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May 31, 2004
Change is needed for Saudi stability
FT.com / Comment & analysis / Editorial comment
Published: June 1 2004 5:00 | Last Updated: June 1 2004 5:00
Saturday's devastating attack on expatriate enclaves on Saudi Arabia's east coast has exposed gaps in the kingdom's security as well as raising doubts about its stability. Plainly, the tactics of al-Qaeda are to stampede westerners out of Saudi Arabia, and to destabilise oil markets by targeting soft but neuralgic parts of the Saudi oil industry. Its strategy, enunciated last week by Abdulaziz al-Muqrin, the terrorist group's presumed chief in the kingdom, is to trigger an uprising to overthrow the ruling House of Saud. Can the insurgents succeed?
The security record against the Islamists is patchy. That is because it took Saudi rulers a long time to acknowledge that al-Qaeda was their problem too, and also because elements in the regime and allied clerics share the same hostility as Osama bin Laden towards the west and to Muslims who do not share their Wahhabi interpretation of Islam. Following the government's robust response to suicide bombings in the past year, moreover, the Islamists have switched tactics. Faced with defensive barriers against car bombs, they have used gunmen to strike twice in the past month at inadequately protected enclaves of foreign oil contractors. The kingdom's vast oil infrastructure is well defended, and at no point have crude exports ceased to flow. Short of a spectacular attack of 9/11 scale, there is little reason to suppose that will change. But a thorough overhaul of security measures for personnel is urgently needed.
But security, although vital, is not enough to ensure stability. That requires reform. And while history provides plenty of examples of the dangers to absolutist regimes of attempting to reform, only that will ensure the long-term survival of the al-Saud.
As things stand, Saudi Arabia provides near laboratory conditions to incubate thousands of bin Ladens. The oil-dominated economy produces few jobs to employ a fast-growing, restless population. Neo-central planning inhibits investment, while getting Saudis into jobs now occupied by millions of foreigners raises costs because locals get paid, on average, three times more. School textbooks drip with religious bigotry, while technology exposes Saudis to the full blast of modernity. The stultifying control of the mosque and political grip of the security services underpin a bloated monarchy.
To prevent these challenges combining into a perfect storm, Crown Prince Abdullah, the de facto ruler, has pledged reforms ranging from partial elections to tighter financial controls. He should now implement them, even if it is unrealistic to expect his family to do other than tightly manage a very gradual process of change.
Reform to the House of Saud means the minimum it can get away with, consistent with preserving its power. But it could do worse than heed the advice of the prince in Lampedusa's The Leopard: to "change everything just a little so as to keep everything exactly the same".
May 31, 2004 at 10:33 PM in Middle East | Permalink | TrackBack (143) | Top of page | Blog Home
May 30, 2004
Britain’s secret plans to win Muslim hearts and minds
Times Online - Newspaper Edition
Robert Winnett and David Leppard
Bomb finds stir ministers to target the roots of terrorism
ELEVEN days ago, Whitehall’s top mandarins gathered around a table in the Cabinet Office to plan a secret project to thwart Al-Qaeda in Britain.
Sir Andrew Turnbull, the cabinet secretary and one of Tony Blair’s closest aides, was in the chair. With him were the heads of some of the most important departments in government.
The Wednesday morning meeting of permanent secretaries had been convened to discuss Contest, one of the most ambitious government social engineering projects in recent years.
Its agenda, set out in more than 100 pages of confidential documents leaked to The Sunday Times, followed growing evidence that fanatics linked to Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda group might be planning a terrorist “spectacular” in Britain.
Prompted by the massacre of 191 people in the Madrid bombings on March 11 and the discovery of more than half a ton of explosives and bomb-making equipment in west London a fortnight later, the cabinet had ordered Turnbull to draft a plan to tackle the roots of Islamic terrorism in Britain.
He outlined the task several days later in a letter on “Relations with the Muslim Community” to John Gieve, the permanent secretary at the Home Office.
The first item in that letter was what Turnbull candidly called “The Problem”. “There is a feeling that parts of the Muslim community, particularly younger men, are disaffected,” the cabinet secretary wrote.
“This includes some that are well-educated with good economic prospects. Al-Qaeda and its offshoots provide a dramatic pole of attraction for the most disaffected.”
Turnbull told Gieve he wanted a “strategic response” to the issues raised by ministers. “The aim is to prevent terrorism by tackling its underlying causes,” he wrote. In short, the cabinet secretary wanted nothing less than a blueprint to win the “hearts and minds” of Muslim youth.
The meeting that morning on May 19 aimed to consider Gieve’s reply and to draw up an “action plan”. In his written note, he had remarked that Islamic extremism might be a “symptom of disaffection”. The same disaffection previously surfaced during the riots that shook Oldham and Bradford in 2001.
“We need policies to handle the symptoms and limit their impact,” he added. “But the broader task is to address the roots of the problem, which include discrimination, disadvantage and exclusion suffered by many Muslim communities.”
Gieve presented the meeting with a paper jointly written by Home Office and Foreign Office civil servants and entitled Young Muslims and Extremism.
Written for Blair and drawing on a confidential Downing Street strategy unit “audit” of the 1.6m-strong Muslim community, it painted a devastating picture of how discontent among Muslims could be providing the seedbed of terrorism in Britain.
An audit cited by the Home Office found that 16% of working-age Muslims had never worked or were long-term unemployed — five times the level among the population as a whole.
More than half (51%) were economically inactive, 1½ times the figure for the general population. More than four out of 10 (43%) had no recognised educational qualification. Half of all Muslim women had never worked.
As one document noted: “Compared with the population as a whole, Muslims have three times the unemployment rate (nearly 15% against 5% for the population as a whole); the lowest economic activity rates (48% against 67% for the population as a whole); a higher proportion who are unqualified (43% against 36%); and a higher concentration in deprived areas (15% of Muslims live in the 10 most deprived districts, against 4.4% of the population as a whole)”.
In their paper, Home Office analysts tried to quantify the pool of terrorists in Britain. They suggested there may be between 10,000 and 15,000 British Muslims who “actively support” Al-Qaeda or related terrorist groups.
These numbers appear to draw on intelligence, opinion polls and a report that 10,000 Muslims attended a conference held by Hizb ut-Tahir, described by the Home Office as a “structured extremist organisation”, last year.
Although less than 1% of the Muslim population, the sheer size of the actual “pool” of potential Al-Qaeda recruits — those who go to meetings to express their support — represents a stark warning about the extent of the threat.
Al-Qaeda, the leaked paper noted, is now after the very young. “Extremists are known to target schools and colleges where young people may be very inquisitive but less challenging and more susceptible to extremist reasoning/arguments.
“There is evidence of the presence of extremist organisations on campuses and colleges.” The paper notes that even when an organisation is banned, its members often set up a society under another name.
“The 1924 Society, Muslim Media Forum and Muslim Cultural Society all have extremist tendencies,” the paper claims. However, there is no suggestion they are linked to terrorist activity.
The evidence of antipathy towards the West among a significant minority in the wider Muslim community is equally alarming. Opinion polls showed that while the majority of Muslims supported the government’s stance on the war on terror, a significant proportion were disaffected enough to say they backed Al-Qaeda’s terrorist campaigns.
An ICM poll published last March found that 13% of British Muslims thought that further terrorist attacks on America would be justified. Another poll found that up to 26% did not feel loyal to Britain.
Turnbull told his colleagues that because of the terrorist threat, Eliza Manningham-Buller, MI5’s director general, had been asked to contribute to the debate. According to the leaked documents, intelligence officers are already drawing up profiles of the typical Muslim recruited by Al-Qaeda.
Gieve summarised this MI5 evidence in his note to Turnbull. He wrote: “Muslims who are most at risk of being drawn into extremism and terrorism fall into two groups: a) well- educated with degrees or technical/professional qualifications, typically targeted by extremist recruiters and organisations circulating on campuses; b) underachievers with few or no qualifications, and often a non-terrorist criminal background — sometimes drawn to mosques where they may be targeted by extremist preachers and in other cases radicalised or converted whilst in prison.”
The leaked papers show that MI5 is now drawing up a detailed description of the terrorist career path. The aim is to identify the “specific actions taken by individuals on the path from law-abiding citizen to terrorist”.
On the basis of this, the blueprint says that ministers need a plan to “intervene at key trigger points to prevent young Muslims from becoming drawn into extremist and terrorist activity and action. We need to understand the evolution of the terrorist career path . . . to enable us to turn people from the path”.
The papers outline the need for detailed planning across key departments in Whitehall to reduce the alienation and disaffection that is leading young Muslims to join Al-Qaeda.
Dozens of officials are now working across Whitehall on plans to improve relations with the Muslim community. Their strategic aim is to win “the hearts and minds” of those who might otherwise be diverted by Al-Qaeda recruiters on to a terrorist career path.
“We need to focus specifically on influencing opinion around young Muslims,” the paper says.
Spiritual leaders are a target, as the security service has advised the government that many extremists are drawn into terrorism through their respect for “key individuals”.
In future the government plans to boost the careers of moderate clerics who back Blair’s line on terrorism, while radical foreign imams will be barred from entering the country in an effort to prevent a repeat of the fiasco over Abu Hamza, the outspoken Finsbury Park cleric now facing extradition to America (see panel below).
The documents state: “We need to find ways of strengthening the hand of moderate Muslim leaders, including the young Muslims with future leadership potential, through the status which contact with the government can confer, and through practical capacitybuilding measures.”
Among those identified by the government in the documents is Amr Khaled, 36, an accountant-turned-lay preacher who came to prominence in Egypt in the late 1990s and now lives in Britain.
Dubbed the “sheikh to the chic” or “sheikh in a suit”, his popularity, particularly with Cairo’s youth and middle classes, stems from his decision to eschew the full beard and flowing robes of the orthodox Islamic cleric and put out his message on television wearing a business suit and sporting a neatly trimmed moustache.
The government will also seek to “promote awareness” of foreign-based imams, including Hamza Yusuf and Suhaib Webb. Yusuf is an adviser to President George W Bush and is described as the “rock star of the new Muslim generation”. He recently completed a lecture tour of this country, which included an appearance on BBC1’s Question Time.
