunn and Scott Roeder, who is charged with the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller, the suspects were known to law enforcement and anti-extremism groups. That highlights another reason for the effectiveness of the "lone wolf": It's difficult for law enforcement to interdict potential actors if they haven't openly broken laws or conspired with other people to commit violence.
Von Brunn, for one, had a long-standing association with white supremacists, according to the Anti-Defamation League. He had even penned a book hailing Adolf Hitler. He runs a website called Holy Western Empire, where he quotes Cicero: "A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitions. But it cannot survive treason from within."
"He's a well-known right wing extremist," says Frank Cilluffo, director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University. "It's tragic. The fact that you had someone in their '80s doesn't fit the demographic most people would think you'd have to worry about as far as terrorism is concerned."
The Lowdown on Apple’s HTTP Adaptive Bitrate Streaming by Liz Gannes
This week Apple embraced adaptive bitrate streaming over HTTP at its developer conference in San Francisco. It will be available with the new iPhone OS 3.0 on June 17 and in September with the new version of QuickTime for Mac OS X Snow Leopard.
After the Apple presentation Monday, we chatted with one of only a couple developers who was given early access to Apple’s HTTP streaming. He gave us the lowdown on how Apple will implement the technology.
First, a bit of a refresher. Adaptive bitrate streaming, brought to the fore by Move Networks and now being pushed by Adobe, Microsoft and Apple, is one of the more interesting things going on in video today. I just finished a research report for our paid GigaOM Pro service on the topic and I’d love for you to check it out (only $79 for unlimited access). Here’s a bit from my intro describing the concept:
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to clean up [problems with video quality and delivery], especially because many of them result from complications and hang-ups on the video watcher’s computer or Internet connection. That’s why many companies are turning toward adaptive bitrate streaming, a technique of detecting a watcher’s bandwidth and CPU capabilities in real time and then adjusting the quality of a video stream. That requires encoding a single video at multiple bitrates and switching to the most appropriate one on a moment-by-moment basis. The result: very little buffering, fast start time and a good experience for both high-end and low-end connections.
One contextual note about Apple’s move to use HTTP for adaptive streaming is that it paints Adobe into a corner. Adobe does have its own “dynamic streaming” for Flash Media Servers, but that requires buying special servers and switching between streams within a single real-time session. HTTP delivery treats video files like any other file and transfers them in chunks through individual sessions. Since no special servers are required, HTTP streaming is seen as less expensive than traditional streaming, though in some cases it may be less secure or reliable.
Apple invited two outside developers, Inlet Technologies and Envivio, to get early access to its new streaming video plans. We spoke with John Bishop, SVP of strategy and business development at Inlet (pictured), to get the lowdown on Apple’s new technology. Raleigh, NC-based Inlet’s Spinnaker appliance enables live video delivery, and the company is taking part in most every sports streaming deal out there right now. (Though Bishop wouldn’t comment, it’s all but expected that Major League Baseball will update its iPhone application with live video when the new OS comes out; the league’s subscription live streaming product is powered by Inlet and Swarmcast.)
While Bishop’s company isn’t attached to any one format, it’s clear he thinks HTTP streaming is the future. “It’s the first time video works for the web as opposed to the web working for video,” he said. Bishop said he thought Adobe would continue to succeed with video on demand but that others may gain ground for live streaming.
Apple’s new HTTP streaming will also support live and on-demand H.264 video play directly within a browser. That means companies will no longer have to make and sell branded applications, as MLB and TV.com do today. It also means a lessening of the impact of AT&T meddling with approval of applications that try to stream over the 3G wireless network. Today iPhone apps from video providers like Sling, Poptiq and Joost are Wi-Fi only. Clearly, web pages loaded in browsers have no such gated approval process. Provided that increased video consumption doesn’t cripple the network, 3G would make video experiences on the iPhone far more interesting — when you’re limited to Wi-Fi only you might as well just open your laptop.
Then, after video publishers have encoded their content in multiple versions for adaptive bitrate streaming, they’ll feed the files to Apple’s Segmenter, a new piece of Mac desktop software that cuts video into small chunks. “It’s like a ginsu knife,” Bishop said.
Then, when a video is playing, Apple will check periodically to see which bitrate chunk it should serve to the viewer. Bishop said other providers like Move, Swarmcast and Microsoft are a bit more diligent about this than Apple will be. They check every 2 seconds to see how fast the last 2 seconds were received and pump out the next chunk accordingly. Apple won’t be quite so optimized.
Bishop said Inlet has been bombarded with requests to get new live adaptive streaming products out for the upcoming iPhone release — and after that, for the desktop release in September. Which can only mean good things for those of us who like to watch video on our computers and on the go.
After the Apple presentation Monday, we chatted with one of only a couple developers who was given early access to Apple’s HTTP streaming. He gave us the lowdown on how Apple will implement the technology.
First, a bit of a refresher. Adaptive bitrate streaming, brought to the fore by Move Networks and now being pushed by Adobe, Microsoft and Apple, is one of the more interesting things going on in video today. I just finished a research report for our paid GigaOM Pro service on the topic and I’d love for you to check it out (only $79 for unlimited access). Here’s a bit from my intro describing the concept:
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to clean up [problems with video quality and delivery], especially because many of them result from complications and hang-ups on the video watcher’s computer or Internet connection. That’s why many companies are turning toward adaptive bitrate streaming, a technique of detecting a watcher’s bandwidth and CPU capabilities in real time and then adjusting the quality of a video stream. That requires encoding a single video at multiple bitrates and switching to the most appropriate one on a moment-by-moment basis. The result: very little buffering, fast start time and a good experience for both high-end and low-end connections.
One contextual note about Apple’s move to use HTTP for adaptive streaming is that it paints Adobe into a corner. Adobe does have its own “dynamic streaming” for Flash Media Servers, but that requires buying special servers and switching between streams within a single real-time session. HTTP delivery treats video files like any other file and transfers them in chunks through individual sessions. Since no special servers are required, HTTP streaming is seen as less expensive than traditional streaming, though in some cases it may be less secure or reliable.
Apple invited two outside developers, Inlet Technologies and Envivio, to get early access to its new streaming video plans. We spoke with John Bishop, SVP of strategy and business development at Inlet (pictured), to get the lowdown on Apple’s new technology. Raleigh, NC-based Inlet’s Spinnaker appliance enables live video delivery, and the company is taking part in most every sports streaming deal out there right now. (Though Bishop wouldn’t comment, it’s all but expected that Major League Baseball will update its iPhone application with live video when the new OS comes out; the league’s subscription live streaming product is powered by Inlet and Swarmcast.)
While Bishop’s company isn’t attached to any one format, it’s clear he thinks HTTP streaming is the future. “It’s the first time video works for the web as opposed to the web working for video,” he said. Bishop said he thought Adobe would continue to succeed with video on demand but that others may gain ground for live streaming.
Apple’s new HTTP streaming will also support live and on-demand H.264 video play directly within a browser. That means companies will no longer have to make and sell branded applications, as MLB and TV.com do today. It also means a lessening of the impact of AT&T meddling with approval of applications that try to stream over the 3G wireless network. Today iPhone apps from video providers like Sling, Poptiq and Joost are Wi-Fi only. Clearly, web pages loaded in browsers have no such gated approval process. Provided that increased video consumption doesn’t cripple the network, 3G would make video experiences on the iPhone far more interesting — when you’re limited to Wi-Fi only you might as well just open your laptop.
Then, after video publishers have encoded their content in multiple versions for adaptive bitrate streaming, they’ll feed the files to Apple’s Segmenter, a new piece of Mac desktop software that cuts video into small chunks. “It’s like a ginsu knife,” Bishop said.
Then, when a video is playing, Apple will check periodically to see which bitrate chunk it should serve to the viewer. Bishop said other providers like Move, Swarmcast and Microsoft are a bit more diligent about this than Apple will be. They check every 2 seconds to see how fast the last 2 seconds were received and pump out the next chunk accordingly. Apple won’t be quite so optimized.
Bishop said Inlet has been bombarded with requests to get new live adaptive streaming products out for the upcoming iPhone release — and after that, for the desktop release in September. Which can only mean good things for those of us who like to watch video on our computers and on the go.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Is Al-Qaeda still a viable force? The debate continues? by Greg Bruno
In March, when President Barack Obama ordered the reorientation of American military attention to Afghanistan - and away from Iraq - he invoked the threat of Al-Qaeda. Echoing the rhetoric of his predecessor, Obama warned that "Al-Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the US homeland from its safe-haven in Pakistan." For the American people, the president went on, "this border region has become the most dangerous place in the world." On its face it was an immoveable assessment, black and white, a view repeated often in the eight years since 9/11. But as analysts and regional experts ponder the president's posture, shades of gray are coloring the White House's assessment.
There is a healthy debate among terrorism analysts as to the strengths, weaknesses and possible vulnerabilities of Al-Qaeda and its loosely connected cousin, Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). In a recent National Journal online debate, Michael F. Scheuer, an adjunct professor of security studies at Georgetown University, argued that Obama is correct in refocusing attention on Al-Qaeda because after seven years of the Bush administration, the organization is stronger than ever.
Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute offered a somewhat different assessment: "Al-Qaeda has been crushed," he wrote; the Bush administration deserves credit "for destroying a terrorist threat that was allowed to fester before they took office."
Brian Fishman, director of research at the US military's Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, says it's incredibly difficult to know who's right. "One of the things that [Al-Qaeda] has done very successfully in Pakistan and Afghanistan is they haven't been at the forefront" of violence, making it difficult to ascertain the group's strength. "You don't see a lot of Al-Qaeda attacks," Fishman says. "You see Pakistani Taliban, Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani network, Hekmatyar, whoever they are. AQ has connections to all of those groups, but they've built a role for themselves there that is secondary in the local context."
