Intelligence: August 2005 Archives

August 31, 2005

Profile: Kenneth Clarke

Kenneth Clarke has risen from the political dead to mount what must be his third and final bid for the Tory leadership.

Dubbed a 'big beast' who could mount the strongest challenge to Gordon Brown at the next election, Clarke has attempted to shake-off his pro-European credentials as he makes a play to succeed Michael Howard.

A popular and robust figure, Clarke built a strong reputation throughout the 1980s and 1990s as a competent, at times hard-line, minister.

Clarke's reputation as a beer-swilling, jazz-loving, hush puppy-wearing, cigar-smoking bird-watcher plays well with voters who see him as a politician in the 'bloke next door' mould.

But his past support for the European single currency and his links to British American Tobacco could prove to be major stumbling blocks to his challenge.

Support

Last defeated by Iain Duncan Smith after the 2001 election, Clarke had all but given up the hope of leading his party.

But the prospect of going head-to-head with Brown, and the looming change in the Tory leadership election rules, have been enough to coax Clarke back to the frontline.

While he has lost several key supporters to the camps of both David Cameron and David Davis, he still enjoys the support of senior Conservatives including Ann Widdecombe and Tim Yeo.

John Bercow, now seen as one of the most ardent Tory modernisers, has also pledged his support to the former chancellor.

One of just a handful of MPs to serve as a minister every day of the last 18 years of Conservative government, he held several top jobs including health secretary, education secretary and home secretary, finally becoming chancellor under John Major.

He introduced an internal market in the NHS and took on the teaching unions at the then Department of Education and Science.

As chancellor he bequeathed a strong economic legacy to his Labour successor - the man he would surely face at the next general election.
Left-winger?

The MP for Rushcliffe is often dubbed a 'left-winger' by his critics.

In reality, however, Clarke's time at the Home Office and as health secretary reveal a politician with a firm grip and strong centre-right credentials.

A populist at heart, the single biggest obstacle to Clarke securing the Tory crown is his uncompromising pro-European views.

Clarke was a staunch advocate of the single currency - only this week renouncing the issue as dead in his political lifetime.

A contestant in the 1997 leadership election, Clarke angered some supporters with his unsuccessful 11th hour "dream ticket" deal with John Redwood.

The bid, dubbed "desperate" by some, played badly with members of the Tory Reform Group who refused to forgive Redwood for his challenge to John Major in 1995.
Double defeat

A second bid for the leadership foundered after Clarke was defeated by Duncan Smith in an election among rank-and-file Tories, having topped the poll of MPs.

But the likely return of the franchise to MPs alone has brought him back into the game.

Talk of a dream ticket this time around with Cameron was dismissed by his rival.

Since being defeated by Duncan Smith, Clarke used his time out of the political limelight to pursue lucrative business interests, working for British American Tobacco among others.

He has consistently refused offers of other frontbench jobs, claiming he is only interested in being prime minister.

For Clarke this will be his final bite of the cherry. Success would deliver the Tory leadership to a candidate known to worry Labour's top dogs - possibly paving the way for a pensioner in Number 10.

Defeat would finally bring an end to one of most colourful frontline political careers of the modern era.

August 31, 2005 at 03:37 PM in UK | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Lenin is dead - but we're joining the party

Telegraph | Expat

(Filed: 30/08/2005)
Commentary by Phillip Sherwell, of The Telegraph, from Washington.
It is 25 years since the birth of the Solidarity movement. With Iraq in political turmoil, the US administration is turning to post-communist Europe for inspiration

Dan Fried was a young desk officer at the State Department in Washington in August 1980 when a Polish electrician with a droopy walrus moustache climbed the walls of the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk to join the striking workers inside. Lech Walesa’s act of defiance was to mark the beginning of the end of the Soviet empire.

Not that anybody imagined at the time that emergence of the Solidarity trade union was any real threat to the monolithic communist bloc. Fried remembers well the comfy consensus that a divided Europe was a stable Europe and that talk of spreading democracy received little more than lip service in Western capitals.

A quarter of a century later, as Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, he is joining the celebrations in Gdansk marking the 25th anniversary of the creation of Solidarity. Walesa is there as well naturally, alongside the Polish president Alexander Kwasniewski, a former communist who is now one of President George W Bush’s closest European allies.

All very interesting as a historical reminder of those not-so-long ago days – though sometimes it feels like another age - when Europe seemed irrevocably split by the Iron Curtain and dictatorship was a way of life for half the Continent. But is it any more than that? Very much so, Fried told me before his trip.

For a plethora of senior State Department officials who cut their diplomatic teeth in Eastern Europe – including of course Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, a Russia expert – the experience of watching a transition to democracy that contemporary wisdom held to be impossible has shaped their world view.

So even as Iraq’s squabbling ethnic factions wrangle over the country’s proposed new constitution, to the delight of the told-you-so sceptics who have long predicted disaster for America’s ambitious goal of advancing democracy in the Middle East, Fried and friends are taking a very different view from Foggy Bottom (the Washington district that is home to the State Department).

“I’m proud to go there, not simply to commemorate a great democratic success of the past, but also because the lessons of Solidarity and what it taught us about freedom in the world is not confined to Eastern Europe. What was seen as impossible suddenly appeared inevitable,” he explains.

“Democracy has succeeded in countries of all the world’s great religions and on all the world’s inhabited continents. And if democracy can succeed anywhere in theory, it can succeed everywhere, also in theory. That does not mean it will, but it does mean that it can. And it does mean, most importantly, that there can be no principled reason why democracy cannot apply to one country or another country.”

Fried is of course not suggesting that the success of Solidarity means that freedom will inevitably reign in Iraq and the broader Middle East. Islamic terrorists and communist totalitarians are very different animals. “But it does mean that the old argument that certain countries are civilisationally ill-disposed to democracy is demonstrably false,” he insists.

Now, cynics would say there is a self-serving element to all of this. With American casualties in Iraq heading relentlessly towards the 2,000 mark, the political situation in Baghdad turmoil, US commanders giving confusingly mixed signals on plans for troop withdrawals and the outspoken mother of a dead soldier setting up an anti-war peace camp on the doorstep of Mr Bush’s Texas ranch, the Administration certainly needs to find solace where it can. And this week’s Gdansk celebrations clearly offer that.

But this is not just about Iraq. America’s ally Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian leader, is about to hold his country’s first multi-party presidential elections. Lebanon is all-but free of its long-term Syrian shackles. The former Soviet republics of Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgizstan have dumped autocratic leaders.

Against that backdrop, maybe Washington is not being so naïve in hoping that events in a port on the Baltic 25 years ago have a resonance now for people living by the Tigris and Euphrates.

At the State Department, Fried is the part of the Rice revolution (he followed her there from the National Security Council in the White House where he held a similar portfolio). In the first term, Rice’s predecessor Colin Powell struck an often forlorn figure, regularly losing out in DC turf wars to the Pentagon and Vice-President Dick Cheney.

Condoleezza Rice
Russia expert: Condoleezza Rice

In barely six months in the job, Rice has reclaimed ownership of US foreign policy, thanks to her closeness to the president. In one of the most tangible results of this, she has been free to maintain a hectic travel schedule, while Powell often felt obliged to remain in Washington to try to defend his patch.

It has been a marked turnaround. Even among seasoned career diplomats who take changes in administration in their stride, there is a new spring in their step. “We’ll always be suspect because we’re foreign service men rather than political appointments, but it’s kinda nice not to be seen as the enemy anymore,” one high-ranking State Department official recently confided to me at a Washington steak house with evident relief.

Bush’s complete trust in his Secretary of State has also allowed her to pursue the sort of diplomatic initiatives that were off-limits to Powell.

For example, Christopher Hill, another veteran of eastern Europe and now the US delegate to the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear programme, has been allowed to hold one-to-one meetings with his Pyongyang counterparts – something that was off-limits during Powell’s tenure when the White House thought that agreeing to them would be seen as a sign of weakness.

Just as significant have been the personnel changes at the Pentagon, from where US foreign policy was effectively run during the first term in combination with Cheney’s office.

Although Donald Rumsfeld remains as Defence Secretary, his deputy Paul Wolfowitz and number three Doug Feith have both moved on (to head the World Bank and spend more time with his family, respectively). The two men’s replacements are notably less ideologically-driven than their predecessors.

The result is that the confrontational first term style diplomacy – most notably with the likes of France and Germany over the Iraq war – has been replaced by more subtle, if ultimately no less determined, approach (with admittedly the marked exception of appointing John Bolton as the take-no-prisoners ambassador to the United Nations).

