Category Archives: Middle East

Putin’s Goal Post, Novorossiya

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First, hello to the Russian bots and hackers.

Okay, there was Libya and that failed post Qaddafi. Then there was Iraq and that has failed. Then there is Afghanistan and yes that has failed. Then there is the civil war in Syria and that was handed over to Russia to deal with. Then comes Iran’s nuclear program….remember that? Add in the failed peace talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, that is over. The White House mandated a pivot to Asia and now John Kerry is pivoting to Sudan. But what about Ukraine/Crimea and the Baltic States?

Putin is making his moves to the red zone where getting closer to the goal post of the New Russia which includes the old Novorossiya, so one needs to turn back to the Orange Revolution and further to the Ottoman Empire. The New Russia is emerging.

 

 

Russia Ukraine

 

 

When is a war called a war and who is noticing? The White House is fighting on behalf of Ukraine with shallow sanctions and John Kerry moved on to Sudan. Today was the deadliest day in the war in Odessa with 41 dead. This is precisely how the conflict in Syria started. In the Eastern part of Ukraine, pro-Russian militias used surface to air missiles and blew two helicopters out of the sky, killing the pilots. No one will admit Russian troops are in Ukraine yet the truth is Putin has admitted he dispatched saboteurs inside the borders in Slovyansk where mercenaries, terrorists and criminals have been unleashed at the of Putin. There are still pro-Ukraine hostages being held in Donetsk.

Last month, Russia stopped taking calls from anyone in Washington, DC. The radio silence from Russia spells trouble for the West as Russia asserts her power in the Baltic States, such that success has already been achieved with closer Russian relationships with Iran, Egypt, Syria and Latin America including Venezuela and Cuba. Putin is working a calculated consolidation plan where his eyes are set on Georgia, Armenia, Belarus, Moldova, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. The ultimate goal is a Eurasian Union and Germany is at the core to stop this however, in a very feeble posture to stop the Russian global power objective. Stopping the Putin red zone mission by sanctions is not so much as a penalty flag and the Russian Oligarchs are moved money out of the United States already and their investments in Europe are protected for the sake of power resources such as natural gas and economic ventures. Merkel has pushed back on approving sanctions authored by the United States that have real teeth due to energy institutionalization of Russia in Europe.

The United States is war-weary, NATO is war-weary but enemies of the West are growing out of the weakness of the West and the future challenges are in front of us. NATO is an intergovernmental military organization established for the defense of Soviet aggression and the prospect of their nuclear programs.

The most proactive measure now would be to admit Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, where Article 5 would apply, an attack on one is an attack on all NATO members.

NATO Deputy Secretary General’s Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia region James Appathurai  said in Tbilisi today that he believed the Alliance would discuss  whether NATO allies should deploy “defensive assets” in Georgia.

Appathurai announced this in response to the Georgian Defence Minister Irakli Alasania’s suggestion to put “air defense and anti-armour capabilities in Georgia,” which he made in Washington at the Atlantic Council’s conference “Toward a Europe Whole and Free” on Wednesday.  More here.

 

Tony Blair, More Right than Barack Obama

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Tony Blair on the Islamist Threat

by Mark Durie
Frontpage Magazine
May 1, 2014

http://www.meforum.org/3813/tony-blair-on-the-islamist-threat

 

Tony Blair delivered a major speech on April 23 entitled, “Why the Middle East Matters”. In summary, he argued that the Middle East, far from being a “vast unfathomable mess” is deep in the throes of a multi-faceted struggle between a specific religious ideology on the one hand, and those who want to embrace the modern world on the other. Furthermore, the West, blinded up until now as to the religious nature of the conflict, must take sides: it should support those who stand on the side of open-minded pluralistic societies, and combat those who wish to create intolerant theocracies.

In his speech Blair makes a whole series of substantial points:

He states that a ‘defining challenge of our time’ is a religious ideology which he calls ‘Islamist’, although he is not comfortable with this label because he prefers to distance himself from any implication that this ideology can be equated with Islam itself. He worries that “you can appear to elide those who support the Islamist ideology with all Muslims.”

He considers Islamism to be a global movement, whose diverse manifestations are produced by common ideological roots.

He rejects Western non-religious explanations for the problems caused by Islamist ideology, including the preference of “Western commentators” to attribute the manifestations of Islamism to “disparate” causes which have nothing to do with religion. Likewise he implies that the protracted conflict over Israel-Palestine is not the cause of this ideology, but rather the converse is the case: dealing with the wider impact of Islamist ideology could help solve the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

According to Blair, what distinguishes violent terrorists from seemingly non-violent Islamists – such as the Muslim Brotherhood – is simply “a difference of view as to how to achieve the goals of Islamism”, so attempts to draw a distinction between political Islamist movements and radical terrorist groups are mistaken. Blair considers that the religious ideology of certain groups like the Brotherhood, which may appear to be law-abiding, “inevitably creates the soil” in which religio-political violence is nurtured.

He considers “Islamism” to be a major threat everywhere in the world, including increasingly within Western nations. The “challenge” of Islamism is “growing” and “spreading across the world” and it is “the biggest threat to global security of the early 21st Century.”