Webb, another American, helped raise money for the widows of New York firefighters killed in the September 11 attacks.
The Home Office is setting up a series of government-backed training courses for a new generation of British imams likely to be modelled on Yusuf and Webb.
The move to try to influence Muslim culture is the most controversial of an extensive package of proposals that also includes:
Creating young Muslim ambassadors to act as “role models” to “represent” Britain abroad, “signalling the UK’s pride in its Muslim youth”.
Developing “communications plans aimed at combating distorted public and media perceptions of Islam and Muslims”.
Encouraging young Muslims to enter local and national youth parliaments.
Funding moderate Islamic television and radio stations and newspapers.
Setting up right-to-buy Islamic mortgages and creating “Muslim-friendly workplaces”.
Ministers and officials will be asked to hold regular private meetings with Muslim leaders to urge them to adopt a more positive, pro-government line.
The document notes: “It is privately, within such partnerships, that Muslim representatives should be challenged to work harder at improving their relations and image with other communities (of different religions), and to be more unequivocal in their condemnation of terrorism and espousal of democratic values.”
There will be plans to combat Islamophobia and racism. These could involve extending the Race Relations Act to include religious — as well as racial — discrimination.
The first visible signs of Contest have already begun to emerge. The day after the seizure of bomb-making material in London last March, the Muslim Council of Britain, an umbrella group of about 400 moderate organisations, wrote to all Islamic clerics and community leaders urging them to co-operate with police in the fight against “any criminal activity including (the) terrorist threat”.
It was also announced that an influential Brighton-based imam would distribute an anti-terrorist sermon to be read out at mosques.
Improving relations with the Muslim community alone will not be enough to protect the country from Islamist fanatics. As the leaked Turnbull letter reveals, Contest is just the “first plank” in the government’s counterterrorism strategy — prevention. David Blunkett, the home secretary, is already considering more effective anti-terrorism laws that could see evidence from police phone taps introduced in court.
Officials with knowledge of Contest describe it as the longer-term phase of the government’s war on terrorism.
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, ministers focused on the immediate threat. The priority then was to introduce new laws to allow police to detain foreign terrorists in Britain without trial.
Other short-term measures involved strengthening Britain’s resilience to a terrorist attack by increasing police protection of key targets, and toughening physical security measures around likely targets such as parliament, Downing Street and other government buildings.
“The idea now is to take a more co-ordinated approach to the problem,” said one insider. “We did the same in Northern Ireland in the 1980s when as well as deploying police and troops on the streets we had a massive programme of investment in the local community, raising living standards. We also set about bridge-building with the Catholic community.”
The political challenge is to get the right balance between protecting the public by cracking down on terrorist suspects without further alienating the Muslim community. Such alienation would push some of the more vulnerable Muslim youngsters into the arms of Al-Qaeda.
Labour strategists, contemplating the forthcoming general election, are only too aware that Blair’s alliance with Bush over Iraq and the war on terror may have lost votes for the party.
The leaked documents show that many law-abiding Muslims view Blair and Bush’s foreign policy as the cause of dissatisfaction.
The Home Office paper notes that many Muslims are angry at what they perceive as the “double standards” of British foreign policy “where democracy is preached but oppression of the Ummah (the one nation of believers) is practised or tolerated, eg in Palestine, Iraq, Kashmir and Chechnya”.
May 30, 2004 at 05:24 PM in UK | Permalink | TrackBack (6) | Top of page | Blog Home
May 29, 2004
Iraq premier's MI6 links
From James Hider in Baghdad
A FORMER Baathist with close ties to MI6 was named yesterday as Prime Minister of Iraq’s caretaker government.
Iyad Allawi, a British educated neurologist and secular Shia who survived an axe attack by one of Saddam Hussein’s henchmen in his Surrey home in 1978, was chosen unanimously by the USappointed governing council.
Dr Allawi’s organisation, the Iraqi National Accord, claimed to have supplied the erroneous information that Saddam had chemical weapons on a 45-minute standby.
The group admitted that the intelligence was based on a single source but said that it had been passed on in good faith.
Aides to Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN special envoy to Iraq, said he was ready to work with Dr Allawi in choosing the new government, to be announced early next week.
Sources said that Mr Brahimi had hoped to announce the appointment next week, and that the Iraqi Governing Council had jumped the gun.
The White House welcomed the choice, saying that Dr Allawi would make an excellent prime minister. “I think that this is going to work,” an official said.
Dr Allawi, 58, fled into exile after denouncing Saddam for hijacking the Baath party. After the axe attack he started to rally dissenters and his contacts with the military won him the respect of intelligence agencies.
May 29, 2004 at 12:16 AM in MI6 | Permalink | TrackBack (7) | Top of page | Blog Home
May 28, 2004
SAS opens up to media
This is a HUGE mistake by the British Government, and really should be re-thought. The SAS are the pride and joy of British people, and the way they can take care of a situation, and melt away into the darkness afterwards is done with such class and it generates the right amount of fear and respect with the bad guys.
MediaGuardian.co.uk | Media | SAS opens up to media
Claire Cozens, press and publishing correspondent
Friday May 28, 2004
The Ministry of Defence has agreed to lift the cloak of secrecy surrounding the activities of Britain's special forces following pressure from media organisations to be more open.The Ministry of Defence has agreed to lift the cloak of secrecy surrounding the activities of Britain's special forces following pressure from media organisations to be more open.
SAS: notoriously secretive over military details
Until now, the government has operated a blanket policy of refusing to comment on any issue involving the SAS - making it extremely difficult for the media to report accurately on their activities.
But this week the MoD finally relented to media pressure, and from today the department's two most senior press officers will be allowed to provide comment and guidance - although this will be entirely at their discretion.
The government's decision to relax the rules on talking to the media follows pressure from the defence advisory notice committee, a panel of defence grandees and senior media figures set up to advise on information which, if published, might damage national security.
"The MoD has decided to change the way they operate to allow one or two press officers to talk about special forces matters. The director of news and the chief press officer will be able to comment - although this will be left to their discretion," said Rear Admiral Nick Wilkinson, the secretary of the committee.
"If they cannot say anything they will explain why," said Admiral Wilkinson, adding that it was "extremely unlikely" the press office would ever volunteer information to journalists.
The media has been pressing for a change in the MoD's "no comment" policy for years. It is one of the strictest in the western world - so stringent that when the SAS was deployed in Sierra Leone in 2000, the government refused even to acknowledge its presence in the country.
Today Admiral Wilkinson said it had become impossible for Britain to continue to say nothing to the media when their US and Australian allies were providing much more information.
"It was rather strange in Afghanistan and Iraq for British forces not to comment when their allies were," he added. "The media view was that in the modern world the 'never comment' policy was not doing the MoD any good."
The decision represents a softening in the relationship between the defence minister Geoff Hoon, who initially opposed the relaxation of the rules, and the media.
At a recent lunch with defence correspondents, Mr Hoon replied to a request for a relaxation of the rules with the words "you write guff anyway. It [more openness] will not stop you writing guff".
The Telegraph's defence correspondent Michael Smith, who attended the lunch, today described Mr Hoon's attitude as "paranoid" and said the changes were more likely to lead to the MoD press office denying negative stories than to increased clarity about the activities of the special forces.
But Smith expressed scepticism about the effectiveness of the changes.
"This is a more sensible approach than 'we never comment' which was a green light for people to write any old rubbish because no one would deny it.
"But I'd be surprised if they [the MoD] just said 'oh yes, that's true'. I think they will just rubbish occasional stories that are incorrect," he said.
"I cannot remember ever getting a major story that was damaging to the military out of the MoD press office."
May 28, 2004 at 10:09 PM in SAS | Permalink | TrackBack (53) | Top of page | Blog Home
May 27, 2004
Crime and Politics; Chalabi
Why did U.S. and Iraqi forces raid Ahmad Chalabi's home? The real reason was a widening trail of corruption that has little to do with his political agenda
By Michael Hirsh
Newsweek
Updated: 5:58 p.m. ET May 20, 2004
May 20 - The raid came as a shock to many: U.S. soldiers breaking into the home and offices of Ahmad Chalabi, the exile whom Pentagon hawks once saw as Iraq’s future leader. Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress promptly put its spin machine into overdrive. This was all about politics, the INC said—the souring of Chalabi’s reputation in Washington and his resistance to a United Nations-led plan for Iraqi sovereignty that would cut out the Iraq Governing Council, of which Chalabi is a member. "It's a provocative operation, designed to force Dr. Chalabi to change his political stance," fumed Chalabi aide Qaisar Wotwot.
In fact, sources close to the investigation tell NEWSWEEK that Thursday’s raid stems from a long-running probe by the Central Criminal Court of Iraq into financial corruption and criminal charges linked to the INC and its alleged efforts to profit illegally from Iraq’s reconstruction. Among the documents police were searching for relate to charges that INC officials profited from the introduction of a new currency. According to an official with the Coalition Provisional Authority, an INC-affiliated company was placed in charge of destroying the old currency, but “a lot of money was coming out again into circulation instead of being burned. Some of it had signs of partial burning.” The currency handover was supposed to be a one-to-one exchange, he said, “but we got a lot less in old money then we gave out.”
Among the felony counts already filed are theft of government property, theft of government money, misrepresentation and abuse of power, he said. Some of the other charges are connected to the INC’s seizure of government-owned homes and cars, especially through the group’s effective control of the Ministry of Finance, the CPA official said.
The CCCI is also investigating whether INC officials, including Chalabi and his intelligence chief, Aras Habib, misused the Baath Party files they seized upon being helped into Iraq early by the U.S. military. Chalabi ultimately became head of the De-Baathification Committee, and U.S. officials believe that some Iraqis have been threatened with blackmail by being identified as Baath Party members if they declined to do the INC’s bidding, the CPA official said. “Just recently we learned of a situation where a senior official in the Ministry of Science and Technology refused to sign off on a contract brought in by the INC. He felt it was overpriced or that there was something else wrong with it. Because he refused, the minister and the De-Baathification Committee included his name on the list [of Baath Party] members, and they sent a letter saying you’re a Baathist and you’ll be eliminated.” The official also said about 1 billion dinars allocated for de-Baathification has mysteriously disappeared.
