Category Archives: Russia

What About the P5+1 and Iran/North Korea

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If you are inclined to read about the technical cooperation agreement between North Korea and Iran go here.

 

Ed Schroeder’s Military Intelligence Report: Does Iran Have Secret Nukes in North Korea?

In October 2012, Iran began stationing personnel at a military base in North Korea, in a mountainous area close to the Chinese border. The Iranians, from the Ministry of Defense and associated firms, reportedly are working on both missiles and nuclear weapons. Ahmed Vahidi, Tehran’s minister of defense at the time,denied sending people to the North, but the unconfirmed dispatches make sense in light of the two states announcing a technical cooperation pact the preceding month.

The P5+1—the five permanent members of the Security Council and Germany—appear determined, before their self-imposed March 31 deadline, to ink a deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran regarding its nuclear energy program, which is surely a cover for a wide-ranging weapons effort. The international community wants the preliminary arrangement now under discussion, referred to as a “framework agreement,” to ensure that the country remains at least one year away from being able to produce an atomic device.

The P5+1 negotiators believe they can do that by monitoring Tehran’s centrifuges—supersonic-speed machines that separate uranium gas into different isotopes and upgrade the potent stuff to weapons-grade purity—and thereby keep track of its total stock of fissile material.

The negotiators from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, and China are trying to get Tehran to adhere to the Additional Protocol, which allows anytime, anyplace inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog. If Iran agrees to the IAEA’s intrusive inspections, proponents of the deal will claim a major breakthrough, arguing for instance that Iran will not be able to hide centrifuges in undisclosed locations.

There were so many North Korean nuclear and missile scientists, specialists, and technicians at Iran’s facilities that they took over their own coastal resort there.

But no inspections of Iranian sites will solve a fundamental issue: As can be seen from the North Korean base housing Tehran’s weapons specialists, Iran is only one part of a nuclear weapons effort spanning the Asian continent. North Korea, now the world’s proliferation superstar, is a participant. China, once the mastermind, may still be a co-conspirator. Inspections inside the borders of Iran, therefore, will not give the international community the assurance it needs.

The cross-border nuclear trade is substantial enough to be called a “program.” Larry Niksch of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., estimates that the North’s proceeds from this trade with Iran are “between $1.5 billion and $2.0 billion annually.” A portion of this amount is related to missiles and miscellaneous items, the rest derived from building Tehran’s nuclear capabilities.

Iran has bought a lot with its money. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, thought to be Tehran’s chief nuclear scientist, was almost certainly in North Korea at Punggye-ri in February 2013 to witness Pyongyang’s third atomic test. Reports put Iranian technicians on hand at the site for the first two detonations as well.

The North Koreans have also sold Iran material for bomb cores, perhaps even weapons-grade uranium. The Telegraph reported that in 2002 a barrel of North Korean uranium cracked open and contaminated the tarmac of the new Tehran airport.

In addition, the Kim Jong Un  regime appears to have helped the Islamic Republic on its other pathway to the bomb. In 2013, Meir Dagan, a former Mossad director,charged the North with providing assistance to Iran’s plutonium reactor.

The relationship between the two regimes has been long-lasting. Hundreds of North Koreans have worked at about 10 nuclear and missile facilities in Iran. There were so many nuclear and missile scientists, specialists, and technicians that they took over their own coastal resort there, according to Henry Sokolski,  the proliferation maven, writing in 2003.

Even if Iran today were to agree to adhere to the Additional Protocol, it could still continue developing its bomb in North Korea, conducting research there or buying North Korean technology and plans. And as North Korean centrifuges spin in both known and hidden locations, the Kim regime will have a bigger stock of uranium to sell to the Iranians for their warheads. With the removal of sanctions, as the P5+1 is contemplating, Iran will have the cash to accelerate the building of its nuclear arsenal.

So while the international community inspects Iranian facilities pursuant to a framework deal, the Iranians could be busy assembling the components for a bomb elsewhere. In other words, they will be one day away from a bomb—the flight time from Pyongyang to Tehran—not one year as American and other policymakers hope.

The North Koreans are not the only contributors to the Iranian atom bomb. Iran got its first centrifuges from Pakistan, and Pakistan’s program was an offshoot from the Chinese one.

Some argue that China proliferated nuclear weapons through the infamous black market ring run by Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan. There is no open source proof of that contention, but Beijing did nothing while Khan merchandised Chinese parts, plans, and knowhow—its most sensitive technology—from the capital of one of its closest allies. Moreover, Beijing did its best to protect the smuggler when Washington rolled up his network in the early part of last decade. The Chinese, for instance, supported General Pervez Musharraf’s controversial decision to end prematurely his government’s inquiry, which avoided exposing Beijing’s rumored involvement with Khan’s activities.