Because of the seriousness of the threat of this religio-political ideology, Blair argues that the West should vigorously support just about anybody whose interests lie in opposing Islamists, from General Sisi in Egypt to President Putin in Russia. He finds it to be an absurd irony that Western governments form intimate alliances with nations whose educational and civic institutions promote this ideology: an obvious example of this would be the US – Saudi alliance.

In all this, one might be forgiven for thinking that Blair sounds a lot like Geert Wilders, except that, as he takes pains to emphasize, he emphatically rejects equating Islamism with Islam. Tony Blair and Geert Wilders agree that there is a serious religious ideological challenge facing the world, but they disagree on whether that challenge is Islam itself.My Blair’s speech is aimed at people who do not wish to be thought of as anti-Musilm, but who need to be awakened to the religious nature of the Islamist challenge. He is keen to assure his intended audience that if they adopt his thesis they would not be guilty of conflating those who support radical Jihadi violence with all Muslims.

Islam and Islamism

Two key assumptions underpin Blair’s dissociation of Islamism the religio-political ideology from Islam the religion. First, Blair presupposes that Islamism is not “the proper teaching of Islam”. It may, he concedes, be “an interpretation”, but it is a false one, a “perversion” of the religion, which “distorts and warps Islam’s true message.” He offers two arguments to support this theological insight.One is that there are pious Muslims who agree with him: “Many of those totally opposed to the Islamist ideology are absolutely devout Muslims.”

This is a fallacious argument. It is akin to asserting that Catholic belief in the infallibility of the Pope cannot be Christian merely because there are absolutely devout protestant Christians who totally oppose this dogma. The fact that there are pious Muslims who reject Islamism is not a credible argument that Islamism is an invalid interpretation of Islam.

Blair’s other argument in support of his belief that Islamism is a perversion of Islam is an allegation that Christians used to hold similarly abhorrent theologies: “There used to be such interpretations of Christianity which took us years to eradicate from our mainstream politics.” This is a self-deprecating variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy, in which another’s argument is attacked by accusing them of hypocrisy. Here Blair rhetorically directs the ad hominem attack against himself and his culture. In essence, he is saying “It would hypocritical of us to regard Islamist ideology as genuinely Islamic, because (we) Christians used to support similarly pernicious theologies in the past (although we do not do so today).”

This logic is equally fallacious: observations about the history of Christian theology, valid or not, prove nothing about what is or is not a valid form of Islam.

Blair’s second key assumption is a widely-held view about the root cause of “the challenge”. The fundamental issue, he argues, is people of faith who believe they and only they are right and do not accept the validity of other views. Such people believe that “there is one proper religion and one proper view of it, and that this view should, exclusively, determine the nature of society and the political economy.” “It is not about a competing view of how society or politics should be governed within a common space where you accept other views are equally valid. It is exclusivist in nature.”

Hilary Clinton has expressed a very similar understanding of extremist religionists, who “define religion in such a way that if you do not believe what they want you to believe, then what you are doing is not practicing religion, because there is only one definition of religion.”

Such views about religion may reflect the secularist Zeitgeist, but they offer a very weak explanation for the challenge of radical Islam. The problem is not that Islamists believe they and only they are right. The problem is all the rest of what they believe.Consider this: Tony Blair himself believes his goal is valid, true and worth fighting for, namely a tolerant, open, democratic society, and the Islamists’ goal of a sharia society is invalid. He does believe that his view should determine the nature of society. Likewise many religious groups believe that they follow the one true religion, including the Catholic Church, which Tony Blair formally joined in 2007: Mother Theresa of Calcutta certainly did not consider alternative religious views equally valid to Catholic dogma. But none of this certainty of belief implies that Tony Blair or Catholics in general are disposed to become terrorists, cut hands off thieves or kill apostates.

Blair’s argument manifests the paradox of tolerance. His vision of a good society is one in which people must respect the views of others as “equally valid”. At the same time he argues that we should disallow and combat Islamism because it is “perverse”. He is asking for Islamism not to be tolerated because it is intolerant. If Blair’s explanation for Islamist nastiness is flawed, what then is the explanation? This takes us back to Islam itself. Does Blair’s position on Islam hold water?

Blair’s arguments for his positive view of Islam are weak. The validity of Islamism does not rest or fall on whether there are pious Muslims who accept or reject it, nor on whether Christians have advocating equally perverse theologies in the past. In the end, Islam as a religion – all mainstream Muslim scholars would agree – is based upon the teachings of the Sunna (the example and teaching of Muhammad) and the Koran. Islam’s religious validity in the eyes of its followers stands and falls on how well it can be justified from those authorities.There are at least three respects in which Islamist ideologies claim strong support from Islam – that is, from the Koran and Muhammad.