But even this assessment is debated. Seth Jones, a counter-terrorism expert at the RAND Corporation, says Al-Qaeda is not willingly taking a back seat. While American air strikes from Predator and Reaper drones have damaged Al-Qaeda leadership (though the State Department acknowledges it is impossible to gauge current numbers), Jones says a more significant reason for the group's decline is competition for space and funding from groups like the Taliban. "It is essentially being out-competed," Jones says. Al-Qaeda has "had trouble getting funding from traditional donors; their training camps are in much worse shape; and there is a lot of evidence that senior and mid-level operatives are bitterly complaining now that they don't have the funds to carry out these attacks."
Assessing the strength and ambition of Al-Qaeda in Iraq is made somewhat easier by the group's relative lack of a safe haven; unlike in Afghanistan and Pakistan, American soldiers can directly engage the Iraqi variant. General David Petraeus, then the top commander in Iraq, declared in July 2008 that the Sunni extremist group was shifting focus to Afghanistan. But Kenneth Katzman, a specialist in Middle Eastern affairs for the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, says the group still has plans for Iraq.
AQI "was definitely on its back heels, its back foot" during the surge of American troops, but "it was never eliminated totally," Katzman says. "I think it's just sort of coming out of hiding now." Fishman, who authored a March 2009 report on the state of AQI, agrees that the group may be on the march, if subtly so. "AQI today is settling into sort of a new kind of role that I think is more sustainable, and I think they're finally trying to learn some of the lessons from their own failures," Fishman says. "AQI still can't control its own destiny; it exists where it is useful to local players that are vying for political power," like Mosul. But there are indications AQI is lowering its public profile while supporting other group's in a bid to remain relevant, Fishman says.
Amid the competing assessments is a dearth of options for rooting out Al-Qaeda. In Iraq, political and ethnic divisions - between Kurds and Sunni Arabs in Mosul, for instance - have provided operating space for jihadist groups. And the Iraqi government's mishandling of the capture of the alleged leader of AQI has only strengthened the jihadists' hand, observers say. Much will hinge on how the Iraqi government addresses the threat.
On the Afghan-Pakistan border, options are fewer still. Aerial bombardments have been the method of choice, but the assaults have alienated large segments of the indigenous population. Jones says Pakistan's tribal regions must be physically cleared of militants, either by encouraging engagement of local sub-tribes to conduct operations; bolstering indigenous security agencies; or coordinating air strikes with Pakistan. Economic incentives and development aid will have little long-term impact until territory infiltrated by Al-Qaeda and other militant groups is cleared, he says. But that will take the full cooperation of Pakistan's government. And as Fishman notes, unless Islamabad is on board, Obama's call will likely go unanswered.
There is a healthy debate among terrorism analysts as to the strengths, weaknesses and possible vulnerabilities of Al-Qaeda and its loosely connected cousin, Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). In a recent National Journal online debate, Michael F. Scheuer, an adjunct professor of security studies at Georgetown University, argued that Obama is correct in refocusing attention on Al-Qaeda because after seven years of the Bush administration, the organization is stronger than ever.
Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute offered a somewhat different assessment: "Al-Qaeda has been crushed," he wrote; the Bush administration deserves credit "for destroying a terrorist threat that was allowed to fester before they took office."
Brian Fishman, director of research at the US military's Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, says it's incredibly difficult to know who's right. "One of the things that [Al-Qaeda] has done very successfully in Pakistan and Afghanistan is they haven't been at the forefront" of violence, making it difficult to ascertain the group's strength. "You don't see a lot of Al-Qaeda attacks," Fishman says. "You see Pakistani Taliban, Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani network, Hekmatyar, whoever they are. AQ has connections to all of those groups, but they've built a role for themselves there that is secondary in the local context."
But even this assessment is debated. Seth Jones, a counter-terrorism expert at the RAND Corporation, says Al-Qaeda is not willingly taking a back seat. While American air strikes from Predator and Reaper drones have damaged Al-Qaeda leadership (though the State Department acknowledges it is impossible to gauge current numbers), Jones says a more significant reason for the group's decline is competition for space and funding from groups like the Taliban. "It is essentially being out-competed," Jones says. Al-Qaeda has "had trouble getting funding from traditional donors; their training camps are in much worse shape; and there is a lot of evidence that senior and mid-level operatives are bitterly complaining now that they don't have the funds to carry out these attacks."
Assessing the strength and ambition of Al-Qaeda in Iraq is made somewhat easier by the group's relative lack of a safe haven; unlike in Afghanistan and Pakistan, American soldiers can directly engage the Iraqi variant. General David Petraeus, then the top commander in Iraq, declared in July 2008 that the Sunni extremist group was shifting focus to Afghanistan. But Kenneth Katzman, a specialist in Middle Eastern affairs for the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, says the group still has plans for Iraq.
AQI "was definitely on its back heels, its back foot" during the surge of American troops, but "it was never eliminated totally," Katzman says. "I think it's just sort of coming out of hiding now." Fishman, who authored a March 2009 report on the state of AQI, agrees that the group may be on the march, if subtly so. "AQI today is settling into sort of a new kind of role that I think is more sustainable, and I think they're finally trying to learn some of the lessons from their own failures," Fishman says. "AQI still can't control its own destiny; it exists where it is useful to local players that are vying for political power," like Mosul. But there are indications AQI is lowering its public profile while supporting other group's in a bid to remain relevant, Fishman says.
Amid the competing assessments is a dearth of options for rooting out Al-Qaeda. In Iraq, political and ethnic divisions - between Kurds and Sunni Arabs in Mosul, for instance - have provided operating space for jihadist groups. And the Iraqi government's mishandling of the capture of the alleged leader of AQI has only strengthened the jihadists' hand, observers say. Much will hinge on how the Iraqi government addresses the threat.
On the Afghan-Pakistan border, options are fewer still. Aerial bombardments have been the method of choice, but the assaults have alienated large segments of the indigenous population. Jones says Pakistan's tribal regions must be physically cleared of militants, either by encouraging engagement of local sub-tribes to conduct operations; bolstering indigenous security agencies; or coordinating air strikes with Pakistan. Economic incentives and development aid will have little long-term impact until territory infiltrated by Al-Qaeda and other militant groups is cleared, he says. But that will take the full cooperation of Pakistan's government. And as Fishman notes, unless Islamabad is on board, Obama's call will likely go unanswered.
Can U.S. Afford Trillion More in Debt? by John Feehery
We spend nearly as much on defense as the rest of the world combined. We spend more on health care than anybody else in the world. And we have a bigger national debt than anybody else in the world.
Some experts are warning that if we keep spending like drunken sailors, we may lose our AAA credit rating, costing taxpayers billions more in higher interest payments.
The press widely reported that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner went to China partly to convince the Communist government that we will bring our spending habits under control and that their investments are safe with us.
Meanwhile, in Congress, the Senate is busy readying a health care plan that will add more than a trillion dollars to a debt we can't afford. The big debate seems to be whether Sen. Max Baucus adds his public option plan in committee or in conference.
Can we continue to spend like this? No, we can't.
We can't continue to spend more on defense, health care and retirement programs than any other country while borrowing money from the rest of the world in order to finance it. Something has got to give.
The fastest-growing part of our budget comes from Medicare and Social Security. Because baby boomers are starting to retire, it is becoming harder and harder politically to reform these programs, but more necessary fiscally. But retirees don't have to worry about any changes to these budget-busting programs. Neither the Obama administration nor the Democrats have any intention of touching either program.
It troubles me that the president doesn't seem to acknowledge how his health care plans will make our fiscal problems even worse. He wants a public "option" health insurance program that will cost billions in money we don't have. The president has said that such an option would actually save money, through greater efficiencies, better preventive health care and fewer medical errors.
But as Maya MacGuineas pointed out in The Washington Post the other day, "Expanding insurance to cover the 46 million Americans who are uninsured would probably cost more than $100 billion a year -- more than the federal government spends on education, training, employment and social services combined. It is an immense undertaking at a time when the budget is under terrible strain."
A terrible strain, indeed.
So, where would this money come from?
According to the Obama administration, it would come partly from higher taxes on the rich. And believe me, that is one place where the Democratic-dominated Congress will look. But a trillion dollars over 10 years will not only soak the rich, it will suck the life out of the economy. And as we saw in California just last month, raising taxes is not something that a smart politician wants to do in a slowing, sagging, collapsing economy.
If Congress decides not to raise taxes to cover the price tag, it has three other choices. It can just put it on the tab, and have the next couple of generations pay for it. It seems unlikely that the Chinese or the bond rating agencies would like that very much, though.
Or it can cut spending on entitlements, like Medicare and Social Security. After all, that is where the money is. But while the president talks a good game about entitlement reform, I guarantee that any real plan he comes up with would be dead on arrival in Congress.
Or it can cut defense. The president did campaign on the idea that he can help pay for his agenda by ending the war in Iraq. Nice idea, but as we have found out already, talking about getting out of Iraq is a lot easier than actually getting out of Iraq.
While Defense Secretary Robert Gates is busy with a reform plan that will cut procurement costs, slash spending on missile defense research (just as the North Koreans launch another missile), and gut other weapons systems, it is unclear how much this will save, and most of those savings are earmarked for spending on veterans' health care.
None of these are good choices. But the first choice should be to stop spending on new programs that we simply can't afford.
In 40 years, when we wonder why we lost our huge defense advantage to the Chinese or the Indians (or the Brazilians for that matter), when we wonder why we can't get any more loans from the Germans or the Japanese, and when we wonder why 80 percent of our budget is dedicated to health care and retirement spending, we can look back on these days and thank those big-hearted, compassionate spenders who said "yes, we can," when they should have said, "no, we really can't."
Some experts are warning that if we keep spending like drunken sailors, we may lose our AAA credit rating, costing taxpayers billions more in higher interest payments.
The press widely reported that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner went to China partly to convince the Communist government that we will bring our spending habits under control and that their investments are safe with us.
Meanwhile, in Congress, the Senate is busy readying a health care plan that will add more than a trillion dollars to a debt we can't afford. The big debate seems to be whether Sen. Max Baucus adds his public option plan in committee or in conference.
Can we continue to spend like this? No, we can't.
We can't continue to spend more on defense, health care and retirement programs than any other country while borrowing money from the rest of the world in order to finance it. Something has got to give.