And there are circumstances suggesting that Beijing, around the time of Khan’s confession and immediate pardon in 2004, took over his proliferation role directly, boldly transferring materials and equipment straight to Iran. For example, in November 2003 the staff of the IAEA had fingered China as one of the sources of equipment used in Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons effort. And as reported in July 2007 by The Wall Street Journal, the State Department had lodged formal protests with Beijing about Chinese enterprises violating Security Council resolutions by exporting to Tehran items that could be used for building atomic weapons.

Since then, there have been continual reports of transfers by Chinese enterprises to Iran in violation of international treaties and U.N. rules. Chinese entities have been implicated in shipments of maraging steel, ring-shaped magnets, and valves and vacuum gauges, all apparently headed to Iran’s atom facilities. In March 2011, police in Port Klang seized two containers from a ship bound to Iran from China. Malaysian authorities discovered that goods passed off as “used for liquid mixing or storage” were actually components for potential atomic weapons.

In the last few years, there has been an apparent decline in Chinese shipments to Iran. Beijing could be reacting to American pressure to end the trade, but there are more worrying explanations. First, it’s possible that, after decades of direct and indirect illicit transfers, China has already supplied most of what Iran needs to construct a weapon. Second, Beijing may be letting Pyongyang assume the leading proliferation role. After all, the shadowy Fakhrizadeh was reported to have traveled through China on his way to North Korea to observe the North’s third nuclear test.

Fakhrizadeh’s passage through China—probably Beijing’s airport—suggests that China may not have abandoned its “managed proliferation.” In the past, China’s proxy for this deadly trade was Pakistan. Then it was China’s only formal ally, North Korea. In both cases, Chinese policymakers intended to benefit Iran.

In a theoretical sense, there is nothing wrong with an accommodation with the Islamic Republic over nukes, yet there is no point in signing a deal with just one arm of a multi-nation weapons effort. That’s why the P5+1 needs to know what is going on at that isolated military base in the mountains of North Korea. And perhaps others as well.

Poll Results: Larger Threat Obama or Putin

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Sheesh, is there a difference? Actually, Putin has a policy that is good for Russia, the policy of Obama seems to only be good for Iran and global adversaries.

Reuters Asks “Who Is More Of A Threat: Obama Or Putin”, Surprised By The Answer

 

People in the United States feel under threat, both from beyond our borders and within them and as Reuters reports, when asked about both U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin, it was a pretty darn close call. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll finds a third of Republicans believe President Barack Obama poses an imminent threat to the United States, outranking concerns about Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The blame, according to one sociologist, “the TV media here, and American politics, very much trade on fears.”

On the bright side for the Administration, ISIS and Al Qaeda still outrank him as more imminent threats… so that’s good (considering he is a Nobel Peace Prize winner).

 

 

A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll asked more than 3,000 Americans what they see as some of the biggest threats to themselves and the country. Overall it was close – 20% saw Putin as an imminent threat compared to 18% who said the same about Obama.

I think it’s safe to say that a national security expert might not agree with the public’s choices.

 

More people fear Boko Haram, a scary but ragged Islamic radical group in Nigeria that might have trouble paying for plane tickets to the United States, than Russia, which recently invaded a major European country. And a whopping 34 percent consider Kim Jong-un, the leader of impoverished North Korea, an imminent threat. Kim may have a couple of nukes, but otherwise his nation is a basket case, so poor that it relies on international aid to feed itself. Though considering how fast Sony Pictures pulled “The Interview” from theaters, I guess the public’s not alone in being afraid of the young man with the unique hairstyle.

 

Perhaps the most disturbing part, however, is how Americans view each other, simply because of the political party they favor. Thirteen percent of us see the Republican and Democratic parties as an imminent threat. That’s the same number who think the Chinese might be.

The Guardian also notes, a third of Republicans believe President Barack Obama poses an imminent threat to the United States, outranking concerns about Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

People who were polled were most concerned about threats related to potential terror attacks.

 

Islamic State militants were rated an imminent threat by 58% of respondents, and al Qaeda by 43%. North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un was viewed as a threat by 34%, and Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by 27%.

*  *  *
Meanwhile, the world is certainly worried about the United States.

In a Gallup survey of people in 65 countries, about one quarter named the United States as the greatest threat to world peace.

 

Maybe that should not be so surprising, as only about half of Americans know which country was the only one to ever drop a nuclear bomb.

So, What did bin Ladin Have in his Files…

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Hundreds of thousands of documents were gathered at the Abbottabad compound in Pakistan that belonged to Usama bin Ladin. To date, only 17 have been released however, some others were accessible during a recent trial in New York.  Here is a sampling.