One is the intolerance and violence in the Islamic canon. The Koran states “Kill them / the polytheists wherever you can find them (Sura 9:5, 2:191). Muhammad, according to Islamic tradition, said “I have been sent with a sword in my hand to command people to worship Allah and associate no partners with him. I command you to belittle and subjugate those who disobey me …” He also said to his followers in Medina, “Kill any Jew who falls into your power.” Following in Muhammad’s footsteps, one of Muhammad’s most revered companions and successors as leader of the Muslim community, the Caliph Umar, called upon the armies of Islam to fight non-Muslims until they surrender or convert, saying “If they refuse this, it is the sword without leniency.”

It will not do, in the face of many such statements found in the Koran and the traditions of Muhammad, to throw one’s hands up in the air and say there are also bad verses in the Bible. If Jesus Christ had said such things as Muhammad did, Christianity’s political theology would look very different today and medieval Christian Holy War theology – developed initially in response to the Islamic jihad – would have come into being as part of the birth-pangs of the religion, just as the doctrine of the Islamic jihad did in the history of Islam.

Islamist apologists find it relatively easy to win young Muslims over to their cause precisely because they have strong arguments at their disposal from the Koran and Muhammad’s example and teaching. Their threatening ideology is growing in influence because it is so readily supported by substantial religious foundations. Islamism may not be the only interpretation of Islam, but by any objective measure, it is open for Muslims to hold it, given what what is in their canon.

Blair makes a telling over-generalisation when he states that Islamist ideology is an export from the Middle East. Another important source has been the Indian sub-continent. Today Pakistanis today are among the most dynamic apologists for Islamism. Abul A’la Maududi, an Indian (later Pakistani) Islamic teacher and founder of Jamaat-e-Islami was writing powerful texts to radicalise Muslims more than 70 years ago – including his tract Jihad in Islam (first published in 1927). His works remain in widespread use as tools of radicalization by Islamist organisations. Maududi’s theological vision was driven, not by Middle Eastern influences or Saudi petrodollars, but by his life-long study of the Koran and the example of Muhammad. The spiritual DNA of Maududi’s Islamist theology was derived from the Islamic canon itself.

The second point to understand about Islamist ideologies is that the conflation of politics and religion, which is one of Blair’s main objections to Islamism, has always been accepted as normative by the mainstream of Islamic theology. It is orthodox Islam. As Bernard Lewis pointed out, the separation of church and state has been derided by most Muslim thinkers since the origins of Islam: “Separation of church and state was derided in the past by Muslims when they said this is a Christian remedy for a Christian disease. It doesn’t apply to us or to our world.”

The third point about Islamist ideologies is that their vision of a closed society in which non-Muslims are second-class participants is in lock-step with the conservative mainstream of Islamic thought. Here again Bernard Lewis: “It is only very recently that some defenders of Islam began to assert that their society in the past accorded equal status to non-Muslims. No such claim is made by spokesmen for resurgent Islam, and historically there is no doubt that they are right. Traditional Islamic societies neither accorded such equality nor pretended that they were so doing. Indeed, in the old order, this would have been regarded not as a merit but as a dereliction of duty. How could one accord the same treatment to those who follow the true faith and those who willfully reject it? This would be a theological as well as a logical absurdity.” (The Jews of Islam, Princeton University Press, 1987, p.4).

Tony Blair is right to call the world to engage with and reject radical Islamist ideology. This is a defining global challenge of our time. He is also correct to affirm that this ideology is religious. But he is profoundly mistaken to characterize it as un-Islamic. The fallacious arguments he puts forward for distinguishing Islam from Islamism are nothing but flimsy rhetoric. The hard evidence against separating Islamism from Islam is clear, the sentiments of some pious Muslims non-withstanding.

Islamism is a valid interpretation of Islam, not in the sense that it is the only ‘correct’ or ‘true’ one, but because its core tenets find ready and obvious support in the Islamic canon, and they align with core principles of 1400 years of Islamic theology. (To make this observation is not the same thing as saying that all pious Muslims are Islamists!)

Blair is right to call for the West to combat “radical Islam”, but the reason why “radical” is a correct term to use for this ideology is that radical means “of the root,” and Islamist ideas are deeply rooted in Islam itself. Islamism is a radical form of Islam. This explains why the radicalization project has been advancing with such force all over the world.

 

In order to combat radical Islamic views we do need to have a frank and open dialogue about the dynamics of radicalization. Blair is concerned about the damage being caused by denial about Islamism, but he indulges in his own form of blinkered thinking, which is just as unhelpful. He was right to identify Islamist ideology as the soil in which violent jihadi ideologies “inevitably” take root, but fails to identity mainstream Islam itself as the soil in which Islamism develops. In reality the Islamist movement is but the tip of the iceberg of the Islamic movement, a deeper and broader revival of Islam across the whole Muslim world.

When countering radical Islamic ideologies, Western leaders should refrain from putting themselves forward as experts on theology, who are somehow competent to rule on whether a particular interpretation of Islam is valid or “perverse”. There is something ridiculous about secular politicians ruling on which manifestations of Islam are to be judged theologically correct. As Taliban Cleric Abu Qutada once said, “I am astonished by President Bush when he claims there is nothing in the Quran that justifies jihad violence in the name of Islam. Is he some kind of Islamic scholar? Has he ever actually read the Quran?”