While the investigation is largely Iraqi-run, the CPA official admitted that the Iraqis until now have lacked the enforcement capacity: in fact, a warrant for Habib’s arrest was issued more than two weeks ago, he said. “But the Iraqi police were scared to go after such a high-profile target,” he told NEWSWEEK. Only U.S. troops could bring it off. As a result, the timing of the raid may have been politically motivated. CPA administrator L. Paul Bremer III is said to have grown increasingly disgusted with Chalabi’s behavior in recent months, officials said. And Bremer is keen to distance the CPA from Chalabi before the June 30 handover. “This is a wakeup call to the INC that you’re not above the law,” said one U.S. official. It may also signal the beginning of the end for Ahmad Chalabi.
© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.
May 27, 2004 at 09:57 PM in Iraq | Permalink | TrackBack (48) | Top of page | Blog Home
Getting Away With Murder? Al-Sadr
MSNBC - Getting Away With Murder?
The Najaf ceasefire raises questions about when—and if—Moqtada al-Sadr will ever face trial on charges of murder and theft
Iraqis express their support for militant cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in the center of Najaf on Thursday
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Melinda Liu
Newsweek
Updated: 7:29 p.m. ET May 27, 2004May 27 - Many questions remain about today’s “peace deal” between Coalition troops and renegade Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Najaf. After weeks of bloody conflict that’s left hundreds of rebels dead, Sadr’s Mahdi Army militiamen began withdrawing from the center of Iraq’s holy city. Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman Dan Senor confirmed that Iraqi security forces would take over control of government buildings and police stations occupied by Sadr’s militia, and Coalition soldiers would gradually pull back.
Still, no one seemed to know if or when Sadr would disband his militia, or surrender to face charges which accuse him, among other things, of involvement in the April 2003 murder of moderate Shiite cleric Abdel Majid al-Khoei. Both were unshakeable demands of U.S. authorities in early April. But subsequent weeks of debilitating violence—and the looming June 30 transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis—may have reshaped priorities for the Coalition. Now, it seems, Sadr himself will negotiate the future status of his militia and his arrest warrants with Shiite political and religious figures.
Will Sadr get off the hook? One of several Shiite figures striving to mediate in the conflict, Mohammed al-Musawi, said the deal involves transforming the Mahdi Army into a “political organization” and delaying Sadr’s prosecution until an elected government takes office after elections early next year.
Even if Sadr gives himself up to Iraqi authorities after June 30, as some sources say he is willing to do, many Iraqis now question whether he will—or should—be brought to trial. In an opinion poll last month, 31 percent of Iraqi respondents said they supported the pudgy-faced militant cleric, making him the third-most popular leader in the country. Today one Iraqi Governing Council member, Abdul-Karim Mahoud al-Mohammedawi, warned that Sadr’s arrest would simply trigger ''an unending revolution.''
For his part, yesterday’s U.S. capture of his close aide and brother-in-law Riyadh al-Nouri helped prod Sadr toward compromise. Nouri has been heavily involved in the day-to-day coordination of Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia. Like Sadr, Nouri is also named in an arrest warrant for the April 2003 murder of the pro-U.S. cleric, Khoei.
The original arrest warrant for Sadr, related to the murder of Khoei and two other Iraqis, was signed way back on Aug. 20 by a Najaf investigating judge. For months it languished in the hands of Coalition authorities who dithered over when and how to nab the cleric. Last fall a secret plan to nab Sadr was scuttled at the eleventh hour by U.S. officials who were advised by other Shiite leaders that such a move would merely enhance the prestige of the junior religious leader. Recently a senior American general in Iraq expressed regret that Sadr wasn’t arrested then, before he became a nationwide symbol of resistance to the U.S. occupation.
Even after the first warrant was signed, Sadr allegedly continued to commit new offenses. Two additional warrants were signed, according to a Coalition legal adviser familiar with the charges. One was related to Sadr's late 2003 attempt to seize control of Shiite holy shrines and his group's seizure of Muslim tithes, or khums-zakat, collected by Najaf mosques, amounting to hundreds of thousands of dinars, or several hundred dollars.
Then in January, two guards loyal to Sadr opened fire on a taxi speeding past his home as it carried a pregnant woman and her relatives to a nearby hospital because she was about to give birth. The woman and two family members died and another relative was injured in the shooting, which Sadr is believed to have ordered. Surviving relatives of the victim initially lodged a complaint. but later they retracted it "after receiving death threats," said the CPA legal adviser. Even so, that didn’t stop a third arrest warrant from being issued.
The tempo and intensity of violence by Sadr loyalists escalated further, alarming Coalition authorities. On March 12, dozens of armed Mahdi Army members—as many as 100 according to one report—descended on the squalid southern village of Qawliya, which means "gypsy" in Arabic. Sadr's followers had first intended to abduct a woman from the village and try her in a religious court—declared illegal by the Coalition—on charges of prostitution. Qawliya, a rabbits' warren of some 150 brick and concrete homes, was notorious for its brothels, alcohol, gun-running and other illicit activities.
In the fighting that ensued between Sadr supporters and villagers, more than 20 locals died, according to a Coalition legal adviser. The militiamen “used mortars, RPGs and even bulldozers to lay waste to the village,” he told NEWSWEEK. It didn't end there. Militiamen, along with rogue Iraqi police, allegedly detained and tortured 18 of the surviving villagers in an illegal prison in Diwaniyah province. The detainees, who said they had been beaten, were later freed by Coalition authorities, the legal adviser said.
An investigation into the incident was opened. Meanwhile the nature of the Mahdi Army's attack convinced some Coalition officials that Sadr's misbehavior was a destabilizing threat, not something that could continue to be overlooked for political reasons.
No one was at greater risk for investigating Sadr than the young Shia investigating judge in Najaf, Raid Juhi, who has received death threats. The Coalition legal adviser insisted that Juhi began looking into Khoei’s killing entirely on his own, "without us knowing about it. In the beginning there was no consultation. The killing was a tremendously traumatic event in Najaf and people began coming to him to give statements about it." In early April the judge appeared at an unannounced press conference inside Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone to brief reporters, on condition that he not be photographed.
A neatly groomed man with intense dark eyes, Juhi calmly presented the following account of murder and mayhem inside the fabled gilt-domed shrine of Imam Ali. The crime was a triple homicide. The victims were the Western-friendly Ayatollah Khoei, who'd returned from exile under U.S. auspices, and two companions, Haider al-Kilidar and Maher al-Yaseri. Khoei arrived in Najaf on April 10, 2003; the three men went to the shrine to pay respects.
The first sign of trouble erupted while they were in the shrine-keeper's office. A mob gathered and began shouting for them to leave. Khoei tried to calm them using the public-address system, but there was no electricity. Soon the crowd began attacking the visitors by throwing shoes and turbas, the small stonelike objects to which worshippers touch their foreheads while praying. "Gunshots were heard. Khoei took out his pistol and shot two bullets in the air to try to calm the crowd," the judge said.
Bullets began flying in all directions. In the 30-minute melee Maher was wounded, but did not die instantly. Khoei was shot twice and wounded by an exploding hand grenade; he lost two fingers. Shooting continued. Some people fled from the shrine-keeper's office.
At that point a representative from Sadr's organization appeared with a loudspeaker, demanding an end to the shooting and declaring that Khoei and Kilidar be tried in an Islamic court. Khoei had little choice. By this time Yaseri had died and members of the mob started to kick and trample his corpse.
Khoei and Kilidar were taken to the southern Bab al-Kibla gate. There the crowd beat Kilidar to death with an iron bar. Khoei managed to make his way to the door of Sadr's office, presumably hoping to seek protection from the mob. He banged on the door, but to no avail. He was stabbed by several people and lost consciousness. Sympathizers tried to carry him away.
The mob discovered him, passed out, on the steps of a bookshop. "Some people asked Sadr if he agreed to see Khoei and he said 'no, take him away'," said the judge. When Sadr’s followers asked the militant cleric what he wanted them to do with Khoei, back came what the judge said was Sadr’s chilling response: "Take him away and kill him in your special way."
The mob pulled Khoei from the shop and dragged him by the feet down the street, down concrete stairs, his head thudding on each one. Some 50 yards from the shrine, one of Sadr's followers finally took his Kalashnikov rifle and fired one shot into the exile's head. Later Kilidar's body was discovered, decapitated, its jaw broken. Sympathizers washed the bodies in the Muslim custom, and hastily buried them.
But how to investigate the crime? "As you know there weren't any courts at the time the crime was committed," the judge told journalists, "We only started working on May 18." To begin with he collected witnesses’ accounts, relatives' statements and affidavits from people injured in the incident.
In order to prove that the victims were stabbed, the judge ordered the exhumation of the bodies—fully two months after the killing—so that proper autopsies could be conducted at Najaf University Hospital. "The findings conformed with the witnesses' statements,” said Juhi, “So we got to the point of issuing more warrants.” Thirteen people had been detained immediately after Khoei’s murder, so Juhi signed a second set of warrants—12 in all—in August.
One was for Moqtada al-Sadr. it wasn’t until early April that CPA head Paul Bremer revealed the existence of the warrants and vowed that Sadr would be captured if he didn’t surrender first. That ignited uprisings by armed Shiite militants in several southern cities, as well as in Baghdad’s Sadr City. After weeks of bloodshed, today’s announcement of a Najaf ceasefire offers the prospect of an end to the violence. But will it be a lasting peace—and, if so, at what price?
© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.
May 27, 2004 at 09:55 PM in Iraq | Permalink | TrackBack (39) | Top of page | Blog Home
British Arrest Radical Cleric U.S. Seeks
The New York Times > International > Europe > British Arrest Radical Cleric U.S. Seeks
By ALAN COWELL
ONDON, May 27 - The British police arrested a radical Islamic cleric, Abu Hamza al-Masri, early Thursday after the United States requested his extradition to face trial on numerous charges related to alleged terrorist activities.