The Bureaucracy of Terror

New Secret Documents Reveal al Qaeda’s Real Challenges

By: Jennifer R. Williams

A new trove of documents that were among those seized in the 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, were presented recently during the trial of Abid Naseer at the Brooklyn federal district court.

The documents—which consist of correspondence between Osama bin Laden and senior al Qaeda leaders—reveal the state of the global terror operation in the months leading up to bin Laden’s death. They paint a picture of an organization crippled by the U.S. drone campaign, blindsided by the Arab Spring, and struggling to maintain control over its affiliates—and yet still chillingly resolute in its mission to strike inside the United States.

The documents offer some insight into the effectiveness of U.S. counterterrorism efforts against al Qaeda. They also, believe it or not, provide a few laughs.

DRONES WORK

First, the documents support the argument that U.S. President Barack Obama and other proponents of the drone program have made that the strikes are effective and that the U.S. drone program is heavily constrained.

The letters show that the tactic of targeting top al Qaeda leaders had profoundly crippled the organization. In one letter, Atiyya, a key Al Qaeda leader and strategist who was killed not long after these letters were written, laments to bin Laden, “The mid-level commands and the staff members are hurt by the killings. Compensating for the loss is going slowly, God grants aid, and the ongoing war of espionage does not give us much chance…Our current view of the situation: we need to reduce operations and activities, focus on ‘persevering and survival.’ We will focus on defensive security (counterespionage) by focusing on striking the spy plane bases using special operations, and on patience, persistence, hiding as well as decreasing our presence at least this year because it is an important year.”

The documents also provide some support for Obama’s argument that the United States does not undertake drone strikes casually but rather only after substantial deliberation. One letter states, “As we see it, based on our analysis, they are constantly monitoring several potential, or possibly confirmed targets. But they only hit them if they discover a valuable human target inside, or a gathering, or during difficult times (like revenge attacks for example).” However, this last part about “revenge attacks” does call into question the argument Obama and others have made that “America does not take strikes to punish individuals.”

Because drone strikes have been effective and because the United States targets them carefully, al Qaeda operatives have taken to restricting their own movement, staying inside, and avoiding gathering in large groups—all activities that are fairly integral to running a successful terrorist organization. It’s not easy to train legions of recruits on how to fire RPGs, build bombs, and shoot guns with any accuracy when you have to stay inside the house and can’t have more than five people gathered together at one time.

THREE CHEERS FOR THE NSA

The documents also reveal that the NSA is doing a really good job. Just to be clear, I’m not just saying this because I work for “Noted NSA Apologist Benjamin Wittes,” editor in chief of Lawfare. I’m saying it because the overwhelming theme that pervades these letters is the organization’s inability to communicate as a result of the NSA’s ever-watchful eyes. Because signals intelligence (SIGINT) collected by the NSA plays a critical role in the CIA’s targeted killing program, al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere are basically unable to use any kind of digital communication. In one letter, bin Laden warns Atiyya:

As for anything dangerous, we should never use any modern devices, especially for the external operations. Also, just because something can be encrypted doesn’t make it suitable for use. The enemy can easily monitor all incoming letters to areas where there are Mujahidin and can access all their messages. As you know, this science is not ours and is not our invention. That means we do not know much about it. Based on this, I see that sending any dangerous matter via encrypted email is a risky thing. It is expected that whoever made the program can open the encrypted letters no matter how it’s encrypted. Encrypting a message is done so that the general public is not able to open the message.

However, in wars and with the capabilities of countries, particularly the one with expertise in these fields, we should not depend on encryption…We should only send letters through people to deliver them to the right person.

When you’re trying to manage a terrorist organization that spans the globe and can’t go outside or convene gatherings, not being able to use digital communications is a death blow.

It is also amusing to note that al Qaeda seems to have thought that the United States was putting “harmful substances or radiation” that “can’t be seen by the eye” on the paper money destined for al Qaeda’s hands. To protect against the poison, al Qaeda members wrote of taking the money to “banks in the big city” and going through a series of currency exchanges. It might sound like a silly, minor detail, but undertaking such elaborate security measures every time any money is received means money cannot be transferred though the organization at a sustainable speed. And every second al Qaeda loses is another second counterterrorism and intelligence agencies have to try and uncover and disrupt the next attack.

Even so, perhaps al Qaeda should have known better about U.S. operations, given all the classified documents made available by Wikileaks. However, it seems that al Qaeda—or at least bin Laden—only found out about Wikileaks thanks to the U.S. Secretary of Defense. Bin Laden then issued the following instructions:

Please dedicate some brothers to download the files that were leaked out of the Pentagon in regards to Afghanistan and Pakistan so that they can be translated and studied because it contains information about the enemy’s policies in the region. The Defense Secretary mentioned that these documents were leaked and that they would affect the war negatively.