So although Mr Fried identified a greater support in Europe for pushing for democratic reform in the Middle East – singling out French president Jacques Chirac’s backing for the so-called Cedar revolution in Lebanon - he declined to declare this a victory for Washington over its former transatlantic critics.

Tellingly, when I referred to Mr Rumsfeld’s description of Old and New Europe (in which “Old” was a distinctly pejorative term for western European critics of the war), the Assistant Secretary said with a twinkle in his eye: “We don’t look at the debate in terms of Old and New Europe? How very first term.”

And how very second term that from their Foggy Bottom redoubt, State Department officials can now laugh off first term Pentagon doctrines in an on-the-record briefing.

August 31, 2005 at 08:30 AM in Iraq | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

EU to set down rules for expelling extremists

Telegraph | Expat | EU to set down rules for expelling extremists

By David Rennie in Brussels and Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor
(Filed: 31/08/2005)

Britain is facing a clash with Brussels over EU plans to grant sweeping rights to foreigners ordered to leave - whether failed asylum seekers or Islamic extremists facing deportation.

The Home Office is expected this week to begin proceedings aimed at removing foreign nationals who fall foul of a new list of "unacceptable behaviours" that give backing to terrorists.

At the same time, however, the European Commission is preparing to publish a new directive that will effectively bar EU states from sending people back to countries where they could face persecution or torture.

It will also limit the length of time people can be detained pending their deportation.

Proposals to be unveiled tomorrow will set out rules for returning illegal immigrants and failed asylum seekers to their home countries.

They are part of a common asylum policy for the EU that Britain has strongly supported in the past but which may conflict with plans outlined by Tony Blair and Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, following the London terrorist attacks.

The new "returns directive" would include the right to be detained for no more than a year after a court had ordered removal - a provision that could trigger chaos in Britain, where lengthy appeals have seen some individuals remain in detention for years.

EU sources said they were keen to end the situation where failed asylum seekers and other foreign nation als found themselves in limbo, for prolonged periods.

The directive would give every unwanted foreign national an explicit right to appeal their removal, separate from any appeals involving their original asylum application, or refugee status.

In addition, all those ordered removed would be allowed to ask a judge to suspend or stay their deportation pending appeal.

The directive also gives judges the right to refuse to grant such a stay, meaning expelled imams or other extremists could find themselves contemplating the progress of an appeal from a foreign jail cell.

The commission proposal explicitly cites the European Convention of Human Rights as a yardstick against which appeals must be judged, by national courts. That would oblige judges to consider whether someone being returned to a home country with poor human rights might face "torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment", which are all banned by Article 3 of the convention.

Britain is a signatory to the convention, which is not an EU treaty and predates the UK's membership of the EEC or EU. For the moment, the Government insists that its plans to remove dangerous extremists back to home countries with a history of alleged torture can be squared with international law, as long as the UK secures diplomatic pledges from such nations that the suspects will not be tortured or mistreated on their return.

However, Mr Blair has vowed to amend Britain's human rights legislation if it proves a stumbling block to the removal of suspected terrorists or dangerous radicals.

Britain has three months to decide whether to "opt in" to the proposed law. Brussels sources said the proposals contained several inducements, including a new right for a single member state to ban someone from re-entering the entire EU of 25 nations for up to five years, on grounds of national security.

If Britain did opt-in, it would then have to transpose the directive into British law.

Whitehall sources indicated a range of serious concerns, notably about clauses setting strict limits on the detention of those told to leave.

Officials noted that the Prime Minister had called for a shift in the balance of inflows and outflows, so that more failed asylum seekers are removed from the country than arrive every month. Although potential deportees from Britain already have the right of appeal and to stay in the country while it is heard - though they may be detained - Mr Blair has suggested this right could be removed or restricted on national security grounds.

However, his options would be closed off if minimum guarantees are enshrined in the proposed new directive and senior Tories last night called on the Government to make clear they would not adopt the measure.

August 31, 2005 at 08:26 AM in UK | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

August 30, 2005

Egypt bloggers spearhead anti-Mubarak dissent

Egypt bloggers spearhead anti-Mubarak dissent - Yahoo! UK & Ireland News

CAIRO (AFP) - Baheyya is Egyptian, pillories President Hosni Mubarak and heaps scorn on his regime daily. But this fiery dissident who says aloud what others don't dare to think has no face: Baheyya is a blog.
In an Egyptian presidential campaign that has failed to generate much enthusiasm, one of the hottest debates is taking place online in the country's burgeoning political blogosphere.

"In every normal election, people have their eyes trained on the result: who wins, who loses, and how things will change. In this election, however, we all know Hosni Mubarak is going to 'win' barring some miraculous deus ex machina," writes Baheyya (http://baheyya.blogspot.com/).

She comments on a quaint picture of the "new Mubarak" sharing afternoon tea with a peasant woman in the Nile Delta during a carefully choreographed stop of his campaign last week.

"Mubarak and his handlers sordid efforts to negate 24 years of his well-known aloofness and indifference to ordinary Egyptians have surpassed all decency," she says.

Her identity is shrouded in mystery and the subject of much speculation among the blogging community but her diatribes have earned a cult albeit restricted following.

In a country where most major newspapers are state-owned or affiliated to a party, the Internet is offering an unprecedented freedom and platform for an increasingly bold opposition to the regime.

On a blog calling itself "The wordmonger", 36-year-old artist and blogger Abdo indulges in a satirical ode to "Mubarak, Prince of the believers", a title which usually refers to the Prophet Mohammed.

"God must love him so much: the more we curse him, the longer his reign lasts," he remarks.

Another Egyptian blogger explains he is posting his comments "so that future generations cannot accuse us of having remained silent when there was a need to speak out."

Accustomed to an autocratic regime that has severely restricted freedom of expression in the past, many Egyptians in the street are still keeping a lid on their exasperation, but bloggers are now letting off steam on the Internet.

"Wanderer of the big wide open" heckles his president directly: "Who are you Hosni? Are you not an Egyptian like all other Egyptians? Are you of holy ancestry?"

"What if he just vanished in the haze," he fantasises. "Imagine if the same face you've seen for 24 years on television screens and newspaper front pages suddenly disappeared.."

"Manal and Alaa" is a more militant blog written in both Arabic and English which lashes out at the regime's repression of opposition demonstrations by what they brand the state's "terrorist karate units".

Manal Hassan and Alaa Abdel Fattah, both aged 23, are among the few bloggers who accept to reveal their identity.

"This corrupt regime has reached its sell-by date and its stench has become unbearable," says Alaa, a young activist with a thick mane of long curly black hair and whose blog serves a bulletin board for announcing rallies and protests.

The year 2005 has seen anti-Mubarak street protests which were unimaginable even a year ago, but most of the country's 300-odd political bloggers are anonymous.

"They disguise their identities and it gives them a platform to say things they can't say in public," explains Joshua Stacker, a Cairo-based American political researcher.

"If the state wanted to go after them they could, but it's only the elite who reads them," he adds.

Mohammed, who runs a blog entitled "From Cairo With Love", is equally realistic on the impact of Internet dissent.

"What I don't believe, is that blogs and the Internet will reform the Arab world and make the people rise up. I think it could be used as a tool for better connection and dissemination of information," he says.

Amid a climate of heavy suspicion over the transparency of the upcoming poll, many bloggers see themselves as election monitors. "We are not players, we are observers," says Alaa Abdel Fattah.

August 30, 2005 at 01:29 PM in Middle East | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Straw questions Iraq terror link

ePolitix.com - Straw questions Iraq terror link

Jack Straw has questioned the link between Britain's participation in the invasion of Iraq and the terrorist attacks on London in July.

The foreign secretary said there was "no guarantee whatsoever" that the UK would not have been a target for terrorists if it had not taken part in the war.

In an interview with BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Straw conceded that some Muslims' perceptions of British foreign policy may have been used as a tool for recruiting people to extremist organisations.

He was asked about a letter sent in May last year by top Foreign Office official Michael Jay to Cabinet secretary Sir Andrew Turnbull warning that British foreign policy in the Middle East was "a key driver" for recruitment to extremist Muslim groups.

But Straw said he would "wholly refute" the idea that, if this country had not invaded Iraq, it would not have been a terrorist target.

"Would we have been safer had we not taken the military action in Iraq?" he asked.

"Now, no one can say for certain but it is my judgment that, because we were in any event a target, and so was the rest of the world, for this extremist terrorism well before Iraq, that there is no guarantee whatsoever that we would have been safer had we not taken military action in Iraq."

Iraqi constitution

A nationwide referendum on Iraq's new constitution is due to take place in October in the face of opposition from Sunni Arabs.