In an 11-count indictment unsealed in New York on Thursday, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Mr. Masri faced charges of hostage-taking and conspiracy in connection with an attack in Yemen in 1998 on 16 tourists, including two Americans. Four hostages - three Britons and one Australian - were killed and several others were wounded when the Yemeni Army tried to rescue them.
"Those who support our terrorist enemies anywhere in the world must know that we will not rest until the threat they pose is eradicated," Mr. Ashcroft said.
Mr. Masri, an Egyptian-born cleric who is now a British citizen, is also charged with conspiracy to provide and conceal material support to terrorists, specifically Al Qaeda. The charges relate to attempts by Mr. Masri in late 1999 and early 2000 to set up a camp for "violent jihad" in Bly, Ore., Mr. Ashcroft said.
In addition, Mr. Masri is accused of providing material support for Al Qaeda to further a holy war in Afghanistan, and conspiracy to aid the Taliban there.
Mr. Ashcroft said the maximum sentence for hostage-taking was the death penalty or life imprisonment. If convicted on the other charges, he added, Mr. Masri faces an additional sentence of up to 100 years in prison.
Some critics accused the United States of moving against an inconsequential figure to demonstrate progress in fighting terrorists. But Raymond W. Kelly, New York City's police commissioner, said Mr. Masri was a major figure.
"Hamza is the real deal," he said. "He is suspected of providing material support to trainees in Osama bin Laden's terrorist camps, as well as dispatching associates from England to help establish a jihad training site on U.S. soil. Think of him as a freelance consultant to terrorist groups worldwide."
While Mr. Kelly said information from a "cooperating source" had led to the charges against Mr. Masri, it remained unclear why the cleric had been arrested at this particular juncture. Asked about the timing of the arrest, Mr. Ashcroft said only: "I don't want to get into the evidence of the case. During trial, the evidence will be clear."
American officials voiced concerns that Mr. Masri's arrest could set off reprisals against Americans in Europe or the United States. "Any time you have an arrest of this magnitude, that's a concern," an American law enforcement official said.
British law prohibits the extradition of suspects who could face a death sentence. But John Spencer, a spokesman for the British Crown Prosecution Service in London, which represents the United States in extradition hearings, said Mr. Masri could still be sent to the United States provided the American authorities agreed not to impose the death penalty.
David Blunkett, the home secretary, said Britain and the United States had reached such an agreement last year.
Mr. Masri, with his fiery anti-Western speeches, has been a contentious figure in Britain for several years, but the police have held back from arresting him. That changed at 3 a.m. Thursday, when police officers closed off streets in the suburban area of west London where Mr. Masri lives with his family. There was no indication of a struggle.
"He is quite calm about it," said his lawyer, Muddassar Arani.
At the time of his arrest, Mr. Masri was also facing extradition proceedings from Yemen, which accuses him of fomenting terrorism in 1998. Additionally, the authorities here were trying to strip him of the British nationality he acquired by marriage in the early 1980's, citing his alleged support for Al Qaeda and for a terrorist cell in Yemen.
Shortly after his arrest, the police began searching his house in the Shepherd's Bush district.
Mr. Masri has one eye and a steel hook in place of his right hand, as a result of what he has described as land-mine explosions while fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. He was formerly the preacher at the Finsbury Park Mosque here.
Both Richard Reid, the so-called shoe-bomber, and Zaccharias Moussaoui, accused of being the 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks, reportedly attended that mosque before their arrest. The mosque had been depicted by European antiterrorism investigators as a focus of terrorist planning.
Mr. Masri was barred from preaching at the mosque, which was closed down by the authorities last year, and has taken to preaching to his supporters in the streets outside.
He has been accused by the British authorities of making "extreme and political statements." They include praising Mr. bin Laden as a hero and describing the crash of the space shuttle Columbia as "punishment from God." He called the American-led invasion of Iraq a war against Islam and has described the Sept. 11 attacks as a Jewish conspiracy.
He has denied having ties to Al Qaeda.
After his arrest, Mr. Masri was moved to a high-security complex at Belmarsh Prison in southeast London for an initial hearing into the American charges. His lawyers said he would fight the extradition request. Asked if he would consent to being extradited, Mr. Masri replied, "I don't really think I want to, no," Britain's Press Association news agency reported.
The court ruled that Mr. Masri would be held in prison until a further hearing on June 3. Formal extradition hearings are set to begin on July 23.
Under British law, extradition proceedings can take months if not years, and can collapse if British courts are not convinced by the evidence offered to them from the country seeking a suspect's extradition.
In one case after the Sept. 11 attacks an Algerian pilot, Lotfi Raissi, was held through months of hearings and finally released because a British court ruled that the American authorities had not produced evidence to justify his extradition.
Since then, British rules have been relaxed to permit extradition hearings to proceed more swiftly.
Mr. Masri moved to Britain in the early 1980's as a student of civil engineering and worked as a nightclub doorman. In the 1990's, however, he was reported to have fought the Soviet forces in Afghanistan.
He is one of several high-profile Muslim clerics in Britain who have been accused of supporting terrorism.
Some, like Abu Qatada, who is said to have been the spiritual counselor of Mohamed Atta, who led the Sept. 11 hijacking plot, remain in prison in Britain without charge. Others, like Sheik Omar al-Bakri, leader of a movement called Al Muhajiroun, remain free and continue to carry out a robust ideological campaign.
In a television interview on Thursday after Mr. Masri's arrest, Mr. Bakri said people like him and his fellow clerics were "guilty by default" because of a Western campaign against Islam.
Even moderate Islamic figures showed some unease at Mr. Masri's detention.
"We are totally against his views as we have shown," said Ahmed Versi, editor of the newspaper Muslim News. "But the point of principle is an important one. There must be proper evidence against him which would stand in a court of law in this country."
And Anas Altikriti, a former president of the Muslim Association of Britain, declared: "The worrying thing is that these dawn raids and arrests are becoming quite a frequent occurrence in the Muslim community. It sets a flawed and dangerous precedent."
Only last month in Manchester, 10 people, most of them Iraqi Kurds, were arrested in connection with a supposed terror plot but then released without being charged.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
May 27, 2004 at 09:53 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | TrackBack (22) | Top of page | Blog Home
Hamza will escape the death penalty
BILLY BRIGGS May 28 2004
ABU Hamza, the controversial Muslim cleric, was behind bars last night as the United States sought to extradite him for allegedly supporting al Qaeda and the Taliban.
The charges he faces carry the death penalty in the US, but Downing Street said that Mr Hamza could not be extradited to face execution abroad under current UK rules for extradition and any such sentence, if imposed, would not be carried out.
Mr Hamza, 46, preached at Finsbury Park mosque in London. As the attention of America's global war on terror focused on the preacher, the US authorities labelled him "a freelance consultant to terrorism groups worldwide".
The cleric appeared at the magistrates court at Belmarsh high security prison in south east London to face a warrant for his extradition to America – where he could be jailed for up to 100 years. The charges include conspiring to set up terrorist training camps in Oregon and Afghanistan.
Mr Hamza was accused of playing a leading role in a hostage-taking incident in Yemen in 1998 in which four hostages – including three Britons – were killed.
Hostage-taking is a crime for which in theory he could face the death penalty if convicted under US law, but David Blunkett, the home secretary, told the ITV News Channel last night that the death penalty would not be put in place.
He said: "Of course it is a judicial process and I have got to be very careful not to interfere with that, but I think everyone who has been concerned about this man will want us to get it right."
Mr Hamza appeared in court as anti-terrorist detectives searched his home in Shepherds Bush, west London.
He gave a slight laugh and shrugged his shoulders when he was asked if he would consent to being extradited. "I don't really think I want to, no," he said.
Known for his inflammatory anti-American and extreme Islamist views post September 11, Mr Hamza was alleged to be centrally involved in al Qaeda's activities around the world since 1998. John Ashcroft, US attorney general, gave details of the charges at a press conference in New York.
He said Mr Hamza was charged with providing and concealing material support and resources to terrorists and a foreign terrorist organisation, specifically al Qaeda.
Other charges include conspiracy to take hostages and hostage-taking in connection with the Yemen incident. Ruth Williamson, 34, from Edinburgh, Dr Peter Rowe, 60, from Durham, and Margaret Whitehouse, 52, from Hook, Hants, died in the incident.
Mr Hamza is charged with attempting to set up a training camp for "violent Jihad" in Bly, Oregon, in 1999. He also allegedly attempted to set up a training camp in Afghanistan and supported the Taliban regime, Mr Ashcroft said.
Mr Hamza's arrest came as Abdulaziz al Muqrin, an al Qaeda leader in Saudi Arabia, issued a battle plan yesterday for an urban guerrilla war against the Saudi royal family.
In South Africa, police said they foiled an al Qaeda-linked plot last month, and had arrested a number of "people who had evil intentions" five days before general elections on April 14.
In Perth, Australia, a British-born terror suspect wept in court yesterday, claiming he feared being killed if he did not carry out an al Qaeda-linked plan to bomb the Israeli embassy in Canberra. Jack Roche, 50, said he was afraid members of al Qaeda or Jemaah Islamiyah, a linked south-east Asian group, would kill him if he did not make the attack. It was never carried out.
History Of A Firebrand
Sheikh Abu Hamza was born Mustafa Kamel Mustafa in Alexandria, Egypt, to middle-class parents.
He came to the UK in the early 1980s with plans to study to become a civil engineer in Brighton.
In 1981, while studying in Brighton and working as a bouncer in the west end of London, he met and married an English woman, Valerie Fleming, and received his British citizenship.
The couple later divorced and Mr Hamza went to Afghanistan to fight the Soviet occupation.
While there he lost his hands and one eye – while clearing Soviet landmines, he claims.
Back in the UK, Mr Hamza began preaching at the Finsbury Park mosque in London, where his radical anti-Western sermons attracted extremist Muslims.
In February 1999, he was linked to terrorists on trial in the Yemen accused of kidnapping Westerners. Yemen wants him extradited.