Would al Qaeda still have wanted to look at the Wikileaks documents even if Robert Gates hadn’t made this statement about them? Probably. Would the group have done it right away? Who knows. But when the U.S. secretary of defense publicly announces the unauthorized release of a trove of information on “intelligence sources and methods, as well as military tactics, techniques and procedures” and warns that “the battlefield consequences of the release of these documents are potentially severe and dangerous for our troops, our allies and Afghan partners,” it pretty much guarantees that the terrorists are going to make examining those documents a priority. Gates made his statement on July 29, 2010. The letter ordering the creation of a dedicated team of operatives tasked with poring over the documents is dated August 7, 2010. For an organization with severely limited communications capabilities, that’s pretty quick.

However the group interpreted the documents, it didn’t like how things were going. Morale was low. Operatives were afraid of poison. They couldn’t call their families, rumors of the deaths of comrades couldn’t be confirmed quickly or reliably, and the top leadership—including the charismatic individual who likely inspired the fighters to join the cause in the first place—couldn’t maintain regular contact with the foot soldiers. All of these factors led to poor performance and even defections. Several of the letters to bin Laden include statements strongly urging him to write to this commander or that operative. One letter says, “As you can see, the brothers in Somalia are suggesting that you write a message to brother Hasan Zahir Uways encouraging him, raising his morale and his commitment…” Another letter implores bin Laden:

Sheikh, I have asked you before for tapes for us, which we could preserve, about past, your life, and all…We insist on it. We consider it a duty. Dear Shiekh, some small audio messages just for the brothers here, too. We will play the recordings for them to hear, no one will take a copy. Then we will keep the recordings in our archives or destroy them according to your orders. The people need it: to reassure them about assignments and so on, to advise them to obey, be patient and steadfast, to lifting morale and give good news. May God rest his soul, al-Jawfi used to say, “I am with Osama bin Laden, but not with Al-Hafiz Sultan or Khalid al-Habib or Mahmud.” We have others like him…

THE REAL THREAT

Counterterrorism and security officials lie awake at night worrying about the threat of a terrorist group like al Qaeda using chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear warfare. That is understandable, of course—such an attack would be horrific, and the United States should make sure that its counterterrorism efforts include measures to mitigate such threats.

But these latest al Qaeda documents should serve as a reminder that terrorists don’t need weaponized bubonic plague or ricin to sow terror, and that if the United States focuses too much on terrorists with high-tech weapons or synthetic virus, it just might miss the guy with the kitchen knife in his carry-on.

One letter reports that “one of the main impediments to our work”—their “work” being carrying out terrorist attacks—“is that the brother is unable to carry out his work due to lack of the required tools (materials – weapons); hence, we had to contemplate new methods to obtain the tools or invent new methods of execution.” The letter explains that one of the ways they “tried to resolve this obstacle” was to “Guide the brothers toward new methods like using the simplest things such as household knives, gas tanks, fuel, diesel and others like airplanes, trains and cars for killing tools.”

The point is not that al Qaeda operatives wouldn’t love to get their hands on a nuclear weapon or launch some incredibly sophisticated bioterror attack—of course they would. The point is that getting that stuff is really hard. Why waste millions of dollars trying to buy nuclear material on the black market just to end up being sold a bunch of junk from an undercover CIA officer when you can build a homemade pressure-cooker bomb using materials you can buy at Bed Bath & Beyond and Home Depot and still manage to shut down a major American city?

Similarly, training recruits to operate in the West is hard. To pull off a successful terrorist attack in the United States or Western Europe, the terrorist has to be able to stay under the radar of generally very capable security and intelligence services. That means that the terrorist needs to first be able to get into the country, and then once in, to blend in relatively well and move around without drawing unnecessary attention. The terrorist probably also needs to be able to handle small arms or build a basic bomb without blowing off his own hand in the process. That requires training.

The problem is that taking frequent, extended trips to places like Pakistan or Somalia, where such training takes place, would almost certainly bring an individual to the attention of the security services back home. Therefore, recruits have to keep trips relatively short and infrequent (maybe even going only once). That doesn’t give them a whole lot of time to learn how to be good terrorists.