Prime minister Tony Blair and President Bush have urged Iraqis to unite behind the blueprint.

Straw said that wrangling over such arrangements was not unusual.

"Constitutional processes, trying to bring these together, always produce arguments," he said.

"If you certainly look at the history of the United States, if you look indeed across the water into Northern Ireland, where we are in a sense involved in a constitutional process, you see where you have people, opposed communities, trying to come together, the process is difficult."

Straw insisted on the importance of the UN's role in the process, despite international disagreement over military action.

"Every right-thinking person across the world and all responsible members of the United Nations take the view that it's in their interests and in the interests of international peace and security to have a constitutional process that produces a stable, peaceful and democratic Iraq," he said.

"It is a UN-backed, and in many ways led, process, not a unilateral US-UK process."

Asked whether the policy followed after the invasion had produced the right kind of atmosphere for negotiating a constitution, he admitted that some mistakes had been made.

"We didn't get everything right, and I don't think anybody could have got everything right in the circumstances immediately after the military action, and one of the things we didn't predict was the speed with which the Saddam regime would collapse," he said.

He added that decisions taken were "overwhelmingly more right than wrong" but admitted that the extent of violence in Iraq was not entirely due to to the way in which the country was governed under Saddam.

August 30, 2005 at 12:25 PM in Iraq | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

August 29, 2005

Denmark Tries to Act Against Terrorism as Mood in Europe Shifts

Law Raises Concerns of Civil Libertarians

By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, August 29, 2005; Page A09

COPENHAGEN -- Said Mansour, a slightly built man with a bushy beard, believes Muslims have a right to kill Americans in Iraq because, he said, "This is war; it's not a picnic."

So, he explained in an interview last week, he had no qualms about downloading and burning CDs of Internet videos depicting beheadings in Iraq and speeches by Abu Musab Zarqawi, the terrorist mastermind behind much of the Iraqi insurgency.

Now, Danish police intend to make Mansour, 45, a Moroccan-born Danish citizen, the first person ever charged under an anti-terrorism law enacted in 2002 that forbids instigation of terrorism or offering advice to terrorists. Police sources said Mansour would probably be charged for distributing CDs that contained the inflammatory jihadist speeches and gruesome images.

The law contains curbs on free speech that are remarkable in a country famous for tolerating all points of view. It illustrates how democracies across Europe are adopting tougher measures in an era of rising extremist violence, despite protests that civil liberties are being sacrificed in the process.

The 2004 Madrid train bombings, which killed 191 people, and the London bombings last month, which killed 56 people, including the four bombers, have added new urgency to the issue.

"We have to look at reality," said Rikke Hvilshoj, Denmark's minister of refugee, immigration and integration affairs, noting that some have abused Denmark's free speech guarantees to encourage violence and killing. "The day we don't have freedom of speech, the fundamentalists have won," she said. "On the other hand, we can't be naive."

Experts said the debate about how to balance anti-terrorism protections with individual freedoms is at the top of the agenda for European nations. The issue is particularly acute in Denmark, Italy and Poland -- which have troops in Iraq as part of the U.S.-led military coalition and fear they could be the next target -- and in Spain, following the train attacks there.

"The mood has shifted in Europe more toward security than it was before the London bombings," said Daniel Keohane, senior research fellow at the Center for European Reform in London. "The Europeans have always been very nervous about infringing on civil liberties. But when you experience terrorism, it changes your views."

France, with Europe's largest Muslim community -- 6 million people -- has just announced plans to strengthen its anti-terror laws, already among Europe's strongest. Britain now plans to ban or deport those who incite terrorism, close bookshops or places of worship used by radical groups and criminalize speech that "foments, justifies or glorifies" terrorism.

Human rights groups and Muslim civic leaders called those measures too broad.

"What may be seen as a glorification of terrorism by one person might be seen as an explanation of the causes of terrorism by another person," said Azzam Tamimi, a senior leader of the Muslim Association of Britain.

Some political activists here said their government was trampling free speech guarantees contained in the Danish constitution.

"They have crossed the line," said Naser Khader, 42, a Syrian-born member of Parliament who has been a vocal critic of Muslim extremists. "The society must be open and free. If you close it and make a lot of restrictions, the terrorists get what they want."

But a recent survey found that 80 percent of Danes supported the new laws to battle terrorism and control immigration. In Britain, 73 percent of people polled by the Guardian newspaper in mid-August said that they were willing to give up some civil liberties to improve security.

Said Mansour, 45, a Moroccan-born Danish citizen, could become the first person charged under a new law that forbids instigation of terrorism or offering advice to terrorists.
Said Mansour, 45, a Moroccan-born Danish citizen, could become the first person charged under a new law that forbids instigation of terrorism or offering advice to terrorists. (By Kevin Sullivan -- The Washington Post)

"The terror is getting closer," said Morten Messerschmidt, a member of Parliament from the strongly anti-immigration Danish People's Party. "First it was D.C. and New York, then Madrid and now London. Who's next? There's no doubt we are in a potential threat situation, and that scares people."

Messerschmidt said curbing free speech was "very tough and emotional to do in England or Denmark or any other country that respects freedom, but it's out of necessity." He said a terror attack in Denmark was inevitable. "You'd have to live in a fantasy world to think it won't happen here."

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen ordered a review of national laws governing security and civil liberties immediately after the London bombings. "We must not have a police state and a surveillance society," he said in a recent radio broadcast. "But we must not be overindulgent either."

Many European countries have long had laws banning racist hate speech, an outgrowth of their experiences with Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. But analysts said Denmark's new speech law, part of a package of anti-terror laws enacted in the aftermath of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was at the forefront of tougher European laws. The law banning instigation of terrorism carries a penalty of up to six years in prison.

Denmark's anti-terror laws also ban financing of radical groups and give police new powers to electronically eavesdrop on suspected radicals. Danish intelligence officers have also increased what Hans Jorgen Bonnichsen, commander of the Danish Security Intelligence Service, called "preventive talks" with potential radicals.

In an interview, Bonnichsen said his officers conduct close surveillance of suspected radicals and occasionally let them know they are being watched in order to disrupt their activities. He said intelligence officers work closely with Danish universities to monitor foreign-born students and watch for suspicious activity.

"Three years ago, people thought it was terrifying what Denmark was doing," said Hvilshoj, the immigration affairs minister. But with the shifting mood in Europe, she said, "that has changed. People are looking at Denmark differently."

In Denmark, as in much of Europe, fears of terrorism are often intertwined with concerns about immigration, particularly the immigration of Muslims. There are about 15 million Muslims living in the 25 countries of the European Union. Roughly 200,000 of Denmark's 5.4 million people are Muslim.

Rasmussen's right-leaning government was elected in November 2001, riding a wave of popular anger about rising immigration. Nearly overnight, the government reversed Denmark's generous immigration policies, tightening requirements for asylum-seekers and for foreign residents trying to bring in spouses.

Many Muslims in Demark see racist motives in the government's policies.

"The Danes have a fear of disappearing into the bigger European ocean," said Ahmed Abu Laban, one of Denmark's most prominent imams. "They have made immigrants pay the price. Muslims have become the scapegoat. They think we will undermine their culture and their values."

But police officials said racism had nothing to do with their plan to charge Mansour under the instigation law.

Mansour, who arrived for an interview in long Muslim robes and sandals, insisted on praying before speaking to a journalist.

He said he had come to Denmark in 1983 to join a sister who lived here. He married a Danish woman the next year; they now have four children who attend public schools. His wife is a public school teacher, but Mansour said he was unemployed and collected a monthly government welfare benefit of about $1,800.

Mansour described leading an active life in Danish Muslim circles, distributing audio recordings and videotapes of peaceful Islamic songs and stories. He denied being a violent radical, although he said he was "happy" about the Sept. 11 attacks and admitted he maintained relationships with well-known radicals from other countries.

He said he had been close friends with Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the cleric who was convicted in connection with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York. He said Abdel Rahman stayed at his house twice on visits to Denmark.

Mansour also said he was in contact with two men whom authorities have described as aiding or inspiring the Sept. 11 attacks. One was Abu Qatada, a radical Muslim cleric who was convicted in Jordan of several bomb attacks; tapes of his speeches were found in the German apartment used by several Sept. 11 attackers. The other was Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, a Syrian accused in Spain of giving money and support to the Sept. 11 attackers.

Mansour said he was aware that the police intend to bring charges against him. But he said that knowing people who had been convicted of crimes was not illegal and that passing out material downloaded from the Internet shouldn't be, either.