In April 2002, he was formally suspended from his mosque position over his inflammatory speeches.
On September 11, 2002 – the first anniversary of the Twin Towers attacks – he spoke at the mosque on A Towering Day in History.
In April 2003, David Blunkett announced new laws allowing citizenship to be removed from immigrants who "seriously prejudice" the UK's interests. Legal moves began immediately to strip Mr Hamza of his British citizenship and deport him to the Yemen.
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May 27, 2004 at 09:52 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | TrackBack (58) | Top of page | Blog Home
Japanese divided on whether foreigners are good influence
WASHINGTON (AP) The Japanese are evenly split over whether foreigners are a good influence on their society, according to an Associated Press poll on immigration attitudes.
Forty-four percent of respondents said immigrants are a good influence on their country -- but the exact same percentage called immigrants a bad influence, researchers said.
The AP-Ipsos poll of 1,000 Japanese residents, conducted from May 7 to 9, has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Nearly three-quarters of respondents -- 74 percent -- said they believe foreigners take the jobs that Japanese nationals don't want. Fifty-eight percent said it is better for the country to have a variety of people with different religions, while 37 percent said a population that shares the same customs and traditions is better.
There are 2 million foreigners living in Japan -- a minuscule number in a country with 127 million people. The largest group are Koreans, many of them descendants of laborers taken there during Japan's 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula.
The second-largest group is from China, and the third group of immigrants is from Brazil, many of them descendants of Japanese immigrants.
Foreigners, particularly those from other countries in Asia or developing countries, face discrimination in employment and housing, and there have been incidents in which they have been barred from certain shops, bathhouses or bars.
Authorities and media reports suggest illegal aliens are behind a recent crime surge, but statistics show foreigners commit crimes at about the same rate as Japanese.
The Japan Times: May 27, 2004
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May 27, 2004 at 08:50 PM in Japan | Permalink | TrackBack (7) | Top of page | Blog Home
Poll shows Britons fear immigration has damaged UK
Scotsman.com News - Top Stories - Poll shows Britons fear immigration has damaged UK
FRASER NELSON
POLITICAL EDITOR
BRITAIN has been named as one of the most xenophobic countries in the world, surpassing France, Germany, Spain and Japan in its hostility to immigration.
A new opinion poll which sampled opinion across ten countries found the majority of people in Britain are supportive of religious tolerance - but still believe that immigration has damaged the country.
The research triggered a mixture of disbelief and concern from mainstream political parties yesterday, amid fears that asylum is becoming a growing issue ahead of the 10 June European Parliament elections.
Ipsos, a Paris-based polling firm, found 60 per cent believing that immigrants were a bad influence on Britain - the highest proportion of all countries surveyed.
France, where the far-right National Front came second in the presidential election two years ago, emerged as one of the more moderate countries in the study with only 53 per cent arguing that migrants made the country worse.
But seven out of ten in France said that religious diversity within a country is to be welcomed, and three-quarters said that immigrants arrive to take the jobs which native Frenchmen refuse to do.
The same split reaction - welcoming religious pluralism but fearing that immigration has been harmful overall - also characterised Spain, Germany and Italy.
Ipsos, which conducted the poll with the Associated Press, admitted that its findings contradict widespread feeling that Britain - with its long history of migration and colonisation - is more relaxed about multiculturalism .
"The UK has historically embraced diversity," said Sam McGuire, with Ipsos-UK. The poll results, he said, "may have to do with Britons’ fears about the recent expansion of the European Union."
The Commission for Racial Equality said the survey was "disappointing" and underplayed the role of migrants in building British public services.
"The NHS is founded on the skills of Caribbean nurses, built by Indian and foreign doctors (today a third of all NHS doctors are foreign), and rescued by an injection of Filipino nurses and refugee cleaners and orderlies. And it remains 100 per cent British."
The poll chimes with the increasing alarm expressed in Westminster by MPs of all parties who say campaigners are being told that immigration is the main point of concern in several key seats.
This has been used to explain the rising success of the UK Independence Party, which recently recruited Robert Kilroy-Silk, the former BBC1 chat-show host, as its frontman.
Although the party is based on a pledge to withdraw Britain from the EU, its leaflet suggests it is now manoeuvring for the anti-migrant vote.
Its main theme is now arguing that Labour, Liberal Democrats and Conservatives have agreed plans to "open our borders to 73 million potential immigrants from Eastern Europe".
The UKIP said their rivals have made a gross miscalculation in thinking that Britain is relaxed about the potential influx of migrants from the former Warsaw Pact countries made possible from 1 May.
"Britain absorbs almost half of all migration into the European Union - of course we’re more concerned," a spokesman said.
"We’re better at integrating. Once it happens, people don’t take out their anger on immigrants as they do in some countries. But that doesn’t mean people are not deeply worried about it."
Failure to address asylum fears has led to the toppling of centre-left governments in France, Austria and the Netherlands. One senior Blair adviser told The Scotsman that concern has never been higher.
"Two issues come up time and time again: Iraq and migration. We have an answer for the first, but we need an answer for the second. It will have to be something radical," he said.
Internal polling from Labour and the Tories shows that voters have more faith in Mr Howard to take a firm grip of migration. But the UKIP is shown to make high progress in opinion polls.
The Daily Telegraph last Monday showed the UKIP to be in third place, overtaking the Liberal Democrats. The party has three MEPs at present.
Anti-Scottish sentiment has entered the campaign in London, where an Essex-based party named the "English Democrats" has sent leaflets through letter-boxes highlighting Scottish Executive policies.
"By paying £10 billion extra to Scotland under the Barnett Formula, Scots now have a better education, transport and care with free prescriptions, residential care for the elderly and now top-up fees," it reads.
"All at the expense of the long-suffering English taxpayer! This is the real North/South divide." The party is campaigning against devolution for the English regions and also calls for withdrawal from the EU.
Cross-party MPs say immigration is not playing anywhere near as strongly in Scotland, where ministers are worried at the reverse problem: failing to attract enough migrants to stop depopulation.
This has already pushed Scotland’s school roll into permanent decline, with 14,000 places due to be lost this year alone.
Britain has emerged amongst the most sceptical countries on migration in the regular polls taken by the EU Commission. Britain is regularly ranked beside Belgium, the Netherlands and Austria.
But, in spite of this, Britain still has no mainstream political party which would reverse the migration policy adopted earlier this month which gives the ten EU accession countries the right to work in Britain without a permit.
Successive polls show this political consensus has not filtered through to the doorsteps. Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, has long worried that this will create an anomaly which will push voters towards the BNP or the UKIP.
Both can win seats due to the proportional representation electoral system used for the European Parliament elections, which will coincide with English local government elections on 10 June.
• The UKIP was reprimanded for telling Scots and Londoners that they should send in a postal vote because "the government has decreed that there will be no polling stations in your region". The UKIP said this was an honest error, and the leaflet was intended for Yorkshire. But the Electoral Commission suggested disciplinary action may follow. "It’s confusing for voters - we’ve discussed it with them and it was inaccurate," said a spokesman.
May 27, 2004 at 08:49 PM in UK | Permalink | TrackBack (31) | Top of page | Blog Home
The Times and Iraq
The New York Times > International > Middle East > From the Editors: The Times and Iraq
Published: May 26, 2004
ver the last year this newspaper has shone the bright light of hindsight on decisions that led the United States into Iraq. We have examined the failings of American and allied intelligence, especially on the issue of Iraq's weapons and possible Iraqi connections to international terrorists. We have studied the allegations of official gullibility and hype. It is past time we turned the same light on ourselves.
In doing so — reviewing hundreds of articles written during the prelude to war and into the early stages of the occupation — we found an enormous amount of journalism that we are proud of. In most cases, what we reported was an accurate reflection of the state of our knowledge at the time, much of it painstakingly extracted from intelligence agencies that were themselves dependent on sketchy information. And where those articles included incomplete information or pointed in a wrong direction, they were later overtaken by more and stronger information. That is how news coverage normally unfolds.
But we have found a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been. In some cases, information that was controversial then, and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged. Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged — or failed to emerge.
The problematic articles varied in authorship and subject matter, but many shared a common feature. They depended at least in part on information from a circle of Iraqi informants, defectors and exiles bent on "regime change" in Iraq, people whose credibility has come under increasing public debate in recent weeks. (The most prominent of the anti-Saddam campaigners, Ahmad Chalabi, has been named as an occasional source in Times articles since at least 1991, and has introduced reporters to other exiles. He became a favorite of hard-liners within the Bush administration and a paid broker of information from Iraqi exiles, until his payments were cut off last week.) Complicating matters for journalists, the accounts of these exiles were often eagerly confirmed by United States officials convinced of the need to intervene in Iraq. Administration officials now acknowledge that they sometimes fell for misinformation from these exile sources. So did many news organizations — in particular, this one.
Some critics of our coverage during that time have focused blame on individual reporters. Our examination, however, indicates that the problem was more complicated. Editors at several levels who should have been challenging reporters and pressing for more skepticism were perhaps too intent on rushing scoops into the paper. Accounts of Iraqi defectors were not always weighed against their strong desire to have Saddam Hussein ousted. Articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended to get prominent display, while follow-up articles that called the original ones into question were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no follow-up at all.
On Oct. 26 and Nov. 8, 2001, for example, Page 1 articles cited Iraqi defectors who described a secret Iraqi camp where Islamic terrorists were trained and biological weapons produced. These accounts have never been independently verified.
On Dec. 20, 2001, another front-page article began, "An Iraqi defector who described himself as a civil engineer said he personally worked on renovations of secret facilities for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in underground wells, private villas and under the Saddam Hussein Hospital in Baghdad as recently as a year ago." Knight Ridder Newspapers reported last week that American officials took that defector — his name is Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri — to Iraq earlier this year to point out the sites where he claimed to have worked, and that the officials failed to find evidence of their use for weapons programs. It is still possible that chemical or biological weapons will be unearthed in Iraq, but in this case it looks as if we, along with the administration, were taken in. And until now we have not reported that to our readers.