Ritual displays of respect for Islam should not be naively used as sugar to coat the pill of opposition to the objectionable beliefs and behaviour of some Muslims. Leaders need to be absolutely clear about what values they stand for, and insist on these values. They should not need to express a theological opinion about what is or is not valid Islam in order to challenge the anti-semitism of Palestinian school textbooks, the denial of basic religious rights to non-Muslim guest workers in Saudi Arabia, incitement against Christians in Egypt, the promotion of female genital mutilation in the name of Islam in the Maldives, or the UK practice of taking child brides.

In this post-secular world, our leaders need to “do God” with less naivety. They need to grasp that the inner pressure they feel to manifest respect for Islam whenever they object to some of its manifestations is itself a symptom of the ideology of dominance which powers the Islamist agenda. They should resist the pressure to mount an apology for Islam. The mullahs can do that.

Mark Durie is a theologian, human rights activist, pastor of an Anglican church, and an Associate Fellow at the Middle Eastern Forum. He has published many articles and books on the language and culture of the Acehnese, Christian-Muslim relations and religious freedom. A graduate of the Australian National University and the Australian College of Theology, he has held visiting appointments at the University of Leiden, MIT, UCLA and Stanford, and was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1992.

The Terror Report has Omissions

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Polls suggest that American is war weary and we are, but our enemy is not weary at all, so what is the solution? Diplomacy after twenty plus years in various sorts of approaches including money and political correctness has not been a viable solution even when we leave a war theater like Iraq. In fact in Iraq, we just dispatched many spies and CIA operatives there once again. So how bad is the terror report even if partially accurate? Well no better today at all while the White House tells us differently. Terror is not only in the Western Hemisphere, but attacks are growing and we cannot overlook the Homeland.

The State Department publishes a Global Terror Report from time to time and there are some omissions especially with respect to the Homeland. Terror is in America, with training camps, arms and money smuggling and governmental political collusion with Federal agencies. I read the whole report, yet to spare you, below is the State Department Summary.

 

terror

Jamaat ul-Fuqra (a.k.a the Muslims of America, a.k.a. Muslims of the Americas, a.k.a. Quranic Open University) is an Islamic organization boasts dozens of rural compounds throughout the United States, Canada, and reportedly the Caribbean. It is headed by Sheikh Sayed Mubarik Ali Hasmi Shah Gilani, a Pakistani Sufi, who is persona non grata to the U.S. government and has been forbidden entry to the United States for several decades.  Most of the rank-and-file of Jamaat ul-Fuqra are African Americans, and many of them were recruited in the prison system. According to some accounts, the earliest membership of the organization was made up of defectors from the Nation of Islam who had become disenchanted with Louis Farrakhan and his reluctance to plan for an unconstrained violent jihad against the infidel society and government of the United States. Back in the 1980s and early ’90s, members of Jamaat ul-Fuqra committed a series of fire-bombings, murders, and other crimes, many of them targeting Hindus. Sheikh Gilani reportedly reined them in later in the 1990s, and most of their crimes since have been confined to non-violent offenses such as money-laundering, welfare fraud, product counterfeiting, and unauthorized trafficking in firearms. For a few years the State Department listed Muslims of America as a terrorist organization, but that designation was mysteriously withdrawn in the year 2000. More here.

Now on for the core of the report.

Al-Qa’ida (AQ) and its affiliates and adherents worldwide continue to present a serious threat to the United States, our allies, and our interests. While the international community has severely degraded AQ’s core leadership, the terrorist threat has evolved. Leadership losses in Pakistan, coupled with weak governance and instability in the Middle East and Northwest Africa, have accelerated the decentralization of the movement and led to the affiliates in the AQ network becoming more operationally autonomous from core AQ and increasingly focused on local and regional objectives. The past several years have seen the emergence of a more aggressive set of AQ affiliates and like-minded groups, most notably in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Northwest Africa, and Somalia.

AQ leadership experienced difficulty in maintaining cohesion within the AQ network and in communicating guidance to its affiliated groups. AQ leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was rebuffed in his attempts to mediate a dispute among AQ affiliates operating in Syria – al-Nusrah Front and al-Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI), now calling itself the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) – which resulted in the expulsion of ISIL from the AQ network in February 2014. In addition, guidance issued by Zawahiri in 2013 for AQ affiliates to avoid collateral damage was routinely disobeyed, notably in attacks by AQ affiliates against civilian religious pilgrims in Iraq, hospital staff and convalescing patients in Yemen, and families at a shopping mall in Kenya.

Terrorist violence in 2013 was fueled by sectarian motivations, marking a worrisome trend, in particular in Syria, Lebanon, and Pakistan, where victims of violence were primarily among the civilian populations. Thousands of extremist fighters entered Syria during the year, among those a large percentage reportedly motivated by a sectarian view of the conflict and a desire to protect the Sunni Muslim community from the Alawite-dominant Asad regime. On the other side of the conflict, Iran, Hizballah, and other Shia militia continued to provide critical support to the Asad regime, dramatically bolstering its capabilities and exacerbating the situation. Many of these fighters are also motivated by a sectarian view of the conflict and a desire to protect the Shia Muslim community from Sunni extremists.