"Everybody can do it," he said, asserting that Danish officials are "just trying to show the Americans they are against terrorism. They don't have anybody, so they are using me."

August 29, 2005 at 10:02 PM in Europe | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Sunnis Won't Defeat Charter, Iraqi Vice President Asserts

Dissenters Urged to Focus on Election Instead of Referendum

By Ellen Knickmeyer and Salih Saif Aldin
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, August 30, 2005; Page A14

BAGHDAD, Aug. 29 -- Iraq's Sunni Arabs are unlikely to muster the votes needed to defeat the country's new draft constitution in an October referendum, Vice President Ghazi Yawar, the highest-ranking Sunni Arab in the transitional government, said Monday, as hundreds of Sunnis rallied against the charter for a second week.

Sunni Arabs should look ahead instead to parliamentary elections in December and concentrate on winning enough seats to change the way the constitution is implemented, Yawar said.

"In the street there is too much tension, too much bitterness, and I think many people will push for a negative vote," Yawar, a tribal leader from the north who was president in Iraq's previous government, told a small group of Western reporters in his gilt villa inside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone.

But "I think it will be extremely hard to defeat," Yawar said. "That's why I think we have to aim at the next elections. . . . Whoever feels grievance now has to work harder in order to be in the next" government.

Yawar spoke the day after Iraq's Shiite- and Kurdish-led government and the United States announced completion of the draft constitution, sending it to a national vote by Oct. 15. Sunni Arab negotiators on the constitution committee refused to endorse it and stood by glumly Sunday as Shiite and Kurdish leaders beamed at a celebratory ceremony.

Yawar is the first prominent Sunni leader to at least stop short of publicly condemning the charter. U.S., Shiite and Kurdish officials have insisted that some Sunni leaders support the draft but suggest those leaders have remained quiet for fear of becoming targets of extremists' anger.

The charter's backers got a further small boost Monday when the leading Sunni bloc, the Iraqi Islamic Party, said it would work for changes in the draft and encourage public review of it, rather than flatly rejecting it.

The constitution's provision for creation of federal states under a weak central government has angered members of the traditionally nationalistic Sunni Arab minority, who say it will lead to the breakup of Iraq.

The Sunnis object most strongly to a proposal by the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Shiite religious party that has a leading role in the coalition government. The proposal, raised by Supreme Council leader Abdul Aziz Hakim this month, called for formation of what would be an oil-rich, predominantly Shiite federal region in the south made up of half of Iraq's 18 provinces.

While the controversy over federalism has spurred more Iraqi Sunnis to join the political process than at any time since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, the foreign-led Sunni insurgent group headed by Abu Musab Zarqawi has threatened to kill any Sunni who votes on the charter.

The insurgent threats and government delays in opening registration centers in the Sunni-populated west likely would mean only one province, Anbar, could muster the votes needed to reject the constitution, Yawar said Monday. Two-thirds of voters in at least three provinces must reject the draft charter for it to fail.

Rejection of the draft proposal would mean Iraqis would have to elect another transitional government to try again to write a constitution. Yawar, like some Shiites and Kurds, said another weak transitional government would only open the way for more political violence.

While Shiites and Kurds have clear leaders, neither Yawar nor any other Sunni Arab official commands a dominant bloc.

Iraq's disaffected, disempowered Sunni Arabs have vowed not to repeat their boycott of January's elections, which brought the current Shiite- and Kurdish-led government to power.

On Monday, hundreds on Sunni Arabs marched in Saddam Hussein's home area of Tikrit, some carrying pictures of the toppled leader. Others clutched posters with slogans declaring, "No to the Zionist-American-Iranian constitution!" according to news agencies.

In the heavily Sunni western city of Ramadi, Anbar's provincial capital, hundreds rallied to demand the government open more voter-registration centers. With a Sept. 1 deadline looming to register, only 19 of the 28 centers in Anbar have opened, although the national election commission said Monday that it would extend registration there until Sept. 7.

Ali Omran, a 41-year-old demonstrator in Ramadi, said people in his village had to drive more than two hours through U.S. military checkpoints to sign their names to voter rolls. "We consider this a conspiracy," Omran said. "They want to strangle us by not allowing us to participate in the referendum, to make it easy for the Kurds and the Shiites to run their draft of the constitution."

"My family will take part in the referendum even if we have to spend the night in the street by the voting center," said another demonstrator, Mariam Mohammed, a 32-year-old university instructor.

In Baghdad, Reuters demanded the U.S. military release one of its Iraqi cameraman wounded in the same shooting that killed a soundman working for the news agency on Sunday in west Baghdad. Iraqi police said U.S. soldiers shot the journalists, according to Reuters.

The agency quoted a military spokesman, Lt. Col. Robert Whetstone, as saying U.S. forces were still investigating.

Meanwhile, an Iraqi leader of Zarqawi's al Qaeda in Iraq promised a series of attacks timed to the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in October. The leader, Abu Qudama, said a current lull in bombings was only "the calm before the storm."

Special correspondent Omar Fekeiki contributed to this report.

August 29, 2005 at 10:01 PM in Iraq | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Freedom is priceless, Walesa tells Poland

Telegraph | News | Freedom is priceless, Walesa tells Poland

By Matthew Day in Warsaw
(Filed: 30/08/2005)

Lech Walesa celebrated the 25th anniversary of the birth of the Solidarity trade union yesterday by telling Poles that "freedom is priceless".

The union, which he helped to found, would go down in history for uniting the nation in one of its darkest hours, the electrician and Nobel prize winner said.

His speech to parliament was part of a series of events commemorating Solidarity's birth and its role in destroying communism and tearing down the Iron Curtain.

Recognisable as ever by his walrus moustache, he said: "We hold our heads high, despite the price we have paid, because freedom is priceless."

A strike he led at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk in August 1980 triggered a wave of national protest at Poland's communist regime and widespread food shortages.

Confronted by growing unrest, the government was forced to recognise Solidarity, which then became the eastern bloc's first free union.

It was outlawed under martial law in 1981 but returned to the forefront of national life and helped to topple the communists in 1989, a year of revolutions across the east. Mr Walesa, now 61, went on to be Polish president between 1990 and 1995.

"The role of Solidarity in the downfall of communism was enormous because it showed the world that workers do not like communism," said Richard Pipes, the US historian and adviser to the late president Ronald Reagan.

In fact, for many Poles, the events set in motion a quarter of a century ago only reached their conclusion last year when Poland joined the European Union.

The celebrations will culminate tomorrow with a Mass and concert outside the shipyard gates. John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, will represent Britain, but Russia has reportedly failed to respond to its invitation.

However, despite efforts to recapture the spirit of 1980, events have been overshadowed by acrimony between Solidarity's old leaders.

Andrzej Gwiazda, its former vice-president, accused Mr Walesa of betraying its principles and has boycotted the celebrations.

Typically abrasive in his reply, Mr Walesa poured scorn on his critics. "Ask these people what they have done in the past 25 years," he said. "What have they participated in? It's a pity that they did not help in building a new reality in Poland."

Other veterans feel that Mr Walesa turned his back on the union's principles when Poland's shift to capitalism led to rising inequality and unemployment.

"We fought for free trade unions and our main ideal was to help people," said Henryka Krzywonos, one of the original strike's leaders. "But now the system does not provide enough for people to live in dignity."

Critics on the Right accuse Mr Walesa of being a communist pawn acting on orders to prevent a "real" anti-communist revolution.

But yesterday the man himself dismissed such conspiracy theories. "In front of God, I declare that there was no manipulation," he said.

The rifts in Solidarity have also hastened its demise. Membership has slumped to 700,000 and it will not contest parliamentary elections next month, the first time it has missed out since 1989.

At the same time, and as a testimony to the power the Solidarity name still wields, many of the parties that are fielding candidates are jostling to portray themselves as its heirs.

Even a party comprised of communists has laid claim to Solidarity's social agenda, arguing that more should be done to combat poverty.

August 29, 2005 at 09:59 PM in Russia | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

How wrong can they get?

Opinion - William Rees-Mogg Times Online

William Rees-Mogg
Tory MPs rarely make a sensible decision — and now they might make their biggest mistake yet
NONE IN THE North East; none in Bristol; one in Scotland; one in West and South Yorkshire; one in Merseyside and Manchester; two in Birmingham; three in Wales; 17 women: that is the current state of the Conservative Party in Parliament. The 198 Conservative MPs have given their reaction to these miserable figures. They have decided to take the vote for the leadership away from the members of their party. To whom do they want to give it? To themselves.