On Sept. 8, 2002, the lead article of the paper was headlined "U.S. Says Hussein Intensified Quest for A-Bomb Parts." That report concerned the aluminum tubes that the administration advertised insistently as components for the manufacture of nuclear weapons fuel. The claim came not from defectors but from the best American intelligence sources available at the time. Still, it should have been presented more cautiously. There were hints that the usefulness of the tubes in making nuclear fuel was not a sure thing, but the hints were buried deep, 1,700 words into a 3,600-word article. Administration officials were allowed to hold forth at length on why this evidence of Iraq's nuclear intentions demanded that Saddam Hussein be dislodged from power: "The first sign of a `smoking gun,' they argue, may be a mushroom cloud."
Five days later, The Times reporters learned that the tubes were in fact a subject of debate among intelligence agencies. The misgivings appeared deep in an article on Page A13, under a headline that gave no inkling that we were revising our earlier view ("White House Lists Iraq Steps to Build Banned Weapons"). The Times gave voice to skeptics of the tubes on Jan. 9, when the key piece of evidence was challenged by the International Atomic Energy Agency. That challenge was reported on Page A10; it might well have belonged on Page A1.
On April 21, 2003, as American weapons-hunters followed American troops into Iraq, another front-page article declared, "Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, an Iraqi Scientist Is Said to Assert." It began this way: "A scientist who claims to have worked in Iraq's chemical weapons program for more than a decade has told an American military team that Iraq destroyed chemical weapons and biological warfare equipment only days before the war began, members of the team said."
The informant also claimed that Iraq had sent unconventional weapons to Syria and had been cooperating with Al Qaeda — two claims that were then, and remain, highly controversial. But the tone of the article suggested that this Iraqi "scientist" — who in a later article described himself as an official of military intelligence — had provided the justification the Americans had been seeking for the invasion.
The Times never followed up on the veracity of this source or the attempts to verify his claims.
A sample of the coverage, including the articles mentioned here, is online at nytimes.com/critique. Readers will also find there a detailed discussion written for The New York Review of Books last month by Michael Gordon, military affairs correspondent of The Times, about the aluminum tubes report. Responding to the review's critique of Iraq coverage, his statement could serve as a primer on the complexities of such intelligence reporting.
We consider the story of Iraq's weapons, and of the pattern of misinformation, to be unfinished business. And we fully intend to continue aggressive reporting aimed at setting the record straight.
May 27, 2004 at 07:56 AM in Iraq | Permalink | TrackBack (101) | Top of page | Blog Home
Real IRA is 'legalised' in Britain
By Richard Ford, Home Correspondent and David Lister
THE Irish republican terrorist group behind the Omagh bombing in which 29 people died was ruled to be a legal organisation yesterday.
Mr Justice Girvan said that the Real IRA (RIRA) could not be a proscribed group as the Government had failed to list it among 14 Irish terrorist groups in the Terrorism Act 2000. His decision rules out the possibility of any member of the dissident group being convicted solely of membership of the Real IRA.
Within hours of the judgment at Belfast Crown Court, Lord Goldsmith, QC, the Attorney-General, was considering an appeal. A Northern Ireland Office spokesman said: “The Government is very concerned at this ruling. The Government is clear that RIRA should be a proscribed organisation.”
The shock ruling came as the judge cleared four men from Co Tyrone of being members of the organisation.
Although authorities in the Irish Republic and the United States have come down hard on the RIRA, the judge insisted that the organisation was not included on a proscribed list in Britain.
Mr Justice Girvan said that, while the relevant schedule listed the IRA, “Schedule 2 of the Act does not include any organisation called or known as the Real Irish Republican Army”.
The Crown argued that because the RIRA was named as a separate organisation under the Northern Ireland Sentencing Act 1998, the dissidents were operating under the name of the IRA and therefore the absence of the word “Real” did not detract from that fact.
Mr Justice Girvan rejected this, adding: “The Real Irish Republican Army is identified by the State under the 1998 Act as a separate and distinct organisation whose adherents in the eyes of the law merit different treatment from members of the Irish Republican Army who signed up to a ceasefire.”
In the Terrorism Act 2000, 14 Irish organisations are listed as proscribed, including the Irish Republican Army but the Government did not include the Real IRA on the list.
Jack Straw, who was then the Home Secretary, told MPs during the passage of the measure that “the Real IRA is covered, as is the Provisional IRA, by the description ‘The Irish Republican Army’ ”.
In the Irish Republic, alleged republican terrorists tried for offences against the State are classified as members of Oglaigh na hEireann — Irish for the IRA. This all-encompassing term is usually followed by another reference to the appropriate faction.
Officials at the Northern Ireland Office believe that the judgment is essentially a legal technicality which is capable of being resolved.
But David Lidington, the Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary, said: “It’s outrageous that an organisation that has been responsible for the worst single terrorist atrocity in 30 years of troubles in Northern Ireland cannot be brought to book because of inadequacies in drafting legislation. We raised concerns at the time and had assurances from ministers that the legislation was satisfactory.”
Although the judge cleared four men of Real IRA membership, they are still on trial accused of conspiracy to murder and possession of a rocket launcher in February 2002.
They are Donald Mullan, 33, from Dungannon, Sean Dillion, 27, and Kevin Murphy, 33, both from Coalisland, and Brendan O’Connor, 26, of Pomeroy, all in Co Tyrone.
The ruling caused dismay in Omagh, which is also in Co Tyrone. Michael Gallagher, whose son Aiden was among those killed in the bombing in August 1998, said: “This is an organisation that is hell-bent on creating death and devastation. It just leaves you without words that something like this can happen.”
He said that no other jurisdiction would allow itself to be caught out in the way that the British Government had been.
The Real IRA split from the Provisionals in 1997 over the involvement of the Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness in the Northern Ireland peace process.
Police in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic have dealt crippling blows to the Real IRA, imprisoning its leaders including three of the alleged perpetrators of the Omagh bombing. According to security officials, the Real IRA is now riddled with informers, dramatically reducing its capacity for violence and sparking splits in the group.
May 27, 2004 at 12:49 AM in IRA | Permalink | TrackBack (33) | Top of page | Blog Home
May 26, 2004
The Pentagon favourite who fell from grace
By Andrew Cockburn
The co-author of Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein, offers a personal view of Ahmed Chalabi, the ‘ultimate chameleon’ who has never been short of surprises
AHMED CHALABI used to be the darling of the Pentagon. He was the Iraqi exile who provided Washington’s hawks with the “intelligence” they craved to justify Saddam Hussein’s removal. He was their postwar favourite to lead a new democratic Iraq.
As recently as January he was seated right behind Laura Bush at her husband’s State of the Union speech, and basked in the applause of Congress. But this week his old friends publicly humiliated him, first by cutting off his funding and then by raiding his Baghdad headquarters.
The fall from grace of this suave former banker mirrors the fate of Washington’s vision for Iraq. The coalition failed to find the weapons of mass destruction he promised. Iraqis rejected the leadership of US-backed exiles like himself. Since this week’s very public breach of his relationship with Washington, Chalabi has now joined the calls for US troops to leave Iraq, but the story may not end there.
The fear now is that this ultimate chameleon will adopt his most destructive role yet: playing the sectarian card in volatile Iraq to become the standard-bearer of Shia hardliners.
It would certainly be a mistake to write Chalabi off. His political obituary has been written many times before. Indeed his career appeared definitively over when he was convicted (in absentia) on 31 counts of fraud and embezzlement by a Jordanian court in 1992, having earlier fled Jordan in the boot of a friend’s car.
But shortly after he emerged as the chosen leader of the CIA-sponsored Iraqi National Congress (INC). To anyone who inquired about his Jordanian conviction, he pleaded total innocence, dismissing the entire case as merely a political manoeuvre orchestrated by Saddam and executed by Saddam’s lackey, King Hussein.
In 1995 he infuriated his US paymasters with a unilateral attempt to draw the US into war with Saddam, launching an incursion from the Kurdish north designed to draw the Americans into the fray. A year later Saddam himself chased Chalabi and his motley forces out of their base in northern Iraq, massacring many in the process.
Again, Chalabi was able to convince enough people in the media and right-wing US political circles that he bore no responsibility for these disasters to enable him to maintain his position as a recognised Iraqi opposition leader.
Inside the exiled opposition, however, many colleagues were driven away by his inability to accept anyone as an equal partner, rather than an employee. “Ahmed”, a fellow opposition activist, once said to him at a meeting in London: “In your heart there is a little Saddam.” The CIA finally cut off all funding shortly after the 1996 debacle, and yet within two years his conservative allies persuaded the US Congress to vote the INC $97 million (£54 million) in support and subsidies. A subsequent State Department investigation found much that was fishy in Chalabi’s accounting for the money he received, which further added to the disdain with which he was treated both at the State Department and the CIA.
Yet, true to form, Chalabi rose like a phoenix once more, this time on a wave of war fever emanating from the neoconservative hawks thronging Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon and the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney.
The intelligence he supplied on Saddam’s weapons and links to terror did much to lubricate the slide to war, but it turned out to be wholly false, as did Chalabi’s claims of widespread popular support in Iraq. Even so, he remained on the Pentagon payroll and was promoted by Paul Bremer, the coalition chief, to membership of the Governing Council. Sitting in the VIP’s gallery at President Bush’s State of the Union speech five months ago, The Washington Post noted that he looked “vastly pleased with himself”.
Chalabi’s prolonged tenure as an American protégé seems all the more remarkable given his long, close and barely concealed association with the reigning ayatollahs in Iran. This was hardly a secret. He has claimed to friends to possess a Koran affectionately autographed by Ayatollah Khomeini himself in gratitude for services rendered. CIA agents stationed at his headquarters in northern Iraq in the mid- 1990s found themselves living cheek by jowl with resident Iranian intelligence agents enjoying Chalabi’s hospitality (he made the CIA pay rent).
Later, he boasted to UN weapons inspectors of his close links to Iranian intelligence. There is even evidence to suggest that some of the fraudulent intelligence passed to the inspectors with Chalabi’s help was made in Iran. In 1995, International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors found that a document supplied by a Chalabi-sponsored defector that purported to show a secret and illegal Iraqi bomb programme in full swing could only have been forged with Iranian assistance.