The fastest-growing part of our budget comes from Medicare and Social Security. Because baby boomers are starting to retire, it is becoming harder and harder politically to reform these programs, but more necessary fiscally. But retirees don't have to worry about any changes to these budget-busting programs. Neither the Obama administration nor the Democrats have any intention of touching either program.
It troubles me that the president doesn't seem to acknowledge how his health care plans will make our fiscal problems even worse. He wants a public "option" health insurance program that will cost billions in money we don't have. The president has said that such an option would actually save money, through greater efficiencies, better preventive health care and fewer medical errors.
But as Maya MacGuineas pointed out in The Washington Post the other day, "Expanding insurance to cover the 46 million Americans who are uninsured would probably cost more than $100 billion a year -- more than the federal government spends on education, training, employment and social services combined. It is an immense undertaking at a time when the budget is under terrible strain."
A terrible strain, indeed.
So, where would this money come from?
According to the Obama administration, it would come partly from higher taxes on the rich. And believe me, that is one place where the Democratic-dominated Congress will look. But a trillion dollars over 10 years will not only soak the rich, it will suck the life out of the economy. And as we saw in California just last month, raising taxes is not something that a smart politician wants to do in a slowing, sagging, collapsing economy.
If Congress decides not to raise taxes to cover the price tag, it has three other choices. It can just put it on the tab, and have the next couple of generations pay for it. It seems unlikely that the Chinese or the bond rating agencies would like that very much, though.
Or it can cut spending on entitlements, like Medicare and Social Security. After all, that is where the money is. But while the president talks a good game about entitlement reform, I guarantee that any real plan he comes up with would be dead on arrival in Congress.
Or it can cut defense. The president did campaign on the idea that he can help pay for his agenda by ending the war in Iraq. Nice idea, but as we have found out already, talking about getting out of Iraq is a lot easier than actually getting out of Iraq.
While Defense Secretary Robert Gates is busy with a reform plan that will cut procurement costs, slash spending on missile defense research (just as the North Koreans launch another missile), and gut other weapons systems, it is unclear how much this will save, and most of those savings are earmarked for spending on veterans' health care.
None of these are good choices. But the first choice should be to stop spending on new programs that we simply can't afford.
In 40 years, when we wonder why we lost our huge defense advantage to the Chinese or the Indians (or the Brazilians for that matter), when we wonder why we can't get any more loans from the Germans or the Japanese, and when we wonder why 80 percent of our budget is dedicated to health care and retirement spending, we can look back on these days and thank those big-hearted, compassionate spenders who said "yes, we can," when they should have said, "no, we really can't."
Iraq Moves Ahead With Vote on U.S. Security Pact by Alissa J. Rubin
The Iraqi government is pressing ahead with plans to hold a national referendum on the Iraqi-American security agreement — a measure likely to lose if put to a popular vote with the outcome that American troops could be forced to leave as early as next summer, nearly a year and half ahead of schedule.
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is unlikely to publicly back the security accord.
Under the security plan agreed to by the two governments last year, American combat troops must withdraw from the cities by the end of this month and all American troops must be out of Iraq by Dec. 31, 2011.
Passage of the agreement was contingent on the approval of several other measures, including legislation requiring a referendum on the agreement. If the Iraqi people vote down the security pact, the American military would have to withdraw all troops within a year from the date of the vote, which could be held as soon as this summer.
American diplomats are quietly lobbying the government not to hold the referendum, but so far Iraqi politicians have decided to go ahead with it to avoid appearing to be in the pocket of the Americans in an election year.
On Tuesday, the cabinet approved the appropriation of $99 million for the referendum. Parliament still has to sign off on the spending and pass a law detailing how the referendum would be conducted, but it is expected to do so. There is still some possibility that the referendum could be pushed back, especially if, as often happens, the Iraqi Parliament gets bogged down in crafting the referendum legislation.
Perhaps in deference to American concerns, the cabinet issued a statement on Tuesday saying that it wished to delay the vote for six months so that it could be held at the same time as the national elections in January “in order to save money and time.”
But senior lawmakers appeared to think that a change in the date was unlikely. Under current law, the referendum would be held on July 30. In order to change the date, the cabinet would have to submit a new draft law on the timing of the vote to Parliament, which would then have to move it through the lengthy parliamentary process for considering legislation.
“The date was an essential part of the security agreement,” said Ali Adeeb, a member of the Dawa Party, led by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.
The Parliament speaker, Ayad al-Sammaraie, a Sunni lawmaker from the Iraqi Islamic Party, held the same view. “No one can say they don’t want a referendum, it is a law,” Mr. Sammaraie said in a recent interview.
The referendum was the little remarked upon, but potent poison pill approved at the same time as the security agreement as a way to appease political factions that did not want to be tarred with the accusation that they had voted for a measure that allowed American soldiers to stay on Iraqi soil until 2012.
A number of leaders in the security forces, including the Iraqi defense minister, Abdul Khader, have said they want an American presence for at least the next five years. Some political factions have also said privately that they would prefer that the Americans stay, but in an election year, it is difficult for them to make such declarations in public.
“Most Iraqis know very well they need the Americans, but nobody wants to say ‘yes, we want the security agreement,’ ” said Ghassan al-Attiya, director of the Iraq Foundation for Democracy and Development in London.
“This is an election year for Iraq; no one wants to appear that he is appeasing the Americans,” he said. “Anti-Americanism is popular now in Iraq.”
One group that is an unabashed supporter of voting down the agreement is the movement allied with Moktada al-Sadr, the cleric who has been trying to push the American troops out for year. Leading Sadrists in Parliament voted against the security agreement and plan to rally their followers to vote ‘no’ on the referendum, said Saleh al-Obaidi, a spokesman and senior adviser to Mr. Sadr.
The referendum was originally pushed by the Sunni Tawaffuk front because its followers are predominantly anti-American, even though many Sunnis fear that without their presence, they will be vulnerable to abuse and sectarian cleansing by the Shiite-dominated Iraqi security forces.
Mr. Maliki is unlikely to want to speak up in favor of the security agreement for fear that his opponents will use it against him.
One group that will support the agreement is the Kurds, but that, Mr. Attiya said, could diminish the chances of approval because the Arabs are likely to oppose anything the Kurds support.
For the Americans, an earlier than expected withdrawal would derail plans to improve the capacity of Iraqi security forces, reduce sectarianism and ethnic strife in their ranks, and further stabilize the country.
“This will be a very interesting case study of how the new American ambassador will deal with it,” said Mr. Attiya. “It’s a very ticklish issue."
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is unlikely to publicly back the security accord.
Under the security plan agreed to by the two governments last year, American combat troops must withdraw from the cities by the end of this month and all American troops must be out of Iraq by Dec. 31, 2011.
Passage of the agreement was contingent on the approval of several other measures, including legislation requiring a referendum on the agreement. If the Iraqi people vote down the security pact, the American military would have to withdraw all troops within a year from the date of the vote, which could be held as soon as this summer.
American diplomats are quietly lobbying the government not to hold the referendum, but so far Iraqi politicians have decided to go ahead with it to avoid appearing to be in the pocket of the Americans in an election year.
On Tuesday, the cabinet approved the appropriation of $99 million for the referendum. Parliament still has to sign off on the spending and pass a law detailing how the referendum would be conducted, but it is expected to do so. There is still some possibility that the referendum could be pushed back, especially if, as often happens, the Iraqi Parliament gets bogged down in crafting the referendum legislation.
Perhaps in deference to American concerns, the cabinet issued a statement on Tuesday saying that it wished to delay the vote for six months so that it could be held at the same time as the national elections in January “in order to save money and time.”
But senior lawmakers appeared to think that a change in the date was unlikely. Under current law, the referendum would be held on July 30. In order to change the date, the cabinet would have to submit a new draft law on the timing of the vote to Parliament, which would then have to move it through the lengthy parliamentary process for considering legislation.
“The date was an essential part of the security agreement,” said Ali Adeeb, a member of the Dawa Party, led by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.
The Parliament speaker, Ayad al-Sammaraie, a Sunni lawmaker from the Iraqi Islamic Party, held the same view. “No one can say they don’t want a referendum, it is a law,” Mr. Sammaraie said in a recent interview.
The referendum was the little remarked upon, but potent poison pill approved at the same time as the security agreement as a way to appease political factions that did not want to be tarred with the accusation that they had voted for a measure that allowed American soldiers to stay on Iraqi soil until 2012.
A number of leaders in the security forces, including the Iraqi defense minister, Abdul Khader, have said they want an American presence for at least the next five years. Some political factions have also said privately that they would prefer that the Americans stay, but in an election year, it is difficult for them to make such declarations in public.
“Most Iraqis know very well they need the Americans, but nobody wants to say ‘yes, we want the security agreement,’ ” said Ghassan al-Attiya, director of the Iraq Foundation for Democracy and Development in London.
“This is an election year for Iraq; no one wants to appear that he is appeasing the Americans,” he said. “Anti-Americanism is popular now in Iraq.”
One group that is an unabashed supporter of voting down the agreement is the movement allied with Moktada al-Sadr, the cleric who has been trying to push the American troops out for year. Leading Sadrists in Parliament voted against the security agreement and plan to rally their followers to vote ‘no’ on the referendum, said Saleh al-Obaidi, a spokesman and senior adviser to Mr. Sadr.
The referendum was originally pushed by the Sunni Tawaffuk front because its followers are predominantly anti-American, even though many Sunnis fear that without their presence, they will be vulnerable to abuse and sectarian cleansing by the Shiite-dominated Iraqi security forces.
Mr. Maliki is unlikely to want to speak up in favor of the security agreement for fear that his opponents will use it against him.
One group that will support the agreement is the Kurds, but that, Mr. Attiya said, could diminish the chances of approval because the Arabs are likely to oppose anything the Kurds support.
For the Americans, an earlier than expected withdrawal would derail plans to improve the capacity of Iraqi security forces, reduce sectarianism and ethnic strife in their ranks, and further stabilize the country.
“This will be a very interesting case study of how the new American ambassador will deal with it,” said Mr. Attiya. “It’s a very ticklish issue."