The relationship between the AQ core and its affiliates plays out in the financial arena as well. As was the case for the last few years, the affiliates have increased their financial independence through kidnapping for ransom operations and other criminal activities such as extortion and credit card fraud. Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) are particularly effective with kidnapping for ransom and are using ransom money to fund the range of their activities. Kidnapping targets are usually Western citizens from governments or third parties that have established a pattern of paying ransom for the release of individuals in custody.

Private donations from the Gulf also remained a major source of funding for Sunni terrorist groups, particularly for those operating in Syria.

In 2013, violent extremists increased their use of new media platforms and social media, with mixed results. Social media platforms allowed violent extremist groups to circulate messages more quickly, but confusion and contradictions among the various voices within the movement are growing more common. Increasingly, current and former violent extremists are engaging online with a variety of views on tactics and strategy, including admitting wrongdoing or recanting former beliefs and actions.

Key Terrorism Trends in 2013

–The terrorist threat continued to evolve rapidly in 2013, with an increasing number of groups around the world – including both AQ affiliates and other terrorist organizations – posing a threat to the United States, our allies, and our interests.

–As a result of both ongoing worldwide efforts against the organization and senior leadership losses, AQ core’s leadership has been degraded, limiting its ability to conduct attacks and direct its followers. Subsequently, 2013 saw the rise of increasingly aggressive and autonomous AQ affiliates and like-minded groups in the Middle East and Africa who took advantage of the weak governance and instability in the region to broaden and deepen their operations.

–AQ leader Ayman al-Zawahiri experienced difficulty in maintaining influence throughout the AQ organization and was rebuffed in his attempts to mediate a dispute among AQ affiliates operating in Syria, with ISIL publicly dissociating its group from AQ. Guidance issued by Zawahiri in 2013 for AQ affiliates to avoid collateral damage was routinely disobeyed, notably in increasingly violent attacks by these affiliates against civilian populations.

–Syria continued to be a major battleground for terrorism on both sides of the conflict and remains a key area of longer-term concern. Thousands of foreign fighters traveled to Syria to join the fight against the Asad regime – with some joining violent extremist groups – while Iran, Hizballah, and other Shia militias provided a broad range of critical support to the regime. The Syrian conflict also empowered ISIL to expand its cross-border operations in Syria, and dramatically increase attacks against Iraqi civilians and government targets in 2013.

–Terrorist violence in 2013 was increasingly fueled by sectarian motives, marking a worrisome trend, particularly in Syria, but also in Lebanon and Pakistan.

–Terrorist groups engaged in a range of criminal activity to raise needed funds, with kidnapping for ransom remaining the most frequent and profitable source of illicit financing. Private donations from the Gulf also remained a major source of funding for Sunni terrorist groups, particularly for those operating in Syria.

–“Lone offender” violent extremists also continued to pose a serious threat, as illustrated by the April 15, 2013, attacks near the Boston Marathon finish line, which killed three and injured approximately 264 others.

–Many other terrorist groups not tied to AQ were responsible for attacks in 2013, including the People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C), which carried out a number of high-profile attacks last year, including a February 1 suicide plot targeting the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, Turkey.

* * *

While AQ core leadership in Pakistan is much diminished, Ayman al-Zawahiri remains the recognized ideological leader of a jihadist movement that includes AQ-affiliated and allied groups worldwide. Along with AQ, the Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani Network, Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and other like-minded groups continue to conduct operations against U.S., Coalition, Afghan, and Pakistani interests from safe havens on both sides of the Afghanistan/Pakistan border, and in Pakistan, terrorist groups and AQ allies, such as TTP, have executed armed assaults not only on police stations, judicial centers, border posts, and military convoys, but also on polio vaccination teams and aid workers. Other South Asian terrorist organizations, including Lashkar e-Tayyiba (LeT), cite U.S. interests as legitimate targets for attacks. LeT, the group responsible for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, continues to pose a threat to regional stability.

AQAP carried out approximately one hundred attacks throughout Yemen in 2013, including suicide bombings, car bombings, ambushes, kidnappings, and targeted assassinations, regaining the initiative it had lost through 2012 as a result of sustained Yemeni government counterterrorism efforts. Of the AQ affiliates, AQAP continues to pose the most significant threat to the United States and U.S. citizens and interests in Yemen. AQAP has demonstrated a persistent intent to strike the United States, beginning in December 2009 when it attempted to destroy an airliner bound for Detroit, and again the following year with a plot to destroy several U.S.-bound airplanes using bombs timed to detonate in the cargo holds. In 2013, AQAP’s leader, Nasir Wahishi, was designated by AQ leader Zawahiri as his deputy, and the group continued to maintain a focus on Western targets.