Ensconced in one of his family homes in Baghdad after last year’s invasion (his “Free Iraq Forces”, notoriously lawless, ultimately seized 45 buildings in the Iraqi capital alone), Chalabi soon began manoeuvring to shed his prevalent image as an American stooge. By September he was becoming openly critical of US occupation policy, while his aides scorned Bremer as “anti-Muslim and anti-Arab”.
Though some of his American friends appreciated his need to strike an independent pose, others were less charmed. In November, according to one senior member of the Governing Council, President Bush told King Abdullah of Jordan: “You can piss on Chalabi.”
In November he secured control of the Governing Council’s de-Baathification committee, giving him arbitary power over the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of former members of Saddam’s party.
He was also taking steps to bolster both his finances (not that he was ever poor, even after his Jordanian escapade) and his control over the nascent Iraqi state apparatus. No one has ever questioned his considerable executive skills and drive, which he swiftly deployed in key areas.
Securing the influential position of chairman of the finance committee of the Governing Council, he inserted loyal acolytes into commanding positions in the economy, including most importantly the Minister of Finance, (a former waiter in an Amman restaurant), and the Minister of Oil, whose father, a genial cleric named Mohammed Bahr al-Uloom, he had once helped with a mortgage back in the days of exile in London.
His influence over the oil ministry, custodian of Iraq’s incalculable oil wealth, was amply demonstrated when he orchestrated the removal of a senior but inconveniently principled official in charge of oil sales. Oil traders took further note when his right hand man, Nabil Mousawi, began travelling to Opec meetings with the minister.
Around Baghdad last winter, it was easy to find businessmen who would grumble that “Ahmed wants it all”. Few believed that there was any serious rift between him and the Americans, despite the embarrassment over non-existent weapons of mass destruction, especially when would-be bidders on contracts for the new Iraqi army were told by American coalition authority officials that they had to go through Ahmed Chalabi, or when Abdul Huda Farouki, his close friend and business associate, secured the main supply contract for the new army.
While he still deployed his charm and articulate delivery in Washington when necessary, Chalabi’s arrogance, never quiescent, was rising to the fore on his native ground, where he was behaving increasingly like a warlord.
Last January, for example, he directed his 70-man personal bodyguard to go and shoot up the offices of Baghdad’s new cellphone company down the street from his house. The phone company security guards had allegedly been disrespectful to his nephew’s driver, so he casually issued a command to “educate them” and retired to take a nap. The affray only ended after 7,000 rounds had been fired and four telephone company guards seriously wounded.
As the Iraqi situation deteriorated in spring, Chalabi came under increasing blame in the US media over his role in supplying the fraudulent intelligence that had originally justified the ill-fated invasion. In vain he protested, not totally unreasonably, that it should have been up to the CIA to analyse intelligence — he had merely provided the defectors.
At home, meanwhile, he was hitching his star to that of the Shia hero Ayatollah Sistani, echoing the venerable cleric’s call for early elections while Chalabi aides boasted of his certain victory in any nationwide poll. (Iraqi opinion polls pegged his unpopularity as three times greater than that of Saddam Hussein.) As his relationship with Washington deteriorated, his enemies there moved to cut off his $340,000 monthly Pentagon stipend and leaked news that intelligence had detected him passing sensitive American security information to his old chums in Iran.
Inexorably, Chalabi migrated further and further into the Shia sectarian camp, casting himself as the Ian Paisley of Iraqi Shia politics. After the horrific bombing of Shia pilgrims in Kerbala and Baghdad in March, a radio address by one of his aides came close to threatening Sunnis with civil war.
More recently, his conduct has become increasingly threatening in the eyes of the occupation, especially after UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi made it clear that there would be no place for Chalabi in a post-June 30 Iraqi government.
In response he stepped up efforts to discredit the UN by publicising details of the UN-administered Oil-for-Food scandal and simultaneously recruited a “Supreme Shia Council”, modelled on a similar institution in Lebanon born during that country’s bloody civil war. Chalabi’s council includes not only some allies from the Governing Council, but also Iraqi Hezbollah and a faction of the Dawa party considered close to the rebel cleric Hojatoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr.
According to one Iraqi source familiar with this undertaking, Chalabi has been telling adherents that Brahimi is part of a Sunni conspiracy to deny the Shia their rights.
“Since Brahimi excluded Chalabi from any prospect of a place in the new government,” a former senior INC official pointed out to me yesterday, Chalabi had entered “a very destructive phase,” mobilising forces to make sure the UN initiative — details of which Brahimi is due to announce shortly — fails.
This former Chalabi associate also points out that “he knows that, sooner or later, Hojattoleslam al-Sadr is going to be killed, that will leave tens, hundreds of thousands of his followers adrift, looking for a new leader. If Ahmed plays the role of victim after this (Thursday’s raid) he can take on that role.”
It seems a strange journey for the man who formerly impressed Western acquaintances with his encyclopaedic knowledge of subjects such as medieval Japan and higher mathematics to end up following in the footsteps of an uncouth clerical mob-leader. But Ahmed Chalabi has never been short of surprises.
US ACCUSED
Baghdad: Iraq’s interim Governing Council blamed the coalition yesterday for the raids on Ahmed Chalabi’s home and offices. “The Council unanimously condemned the raids on Mr Chalabi’s home and holds the coalition authorities responsible,” said Samir al-Askari, a council representative.
Mr al-Askari said that the Governing Council would hold talks with Paul Bremer, the US administrator in Iraq, to ensure that “such incidents do not happen again”. Mr al-Askari contradicted claims by General Richard Myers, the head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, that the raids had been ordered by the Iraqi interior minister. (AFP)
Copyright 2004 Times Newspapers Ltd.
May 26, 2004 at 07:42 PM in Iraq | Permalink | TrackBack (32) | Top of page | Blog Home
NY Times says it fell for Iraq misinformation
NY Times says it fell for Iraq misinformation
By Grant McCool
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The New York Times has acknowledged it failed to adequately challenge information from Iraqi exiles who were determined to show Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and overthrow him.
In an unusual note from the editors, "The Times and Iraq", the newspaper said it found a number of instances before the March 2003 U.S. and British invasion of Iraq and early in the occupation, of "coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been".
The note said editors "should have been challenging reporters and pressing for more scepticism".
The Bush administration also has been faulted for relying on inaccurate or incomplete intelligence in asserting Saddam had an ongoing weapons programme, a primary reason cited for the U.S.-led war in Iraq. No significant biological, chemical or nuclear weapons have been found.
Wednesday's Times said it had relied on Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi, once considered Washington's top Iraq ally. Until last week Chalabi was paid by the United States for intelligence information that has proven to be faulty in many cases.
Chalabi was an "occasional source" in its articles since at least 1991 and introduced reporters to other exiles, the newspaper said.
"Complicating matters for journalists, the accounts of these exiles were often eagerly confirmed by United States officials convinced of the need to intervene in Iraq," the note said. "Administration officials now acknowledge that they sometimes fell for misinformation from these exile sources.
"So did many news organisations -- in particular, this one," the note said.
While the newspaper assigned no blame to individual reporters, a good deal of criticism has been directed at Times reporter Judith Miller, who wrote several articles about Iraq's purported weapons of mass destruction.
Media critics, led by Slate columnist Jack Shafer, have urged the newspaper to admit its errors as time passed and no weapons were found.
The editors' note cited five stories -- including several that appeared on page one -- written between 2001 and 2003 that had accounts of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in Iraq that have never been independently verified or were discredited by its own reporters or reporters at another news organisation.
STORY 'UNFINISHED'
The Times, one of the leading daily newspapers in the United States, said the story of Iraq's purported weapons "and the pattern of misinformation" was unfinished.
"And we fully intend to continue aggressive reporting aimed at setting the record straight," the note concluded.
A Times spokeswoman said Executive Editor Bill Keller had no further comment.
One media academic said the newspaper appeared to have been caught "in a perfect storm" created by the wishes of the Iraqi exiles and the administration of President George W. Bush.
"It was formed by the congruence of a group of Iraqis who wanted regime change and the Bush administration that wanted regime change," said David Rubin, dean of Newhouse School of public communications at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York.
"The two worked together in an area where the press has a hard time working in, where they are dependent on national security sources, constrained to name them or checking on them," Rubin said.
The newspaper's ombudsman, Dan Okrent, said he was not involved in the editors' review but would write in Sunday's edition about his own separate examination.
"I'm glad the paper did it," Okrent added.
The ombudsman said the circumstances were different from last year's scandal involving reporter Jayson Blair, who was fired for fabricating and plagiarising material.
"The coverage was not by one reporter," Okrent said.
The New York Times' top two editors, Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd, left the paper last June after the disclosure.
May 26, 2004 at 05:04 PM in Iraq | Permalink | TrackBack (14) | Top of page | Blog Home
Japan arrests five in al Qaeda-linked probe
Japan arrests five in al Qaeda-linked probe
By George Nishiyama
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese police have arrested five foreigners after carrying out their first raids in a widening probe of suspected al Qaeda activities centring on a French national who spent over a year in Japan.
Police searched 10 locations following media reports last week that Lionel Dumont, who was arrested in Germany last December, was trying to build up a base in Japan to support al Qaeda among a network of foreigners in the country.
Dumont, a French national of Algerian descent, is suspected of being involved in delivering equipment and funds to al Qaeda during his stay in Japan after entering the country on a false passport in 2002, Japanese media said.
Japan, a close ally of the United States, stepped up security at key facilities after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington and has been on heightened alert since a letter purportedly from al Qaeda said Tokyo would be targeted once Japanese troops set foot in Iraq.
Japan has sent some 550 ground troops to southern Iraq on a non-combat mission to help rebuild Iraq.
Police said they arrested an Indian, a Malian and three Bangladeshis for violating immigration laws.
The government's top spokesman said he hoped the police action would yield clues about Dumont's activities.