Monday, June 08, 2009
The dying goodwill toward AT&T by Megan Lavey
Congratulations! When Apple releases iPhone OS 3.0 next week, we'll finally be gaining the following features ...
Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS)! ... unless you're on AT&T.
Tethering! ... unless you're on AT&T
A brand new 16GB iPhone 3G S for only $199 with a two-year contract! ... unless you're on AT&T and already own an iPhone 3G.
AT&T has long been the subject of grumbling from the community of US iPhone users who want to use their phones legitimately. Ever since the original release back in 2007, it feels like AT&T has been trying to play catch-up when it comes to service and tower availability. But, the release of the iPhone 3G S might be the straw that breaks the camel's back. I can walk down to my local AT&T store and pick up a cheap handset for less than $100 that will have MMS. AT&T knew this day was coming. The company may wail and gnash its teeth, complaining that it aren't ready for this, but it should be, especially since Boy Genius Report tells us that all AT&T needs to do is manually remove the opt-out code!
It was even apparent during the keynote yesterday that Apple sounds pretty disgusted with how far behind AT&T is dragging them. Notice the absence of any AT&T personnel on stage. Had AT&T been on the ball to begin with, it most likely would have taken center stage -- boasting about all the improvements that would garner shiny new services for iPhone users and more money for the corporate coffers. But it didn't, and the tension coming from Apple during the moments when MMS and Tethering were announced was pretty tangible. Apple had all of these features that people have been begging for ready to go, and now Cupertino is forced to wait for AT&T to finish twiddling its thumbs and do what it should have done two years ago. I wouldn't even be surprised if AT&T somehow found a way to block copy/paste!
A small footnote on Apple's iPhone page indicates that MMS support from AT&T will be coming later this summer. Another note on the 3.0 software pages says that tethering isn't available in the U.S. and some other countries, although Engadget cites AT&T sources who say it's coming -- there just isn't anything to announce yet.
Then there comes iPhone pricing. Those expecting a repeat of last summer's offer to replace their current iPhones with the latest model on the cheap are being sorely disappointed. You can read full details on that kerfuffle thanks to one of the recent additions to our team, Michael Jones. However, our commenters do have a point with that one -- those who bought the first generation iPhone paid the full price right off the bat, but later buyers were able to get the iPhone 3G at a subsidized price. Like with any other subsidized phone with any other carrier, you'll have to pay a pretty hefty price for the privilege to upgrade before you're eligible. For me, that'll be in October 2010. By then, the iPhone 3G s4π will most likely be out. Still, people aren't happy with this one either.
The ramifications for AT&T will come when it sits down at the negotiation table with Apple to extend its current gig as exclusive carrier for the iPhone in the United States. Apple won't forget that AT&T didn't have key features in place when they needed to be there. If Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, or any other carrier can convince Apple that they would be ahead of the game while AT&T lags (and, believe me, it wouldn't be that hard of an argument to make), Apple will take its toys and go elsewhere. And loyal iPhone users would follow. I know I would.
Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS)! ... unless you're on AT&T.
Tethering! ... unless you're on AT&T
A brand new 16GB iPhone 3G S for only $199 with a two-year contract! ... unless you're on AT&T and already own an iPhone 3G.
AT&T has long been the subject of grumbling from the community of US iPhone users who want to use their phones legitimately. Ever since the original release back in 2007, it feels like AT&T has been trying to play catch-up when it comes to service and tower availability. But, the release of the iPhone 3G S might be the straw that breaks the camel's back. I can walk down to my local AT&T store and pick up a cheap handset for less than $100 that will have MMS. AT&T knew this day was coming. The company may wail and gnash its teeth, complaining that it aren't ready for this, but it should be, especially since Boy Genius Report tells us that all AT&T needs to do is manually remove the opt-out code!
It was even apparent during the keynote yesterday that Apple sounds pretty disgusted with how far behind AT&T is dragging them. Notice the absence of any AT&T personnel on stage. Had AT&T been on the ball to begin with, it most likely would have taken center stage -- boasting about all the improvements that would garner shiny new services for iPhone users and more money for the corporate coffers. But it didn't, and the tension coming from Apple during the moments when MMS and Tethering were announced was pretty tangible. Apple had all of these features that people have been begging for ready to go, and now Cupertino is forced to wait for AT&T to finish twiddling its thumbs and do what it should have done two years ago. I wouldn't even be surprised if AT&T somehow found a way to block copy/paste!
A small footnote on Apple's iPhone page indicates that MMS support from AT&T will be coming later this summer. Another note on the 3.0 software pages says that tethering isn't available in the U.S. and some other countries, although Engadget cites AT&T sources who say it's coming -- there just isn't anything to announce yet.
Then there comes iPhone pricing. Those expecting a repeat of last summer's offer to replace their current iPhones with the latest model on the cheap are being sorely disappointed. You can read full details on that kerfuffle thanks to one of the recent additions to our team, Michael Jones. However, our commenters do have a point with that one -- those who bought the first generation iPhone paid the full price right off the bat, but later buyers were able to get the iPhone 3G at a subsidized price. Like with any other subsidized phone with any other carrier, you'll have to pay a pretty hefty price for the privilege to upgrade before you're eligible. For me, that'll be in October 2010. By then, the iPhone 3G s4π will most likely be out. Still, people aren't happy with this one either.
The ramifications for AT&T will come when it sits down at the negotiation table with Apple to extend its current gig as exclusive carrier for the iPhone in the United States. Apple won't forget that AT&T didn't have key features in place when they needed to be there. If Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, or any other carrier can convince Apple that they would be ahead of the game while AT&T lags (and, believe me, it wouldn't be that hard of an argument to make), Apple will take its toys and go elsewhere. And loyal iPhone users would follow. I know I would.
Commander Tackles Stress, Suicides at Army's Largest Base by Larry Shaughnessy
Families of tens of thousands of soldiers based at Fort Hood have one military wife to thank for a more normal routine at the base.
When Lt. Gen. Rick Lynch first took over as commander of the largest Army base in the United States, a soldier's wife approached him and gave him a talking to about how soldiers don't "really" get to spend time at home when they come home from war.
"She said 'General, don't talk to us about dwell time. Because my husband might as well be in Iraq,'" Lynch told CNN last week. "'He comes home after the kids go to bed, we never see him on weekends and you take him away to train all the time.'"
Lynch said that woman's comments "really hit me in the gut."
In response, Lynch made "focus on the family" a key part of Fort Hood's environment. He insists that every soldier on a day schedule leave work in to be home for dinner by 6 p.m. On Thursday, many are told to leave by 3 p.m. so they can have the afternoon with the family. And no one at Fort Hood works weekends unless Lynch signs off on it.
He likes to point out that when a soldier deploys overseas, the only thing he can't get is time with his family, so it's important to get it between deployments -- what the military calls "dwell time."
Lynch's "home by dinner" order creates a daily traffic jam on the base in Killeen, Texas, as tens of thousands of soldiers leave at once.
Master Sgt. Guadalupe Stratman enjoys Fort Hood's family-first attitude. She has a husband and three sons. When she's not cooking dinner after leaving the base, she's helping with homework or "just watching them grow."
It's not just about keeping military spouses and children happy, it's about creating a more resilient soldier; one less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol, injure or kill himself in a traffic accident or fall to suicide, Lynch says.
It's working. No soldier has been killed on the roads around Fort Hood in more than 200 days. And although the base has seen two suicides since the start of the year, that is much less than some other major Army bases.
Lynch is taking other steps to battle stress and suicides at Fort Hood. He's opened a soldier "Resiliency Campus" -- a city-block-sized collection of buildings with programs and activities aimed at improving a soldier's mind, body and spirit.
And there is a weekly meeting of the base's "suicide prevention board," which Lynch usually chairs.
This isn't to say that all the soldiers at Fort Hood are completely well-adjusted and ready for their next deployment.
CNN spoke to one squad of soldiers who'd returned from a deployment to Fort Hood just a week before our visit.
One soldier said he has "anger issues. I get angry over a lot of little things." Others are bothered by crowds or just driving around town.
But even those young veterans, for whom the stress of being in a war zone continues after their return to their home base, have found ways to cope. The spend their off-hours together playing video games or just remembering what they went through together.
"Some of the roughest times we've had, we sit back and laugh," Pfc. Keven Abbott said. "We are very well together -- you cannot bring us down."
The successful fight against stress at Fort Hood is getting noticed at the Pentagon. Among others, Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has praised Lynch's programs.
But just after CNN's visit to Fort Hood, the Defense Department sent out a news release announcing that Lynch would be moving on to his next job in the Army. What remains to be seen is whether his ideas about putting families first and creating "resilient soldiers" will carry on at Fort Hood after he leaves.
When Lt. Gen. Rick Lynch first took over as commander of the largest Army base in the United States, a soldier's wife approached him and gave him a talking to about how soldiers don't "really" get to spend time at home when they come home from war.
"She said 'General, don't talk to us about dwell time. Because my husband might as well be in Iraq,'" Lynch told CNN last week. "'He comes home after the kids go to bed, we never see him on weekends and you take him away to train all the time.'"
Lynch said that woman's comments "really hit me in the gut."
In response, Lynch made "focus on the family" a key part of Fort Hood's environment. He insists that every soldier on a day schedule leave work in to be home for dinner by 6 p.m. On Thursday, many are told to leave by 3 p.m. so they can have the afternoon with the family. And no one at Fort Hood works weekends unless Lynch signs off on it.
He likes to point out that when a soldier deploys overseas, the only thing he can't get is time with his family, so it's important to get it between deployments -- what the military calls "dwell time."
Lynch's "home by dinner" order creates a daily traffic jam on the base in Killeen, Texas, as tens of thousands of soldiers leave at once.
Master Sgt. Guadalupe Stratman enjoys Fort Hood's family-first attitude. She has a husband and three sons. When she's not cooking dinner after leaving the base, she's helping with homework or "just watching them grow."
It's not just about keeping military spouses and children happy, it's about creating a more resilient soldier; one less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol, injure or kill himself in a traffic accident or fall to suicide, Lynch says.