In fact, according to one letter, a new recruit might only be able to get what one unfortunate Western trainee apparently got: “Theoretical” explosives training. The letter reports:

Regarding the other brothers, they are new brothers whom we sent in haste to avoid any breach in their security or the expiration of their documents or their residence permits. We had trained them the best we can within the limits of time and circumstances (as an example, the moment one of the brothers reached us, the war in Mas’ud started. His residence permit was for two months. He spent one month of it on the road and waiting. He was in siege with us for two weeks during which he took a theoretical course in explosives. He went back prior to the expiration of his residence permit and for needing the time to travel). We have not heard any of their news due to communications difficulties at our side and to the strict monitoring on their side.

For some reason, it doesn’t seem like al Qaeda ever heard back from that particular recruit.

THE FAR ENEMY

One of bin Laden’s goals in creating al Qaeda was to reorient the broader jihadist movement away from fighting local regimes and toward attacking the United States. Thus, when a local jihadist group in Somalia or Yemen or somewhere else takes on the al Qaeda name and becomes an official affiliate, part of the deal is that the group is supposed to start prioritizing strikes against the United States over attacks on its home country.

Understandably, some local jihadist groups aren’t too thrilled with the idea of giving up the fight against a tyrant actively imprisoning and torturing their members to focus on Americans, nor are they at all optimistic that doing so is the best way to go about inspiring their fellow countrymen to rally to their cause.

In one letter, Atiyya diplomatically tries to explain to bin Laden, his boss, that the whole “stop fighting the local regime and focus on the Americans” thing isn’t going over so well with the guys in Yemen:

Regarding Yemen, my dear Sheikh, what you say is good and you go into depth about it, I ask God to add to your knowledge, wisdom, and soundness…However, I hope that you focus on the current situation and its particulars…Now, we are faced with the reality of how to act wisely and how to bring in our youth and men…Let us focus on the means and mechanisms for implementing your ideas, may God bless you. Issue: That we should strike the Americans, but not strike the apostates; we have explained our opinion, and you know it. Regarding the matter of completely retreating from the battle: It is dangerous and destructive as well…The young men want to go to the “front” and want “operations.” They bring up operations, opportunities, monitoring (surveillance and reconnaissance) to the command every day.

Translation: “The kids want to go play soldiers and shoot at stuff, not sit in a safe house for three years planning an operation that some other guys will end up carrying out in some American city they’ve never heard of. So, maybe cool it on the ‘Death to America’ shtick.”

It wouldn’t be surprising if bin Laden had gotten a little tired of the aforementioned kids by the end.

Part of what made bin Laden so admired by those who fought with him in the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan was the fact that, even though he came from a wealthy family and could have been living a life of leisure back in Saudi Arabia, he chose instead to come to the rugged mountains of Afghanistan and fight in miserable conditions on behalf of his fellow Muslims.

But Bin Laden was something of a one-off. In general, spoiled rich kids make lousy terrorists.

Much has been said of late about the thousands of foreign fighters who have traveled to wage war with the Islamic State—most of whom are from the Middle East. But if any of those kids are like some of the foreign fighters from the Gulf Arab countries who went to Pakistan to “fight” alongside al Qaeda, the Islamic State may find itself dealing more with entitled brats than dedicated warriors. One letter has this rather comical report from Atiyya to bin Laden:

We have some other problems…like dissent and lack of discipline from some young men (from the [Arabian] Peninsula, Kuwait and other places), who do as they wish and roam in the markets. They are not associated with any group and they have no obedience. Sometimes, some of them participate in jihad with some of the Taliban factions, while others make no contribution to jihad. A solution to the problem they represent has escaped us, but we are still trying. God grants success.”

It seems that the Islamic State has found a rather effective solution to this problem—it just kills the recruits who don’t behave. Yet another instance of the Islamic State being so brutal that it somehow manages to make al Qaeda look like the “nice jihadists” (they’re not actually very nice).

SUPPORT NETWORK

Al Qaeda and other jihadists claim that they are fighting to free Muslims from the oppression of corrupt apostate dictators and the imperialist West, both of which, they argue, steal the wealth that rightfully belongs to all Muslims and leave them languishing in poverty and despair. Of course, it isn’t clear how beheading humanitarian aid workers who traveled from their safe, comfortable homes in the West to a terrifying war zone in order to provide relief to suffering Muslims is supposed to be a furtherance of that lofty goal.

Nevertheless, many al Qaeda-linked terrorist groups—including the Islamic State—do provide services in the areas in which they operate. In a letter to Atiyya, bin Laden writes:

I have an opinion that I would like you to study, and if you like it, forward it to the brothers in Somalia. The idea is to encourage a delegation of trusted Somalia tribal leaders to visit some businessmen and ulema [religious scholars] in the Gulf to brief them about the living conditions of Muslims in Somalia and how their children are dying of extreme poverty, to remind them of the their responsibilities towards their Muslim brothers, to describe the suffering of people there using photos and statistics from the aid organizations, and to inform them that the unfortunate and the impoverished are waiting for a simple effort on their part to save the lives of their children (these impoverished Muslims are the most deserving of the Ummah’s [Muslim community’s] funds that are being hoarded by the Gulf Princes). [emphasis in original]

Bin Laden goes on to discuss detailed engineering plans for raising the water levels of the river to irrigate the lands, strategies for securing the funding needed to carry out this project (none of which involve crime or terrorism, incidentally), and even which crops should be planted in the newly irrigated land to provide the Somali people with long-term food security.