In her article in the latest Spectator, Theresa May has commented that “it is the view of the majority of Conservative MPs that they know best, and they would deny everyone but MPs any substantive say whatsoever in the election of our next leader”.

She then asks the key question: “If we aren’t willing to listen to and trust our own membership in the election of our leader, then how can voters believe that we will listen to them when it comes to understanding their problems and finding the right solutions?”

Theresa May is a significant figure. She has been a Shadow minister, as well as chairman of the party. Because she was a woman, she was probably over-promoted in terms of experience early in her career. There has been plenty of jealousy from other Conservatives in the Commons. But at the past election she defeated a very determined Liberal Democrat attack on her constituency. She is the senior woman in the Conservative leadership group. She certainly defends the interests of women in the Tory party. Her ideal solution for the leadership choice and for constituency nominations would be primaries among Conservative supporters on the US model.

The Conservative Party won more than 40 per cent of the women’s vote in all the elections from 1979 to 1992, and won all those elections. It won only 32 per cent of the women’s vote in 2005. Unless the Tories can regain their support among women voters, they have no prospect of winning an overall majority in any future general election. No women; no victories.

Under the existing system of electing the leader, the MPs choose two nominees, and the members of the local associations take the final decision between them. The only time this system actually operated, in 2001, the MPs nominated Kenneth Clarke, who was ahead in votes, and Iain Duncan Smith, who was just ahead of the obvious candidate, Michael Portillo.

The problem was a simple one. Kenneth Clarke and Michael Portillo had strong personality and leadership skills; Iain Duncan Smith did not — though he had other good qualities. Mr Clarke holds views on Europe that go against the majority of the party; Mr Duncan Smith is a Eurosceptic and Mr Portillo a moderate Eurosceptic. The MPs should have nominated Mr Portillo, who was acceptable in terms of European policy and charismatic in personality. For mixed reasons, including personal interest and jealousy, they nominated two unacceptable candidates. The MPs were to blame; the members of associations did their best with the choice they were given, and put policy first.

In the 2001 leadership election, approximately 120,000 women voted. If the Conservative MPs’ proposals are adopted, that number will fall to 17. The party in Parliament is predominantly male, middle-aged and elected from suburban and rural seats in southern England. They are an absurdly unrepresentative body, in terms of gender and of the national electorate.

Since 1965 MPs have chosen Ted Heath, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, William Hague and Michael Howard as leaders of the Conservative Party. Apart from Margaret Thatcher’s three successive victories, these leaders have won two general elections and lost six. The MPs sacked Margaret Thatcher, their only real winner. For 40 years the MPs have had their way, and it has usually proved to be a mistake.

Fortunately this July’s vote of the Conservative MPs has no force under the Conservative constitution. On September 27 there will be an attempt to change the democratic constitution which was introduced under William Hague. To make any change in that constitution requires a two-thirds vote of the leaders of the voluntary party, who mainly consist of the association chairmen, and a two-thirds vote of Conservative MPs. Those chairmen and MPs who think it important to do what they are told by their betters will vote for the rule change. Those who do not think it possible to win the next election if the party repudiates women, Scots, Welsh, Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Sheffield and most of the North, can block this anti-democratic proposal by voting against it. There would then have to be a full democratic vote for the new leader.

If the Conservative Party gets so frightened of democracy that it repudiates the only strongly democratic element in its constitution, that will prove to many people that it is incapable of reform.

If the party has any real attraction to the public, it is when it stands for the rights of the individual against the overweening power of the State. That is the basis on which Lord Strathclyde has led the Conservative Opposition in the House of Lords; in the late Parliament, that was more effective and more consistent than the leadership in the Commons. It proved to be good politics, opening alliances of principle with the Lib Dems, independents and Labour rebels.

There is still life in a modernising Conservatism, based on these principles of liberty and on Conservative workers and councillors — now the largest group of councillors in England. There is life in the Conservative Party of ordinary men and — notably — women. There is no life — no future — in a Conservative Party that cannot look beyond a small group of MPs who represent only a localised fragment of the people of Britain. On September 27 both the party chairmen and the MPs must vote “no” if they want their party to survive. That is their duty.

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August 29, 2005 at 08:08 PM in UK | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

The Tory way: don't trust the people, don't have a free and open debate

Opinion - William Rees-Mogg Times Online

William Rees-Mogg
THE GERMAN ELECTION is on September 18; the British Conservative Party will vote on September 27 on a proposed constitutional amendment that might decide who is to be the next leader. The two events could be connected. If Angela Merkel, the Christian Democratic Union leader, becomes Chancellor, she will have won as a free-market reformer. If she loses, German voters will have repudiated radical reform.

She has even adopted Paul Kirchhof’s flat tax proposal. Hundreds of tax allowances and multiple tax bands would be replaced by a flat levy of 20 or 25 per cent. “Instead of needing 12 Saturdays to fill out a tax return, the new system would need just 10 minutes,” said Professor Kirchhof. “I want to give voters back their freedom by letting them decide what to do with their money.” This is Gladstonian finance; he wants to let money “fructify in the pockets of the people”.

At present most people assume that the Conservative Party will meekly agree to return the choice of leader from the membership to the parliamentary party. This is what Michael Howard, the present leader, has proposed; it is supported by the mysterious, and largely unrepresentative, board of the Conservative Party. The effect would be to reduce the leadership electorate from 250,000- 300,000 party members to 198 MPs. Trust the professionals; do not trust the people.

There would be no votes from the big cities, Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle or Sheffield. There would be one vote from Scotland and three from Wales. Women would have 17 votes. That the board supports this shows its lack of political judgment; that it should be proposed by the leader and the parliamentary party suggests that too many of them are are not real democrats, or even good politicians. The Conservative Party needs mass support; this is the way to alienate the public.

Fortunately, amendments to the Conservative Party’s constitution require a two thirds majority of the MPs and a separate two thirds majority of the constituency chairmen and local association officials. It is not certain that either group will produce the majority needed.

There has, however, been a widespread expectation that the party, which has a traditional respect for authority, would do what it was told. The leadership debate, so far, has been conducted on the assumption that it would be an insider’s debate, that the MPs would decide. As a result there has hardly been any debate at all.

The Conservatives have only once had a democratic leadership election. That was in 2001, when the membership chose Iain Duncan Smith over Kenneth Clarke by a substantial majority. Mr Duncan Smith won the public debate, despite being by far the less impressive speaker. The members decided that they agreed with his Eurosceptic views, and disagreed with Mr Clarke’s Euro-enthusiasm.

In a leadership contest, whatever the system of election, the Conservative Party almost always chooses the candidate who is seen as right of centre inside the party. In the past 50 years, only Edward Heath won the leadership as the left-of-centre candidate. Macmillan, Douglas-Home, Thatcher, Major, Hague, Duncan Smith and Howard were all regarded as right of centre when they were chosen. This is still the pattern now, both inside the parliamentary party and, probably, in the membership. If so, the choice of system will not necessarily decide the outcome, but it will decide whether the new leader has the authority of a democratic vote, and it will shape the character of the debate.

At present, the majority of MPs belong to the moderate Right. In a parliamentary vote, one could expect David Davis to win against David Cameron or Mr Clarke. If there is no real debate, only cautious sparring, this is what will probably happen. I still doubt whether Mr Clarke will stand: Europe, tobacco and age all tell against him. I would regard Liam Fox as the probable reserve leader of the centre Right. David Cameron, however, is a serious candidate. Someone else may emerge, but has not yet done so.

The common assumption is that Mr Davis is stronger among the membership than among the MPs. If so, that means that he is stronger in the country, an important factor in itself. A democratic election by the whole membership would produce a democratic debate, which has not been happening so far. Both Mr Davis and Mr Cameron have been engaging in image politics; their speeches are not bad, but they glide away from the more difficult issues. They do not want to lose support by saying anything that will upset people.

This is where Angela Merkel comes in. If she wins, there will be new hope for conservative politics throughout Europe. But she will pose a difficult question for all conservative contenders in Europe. Are they prepared to tackle social expenditure and taxation? These big issues have defeated the Blair-Brown Administration. Of course, if Frau Merkel fails, every other European conservative will be running for cover, but we shall know that well before September 27.

So long as they only have to debate before their parliamentary colleagues, I would not expect any of the leading candidates to take a view on the flat tax issue — it is far too easily misrepresented as another kind of poll tax. Mr Davis would prefer to remain the great unifier; Mr Cameron would prefer to remain the socially responsible moderniser. In a genuine national debate, I believe that they would be forced to define their positions — that is one of the advantages of democracy.