It's working. No soldier has been killed on the roads around Fort Hood in more than 200 days. And although the base has seen two suicides since the start of the year, that is much less than some other major Army bases.
Lynch is taking other steps to battle stress and suicides at Fort Hood. He's opened a soldier "Resiliency Campus" -- a city-block-sized collection of buildings with programs and activities aimed at improving a soldier's mind, body and spirit.
And there is a weekly meeting of the base's "suicide prevention board," which Lynch usually chairs.
This isn't to say that all the soldiers at Fort Hood are completely well-adjusted and ready for their next deployment.
CNN spoke to one squad of soldiers who'd returned from a deployment to Fort Hood just a week before our visit.
One soldier said he has "anger issues. I get angry over a lot of little things." Others are bothered by crowds or just driving around town.
But even those young veterans, for whom the stress of being in a war zone continues after their return to their home base, have found ways to cope. The spend their off-hours together playing video games or just remembering what they went through together.
"Some of the roughest times we've had, we sit back and laugh," Pfc. Keven Abbott said. "We are very well together -- you cannot bring us down."
The successful fight against stress at Fort Hood is getting noticed at the Pentagon. Among others, Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has praised Lynch's programs.
But just after CNN's visit to Fort Hood, the Defense Department sent out a news release announcing that Lynch would be moving on to his next job in the Army. What remains to be seen is whether his ideas about putting families first and creating "resilient soldiers" will carry on at Fort Hood after he leaves.
Official: Al-Qaeda like a fast food franchise ' for terrorism' by Alfred De Montesquiou
Deep in the Sahara Desert, along the remote southern borders of Algeria, lies an immense no man's land where militants roam. It is here that terrorists linked with al-Qaeda traffic everything from weapons and drugs to illegal migrants. They have planted at least a half-dozen cells in Europe, according to French, Italian and Belgian intelligence. Last week, they announced on the Internet that they had killed a British hostage in Mali, and are still holding a Swiss hostage.
The al-Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, is perhaps the best example of how al-Qaeda is morphing and broadening its reach through loose relationships with local offshoots. The shadowy network of Algerian cells recruits Islamist radicals throughout northern and western Africa, trains them and sends them to fight in the region or Iraq, according to Western and North African intelligence officials who asked to remain anonymous because of the nature of their jobs. In turn, AQIM gets al-Qaeda's brand name and some corporate know-how.
"The relationship with the al-Qaeda mother company works like in a multinational," says Jean-Louis Bruguiere, France's former top counterterrorism judge and an expert on North African networks. "There's a strong ideological link, but the local subsidiary operates on its own."
Another Western intelligence official compares AQIM to a local fast food franchise, "only for terrorism."
A picture of AQIM and its ties with al-Qaeda emerges from accounts by its victims, interviews with some of the dozens of intelligence officials following its activities and data pieced together by Western diplomats in Algeria.
It shows that the battle against radical Islam in Algeria has become crucial — and not only for North Africa. Intelligence officials throughout Europe are convinced that AQIM wants to expand in their region.
A senior counterterrorism official in France, who was not authorized to talk on the record, told The Associated Press that his services work "daily, constantly" with Algerian security to contain this threat. He says at least six AQIM-related cells, dormant or getting ready for action, have been dismantled across Europe in recent years.
Last month, the Spanish judiciary announced it had caught 12 Algerians from a suspected support cell. And last week, Italian authorities issued arrest warrants for two Tunisians, two Moroccans and an Algerian suspected of plotting attacks on a church and a subway line.
"For now, we've been good," the French official says. "But we've basically been lucky."
'We don't even know who we're fighting'
Four years ago, the Algerian terrorists — then known as the Salafist Group for Call and Combat — were running out of steam.
Born in an insurgency in 1992, the group took part in a near-civil war over the next decade that killed about 200,000 people. But its fighters had lost popular support after killing Muslim civilians. Many leaders had turned themselves in during government amnesties, and the group was weak from internal feuds.
So its new emir or leader, Abdelmalek Droukdel, reached out to the superstar of international jihad: al-Qaeda.
His emissaries met with Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, or close associates of his in countries like Sudan, Lebanon or Yemen, the Western intelligence officials told the AP.
Al-Qaeda said it couldn't give its brand away to an unreliable group: Even by jihad standards, Algerian militants had a reputation for excessive violence. But after a year of talks and tests, al-Zawahri issued a statement recognizing the "blessed union" on Sept. 11, 2006.
AQIM tried to focus more on Western targets in Algeria or tourists and Jews in Morocco. It also imported al-Qaeda techniques, such as fine-tuned, remote-controlled roadside bombs and suicide bombers.
In an apparent reference to al-Qaeda's attacks on the U.S. on Sept. 11, AQIM carried out its first suicide bombings on April 11, 2007. On Dec. 11 of that year, it killed 37 people — including 17 United Nations staffers — in an attack that devastated the U.N.'s Algerian headquarters.
The key technology input seems to be public relations. Several times a month, AQIM now uses global jihadist forums on the Internet to issue political statements and videos of bombings or ambushes.
The Algerian group appears to raise its own money rather than get any from al-Qaeda, according to Bruguiere and others.
"I don't think there are many ties to headquarters other than ideological," said Bruguiere, the European Union coordinator of the Terrorism Finance Tracking Program run jointly with the U.S. Treasury Department and CIA.
The group pays its dues back to "headquarters" by trying to expand a new front for jihad in North Africa that could also serve as a forward base to hit Europe. Terrorists from Algeria or of Algerian descent have already been implicated in several devastating attacks, including the 2004 Madrid train bombings and a series of blasts in the Paris metro in the 1990s.
The Western and North African intelligence officials said expansion is underway, to a limited extent, in Tunisia and Libya.
And Moroccan security said police dismantle at least a half-dozen suspected terrorist cells on average each year. The Interior Ministry recently ordered 267 local bank branches to close because they were too vulnerable to holdups that could fund militants.
The Pentagon's new Africa Command is also striving to prevent the Algerian group's expansion south into the desert. U.S. troops or Special Forces help the weak military in Saharan states increase patrolling and cross-border cooperation.
The need is pressing. The British and Swiss hostages were among four European tourists and two senior U.N. envoys kidnapped this winter near the Mali and Niger borders. The Swiss hostage is still being held, but the others have since been released. Likely kidnapped by local gunmen, they were transferred to AQIM, which asked for a huge ransom and the release of a radical Islamist preacher held in Britain.
But the bulk of the militants' activities remain in densely populated northern Algeria, where nearly every day they traffic goods, plunder drivers at fake road blocks, kidnap, and extort money from small businessmen in exchange for safety.
"They're not al-Qaeda, they're just a mafia," said Majid Benhamiche, who regularly dons his military uniform to join the army in raids against terrorist camps across the Kabylie mountains.
Benhamiche never drives without a Kalashnikov, and carries a pistol at all times. He is part of a village militia armed by the Algerian Defense Ministry. His isolated family house has been turned into a fortress-like compound with high walls and at least three armed family members on guard.
"It's a war out there, and we don't even know who we're fighting," he said. "But we're not frightened. We're well-armed."
In this deeply macho society, Benhamiche has even taught his wife to use a Kalashnikov in case militants mount the raid they have been expecting every night for more than a decade. "She's a pretty good shot," he said.
'They're afraid of no one'
Algerian authorities describe the militants as on the run. In a rare interview with the AP during the presidential election in April, Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni said "the armed elements are currently being cornered."
Authorities have indeed dismantled several large cells this year. Important local "emirs," or militant leaders, have turned themselves in, and several former high-profile leaders — known as "repentants" in Algeria — are calling on militants to stop fighting. Algerian authorities believe there are 500-800 active fighters left, a mere fraction of what there used to be.
These die-hards "are hard to catch because they're taking refuge in remote mountains and forests," Zerhouni told the AP.
Still, violence is persistent. Data obtained by the AP from Western diplomats in Algeria shows 85 significant bombings in 2008. Some 639 people died that year because of terrorism-related violence: 409 suspected militants, 158 security force members and 72 civilians.
This year, there were 64 bombings from January to April alone, with deaths of 19 civilians and 61 security force members. The data also shows 167 suspected militants killed amid police sweeps, army raids and aerial bombardments.
Construction entrepreneur Mohammed remembers his terror in February, when he and his son returned late from a construction site, unarmed. They saw five gunmen blocking the road and waiting for them, said Mohammed, who asked to be identified only by his first name for fear of retaliation.
"They told me, 'You know who we are,"' the businessman recalls, still visibly shaken. "I answered, 'Yes, you are the mujahedeen."' Mohammed describes the men as young, clean-shaven and wearing nice sport shoes. "They could have been anybody."
The gunmen brought Mohammed and his son to the edge of the forest near their local base. Then they released him so he could collect a ransom for his child.
The kidnapping occurred within three miles of a police and army barracks. The AQIM fighters told Mohammed not to contact police, but he said he did anyway. They offered no assistance. An emergency law passed in the 1990s forbids discussing security matters, and officials declined to comment on any aspect of this article.
The militants asked Mohammed for $55 million. The father negotiated it down to 2 million dinars, about euro 20,000, or $28,000. Though considerable, Mohammed said this is only about half the going rate for ransoms among the 39 people he knows or has heard of as being recently kidnapped in his region.
Mohammed retrieved his son safely and thought the terrorists would kill him after taking the money.
"But they didn't even behead me. What kind of al-Qaeda is this?" he asked, speaking with a blank voice and a shadow of fear in his eyes, convinced AQIM will come back to get him sooner or later.
Mohammed said the kidnappers left him with a warning for police: They planned to attack its headquarters in the nearby town of Les Ouacifs. Some 30 militants did indeed attack on March 26, spraying the station with bullets for a half-hour and wounding four officers.
"They're afraid of no one," Mohammed said.
Algeria has ramped up its security. These days, the capital is surrounded by rings of police and army checkpoints. With 100,000 military police, 80,000 government-funded militia members and 150,000 police, the Defense and Interior ministries are by far the biggest employers in this nation of 35 million people — except possibly for the regular army, whose numbers are kept secret.