Imagine you’re a desperately impoverished Somali barely able to feed your family, and you find out that the leaders of the “terrorist” group who just took over your village have been having these kinds of discussions about how best to improve life for you, your family, and your community. That is one reason why some people in some places support some of these groups, even though they’re terrorists.

The good news (from a counterterrorism perspective) is that these groups tend to pair the provision of services with tyrannical rule, extremely strict laws that often run counter to longstanding local customs, and brutal punishments for those who violate the laws. Eventually, the locals get tired of it. Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) found that out the hard way, and the al Qaeda leadership has since tried to impart this lesson to its affiliates. In that same letter, bin Laden urges, “I also hope that you remind the brothers in Somalia to show lenience…They should seek in each group the neutrality of whoever accepts to be nonaligned. There are obvious reasons for this, one of which is so that they do not become a card in the hand of the adversaries; and any provocation from our side will push them closer to the enemies.” However, it seems that AQI’s successor organization, the Islamic State, didn’t fully absorb the lesson, and only time will tell if it will face the same backlash from the local population that AQI did.

REAL THREATS

Occasionally, the letters veer into the bizarre, or, rather, the even more bizarre. While members of Congress still debate whether climate change even exists, al Qaeda is actively pursuing strategies to mitigate the future consequences of it:

You don’t fail to notice that due to climate change, there’s drought in some areas and floods in others. The brothers in Somalia must be warned so that they can take the maximum precautions possible. This lays on the shoulders of the leadership more than on the residents living along the rivers and valleys.

One of these precautions is to establish an alert system to warn the families and establish an advanced observation point on the upper part of the river to warn people when heavy rainfall and flooding occur using a wireless device.

This letter also included a note at the bottom: “Attached is a report about climate change, especially the floods in Pakistan. Please send it to Al-Jazeera.” It may seems surprising that one of the most extreme religious fundamentalist groups in the world is more open minded about science than some in the United States, but it is not actually all that shocking, considering that for centuries, the Islamic world was a wellspring of scientific and technological achievement.

And al Qaeda seems to think it has even more knowledge and intellectual property to offer. The shadowy international terrorist organization whose leaders and members are wanted criminals in just about every country in the Western world and many outside it is evidently very concerned with securing legal protection for its intellectual products.

In a discussion about making a video to mark the tenth anniversary of 9/11, bin Laden writes:

Regarding the question of copyrighted material for Al-Jazeera and Al-Sahab [Al Qaeda’s media arm], Zaydan should negotiate with Al-Jazeera to have the video footage copyrighted for them while the text and audio copyrights be for Al-Sahab. What this means is that some questions will be on the video while others will be only in audio format. Anyway, continue negotiating until a satisfactory result for Al-Sahab is achieved and keep us posted about the progress of the negotiations.

There’s just something so fantastically absurd about an organization that is entirely comfortable justifying the killing of thousands of innocent civilians, yet is concerned over the reproduction or distribution of original creative content without express written permission. One wonders how al Qaeda even thought it would protect its rights. Sue Al Jazeera for copyright infringement?

Just when you thought things couldn’t possibly get more bizarre, there’s this from bin Laden:

  • We are still waiting for the replies to what came in our last letter and that contained the nomination of a qualified brother to be in charge of a big operation inside of America.
  • If you have any brother who is knowledgeable about poetry, please let us know about it; and if you have any books about types of poetry, please send it to me.

That’s right: bin Laden goes directly from a note about finding someone qualified to carry out a massive terrorist attack inside the United States to asking if anyone has any poetry they can send him. Because after a long day of planning to strike fear into the hearts of the infidels, sometimes a guy just wants to take a relaxing bubble bath and read some Emily Dickenson. (Presumably he planned to respect all intellectual property protections on the poetry.)

Of course al Qaeda isn’t all fun and games—there’s a lot in the letters about perpetrating attacks inside the United States, discussions about relations with the Pakistani military, commentary on the Arab Spring, and various bureaucratic minutiae. And these letters offer only a partial glimpse into the organization at a particular time in history. Many more documents were collected during the raid on bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad than have been declassified by the U.S. government, and one must assume that the letters that have been released were released for a reason (and vice versa). Quite a lot has happened since bin Laden’s death, including the rise of the Islamic State, which is now engaged in a battle against al Qaeda for the leadership of the broader jihadist movement—a battle that, at the moment, it seems to be winning.