Perhaps we have reached this paradoxical position: it is the modernisers who have been afraid of the membership (they have sometimes seemed afraid of modernisation itself), yet it would now take a real national debate to give the modernisers a chance.

August 29, 2005 at 07:19 PM in UK | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Ideas are the decisive force

Opinion - William Rees-Mogg Times Online

William Rees-Mogg
MAURICE Cowling, who died last week, was one of the most brilliant Cambridge dons of his generation, but like other brilliant dons he was a swan with a gammy wing. Again and again in his career, particularly in his early attempts at journalism, he was appointed to an enviable post, only to lose it prematurely. The Times, under Sir William Haley, fired him as a foreign leader writer; so did Lord Beaverbrook’s Daily Express; he resigned from The Spectator.

Yet he had 25 golden years as a fellow of Peterhouse, from 1963 to 1988; his teaching in those years had a significant influence on the intellectual development of the Conservative Party.

He was a great teacher and influenced a whole generation of politically minded Cambridge historians, of whom the most influential, in his turn, was Michael Portillo, who was to become the Young Pretender of the Tory party. Even today the former Portillistas, who may be thought of as Cowling’s intellectual grandchildren, have become some of the ablest of the younger generation of Conservative MPs. If there are still any ideas in the modern Conservative party, they have some Cowling genes in them.

I had the good fortune to see him in action, teaching undergraduates. In the late 1970s he invited me to Peterhouse to speak to his group of college historians. I have no recollection of the subject matter, though I think the occasion occurred in that very interesting period when Margaret Thatcher was leading the Conservative Opposition. There was then a real ferment of ideas. Maurice was impressive, challenging, analytical, amusing, paradoxical, at home with his students. I remember thinking how lucky his Peterhouse students were; with his lightness of touch, he was expanding their political and historical consciousness.

Yet even then I thought that there was a central paradox in his teaching that could not be reconciled. His great gift was to bring political ideas to life, to explain them so that good second-class students of Peterhouse, let alone the high-flyers, could see them as vivid and significant. Yet his central doctrine was that political philosophies are mere rhetoric, designed to advance the politician or his party towards power. He was a brilliant exponent of political philosophies, but he did not believe that they were real.

After the meeting we chatted for half an hour in his rooms. He made some more than usually extreme statements. I replied that he must know that what he was saying was not true; he was saying it to provoke. He seemed to be pleased, as though that were a compliment. I imagine that his impish delight in extreme propositions rubbed off on some of his students.

Maurice would certainly have appreciated the irony that he died at the beginning of a Conservative leadership contest in which political philosophy is not playing a prominent part. The only Conservative political theorist to whom I have seen any reference is Benjamin Disraeli, a bogus and inconsistent political theorist even by Maurice’s standards. Disraeli has only got into the current debate because some potential candidates refer to themselves as “one nation” Conservatives; the reference is taken from his middle period novel, Sybil, where one of the characters says portentously: “I was told that the Privileged and the People formed Two Nations.” Note the capital letters.

Disraeli had difficulty with political philosophy. Writing in the 19th century, he looked around for respectable political ancestors. In the previous two centuries, the Tory party, from which the Conservative Party descends, were the party of the King and the Church of England — “Church and King” was its motto. The Tories existed to defend these interests, a task they performed with extraordinary incompetence. They lost the first civil war in the 1640s and the second in 1688.

They went out of office when Queen Anne died in 1714 and remained in opposition until George ll died in 1760. When they got back in to office, they lost America under the prime ministership of Lord North. In Disraeli’s time it was more obvious than it is now that the first 140 years of the Tory Party, from the 1640s to the 1780s, were an unmitigated disaster.

Lacking a convincing political ancestry, Disraeli fixed on Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke, who lived from 1678 to 1751; he was the friend of Pope and Swift, a gifted but unpleasant man who was consistently outwitted by the Whig Prime Minister, Robert Walpole. He wrote The Idea of a Patriot King, which was read to George lll by his foolish mother, the widow of Frederick, Prince of Wales. Bolingbroke was a genuine intellectual, with the leisure of being out of office, but his Patriot King is not required reading in the modern Conservative Party. It is a fair bet that none of the leadership candidates, save David Willetts, has ever bothered to open it.

Thus Maurice Cowling may seem to be proved right by Disraeli’s example. He certainly thought that all political philosophy was a sham, either the musings of men without power, or the self-seeking rhetoric of politicians seeking power. But I believe that Maurice was mistaken. There is more to it than that. Ideas are the decisive force in all politics, whether they are bad ideas or good ones. The New Deal idea made Franklin Roosevelt. The half-baked racial Darwinism of Hitler took him to power, though it was intellectually contemptible.

There are even more ideas in the present Conservative leadership contest than may appear, but they desperately need better definition. “Modernisation” is the cry of one group, but what does modernisation mean in practice? Is there any candidate who would not claim to be a moderniser? How would a new Conservative Party balance the values of liberty and equality? Now that Ken Clarke has dropped the euro and the European constitution, how far would he still go in European integration? A fog of evasion hangs over this philosophical battlefield. It is a pity Maurice is no longer available to disperse it.

August 29, 2005 at 07:17 PM in UK | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Egyptian Security Forces Search for Militants in Sinai

Egyptian Security Forces Search for Militants in Sinai - New York Times

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 28, 2005

Filed at 5:58 p.m. ET

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Army sappers joined a 5,000-strong security force Sunday in a sweep through the Sinai, as authorities stepped up their search for militants behind recent bombings of tourist centers on the rugged peninsula.

Security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the operation was still underway, said at least two army units responsible for clearing mines and one border-guard unit had joined the hunt, which entered its second week Sunday.

The force was focused on Halal mountain, a 5,900-foot peak near the Israeli border that is full of caves and deep ravines.

The security force suffered a major blow on Thursday, when a police major general and a lieutenant colonel were killed in a land mine explosion. Those killed were believed to be the highest ranking police officers to die in a conflict since Egypt put down a violent Islamist insurgency in the mid-1990s.

Police have said they believe some of the suspects holed up in the rugged mountain area are linked to the triple July 23 attacks in the southern Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheik that killed at least 64 people, as well as the Oct. 7 bombings of two Egyptian resorts near the Israeli border that killed more than 30 people.

On Sunday, masked gunmen in a vehicle opened fire at a security checkpoint near Halal but no one was hurt. The gunmen fled into the mountains.

Since the sweep began, more than 700 Egyptians have been detained with many subsequently released. It is not known if any charges have been filed. An additional 15 people were arrested on Sunday.

Two pro-government newspapers, al-Ahram and al-Akhbar, reported Sunday that the explosive material in the mines was similar to that used in the July and October bombings. They cited forensic reports as saying the explosives were imported.

One security official has said that a key suspect believed to have harbored militants linked to the October attack -- Salem Khadr el-Shenoub -- was thought to be among militants hiding in the area.

Sinai's mountains and desert plains have long been a haven for criminals, fugitives and Bedouin tribesmen involved in smuggling and drug trafficking. Israel also complains that weapons smugglers used the region to smuggle weapons to Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.

August 29, 2005 at 03:30 PM in Middle East | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

August 28, 2005

Focus: Atishoo, Atishoo, we all fall down?

Focus: Atishoo, Atishoo, we all fall down? - Sunday Times - Times Online

Focus: A deadly bird flu, lethal to some animals, is spreading towards Britain. How serious is the threat to humans and what can be done to counter it? Jonathan Calvert, Sarah-Kate Templeton and Will Iredale report
It is the drug of the moment and Ken Livingstone, the London mayor, has ordered 100,000 courses of it. Several British companies are believed to be building stockpiles. Some individuals are said to be paying three times the retail price trying to buy illicit supplies through overseas websites.

The drug is Tamiflu, a prescription antiviral medicine thought to be the only protection available against a potential doomsday virus winging its way towards Britain.

Earlier this month a deadly bird flu, which has been spreading out from Asia, reached Russia. Yesterday a suspected case was reported in Finland, but the exact strain is not yet clear.

The H5N1 virus has killed tens of millions of animals, particularly chickens in Asia, but also other species. So far the strain has infected very few humans — only about 120 — but in those it has attacked it has been highly lethal. Half of them died.

The fear is that H5N1, like all flu viruses, will continue mutating and could turn into a strain that infects humans and passes from one person to another as easily as the common cold.

“If we do get human-to- human transmission, millions will die,” said Dr Nigel Higson, chairman of the primary care virology group.

“With huge numbers of people using air travel, it will move round the world very quickly. A large proportion of people in Africa would die. In western countries where we will hopefully have an avian flu vaccine and antivirals, 25% of the population will be infected and the death rate will be between 3% and 10% of the population. The fatalities will not just be the sick and elderly.”