Together, the two ministries spent 656 billion dinars ($9.1 billion), according to Algeria's 2008 budget. That was more than a quarter of the state's functioning budget, more than the education, justice and industry ministries combined.
For now, Algeria can pay for this vast security apparatus because it is one of the world's largest oil and natural gas exporters. But in the global economic downturn, the burden is getting heavier.
In the meantime, poverty is rampant, unemployment is widespread, development falls far short and 70% of the population is under 30. The resulting tinderbox continues to stoke militancy that spreads far beyond Algeria's borders, especially with the help of al-Qaeda.
Security is indeed killing or arresting militants in droves, said a Western intelligence official. "But the problem is, the groups can recruit just as fast within the desperate and angry youth."
The al-Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, is perhaps the best example of how al-Qaeda is morphing and broadening its reach through loose relationships with local offshoots. The shadowy network of Algerian cells recruits Islamist radicals throughout northern and western Africa, trains them and sends them to fight in the region or Iraq, according to Western and North African intelligence officials who asked to remain anonymous because of the nature of their jobs. In turn, AQIM gets al-Qaeda's brand name and some corporate know-how.
"The relationship with the al-Qaeda mother company works like in a multinational," says Jean-Louis Bruguiere, France's former top counterterrorism judge and an expert on North African networks. "There's a strong ideological link, but the local subsidiary operates on its own."
Another Western intelligence official compares AQIM to a local fast food franchise, "only for terrorism."
A picture of AQIM and its ties with al-Qaeda emerges from accounts by its victims, interviews with some of the dozens of intelligence officials following its activities and data pieced together by Western diplomats in Algeria.
It shows that the battle against radical Islam in Algeria has become crucial — and not only for North Africa. Intelligence officials throughout Europe are convinced that AQIM wants to expand in their region.
A senior counterterrorism official in France, who was not authorized to talk on the record, told The Associated Press that his services work "daily, constantly" with Algerian security to contain this threat. He says at least six AQIM-related cells, dormant or getting ready for action, have been dismantled across Europe in recent years.
Last month, the Spanish judiciary announced it had caught 12 Algerians from a suspected support cell. And last week, Italian authorities issued arrest warrants for two Tunisians, two Moroccans and an Algerian suspected of plotting attacks on a church and a subway line.
"For now, we've been good," the French official says. "But we've basically been lucky."
'We don't even know who we're fighting'
Four years ago, the Algerian terrorists — then known as the Salafist Group for Call and Combat — were running out of steam.
Born in an insurgency in 1992, the group took part in a near-civil war over the next decade that killed about 200,000 people. But its fighters had lost popular support after killing Muslim civilians. Many leaders had turned themselves in during government amnesties, and the group was weak from internal feuds.
So its new emir or leader, Abdelmalek Droukdel, reached out to the superstar of international jihad: al-Qaeda.
His emissaries met with Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, or close associates of his in countries like Sudan, Lebanon or Yemen, the Western intelligence officials told the AP.
Al-Qaeda said it couldn't give its brand away to an unreliable group: Even by jihad standards, Algerian militants had a reputation for excessive violence. But after a year of talks and tests, al-Zawahri issued a statement recognizing the "blessed union" on Sept. 11, 2006.
AQIM tried to focus more on Western targets in Algeria or tourists and Jews in Morocco. It also imported al-Qaeda techniques, such as fine-tuned, remote-controlled roadside bombs and suicide bombers.
In an apparent reference to al-Qaeda's attacks on the U.S. on Sept. 11, AQIM carried out its first suicide bombings on April 11, 2007. On Dec. 11 of that year, it killed 37 people — including 17 United Nations staffers — in an attack that devastated the U.N.'s Algerian headquarters.
The key technology input seems to be public relations. Several times a month, AQIM now uses global jihadist forums on the Internet to issue political statements and videos of bombings or ambushes.
The Algerian group appears to raise its own money rather than get any from al-Qaeda, according to Bruguiere and others.
"I don't think there are many ties to headquarters other than ideological," said Bruguiere, the European Union coordinator of the Terrorism Finance Tracking Program run jointly with the U.S. Treasury Department and CIA.
The group pays its dues back to "headquarters" by trying to expand a new front for jihad in North Africa that could also serve as a forward base to hit Europe. Terrorists from Algeria or of Algerian descent have already been implicated in several devastating attacks, including the 2004 Madrid train bombings and a series of blasts in the Paris metro in the 1990s.
The Western and North African intelligence officials said expansion is underway, to a limited extent, in Tunisia and Libya.
And Moroccan security said police dismantle at least a half-dozen suspected terrorist cells on average each year. The Interior Ministry recently ordered 267 local bank branches to close because they were too vulnerable to holdups that could fund militants.
The Pentagon's new Africa Command is also striving to prevent the Algerian group's expansion south into the desert. U.S. troops or Special Forces help the weak military in Saharan states increase patrolling and cross-border cooperation.
The need is pressing. The British and Swiss hostages were among four European tourists and two senior U.N. envoys kidnapped this winter near the Mali and Niger borders. The Swiss hostage is still being held, but the others have since been released. Likely kidnapped by local gunmen, they were transferred to AQIM, which asked for a huge ransom and the release of a radical Islamist preacher held in Britain.
But the bulk of the militants' activities remain in densely populated northern Algeria, where nearly every day they traffic goods, plunder drivers at fake road blocks, kidnap, and extort money from small businessmen in exchange for safety.
"They're not al-Qaeda, they're just a mafia," said Majid Benhamiche, who regularly dons his military uniform to join the army in raids against terrorist camps across the Kabylie mountains.
Benhamiche never drives without a Kalashnikov, and carries a pistol at all times. He is part of a village militia armed by the Algerian Defense Ministry. His isolated family house has been turned into a fortress-like compound with high walls and at least three armed family members on guard.
"It's a war out there, and we don't even know who we're fighting," he said. "But we're not frightened. We're well-armed."
In this deeply macho society, Benhamiche has even taught his wife to use a Kalashnikov in case militants mount the raid they have been expecting every night for more than a decade. "She's a pretty good shot," he said.
'They're afraid of no one'
Algerian authorities describe the militants as on the run. In a rare interview with the AP during the presidential election in April, Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni said "the armed elements are currently being cornered."
Authorities have indeed dismantled several large cells this year. Important local "emirs," or militant leaders, have turned themselves in, and several former high-profile leaders — known as "repentants" in Algeria — are calling on militants to stop fighting. Algerian authorities believe there are 500-800 active fighters left, a mere fraction of what there used to be.
These die-hards "are hard to catch because they're taking refuge in remote mountains and forests," Zerhouni told the AP.
Still, violence is persistent. Data obtained by the AP from Western diplomats in Algeria shows 85 significant bombings in 2008. Some 639 people died that year because of terrorism-related violence: 409 suspected militants, 158 security force members and 72 civilians.
This year, there were 64 bombings from January to April alone, with deaths of 19 civilians and 61 security force members. The data also shows 167 suspected militants killed amid police sweeps, army raids and aerial bombardments.
Construction entrepreneur Mohammed remembers his terror in February, when he and his son returned late from a construction site, unarmed. They saw five gunmen blocking the road and waiting for them, said Mohammed, who asked to be identified only by his first name for fear of retaliation.
"They told me, 'You know who we are,"' the businessman recalls, still visibly shaken. "I answered, 'Yes, you are the mujahedeen."' Mohammed describes the men as young, clean-shaven and wearing nice sport shoes. "They could have been anybody."
The gunmen brought Mohammed and his son to the edge of the forest near their local base. Then they released him so he could collect a ransom for his child.
The kidnapping occurred within three miles of a police and army barracks. The AQIM fighters told Mohammed not to contact police, but he said he did anyway. They offered no assistance. An emergency law passed in the 1990s forbids discussing security matters, and officials declined to comment on any aspect of this article.
The militants asked Mohammed for $55 million. The father negotiated it down to 2 million dinars, about euro 20,000, or $28,000. Though considerable, Mohammed said this is only about half the going rate for ransoms among the 39 people he knows or has heard of as being recently kidnapped in his region.
Mohammed retrieved his son safely and thought the terrorists would kill him after taking the money.
"But they didn't even behead me. What kind of al-Qaeda is this?" he asked, speaking with a blank voice and a shadow of fear in his eyes, convinced AQIM will come back to get him sooner or later.
Mohammed said the kidnappers left him with a warning for police: They planned to attack its headquarters in the nearby town of Les Ouacifs. Some 30 militants did indeed attack on March 26, spraying the station with bullets for a half-hour and wounding four officers.
"They're afraid of no one," Mohammed said.
Algeria has ramped up its security. These days, the capital is surrounded by rings of police and army checkpoints. With 100,000 military police, 80,000 government-funded militia members and 150,000 police, the Defense and Interior ministries are by far the biggest employers in this nation of 35 million people — except possibly for the regular army, whose numbers are kept secret.
Together, the two ministries spent 656 billion dinars ($9.1 billion), according to Algeria's 2008 budget. That was more than a quarter of the state's functioning budget, more than the education, justice and industry ministries combined.
For now, Algeria can pay for this vast security apparatus because it is one of the world's largest oil and natural gas exporters. But in the global economic downturn, the burden is getting heavier.
In the meantime, poverty is rampant, unemployment is widespread, development falls far short and 70% of the population is under 30. The resulting tinderbox continues to stoke militancy that spreads far beyond Algeria's borders, especially with the help of al-Qaeda.
Security is indeed killing or arresting militants in droves, said a Western intelligence official. "But the problem is, the groups can recruit just as fast within the desperate and angry youth."
Lebanon Deals Hezbollah Blow as Moderates Hang On by Chip Cummins
A Western-leaning coalition of candidates held onto its parliamentary majority in Lebanon's Sunday polls, beating back a challenge by a Hezbollah-led bloc that some polls had indicated would come out on top.
Final election results released by the Lebanese government show the Hezbollah-led opposition didn't capture enough votes to win a majority.
Interior Minister Ziad Baroud read the returns from all 26 districts Monday. His count had the pro-Western bloc winning 68 seats of the 128-member legislature in Sunday's balloting and the Hezbollah-led alliance 57 seats. Three seats went to independents.