Still, the documents do provide a look at the internal dynamics of al Qaeda, and as anyone who has ever been involved with a sizeable bureaucracy well knows, change often comes at a glacial pace in large organizations; in all likelihood, al Qaeda today still faces the same kind of organizational problems and operational challenges revealed in these documents. This means that although it remains a threat, the al Qaeda of today is a far cry from the beast we faced on 9/11.

A Typical Islamic State Fighter’s Story

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Lost, unsure, lack of direction. The solutions are provided by the local mosques.

Captured IS Militants Explain Why They Fought

AL-MALIKIYAH, SYRIA—

The Islamic State fighter spoke softly, his voice unbroken by adolescence.  A prisoner of Kurdish YPG (People’s Protection Units) forces, he sent a message to his family asking for forgiveness.  “I destroyed myself and I destroyed them along with me.”

The Syrian youth is among several IS detainees brought to a prison in al-Malikiyah, northeastern Syria. They were captured in a YPG offensive last month to regain Tal Hamis from IS control.

Both the youth and a Turkish fighter spoke separately to VOA’s Kurdish Service while in custody.  Both were hooded but unshackled, the hoods removed when they spoke.  Their names have been changed and identifying details obscured.

The Turkish prisoner, Ahmet, told a story familiar to every expert on IS recruiting.  A young man adrift – a sometime university student, sometime baker, interested in political Islam, in touch online and by phone with a friend with similar or, as it turned out, more extreme inclinations.

The friend traveled to Syria and told Ahmet he had joined the Islamic State group.  Ahmet said he was surprised but intrigued.  “I don’t find American, British or other news agencies, especially on Middle East Muslims, very trustworthy,” he told VOA.  “I wanted to see it with my own eyes.”

Fighting ‘for God’

Ahmet said he traveled to Syria in part to observe, but also because of his beliefs and what he called “the repression.”

“I wanted to get rid of this repression according to God’s order,” he said. “I came to fight for God.  When I kneel down to pray, I think about bombardments that I witnessed, the deaths of children I saw with my own eyes.  I came across all of these.”

Traveling south to a contact near the Syrian border, Ahmet said he met some Europeans, an American, someone from China and a Russian – from Dagestan, he guessed.

Once in Syria, they were divided into groups.  The local leader wanted them to go to the front right away. “We were all very confused because none of us had seen war,” he said.

Four months into his new life with IS, Ahmet said he was told to secure a village near Tal Hamis.  Then the YPG attacked: “We all started to run.”

His companions were killed; he was shot in the leg. “Thirteen, 14 kilometers I crawled with this wounded leg, for three days.”  He hid in a house until the owner came back and turned him over to the YPG.  The Kurds, he said, took him to a hospital, then to jail.

The Syrian prisoner’s tale also starts with a conversion – not online, not in the mosques, but through someone he knew.

Hussein left his family without revealing his plan, then threw himself into his new life: physical training, prayer, weapons instruction.  There were foreigners there, he said, from Senegal, France, Kazakhstan, Turkey, training in separate groups. The cook, he said, was Chinese.

Once his training was complete, Hussein said he was sent from village to village, at times deployed at checkpoints, other times taking part in battles.  He, too, was captured in the Tal Hamis campaign.

Asked about some of the more abhorrent practices of the Islamic State group, Hussein said he never witnessed beheadings, but he did see videos of them shared by cell phone.  He said he was unaware of “jihadi marriages” – women recruited for sexual use by the militants.  And he knew nothing, he said, about how children were recruited, though he added there was a 13-year-old in his group.

Hussein’s own age remained unclear.  His YPG guards said he told them he was 19.  Later the Kurdish authorities said he was born in 1997.  Despite a wisp of a moustache and the beginnings of a beard, his voice and mannerisms made him appear much younger.

Gray zone

What comes next for the prisoners is unclear. They have not been seen by the International Red Cross and Red Crescent, but Kurdish officials say they would welcome any such visit.

Both sides are in a gray zone.  Despite declaring themselves Islamic State soldiers, they are non-state combatants.  Their captors are non-state actors as well.  The de  facto Kurdish government of the self-declared Rojava region is, from a legal point of view, part of Syria.  Kurdish authorities told VOA some detainees have been freed.

Hussein has no thoughts of release.  “I expect I will stay in prison, for sure,” he said.

While the Syrian youth expressed remorse, his Turkish comrade offered no such misgivings.  “I am a student,” Ahmet said, shortly before guards put the hood back over his head and led him away.