Some of the thousands of fighters from around the world who are traveling to Syria to do battle against the Asad regime – particularly from the Middle East and North Africa, Central Asia, and Eastern and Western Europe – are joining violent extremist groups, including al-Nusrah Front and ISIL. A number of key partner governments are becoming increasingly concerned that individuals with violent extremist ties and battlefield experience will return to their home countries or elsewhere to commit terrorist acts. The scale of this problem has raised a concern about the creation of a new generation of globally-committed terrorists, similar to what resulted from the influx of violent extremists to Afghanistan in the 1980s.

The violence and disorder in Syria extended to the various violent extremist groups operating amongst the Syrian opposition. In late 2013 and early 2014, violent infighting occurred between al-Nusrah Front and ISIL, resulting in the February death of Ayman al-Zawahiri’s envoy to Syria Abu Khalid

al-Soury, who was a member of Ahrar al Sham. Despite this infighting, ISIL is the strongest it has been since its peak in 2006; it has exploited political grievance among Iraq’s Sunni population, a weak security environment in Iraq, and the conflict in Syria to significantly increase the pace and complexity of its attacks. ISIL continues to routinely and indiscriminately target defenseless innocents, including religious pilgrims, and engages in violent repression of local inhabitants.

In 2013, AQIM remained focused on local and regional attack planning, and concentrates its efforts largely on kidnapping-for-ransom operations. While a successful French and African intervention countered efforts to overrun northern Mali by AQIM and several associate groups, these factions continued to pursue attacks against regional security forces, local government targets, and westerners in northern Mali, Niger, and the broader Sahel region in 2013.

Originally part of AQIM, the al-Mulathamun Battalion (AMB), also known as al-Murabitoun, became a separate organization in late 2012 after its leader, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, announced a split from AQIM. AMB claimed responsibility for the January 2013 attack against the Tiguentourine gas facility near In Amenas, in southeastern Algeria. Over 800 people were taken hostage during the four-day siege, which led to the deaths of 39 civilians, including three U.S. citizens. AMB was also involved in terrorist attacks committed in Niger in May 2013, targeting a Nigerien military base and a French uranium mine.

Groups calling themselves Ansar al-Shari’a in Tunisia and the Libyan cities of Benghazi and Darnah also operated in the North Africa space. The three share some aspects of AQ ideology, but are not formal affiliates and generally maintain a local focus. In Libya, the terrorist threat to Western and Libyan government interests remains strong, especially in the eastern part of the country. Libya’s porous borders, the weakness of Libya’s nascent security institutions, and large amounts of loose small arms create opportunities for violent extremists. In Tunisia, Ansar al-Shari’a in Tunisia attempted suicide attacks against two tourist sites in late October 2013 and killed a political oppositionist in July that same year, suggesting the group remains intent on attacking Western and Tunisian interests.

In East Africa, al-Shabaab continued to pose a significant regional threat despite coming under continued pressure by African forces operating under the African Union’s AMISOM command and steady progress in the establishment of Somali government capability. Perhaps because of these positive steps, al-Shabaab targeted its attacks on those participating in the effort to bring stability to Somalia. In September 2013, al-Shabaab struck outside of Somalia (its first external attack was in July 2010 in Kampala, Uganda), attacking the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya. The assault resulted in the death of at least 65 civilians, including foreign nationals from 13 countries outside of Kenya and six soldiers and police officers; hundreds more were injured. Al-Shabaab’s attacks within Somalia continued in 2013, and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people, including innocent women and children.

Boko Haram (BH) maintained a high operational tempo in 2013 and carried out kidnappings, killings, bombings, and attacks on civilian and military targets in northern Nigeria, resulting in numerous deaths, injuries, and destruction of property in 2013. The number and sophistication of BH’s attacks are concerning, and while the group focuses principally on local Nigerian issues and actors, there continue to be reports that it has financial and training links with other violent extremists in the Sahel region. Boko Haram, along with a splinter group commonly known as Ansaru, has also increasingly crossed Nigerian borders to neighboring Cameroon, Chad, and Niger to evade pressure and conduct operations.

Palestinian terrorist organizations in the Hamas-controlled Gaza continued rocket and mortar attacks into Israeli territory. The number of rocket and mortar launchings on Israel from Gaza and the Sinai was the lowest in 2013 in more than a decade, with 74 launchings compared to 2,557 in 2012. According to Israeli authorities, 36 rocket hits were identified in Israeli territory in 2013, compared to 1,632 in 2012. Of the 74 launchings on southern Israel, 69 were launched from the Gaza and five from the Sinai Peninsula.

Sinai-based groups, such as Ansar-Beit al Maqdis, also continued to pose a serious threat, conducting attacks against both Israeli and Egyptian targets in 2013.

Since 2012, the United States has also seen a resurgence of activity by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Qods Force (IRGC-QF), the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), and Tehran’s ally Hizballah. On January 23, 2013, the Yemeni Coast Guard interdicted an Iranian dhow carrying weapons and explosives likely destined for Houthi rebels. On February 5, 2013, the Bulgarian government publicly implicated Hizballah in the July 2012 Burgas bombing that killed five Israelis and one Bulgarian citizen, and injured 32 others. On March 21, 2013, a Cyprus court found a Hizballah operative guilty of charges stemming from his surveillance activities of Israeli tourist targets in 2012. On September 18, 2013, Thailand convicted Atris Hussein, a Hizballah operative detained by Thai authorities in January 2012. On December 30, 2013, the Bahraini Coast Guard interdicted a speedboat attempting to smuggle arms and Iranian explosives likely destined for armed Shia opposition groups in Bahrain. During an interrogation, the suspects admitted to receiving paramilitary training in Iran.