The outcome came as a surprise because some had predicted a victory here for Hezbollah, which receives significant funding from Iran and is allied with Syria. A Hezbollah-led victory would have been deeply troubling for Israel and U.S.-allied Arab neighbors, who are loath to see Tehran boost its regional influence.
The victory is being welcomed in Washington as a major boost for the Obama administration's strategies in the Middle East. U.S. officials have said in recent days that Lebanon traditionally serves as a bellwether for identifying wider trends across the region.
The push back of Hezbollah is seen as providing President Barack Obama more diplomatic space to pursue his high-profile Arab-Israeli peace initiative. It could also lend Mr. Obama more time to pursue his diplomatic outreach toward Tehran.
"Lebanon is taken as a window for the advances Iran has made in the region," said a senior U.S. official working on the Middle East. "If Hezbollah had achieved a majority, it would have added to our concerns significantly."
A number of factors could have impacted the vote, including higher-than-expected turnout. Mr. Obama's speech in Cairo last week may have made a difference. Hezbollah officials were quick to dismiss the speech, but many Muslims said it struck a chord for moderation.
Hezbollah headed an opposition bloc of Shiite and Christian allies that were expected to at least narrow the parliamentary majority of the Western-backed "March 14" movement led by Saad Hariri, the son of slain former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Some analysts and pollsters were predicting a margin of just one or two in the 128-seat body.
In an interview before the vote, Hussein Hajj Hassan, a Hezbollah MP from Baalbek, said the group would honor the outcome. "We will accept the decision" of the voters, he said.
Despite isolated reports of skirmishes between supporters, voting across the country went off smoothly. Turnout was well above 50%, according to the interior ministry, and fireworks lit up the skyline of the capital hours after polls closed.
The winner of the contest is expected to lead efforts to form Lebanon's next government. But the country's political system apportions seats and top posts by sect, significantly restricting either side in choosing ministries and other key posts.
Iranian-backed Hezbollah and its allies are looking to defeat Lebanon's ruling U.S.-backed coalition in a fiercely contested general election.
Washington has doled out significant aid to Lebanon in recent years. During a visit last month, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden warned that further aid, including military support, would depend on the composition and policies of the next government.
The Hezbollah-led "March 8" opposition holds 58 seats in the current parliament. Mr. Hariri's March 14 movement holds 70 seats.
In an interview Sunday, Mr. Hariri said if his side were to hold onto its majority, he would invite the opposition to join in a unity government. But he would also push to reverse the opposition's current ability to essentially veto government decisions -- a so-called "blocking minority" it was granted last year.
"We would invite them, but without a blocking minority," he said from his heavily fortified compound in central Beirut.
Voting was festive at a handful of polling stations in Beirut Sunday. In the Shiite neighborhood of Ghobeireh, volunteers dressed in Hezbollah yellow helped infirm voters out of an ambulance to cast votes at a local school.
In the mountainside Beirut suburb of Beit-Mery, the neighborhood's mostly Christian voters complained of waiting an hour or more to vote. Still, the mood was buoyant. "I've voted three times before, but never anything like this," said Nancy Abu Khalil, a 41-year-old schoolteacher. She said she was voting mostly for pro-West March 14 candidates.
Final election results released by the Lebanese government show the Hezbollah-led opposition didn't capture enough votes to win a majority.
Interior Minister Ziad Baroud read the returns from all 26 districts Monday. His count had the pro-Western bloc winning 68 seats of the 128-member legislature in Sunday's balloting and the Hezbollah-led alliance 57 seats. Three seats went to independents.
The outcome came as a surprise because some had predicted a victory here for Hezbollah, which receives significant funding from Iran and is allied with Syria. A Hezbollah-led victory would have been deeply troubling for Israel and U.S.-allied Arab neighbors, who are loath to see Tehran boost its regional influence.
The victory is being welcomed in Washington as a major boost for the Obama administration's strategies in the Middle East. U.S. officials have said in recent days that Lebanon traditionally serves as a bellwether for identifying wider trends across the region.
The push back of Hezbollah is seen as providing President Barack Obama more diplomatic space to pursue his high-profile Arab-Israeli peace initiative. It could also lend Mr. Obama more time to pursue his diplomatic outreach toward Tehran.
"Lebanon is taken as a window for the advances Iran has made in the region," said a senior U.S. official working on the Middle East. "If Hezbollah had achieved a majority, it would have added to our concerns significantly."
A number of factors could have impacted the vote, including higher-than-expected turnout. Mr. Obama's speech in Cairo last week may have made a difference. Hezbollah officials were quick to dismiss the speech, but many Muslims said it struck a chord for moderation.
Hezbollah headed an opposition bloc of Shiite and Christian allies that were expected to at least narrow the parliamentary majority of the Western-backed "March 14" movement led by Saad Hariri, the son of slain former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Some analysts and pollsters were predicting a margin of just one or two in the 128-seat body.
In an interview before the vote, Hussein Hajj Hassan, a Hezbollah MP from Baalbek, said the group would honor the outcome. "We will accept the decision" of the voters, he said.
Despite isolated reports of skirmishes between supporters, voting across the country went off smoothly. Turnout was well above 50%, according to the interior ministry, and fireworks lit up the skyline of the capital hours after polls closed.
The winner of the contest is expected to lead efforts to form Lebanon's next government. But the country's political system apportions seats and top posts by sect, significantly restricting either side in choosing ministries and other key posts.
Iranian-backed Hezbollah and its allies are looking to defeat Lebanon's ruling U.S.-backed coalition in a fiercely contested general election.
Washington has doled out significant aid to Lebanon in recent years. During a visit last month, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden warned that further aid, including military support, would depend on the composition and policies of the next government.
The Hezbollah-led "March 8" opposition holds 58 seats in the current parliament. Mr. Hariri's March 14 movement holds 70 seats.
In an interview Sunday, Mr. Hariri said if his side were to hold onto its majority, he would invite the opposition to join in a unity government. But he would also push to reverse the opposition's current ability to essentially veto government decisions -- a so-called "blocking minority" it was granted last year.
"We would invite them, but without a blocking minority," he said from his heavily fortified compound in central Beirut.
Voting was festive at a handful of polling stations in Beirut Sunday. In the Shiite neighborhood of Ghobeireh, volunteers dressed in Hezbollah yellow helped infirm voters out of an ambulance to cast votes at a local school.
In the mountainside Beirut suburb of Beit-Mery, the neighborhood's mostly Christian voters complained of waiting an hour or more to vote. Still, the mood was buoyant. "I've voted three times before, but never anything like this," said Nancy Abu Khalil, a 41-year-old schoolteacher. She said she was voting mostly for pro-West March 14 candidates.
Hizballah Campaigns at Home, Exposed Abroad by Matthew Levitt
As the Hizballah-led March 8 coalition campaigns ahead of Lebanon's June 7 elections, the group has been forced to contend with the unexpected exposure of its covert terrorist activities both at home and abroad. At home, Hizballah now stands accused of playing a role in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri. Abroad, law enforcement officials have taken action against Hizballah support networks operating across the globe, including in Egypt, Yemen, Sierra Leone, Cote d'Ivoire, Azerbaijan, Belgium, and Colombia. Together, these activities pose what Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah recently described as "the largest and most important and serious challenge" facing Hizballah today.
Implicated in Hariri Assassination
Last week, the German weekly Der Spiegel revealed that the UN special tribunal investigating Hariri's assassination has now implicated Hizballah. According to the report, which cites Lebanese security sources, investigators identified cell phones linked to the plot and found that "all of the numbers involved apparently belonged to the 'operational arm' of Hizballah." The report identified Abdulmajid Ghamlush as one of the main suspects and described him as "a Hizballah member who completed training courses in Iran." The investigation of Ghamlush, who reportedly purchased the mobile phones, led officials to Hajj Salim, the alleged mastermind of the assassination plot and commander of a "special operational unit" reporting directly to Hizballah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah.
Cells Exposed in Egypt, Yemen
In April, Egyptian authorities publicized the November 2008 arrest of dozens of Hizballah operatives accused of funneling arms to Hamas and targeting Israeli tourists and Suez Canal shipping. According to Egyptian prosecutors, the operatives were instructed to collect intelligence from villages along the Egypt-Gaza border, at tourist sites, and at the Suez Canal. Nasrallah himself confirmed to the Financial Times that one of the men arrested was Sami Shihab, a Hizballah member who was on "a logistical job to help Palestinians get [military] equipment." The cells reportedly established commercial businesses as fronts for their operational activities, purchased apartments in al-Arish and the Egyptian side of Rafah for use as safe houses, and contacted criminal elements in Egypt to procure forged Egyptian passports so they could leave Egypt as needed and purchase or rent apartments. Some of the cell members reportedly worked for the Egyptian bureau of al-Manar, Hizballah's satellite television station, as cover for their activities in Egypt.
Following the exposure of the Hizballah cells operating in Egypt, UN special envoy Terje Roed-Larsen commented that there has recently been "a growing concern that Hizballah has engaged in clandestine and illegal militant activities beyond Lebanese territory." The following month, Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Salih publicly accused Hizballah of training Shiite rebels in Yemen.
African Support Network Designated
Also in May, the U.S. Treasury Department added two Africa-based Hizballah supporters, Kassim Tajideen and Abdulmenhem Qubaisi, to its list of designated terrorists. According to information released by Treasury, Tajideen has contributed tens of millions of dollars to Hizballah and has funneled money to the group through his brother, a Hizballah commander in Lebanon. Tajideen, a dual Lebanese-Sierra Leonean citizen, and his brothers also run cover companies for Hizballah in Africa, according to Treasury. In 2003, following a four-month international investigation by Belgium's Economic Crimes Unit, Tajideen was arrested in Belgium in connection with fraud, money laundering, and diamond smuggling. Judicial police raided the Antwerp offices of Soafrimex, a company managed by Tajideen, arrested several of its officials, and froze its bank accounts on charges of "large-scale tax fraud, money laundering, and trade in diamonds of doubtful origin, to the value of tens of millions of Euros."