Hussein put the hood back on himself.

Global Roadway with Fraud in Trade Agreements

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Being a fully connected world has major implications for fraud, terror and collusion. It is already a major security threat to not control borders and vet travelers. When it comes to foreign transportation, control and inspections receive little control as well.

Plans for superhighway linking Britain and America

The Russian proposal would allow Britons to travel overland from Britain to the United States

Plans for an ambitious 12,400-mile superhighway linking the Atlantic and the Pacific are reportedly being considered by Russian authorities.

The Trans-Eurasian Belt Development would see the construction of a vast motorway across Russia. It would connect with existing networks in Europe, making road trips to eastern Russia a far easier proposition. While roads do currently run across most of Russia, the quality tends to deteriorate the further you travel from Moscow.

The proposal, outlined in the Siberian Times, would see the road follow a similar route to the Trans-Siberian railway, through cities including Yekaterinburg, Irkutsk and Vladivostok. A new high-speed train line would also be constructed, along with pipelines for gas and oil. The rail network may also be extended to the Chukotka region of Russia and across the Bering Strait to Alaska – making overland trips from Britain to the US – via the Channel Tunnel – a possibility.


Much of eastern Russia’s road network is of poor quality (Photo: AP/Fotolia)

The idea, which developers hope will help boost tourism and make Russia a global transportation hub, was presented at a meeting of the Russian Academy of Science. But he added: “It will solve many problems in the development of the vast region. It is connected with social programs, and new fields, new energy resources, and so on.

“The idea is that basing on the new technology of high-speed rail transport we can build a new railway near the Trans-Siberian Railway, with the opportunity to go to Chukotka and Bering Strait and then to the American continent.”


The Trans-Siberian (Photo: Alamy)

The Trans-Siberian Railway links Moscow and Vladivostok, covers 9,258km (6,152 miles) and takes seven days to complete.

According to Anthony Lambert, Telegraph Travel’s rail expert: “The principal attraction of the journey is, of course, the Russian landscape – the vast panoramas and sense of immensity so vividly captured by such artists as Isaac Levitan and Ivan Shishkin. The taiga is mesmerising.

“Looking out at the panorama of larch, silver fir, pine and birch induces the kind of reverie that is one of the pleasures of train travel, a random stream of thoughts and images that drifts on like the forest. In clearings, villages that could have come from a Levitan or Shishkin painting break the spell and make one wonder what life must be like in such a remote land.”

Beyond questionable financiers of a global highway, the elites and government investments with carve-outs lead to other implications and policy decisions.

Leaked Pacific trade pact draft shows investment carve-outs sought

(Reuters) – Australia’s medicine subsidies, Canadian films and culture, and capital controls in Chile would be carved out from investment protection rules being negotiated in a Pacific trade pact, according to a draft text released by Wikileaks on Wednesday.

An investment chapter, dated Jan. 20, from the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal was released amid controversy over rules allowing companies to sue foreign governments, which critics say should be dropped from the pact.

The 55-page draft says countries cannot treat investors from a partner country differently from local investors, lays out compensation to be paid if property is expropriated or nationalized and sets out how to resolve disputes.

Consumer group Public Citizen said the definition of investment was too broad, covering even “failed attempts” to invest such as channeling resources to set up a business. But Center for Strategic and International Studies senior adviser Scott Miller said most treaties defined investment broadly and the draft was close to a publicly available U.S. model text.

Lise Johnson, head of investment law at the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, said governments’ rights to regulate for environmental and public interest purposes seemed “very weak.” But Miller said they were not a big carve-out.

A footnote says that investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) rules do not apply to Australia, although it notes: “deletion of footnote is subject to certain conditions.”

The exemptions sought would protect countries from being sued by foreign corporations that complain they do not get the same treatment as domestic firms because of government actions, such as sovereign debt defaults or government procurement.

Mexico, Canada, New Zealand and Australia want a free pass for foreign investments requiring special approval, often for sensitive local sectors such as banking or communications.

Australia wants to exclude medical programs and Canada to exempt cultural sectors, including films, music and books.

An annex states that Chile’s central bank can impose capital controls and maintains restrictions on foreign investors transferring sale proceeds offshore.

Chile and other emerging markets have seen large inflows of foreign investment, which can push up currencies and destabilize the local economy.

Critics argue the rules give companies too much power to sue governments. But business groups say they are necessary to stop unscrupulous governments from discriminating against foreigners.

TPP countries hope to wrap up negotiations on the deal by midyear.

A U.S. Trade Representative spokesman said investment agreements sought to protect Americans doing business abroad and ensure the ability to regulate in the public interest at home.