Experts believe such a pandemic could cause a catastrophe on the scale of the 1918 Spanish flu that killed 50m people in 18 months.

Last month the Department of Health invited manufacturers to tender for a contract to develop and supply a vaccine against the strain. It is also spending up to £100m buying 14.6m courses of Tamiflu — an indication of how seriously it is taking the threat.

There is one big unknown: whether the virus can or will become transmissible between humans. Scientists have little evidence that it can do so at present and nobody knows whether it will be able to do so in the future.

“Although we expect this virus to become a pandemic we have no proof as yet that it will happen,” said Higson.

“To have a pandemic we have got to have a new virus.”

FLU is one of the most mutable viruses in the world, constantly shuffling its array of genes into new forms. The type known as H5N1 is thought to have originated in ducks from the Guangdong province of China in the late 1990s and drew particular attention because it proved devastating in poultry.

Almost every chicken that contracted H5N1 was dead within 48 hours. In 1997 the first human cases emerged during an outbreak on poultry farms in Hong Kong. Eighteen people suffered respiratory infections and six died.

Although more than 1.5m chickens were slaughtered in Hong Kong in an attempt to eradicate the virus, it managed to survive elsewhere — some animals can carry it without dying — and came back even stronger than before.

In January 2003 a tougher “Z” strain emerged in Thailand and Vietnam, capable of killing rats and later pigs. It also killed 45 tigers that were fed raw chicken in Thai zoos; more than 100 others had to be destroyed after becoming infected. National authorities ordered the slaughter of more than 120m chickens as the strain spread to Cambodia, China, Indonesia and Malaysia. This summer more than 120,000 poultry in six regions of western Siberia were destroyed after the discovery of H5N1.

Wild species — in particular bar-headed geese — were found to be infected in Siberia and Mongolia, which witnessed the mass deaths of birds around Lake Erhel in its Huvsgel province.

Several experts feared that the outbreaks had brought the virus within range of Europe through the flightpaths of migrating birds.

In Holland — where a similar avian flu outbreak five years ago led to 30m chickens being culled — officials last week compelled farmers to bring all their poultry indoors.

John Oxford, professor of virology at Queen Mary’s School of Medicine in London, called on Britain to take similar precautions and Bob McCracken, president of the British Veterinary Association, warned that migrating birds would “inevitably” carry bird flu to the UK at some stage.

However, Debbie Reynolds, the government’s chief veterinary officer, was more cautious after discussing the threat with European Union experts last week; she said the risk of the virus reaching Britain was “remote or low”.

Nevertheless, wildlife is being monitored around the country for any sign of avian flu. If it does arrive it could could easily spread across a range of wild birds — waterfowl are particularly vulnerable — and other animals.

Nor is it simply a problem for the countryside: many migrating birds land at wetlands near cities, such as Barnes, west London, and Martin Mere near Liverpool. Domestic cats that eat H5N1- infected birds could catch the virus, as has proved to be the case in Thailand.

So far studies of the virus’s human victims have concluded that they mostly contracted H5N1 through close contact with diseased or dead birds. The virus is found in both the faeces and raw meat. Most infections have occurred during the slaughter and defeathering of poultry for cooking. It is common in Asia to buy a live chicken at the market and take it home to eat.

Over the past year health officials in Thailand and Vietnam have also investigated three cases that could be the first evidence of transmission between humans.

In each case the victims had cared for an infected family member and then developed the virus several days later. Health officials have not ruled out the possibility that the virus was transmitted by a shared meal or some other exposure in the home.

If there is any human-to- human infection it is extremely limited at present and it is notable that previous H5-type flu viruses have not generally been transmissible between humans.

However, all three global influenza pandemics in the past 100 years have been linked to strains of bird flu that adapted to humans. While scientists emphasise that this risk is always present, they are particularly concerned now because the H5N1 virus is so lethal.

Victims suffer coughing, headaches, fever, dizziness, diarrhoea and internal bleeding. The autopsy of one child who died from the disease last year is reported to have shown that his lungs had been “torn apart” as his natural defences tried to fight the virus.

Professor Neil Ferguson, an expert in flu epidemics from Imperial College London, said: “This particular bird flu variety generates more severe diseases in humans than most bird flu varieties. It would be more like the 1918 type of pandemic than the 1957 or 1968 pandemics . . . that is potentially a very severe event.”

There is also a belief among some experts that pandemics are cyclical and the next is overdue. Forecasting of such catastrophes, however, is an imprecise science. A mutation turning the virus into a form more infective to humans could happen anywhere in the world — or the virus might become less lethal or, indeed, it might not happen at all.

Health officials have cried wolf about flu before and been wrong. When a soldier suddenly died from swine flu in the US in 1976, experts feared an epidemic, predicting that 1m Americans might perish.

President Gerald Ford ordered a mass vaccination of Americans despite the doubts of drug companies over being able to produce enough vaccine swiftly and safely. The flu epidemic never materialised and the US government paid $90m to claimants who suffered serious side effects from the vaccine.

IN judging how to react there are other factors to consider, too, principally the practical limits on protecting yourself. At present there is no licensed vaccination against H5NI and there is not likely to be one in the near future.

Three weeks ago the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in America reported initial success in trials on a vaccine developed by Sanofi Pasteur, the pharmaceutical company. But the vaccine has yet to receive regulatory approval, which could take months.

It would also take years to produce enough vaccine to immunise the whole of Britain, and by then the virus strain could have changed out of recognition.

Marie-José Quentin-Millet, head of research at Sanofi Pasteur, describes its new vaccine as merely a “dress rehearsal” to build scientific knowledge so that it can be adapted if and when a strain of the virus more infective to humans emerges.

In reality, it is likely that a flu epidemic could be months old by the time anyone gets a vaccination. Even if a suitable vaccine could be produced, few doses would reach the general public. A report by the Department of Health says: “International demand for vaccine will be high. Vaccine will have to be distributed equitably and administered to predetermined priority groups first, according to nationally agreed recommendations.”

The priority groups set out in the report are frontline health workers followed by vital services such as police officers, firemen, the army and undertakers. Most of the population are very unlikely to be offered a vaccine. Given these limitations, the health department has chosen to make its block purchase of Tamiflu. Made by Roche, the drug can be used to protect against contracting the virus or to alleviate the symptoms of those already infected. The full order of 14.6m doses ordered by the health department will not be delivered until March 2007. At present the government has a stockpile of 900,000 doses and they would be offered first to the priority groups. For this reason several organisations are trying to acquire their own stocks, including the London mayor’s office, which spent more than £1m buying antivirals to protect key workers in the capital. Doctors advise strongly against individuals hoarding drugs. “If individuals stock up with pre-orders, the medication will not be there for those who need it when there is an outbreak,” Higson said. There is another problem, too: many of the people who have been infected by bird flu were given Tamiflu, yet they still died. So in the absence of medication, what else could you do if there were an outbreak? According to the contingency plan people would be advised to avoid public transport, crowds, long queues and anywhere else they might encounter carriers of the virus. Most effective, it seems, will be to stay at home and wait until the outbreak is over.

Additional reporting: Nicci Smith, Brussels

August 28, 2005 at 11:16 AM in Flu pandemic watch | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Avian-flu pandemic 'inevitable'

TheStar.com - Avian-flu pandemic 'inevitable'

DAVID BROWN
SPECIAL TO THE STAR

Robert Webster is watching his long-held hunch about the origin of pandemic influenza play out before his eyes. It would be thrilling if it were not so terrifying.

Four decades ago, Webster was a young microbiologist from New Zealand on a brief sojourn in London.

While he was there, he performed an experiment showing that the "Asian flu" microbe that had swept the globe in 1957 bore an unmistakable resemblance to strains of virus carried by certain birds in the years before.

Webster's observation was a surprise — and a troubling one, suggesting an origin of the unusually virulent strains of influenza virus that appear two or three times each century.

His hunch, that at least some of these pandemic strains were hybrids of bird and human flu viruses, was correct.

Since then, Webster has become arguably the world's most important eye on animal influenza viruses.

These days, he is deeply worried about what he's seeing.

Strains of an influenza virus known as A/H5N1 (the first letter denoting influenza A, an adaptable virus widespread in the animal world) have been spreading in wild and domestic birds across Asia since 1996. In recent weeks, the virus has struck Siberia and Kazakhstan.