According to Treasury, Qubaisi is a Hizballah supporter and fundraiser who functions as Nasrallah's "personal representative" in the country and also "helped establish an official Hizballah foundation in Cote d'Ivoire, which has been used to recruit new members for Hizballah's military ranks in Lebanon."
These designations are particularly timely, coming just a month after Israeli officials issued warnings to Israeli businesspersons traveling to Europe in response to what was described as "pinpoint" intelligence of a specific threat. In August 2008, Israel issued similar warnings of a pending Hizballah attack targeting Israelis in Africa. A few weeks later, senior Israeli officials confirmed that two attempts by Hizballah operatives to kidnap Israeli citizens abroad had been thwarted.
Tied to Baku Bomb Plot
Last week, the Los Angeles Times ran the first public details of a Hizballah and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps plot to bomb the building housing the Israeli, Thai, and Japanese embassies as well as a radar tower in Baku, Azerbaijan. Israeli officials have said that the operatives also planned to kidnap the Israeli ambassador to Azerbaijan. The plot was foiled last year in the weeks following the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, Hizballah's chief of external operations. Azeri prosecutors are now trying two Lebanese Hizballah operatives, Ali Karaki, described as "a veteran of Hizballah's external operations unit," and Ali Najem Aladine, a "lower-ranking explosives expert." The two men reportedly traveled to Iran several times, using Iranian passports. When they were arrested, police found in their car explosives, binoculars, cameras, pistols with silencers, and surveillance photographs.
Colombian Indicted in 1994 AMIA Bombing
One week prior to the exposure of the Baku plot, Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman announced that an international arrest warrant had been issued for Samuel Salman al-Reda, a Colombian of Lebanese descent and suspected Hizballah operative who previously lived in Buenos Aires and is charged with playing a key role in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish charities headquarters that killed 85 people and wounded approximately 300. According to the original AMIA indictment, a government witness identified al-Reda as a Hizballah member who fought in southern Lebanon. The indictment says al-Reda coordinated the activities of "dormant" cells in the triborder area where Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay meet and provided "all the necessary support" to carry out the attack. According to information provided by the Argentine intelligence service, SIDE, and cited in the AMIA indictment, al-Reda is also suspected of being a senior operative involved in the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires. An FBI report on the AMIA bombing notes that "additional information has identified Samuel Reda as an active member of Hizballah who was in Buenos Aires during the attack after having moved from the city of Iguacu Falls, Brazil. It is alleged [that] Reda was the contact for members of Hizballah, of Iran, and of Lebanon."
Conclusion
On May 29, Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah gave his final major address before the elections. The speech was broadcast live on Hizballah's al-Manar satellite television station and projected on a giant screen at a Resistance and Liberation Day rally in the Beqa Valley celebrating the ninth anniversary of the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon. Nasrallah bemoaned what he described as an Israeli effort to "return to the strategy of introducing Hizballah as a terrorist organization that attacks countries and peoples and threatens world security." Even worse, Nasrallah said, is "the attempt to accuse Hizballah of assassinating martyr Rafiq Hariri in order to foment a sectarian sedition in Lebanon."
Far from being the Israeli conspiracy that Nasrallah alleges, information about Hizballah's continued terrorist activities abroad come from a wide array of highly credible international sources -- from Belgian, Argentine, Egyptian, and Azeri prosecutors to Yemeni, U.S., and UN officials, to the international team investigating the Hariri assassination from their headquarters in The Hague. Whether its coalition wins an outright majority or merely solidifies its "blocking third" veto over government policy, Hizballah is likely to do well in next week's elections. Recent revelations about Hizballah's continued terrorist activities and global reach highlight the difficulties the international community will face dealing with the new Lebanese government should Hizballah emerge victorious.
Implicated in Hariri Assassination
Last week, the German weekly Der Spiegel revealed that the UN special tribunal investigating Hariri's assassination has now implicated Hizballah. According to the report, which cites Lebanese security sources, investigators identified cell phones linked to the plot and found that "all of the numbers involved apparently belonged to the 'operational arm' of Hizballah." The report identified Abdulmajid Ghamlush as one of the main suspects and described him as "a Hizballah member who completed training courses in Iran." The investigation of Ghamlush, who reportedly purchased the mobile phones, led officials to Hajj Salim, the alleged mastermind of the assassination plot and commander of a "special operational unit" reporting directly to Hizballah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah.
Cells Exposed in Egypt, Yemen
In April, Egyptian authorities publicized the November 2008 arrest of dozens of Hizballah operatives accused of funneling arms to Hamas and targeting Israeli tourists and Suez Canal shipping. According to Egyptian prosecutors, the operatives were instructed to collect intelligence from villages along the Egypt-Gaza border, at tourist sites, and at the Suez Canal. Nasrallah himself confirmed to the Financial Times that one of the men arrested was Sami Shihab, a Hizballah member who was on "a logistical job to help Palestinians get [military] equipment." The cells reportedly established commercial businesses as fronts for their operational activities, purchased apartments in al-Arish and the Egyptian side of Rafah for use as safe houses, and contacted criminal elements in Egypt to procure forged Egyptian passports so they could leave Egypt as needed and purchase or rent apartments. Some of the cell members reportedly worked for the Egyptian bureau of al-Manar, Hizballah's satellite television station, as cover for their activities in Egypt.
Following the exposure of the Hizballah cells operating in Egypt, UN special envoy Terje Roed-Larsen commented that there has recently been "a growing concern that Hizballah has engaged in clandestine and illegal militant activities beyond Lebanese territory." The following month, Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Salih publicly accused Hizballah of training Shiite rebels in Yemen.
African Support Network Designated
Also in May, the U.S. Treasury Department added two Africa-based Hizballah supporters, Kassim Tajideen and Abdulmenhem Qubaisi, to its list of designated terrorists. According to information released by Treasury, Tajideen has contributed tens of millions of dollars to Hizballah and has funneled money to the group through his brother, a Hizballah commander in Lebanon. Tajideen, a dual Lebanese-Sierra Leonean citizen, and his brothers also run cover companies for Hizballah in Africa, according to Treasury. In 2003, following a four-month international investigation by Belgium's Economic Crimes Unit, Tajideen was arrested in Belgium in connection with fraud, money laundering, and diamond smuggling. Judicial police raided the Antwerp offices of Soafrimex, a company managed by Tajideen, arrested several of its officials, and froze its bank accounts on charges of "large-scale tax fraud, money laundering, and trade in diamonds of doubtful origin, to the value of tens of millions of Euros."
According to Treasury, Qubaisi is a Hizballah supporter and fundraiser who functions as Nasrallah's "personal representative" in the country and also "helped establish an official Hizballah foundation in Cote d'Ivoire, which has been used to recruit new members for Hizballah's military ranks in Lebanon."
These designations are particularly timely, coming just a month after Israeli officials issued warnings to Israeli businesspersons traveling to Europe in response to what was described as "pinpoint" intelligence of a specific threat. In August 2008, Israel issued similar warnings of a pending Hizballah attack targeting Israelis in Africa. A few weeks later, senior Israeli officials confirmed that two attempts by Hizballah operatives to kidnap Israeli citizens abroad had been thwarted.
Tied to Baku Bomb Plot
Last week, the Los Angeles Times ran the first public details of a Hizballah and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps plot to bomb the building housing the Israeli, Thai, and Japanese embassies as well as a radar tower in Baku, Azerbaijan. Israeli officials have said that the operatives also planned to kidnap the Israeli ambassador to Azerbaijan. The plot was foiled last year in the weeks following the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, Hizballah's chief of external operations. Azeri prosecutors are now trying two Lebanese Hizballah operatives, Ali Karaki, described as "a veteran of Hizballah's external operations unit," and Ali Najem Aladine, a "lower-ranking explosives expert." The two men reportedly traveled to Iran several times, using Iranian passports. When they were arrested, police found in their car explosives, binoculars, cameras, pistols with silencers, and surveillance photographs.
Colombian Indicted in 1994 AMIA Bombing
One week prior to the exposure of the Baku plot, Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman announced that an international arrest warrant had been issued for Samuel Salman al-Reda, a Colombian of Lebanese descent and suspected Hizballah operative who previously lived in Buenos Aires and is charged with playing a key role in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish charities headquarters that killed 85 people and wounded approximately 300. According to the original AMIA indictment, a government witness identified al-Reda as a Hizballah member who fought in southern Lebanon. The indictment says al-Reda coordinated the activities of "dormant" cells in the triborder area where Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay meet and provided "all the necessary support" to carry out the attack. According to information provided by the Argentine intelligence service, SIDE, and cited in the AMIA indictment, al-Reda is also suspected of being a senior operative involved in the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires. An FBI report on the AMIA bombing notes that "additional information has identified Samuel Reda as an active member of Hizballah who was in Buenos Aires during the attack after having moved from the city of Iguacu Falls, Brazil. It is alleged [that] Reda was the contact for members of Hizballah, of Iran, and of Lebanon."
Conclusion
On May 29, Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah gave his final major address before the elections. The speech was broadcast live on Hizballah's al-Manar satellite television station and projected on a giant screen at a Resistance and Liberation Day rally in the Beqa Valley celebrating the ninth anniversary of the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon. Nasrallah bemoaned what he described as an Israeli effort to "return to the strategy of introducing Hizballah as a terrorist organization that attacks countries and peoples and threatens world security." Even worse, Nasrallah said, is "the attempt to accuse Hizballah of assassinating martyr Rafiq Hariri in order to foment a sectarian sedition in Lebanon."
Far from being the Israeli conspiracy that Nasrallah alleges, information about Hizballah's continued terrorist activities abroad come from a wide array of highly credible international sources -- from Belgian, Argentine, Egyptian, and Azeri prosecutors to Yemeni, U.S., and UN officials, to the international team investigating the Hariri assassination from their headquarters in The Hague. Whether its coalition wins an outright majority or merely solidifies its "blocking third" veto over government policy, Hizballah is likely to do well in next week's elections. Recent revelations about Hizballah's continued terrorist activities and global reach highlight the difficulties the international community will face dealing with the new Lebanese government should Hizballah emerge victorious.
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