On June 22, 2013, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) declared it would treat Hizballah as a terrorist organization. On July 22, 2013, the EU designated the “military wing” of Hizballah as a terrorist organization, sending a strong message to Hizballah that it cannot operate with impunity. Both Hizballah and Iran issued public statements to denounce the EU, demonstrating the impact of the designation. The EU designation will constrain Hizballah’s ability to operate freely in Europe by enabling European law enforcement agencies to crack down on Hizballah’s fundraising, logistical activity, and terrorist plotting on European soil.

Iran remained one of the chief external supporters of the Asad regime in Syria and continued to help ensure the regime’s survival. The IRGC-QF, Hizballah, and Iraqi Shia terrorist groups have all increased the number of their personnel in Syria since the start of the conflict. Iran also continued to send arms to Syria, often through Iraqi airspace, in violation of the UN Security Council prohibition against Iran selling or transferring arms and related materials.

While terrorism by non-state actors related to AQ and state-sponsored terrorism originating in Iran remained the predominant concern of the United States, other forms of terrorism undermined peace and security around the world. In Turkey, the DHKP/C was responsible for a number of high-profile attacks in 2013, including exploding a suicide vest inside the employee entrance to the U.S. Embassy in Ankara on February 1. Anarchists in Greece launched periodic attacks, targeting private businesses, foreign missions, and symbols of the state. In Colombia, there were still hundreds of terrorist incidents around the country. In Northern Ireland, dissident Republican groups continued their campaigns of violence. “Lone offender” violent extremists also remain a concern, as we saw on April 15, 2013, in the United States, when two violent extremists exploded two pressure cooker bombs near the Boston Marathon’s finish line, killing three people and injuring an estimated 264 others.

* * *

To meet the challenges described herein, our response to terrorism cannot depend on military or law enforcement alone. We are committed to a whole of government counterterrorism effort that focuses on countering violent extremism; building the capacity of partner nation security forces to address threats within their own borders and participate in regional counterterrorism operations; and strengthening relationships with U.S. partners around the world to make the rule of law a critical part of a broader, more comprehensive counterterrorism enterprise. See Chapter 5, Terrorist Safe Havens (7120 Report) in this report for further information on these initiatives, which also include designating foreign terrorist organizations and individuals, countering violent extremist narratives, strengthening efforts to counter the financing of terrorism, and furthering multilateral initiatives such as the Global Counterterrorism Forum.

Gitmo, Part Deux

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Seems while the WH and the DoJ are hell bent on re-writing clemency laws and possibly releasing as many as 1.0 million criminals from domestic prisons, which is a real poke in the eye for Judges, Juries and Congress, shhh, but the same in about to happen it appears at Gitmo.

Barack Obama and Eric Holder seem to be taking the ‘Implied Powers’ of the presidency to a new level never seen before in history and certainly for nefarious reasons.

There has been a recommendation to transfer the worst 48 at Gitmo, which Obama said were too dangerous and must remain in detention, their new home will likely be Gitmo Part 2 located in Sa’ana, Yemen. Oh, we pay for that too.

 

Yemen prison

 

The facility would hold the 88 Yemeni terrorism suspects, many of whom have  not been charged with any crime, still detained at the US military prison in  Cuba. Yemenis make up more than half of the 164 men held at Guantanamo, and  their stalled repatriation is a key obstacle to closing the prison.

The White House has refused to confirm direct talks with Yemen over the plan.  But Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said that  the US is part of a UN-led group formed in August to help Yemen establish a  rehabilitation programme “which could also facilitate the transfer of Yemeni  detainees held at Guantanamo”.

Yemen’s human rights minister appealed to the United States and Gulf Arab countries to help fund a $20 million rehabilitation centre that Sanaa says will stop Yemenis released from Guantanamo Bay prison going back to militant activities. Washington halted the repatriation of Yemeni prisoners in 2010 after a man trained by al Qaeda-linked militants in Yemen attempted to blow up a U.S.-bound plane in 2009 with a bomb concealed in his underwear.

Last week President Barack Obama announced the US’s readiness to lift up ban on repatriating Yemeni nationals from Guantanamo Bay top security prison.

Sanaa has put a price tag on the issue, asking Washington and the Gulf capitals to fund construction of a rehabilitation center that will potentially soothe the pains of former extremists and disincline them from armed violence.

“The detainees will be rehabilitated and reintegrated into society,” state news agency Saba quoted Yemen’s President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi as saying. On Tuesday, Hadi shared his views with the US Senator John McCain who is touring the Middle East.

Yemen’s Human Rights Minister Houriah Mashhour told Reuters that the government approved the plan, but needs funding, from $18 to $20 million to bring the project into life.