"We have information that an al Qaeda-linked individual...had contacts with various people in the country and was engaged in certain activities. I hope that the details will be revealed," Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda told a news conference on Wednesday.
"What is important for our nation's security is that we prevent an international terrorist organisation from operating," Hosoda said.
AL QAEDA CELL?
Wednesday's action involved individuals with connections to Dumont, including a Bangladeshi man who police suspect has links to an Islamic group in Pakistan seeking independence for the Kashmir region, Japanese media said.
Kyodo news agency said the police also wanted to investigate their activities and cash transfers among them.
Referring to the Indian who was arrested, a police official said: "We are aware of reports about his links to the Frenchman and will try to find more about it through our investigation."
Television footage showed police at various buildings, including what were described as the homes of foreign Muslims and the office of a used car sales firm run by one of them.
Dumont, 33, lived in Niigata, northwest of Tokyo, with his German wife from July 2002 until September 2003 and travelled frequently between Japan, Malaysia and Germany, using the forged passport, media said.
Government spokesman Hosoda said he regretted that passport controls at the time failed to catch Dumont, adding that the government will review and tighten them.
Dumont made some 45 deposits and withdrawals, each involving several hundred thousand yen (100,000 yen is about $900), in a one-month period after he entered Japan in 2002, media reports have said.
Working with Pakistani colleagues, Dumont sold used cars to Russia and North Korea during his stay in Niigata, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper said.
Dumont had been wanted by Interpol in connection with various incidents including an attempted bomb attack against the Group of Seven summit in Lyon, France, in June 1996. He was sentenced to life imprisonment by a French court in 2001 in his absence.
May 26, 2004 at 09:31 AM in Japan | Permalink | TrackBack (19) | Top of page | Blog Home
May 25, 2004
Israel Spy Agency Recruits Staff on Web
Yahoo! News - Israel Spy Agency Recruits Staff on Web
By AARON KEITH HARRIS, Associated Press Writer
JERUSALEM - Israel's normally secretive Mossad spy agency came in from the cold this week, launching a Web site aimed at recruiting staff ranging from computer security specialists to English-speaking waiters and agents for "special tasks."
The site, which is available in both Hebrew and English, has a main page featuring a shadowy figure standing next to an Israeli flag and a link to a letter from Mossad Director Meir Dagan inviting "the best and most suitable to join us."
The new Web site, which replaces a rudimentary single-page site, includes a short history of the agency, a mission statement and an online employment application form. The Hebrew side of the site has a long list of jobs available with Israel's external intelligence agency, including psychologists, teachers, translators, typists, construction engineers and security guards.
According to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, more than 1,500 people applied for jobs on Monday, the site's first day in operation.
One feature of the site proves Mossad is still as interested in gathering intelligence as it is in hiring new people: the "Contact Us" page invites users to submit "information that could be useful" to the agency and promises to protect the tipsters' anonymity.
In 2000, Mossad launched a recruitment drive in the Israeli press under the slogan, "Mossad is opening up."
Israeli security officials said that the Shin Bet, Israel's internal security agency, is considering launching a similar site.
Mossad, whose name means "Institute" in Hebrew, built its reputation on operations such as the 1960 kidnapping of Nazi Adolf Eichmann, who was snatched in Argentina and spirited to Israel to stand trial for the murder of millions of Jews. He was convicted and hanged.
Between October 1972 and August 1973, Mossad agents assassinated 12 Palestinians connected with the group Black September, which had killed 11 athletes at the Munich Olympics.
But recent years have seen a string of embarrassing and well-publicized failures.
In 1997, Mossad agents injected Khaled Mashaal, a leader of the militant Islamic group Hamas, with poison in Jordan. But they were caught and Israel was forced to save Mashaal with an antidote and to free Hamas' founder and 20 other Arab prisoners to bring the agents back home.
In 1998, a retired agent was indicted on charges of fabricating reports that Syria was preparing for war.
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On the Net: www.mossad.gov.il
May 25, 2004 at 01:59 PM in Middle East | Permalink | TrackBack (8) | Top of page | Blog Home
Protestant feud could go "out of control"
Protestant feud could go "out of control"
BELFAST (Reuters) - A growing feud between Protestant groups in Northern Ireland could spiral out of control, a senior police officer says.
A street war between the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and the smaller Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) erupted a week ago when 34-year-old LVF man Brian Stewart was shot dead as he arrived for work in mainly Protestant east Belfast.
"Clearly it would be fair to say there is an on-going feud between those two organisations," said Assistant Chief Constable Duncan McCausland, the city's top police officer.
"Since the murder of Mr Stewart this time last week, we've had six separate attacks, five bomb attacks and one shooting incident."
McCausland described the feud as a "turf war", but refused to speculate on what was behind the latest flare-up between two outlawed organisations with a history of bad blood.
In an effort to keep a lid on the situation, British troops, an increasingly rare sight on the streets of the province since the paramilitary ceasefires which preceded the 1998 Good Friday peace deal, have been deployed in hardline Protestant areas.
"I have concerns this could spiral out of control, but at this moment in time we have got pro-active police patrolling on the streets supported by military colleagues," McCausland said. "It's important everybody uses their influence to stop this."
Northern Ireland's police chief Hugh Orde and Security Minister Ian Pearson were due to meet later on Tuesday to discuss the situation.
The UVF and LVF are both "loyalist" groups, so-called because they violently opposed the IRA's campaign to end British rule in Northern Ireland.
The LVF was founded by maverick paramilitary boss Billy "King Rat" Wright, who was thrown out of the UVF in 1996 after being blamed for a sectarian killing unsanctioned by the leadership.
Since then there has been a history of feuding between the two organisations.
May 25, 2004 at 10:14 AM in Ireland | Permalink | TrackBack (11) | Top of page | Blog Home
Qaeda has 18,000 militants
By Paul Majendie
LONDON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda has more than 18,000 militants ready to strike and the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq has accelerated recruitment to the ranks of Osama bin Laden's network, a leading London think-tank says.
Al Qaeda's finances were in good order, its "middle managers" provided expertise to Islamic militants around the globe and bin Laden's drawing power was as strong as ever, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said on Tuesday.
It warned in its annual Strategic Survey that al Qaeda would keep trying to develop plans for attacks in North America and Europe and that the network ideally wanted to use weapons of mass destruction.
"Meanwhile, soft targets encompassing Americans, Europeans and Israelis, and aiding the insurgency in Iraq, will do," the institute said.
"Galvanised by Iraq if compromised by Afghanistan, al Qaeda remains a viable and effective network of networks," it said.
The IISS said al Qaeda lost its base after the toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan in late 2001 but had since adapted to become more decentralised, "virtual" and invisible in more than 60 countries.
"The Afghanistan intervention offensively hobbled but defensively benefited al Qaeda," it said.
The institute said 2,000 al Qaeda members and more than half of the group's 30 leaders had been killed or captured.
The IISS said the 1,000 al Qaeda militants estimated to be in Iraq were a minute fraction of its potential strength.
"A rump leadership is still intact and over 18,000 potential terrorists are at large with recruitment accelerating on account of Iraq," the IISS said. It gave no source for the figure.
Purported video and audio tapes by bin Laden have appeared from time to time despite a U.S.-led manhunt since the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington to capture him "dead or alive".
"Bin Laden's charisma, presumed survival and elusiveness enhance (al Qaeda's) iconic drawing power," the IISS said.
It said al Qaeda was reported to be exporting extremism on a global scale with "middle managers" providing planning, logistical advice, material and financing to smaller groups in Saudi Arabia and Morocco and probably Indonesia and Kenya.
The IISS said the Madrid train bombings in March suggested al Qaeda had now fully reconstituted and had set its sights firmly on the United States and its closest allies in Europe.
May 25, 2004 at 07:45 AM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | TrackBack (33) | Top of page | Blog Home
May 24, 2004
As China gets motoring, will the pumps run dry?
WHEN I was in Boston ten days ago, financial analysts had two main worries about the world economy and the outlook for stock markets. The first was that the interest rate cycle had turned and that world interests rates, including those of the United States, would now be on a rising trend. The second was that the relatively high oil price, which had been around $40 a barrel for some months already, would rise still farther. These two worries made a majority of the analysts I talked to fear that next year would be a “down year†for the world and for Wall Street.
Of course, the two worries are closely linked. High or rising oil prices have an inflationary effect on all costs. In the 1970s, when oil prices rose almost vertically, there was hyperinflation and interest rates went up proportionately. If oil prices do continue to rise from their present level, interest rates will follow. In Britain, rates are already going up on account of the boom in house prices.
Last week two international meetings were discussing the future of the oil market. The first was the meeting of the Opec ministers in Amsterdam. The Saudi Arabian Oil Minister, Ali Naimi, put forward a proposal that his country should be allowed to increase supply. He argued that: “Recent revisions in oil demand and supply projections for the coming months point to an increase in the required production from Opec by an excess of two million barrels a day.” He spoke of his concern “for market stability, supply continuity and the growth of the world economy”.
Other Opec countries were not so keen. Inside Opec, only Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are in a position to pump more oil, though several countries outside Opec, have some spare capacity. Most Opec countries would lose money if production increased and prices fell, particularly if they fell to the old Opec target zone of $25-$28 a barrel.
The Venezuelans argued that the present high prices were the result of speculation, and were therefore temporary. Other commodity markets, including copper, have indeed fallen sharply when speculative positions were closed, though it seems unlikely that the oil price will fall unless production is increased. The outcome of the meeting was to postpone the decision until next month. There is some hope, but no certainty, that Opec will then agree to increase the oil supply as the Saudis propose.
The US is pressing for that.
The second important meeting was that of the G8 finance ministers in New York. Gordon Brown gave warning of the inflationary consequences if oil continued to be priced at $40 a barrel. Some analysts argue that Opec is already producing more than current quotas, and that even a formal increase of two million barrels might make little difference to the oil price. It might, however, at least prevent a further rise.
In the 1970s and early 1980s, the oil shocks were caused by the oil sheikhs. The first cut in production was motivated by the Arab reaction to defeat in the war of Yom Kippur in 1973. Arab Opec cut its producti