“The [financial] support that the United States would offer to Yemen in this regard will not be more than what it is [currently] spending to maintain Guantanamo prison,” Mashhour evaluated in an interview on Wednesday.

She also addressed wealthy Arab states of the Persian Gulf, which promoted the power transfer in Yemen in 2011 and helped to stop months-long political instability in Yemen, to sponsor the rehab project.

A large number, if not the majority of the Guantanamo detainees are from Yemen.

Among the 86 Gitmo prisoners already cleared for transfer or release are 56 Yemeni nationals. The next 80 detainees awaiting clearance for transfer have unaccounted for number of Yemenis as well. Many of them are among the 100+ Gitmo prisoners who are on hunger strike, which began sometime in February, demanding to be let out.

Most of them were detained over a decade ago, following the 9/11 terror acts in the US and the American invasion to Afghanistan.

Washington stopped repatriating Yemeni nationals from Guantanamo prison in 2010, following the 2009 incident of an attempted US-bound plane blast. A man who attempted to bring explosives aboard in his underwear had been trained by Al-Qaeda-linked militants in Yemen.

Yemen is one of the most impoverished countries in the Arabian Peninsula, which definitely helps Al-Qaeda cells, which traditionally recruit new members among poverty-stricken population.

The Arab Spring protests in 2011 hit low-lived Yemen particularly hard, putting the country on the verge of a civil war. In the end President Ali Abdullah Saleh was ousted and replaced with his subordinate Hadi.

Though the situation in Yemen has largely stabilized since then, the Islamist insurgency together with Al-Qaeda are still targeting governmental facilities and troops in regular attacks and explosions.

Who is behind this covert move? The answer is Eric Holder’s shadow legal staff. Just a sample of who Barack Obama has said is too dangerous to release but then changed his mind is but one of up to 48 that are soon to be headed to back to Yemen, which by the way is the very location of the al Qaeda meeting with the top jihadis who were so brazen as to publish the video online. The United States did respond with a drone strike however, yet in the end, to empty the cells of Guantanamo and send the detainees to Yemen defies logic…well not to the DoJ or the White House anyway.

Cold War Part Two

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Flashing Red: Fighting breaks out in Ukraine this morning.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-24/fighting-breaks-out-ukraine-deploys-tanks-apcs-troops-slavyansk-deaths-reported

And the new announcement of the Russian flotilla in the Caspian Sea.

http://www.janes.com/article/36957/russia-announces-snap-exercises-of-caspian-sea-flotilla

Very few in the media are attempting to connect the signals and events globally with regard to Putin’s moves to rebuild a new Russia. Not only has Putin virtually installed a footprint in Latin America , not only has Putin assumed control of Crimea, not only has Putin set his sights on annexing additional Baltic States, but, he has his military assets popping up in very interesting places lately.

It seems that Russian has a warship very close to Britain such that the Royal Navy dispatched a shadow watercraft to monitor the Russian destroyer. Then if one looks up in the air, near Scotland there are TU-95’s, known as Bears that are quite worrisome to the Brits such they the Royal Air Force launched aircraft to chase the TU-95’s out of the airspace. Then, the it seems the same has happened in Dutch airspace where fighters too were dispatched to do the same.

 

 

Russian warship

 

A Russian Akula nuclear submarine was in the Gulf of Mexico in August of 2012 completely undetected and few questions were asked. While the Obama administration has allowed Russian spy planes in the United States airspace, only in the last few days is the Pentagon working to terminate that program allowed in the Open Skies Treaty.

Just this past February, a Russian warship retro-fitted with sophisticated surveillance technology finds it was to a Cuban Port without the customary advanced notice.

Beyond these recent events, the Russians are also diligently working to establish naval bases in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Algeria, Cyprus, Seychelles, Vietnam and Singapore. No one else is paying attention or reporting Russia’s robust agenda in the Artic with unified bases.

The Putin plan so far with Crimea is such a success that a new commemorative coin has been minted for this conquest of Crimea.

Russia has taken up a new alliance with China, while Putin continues to support the civil war in Syria with arms for Assad and Putin is threatening the West with voting power to side with Iran over nuclear sanctions if the West challenges any component of Putin’s global plan.

This is a very dangerous and sophisticated chess game being played on the global stage and it appears that John Kerry with his failed Geneva agreement with Russia was barely noticed or obeyed by Russia, in fact not at all.

I would advise listening to this podcast by Newt Gingrich, who as a historian spells out the chess game and illustrates the danger around the corner that moves the West closer to a Cold War Part Two, which the Obama administration refuses to recognize.

In the meantime, it appears that all along Germany has been aiding Russia in Putin’s quest. while Russia has also installed spies in Germany at levels not seen since the Cold War era.

All is right in Barack Obama’s world though relating to foreign policy, Ukraine receives $50 million dollars from the recent visit by VP Joe Biden and some MRE’s. Barack Obama seems to think that the pivot away from the Middle East and Russia to focus on Asia will save his foreign policy legacy, but it wont save the West from Russian worldwide posturing and growing strength.

Caviar and vodka anyone with those nuclear weapons?