Since late 2003, about 100 million domesticated birds — mostly chickens and ducks — either have died of the virus or have been killed to keep the viruses from spreading. But what worries Webster and other experts is that in 112 confirmed cases since 2003, at least 50 people infected with the H5N1 "bird flu" have died — yielding a fatality rate that outstrips any human flu epidemic on record, including the epochal Spanish flu of 1918 and 1919 that killed at least 50 million people.

Webster's insight about the origins of pandemic flu led to an unavoidable conclusion: If scientists had any hope of preventing a pandemic, they had to keep watch on influenza in many species, not just humans.

At 73, Webster heads a team of four principal investigators and a dozen graduate students at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, where the New Zealand native has worked since 1968.

The lab has chambers for handling high-risk pathogens and uses nearly 3,000 fertile chicken eggs a week for growing influenza viruses.

Elsewhere on the St. Jude campus is a small plant licensed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to make experimental vaccines. The "seed strain" of virus used to make an H5N1 vaccine now in human trials in the United States was made at St. Jude.

Since 1997, Webster also has spent three months a year as a visiting professor at the University of Hong Kong. That gets him closer to the historical breeding ground of new flu strains: China.

With H5N1 steadily gaining momentum this year, he has returned to Asia twice since his Hong Kong stint ended in March. One trip was to brief prime ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations about what they can to do to stanch the spread of H5N1.

The World Health Organization "will help in the initial outbreak," he says he told them.

"But if it breaks through, guys, you're on your own."

Webster thinks an avian-flu pandemic "is just inevitable. One of these is just going to blow."

For nearly 30 years, he and his colleagues have annually sampled wild ducks in the birds' nesting grounds in Alberta, looking for new flu strains. Since 1985, they have also sampled the feces of more than 5,000 migrating shorebirds along Delaware Bay.

H5N1 strains with slightly different traits have appeared several times in East Asia since the first one emerged in southern China in 1996. Last fall, while analyzing a strain circulating after an outbreak in Hong Kong in 2002, one of Webster's researchers, Diane Hulse, made an unusually important observation.

Many ducks experimentally infected with the virus didn't die, even though the strain was highly lethal to chickens.

But one of the duck viruses was highly lethal to ferrets, the animal whose susceptibility mirrors that of people. This meant that killing infected chickens wasn't going to be enough to stop the spread of the microbe. Ducks could serve as a permanent reservoir of H5N1 virus.

The discovery by Hulse and Webster led in part to an extreme program Thailand mounted last November. About 70,000 investigators went into every village in the country looking for sick ducks and sampling the feces of healthy-looking ones. Flocks carrying H5N1 influenza virus were killed.

The strategy appears to have worked. Last year, Thailand had 12 human deaths from H5N1 flu. So far this year, it has had none.

Stretching out before Webster and public health experts is a long list of chores the world must complete if it is to abort the bird-to-man transfer of disease he long ago proved could happen.

Last month, two teams of scientists based in China, one assisted by Webster, proved H5N1 is now circulating in several species of migratory birds capable of carrying the virus to India, Australia and Central Asia.

A task equal in importance to charting the spread of H5N1 is developing and distributing a good duck vaccine for the billions of those birds in East Asia.

Those countries, which collectively are the likely ground zero of pandemic flu, also need to improve their disease surveillance. In particular, they need to develop laboratories capable of safely isolating and testing influenza viruses.

And while they are doing that, they — and the rest of the world, Webster believes — would be well advised to draw up a plan to limit human movement and distribute vaccine and antiviral drugs should a pandemic flu strain emerge despite the efforts to prevent it.

It's a long list with an uncertain deadline, and it's enough to keep Robert Webster at work.

Washington Post

August 28, 2005 at 10:45 AM in Flu pandemic watch | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

ASIS = Australian Secret Intelligence Service

Militaryphotos.net :: View topic - Caught in the act : the ASIS raid

Caught in the act : the ASIS raid (ASIS = Australian Secret Intelligence Service)

Published in:
Wayward governance : illegality and its control in the public sector / P N Grabosky
Canberra : Australian Institute of Criminology, 1989
ISBN 0 642 14605 5
(Australian studies in law, crime and justice series); pp. 129-142
http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/lcj/wayward/ch8t.html

At about 8 pm on Wednesday, 30 November 1983, the Manager of the Sheraton Hotel in Melbourne was alerted by a guest to a disturbance on the 10th floor. The Manager entered a lift and upon reaching the 10th floor, he was accosted by a stranger who said 'Come with me, you're not going to get hurt, but come with me.' The Manager retreated back into the lift, the stranger followed and pressed the appropriate button to return to the lobby. The two scuffled while descending. The stranger's repeated insistence that 'nobody would be hurt' was not entirely reassuring. When the lift reached the lobby, the Manager ran out and called for his staff to ring the police. The stranger retreated to the 10th floor.

Shortly thereafter another lift reached the ground floor. A group of hotel employees were gathered near the door of the lift, and the Manager equipped himself with a nightstick - a 30 cm metal rod covered with heavy duty red tape - which was normally kept behind the reception desk. As the lift door opened, a group of men stepped out. Some were wearing masks, some were carrying weapons, ranging from Browning 9 mm automatic pistols to the formidable Heckler and Koch submachine gun. The intruders moved through the lobby into the kitchen, menacing the kitchen staff on the way, and departed in two getaway cars waiting outside a kitchen exit.

One of the cars was stopped by officers of the Victoria Police a short distance from the hotel and its occupants were taken into custody. When other police officers arrived at the hotel, they encountered a bystander, who rather strangely claimed that he could explain everything that had happened, and that he was willing to pay for any damages incurred. Hotel staff may have assumed that they were the victims of an armed robbery; in fact they were unwilling parties to an incident culminating a year of acute embarrassment for the new Hawke Labor government. The episode in question turned out to have been a resoundingly unsuccessful training exercise by officers of the super-secret Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS).

ASIS, unknown to most Australians prior to its having been thrust, reluctantly, into the public spotlight, is Australia's equivalent of the United States' CIA and Britain's MI6. Although its primary function was the collection of foreign intelligence, it was also required, as a result of decisions taken by the Fraser government and continued by their successors, to maintain a 'covert action capability'. While the precise contours of this minor role remain secret, it appears that such a function involved paramilitary activities - for example, the rescue of hostages (Wright 1989).

To this end, a small group of part-time agents were recruited and brought together for periodic training exercises. The ill-fated visit to the Sheraton Hotel was for the purpose of rescuing a 'hostage' being held in a room by two 'foreign intelligence officers of a major power'. In an effort to make training activities as realistic as possible, it was decided to conduct the exercise in a public place, without notifying hotel staff, local police or bystanders. The trainees were equipped with weapons, albeit without live ammunition.

The episode caused considerable distress to a number of unwitting individuals. One member of the hotel staff at whom a submachine gun was pointed gave evidence to the Royal Commission that the experience was so traumatising he afterwards felt 'emotionally unstable', suffered from a 'lack of sleep' and experienced 'recurring headaches' (Australia 1984, p. 30). Moreover, the potential for physical harm to members of the public was substantial. As luck would have it, what could have resulted in tragedy came to be regarded by many members of the public as farce. In addition to the cost of their accommodation, the make-believe captors and their hostage incurred expenses of $70 for alcoholic beverages. Their hotel room door, moreover, had been smashed in with a sledgehammer.

It was apparent to Mr Justice Hope, the Royal Commissioner who was asked to inquire into the matter, that the ASIS blunder arose from serious lapses in planning and supervision of the training exercise. He fixed primary responsibility for these lapses on the ASIS officer (referred to anonymously as 'P/EM'), who was both in charge of the special operations covert action program and manager of the abortive training exercise. The most obvious deficiency was the failure to notify either the Victoria Police or the hotel manager of the exercise. The decisions were conscious ones.

In his testimony before the Royal Commission, the officer expressed concern that disclosure would compromise security of the ASIS special operations program.

The basic reason that crossed my mind when I dismissed the possibility of informing the police was that I was probably concerned about the security of the actual operation itself, not necessarily the Exercise, and was worried that informing the police might cause them to show some interest in our activities in Melbourne at that time and perhaps even identify some of the operatives. But I must say that I dismissed the possibility of informing the police fairly early in the piece and chose myself on this occasion not to inform them (quoted in Australia 1984, p. 26).

The officer also expressed his belief that hotel management and staff would not become aware of the exercise.

[I] didn't envisage that any of the hotel staff or any member of the public would be involved with the team and, in fact, the hotel staff would not even know the team were in the hotel (quoted in Australia 1984, p. 22).

The Royal Commissioner, noting that properly executed covert operations in the real world have contingency plans, faulted P/EM for failing to have any such plans for the Sheraton raid.

These failures in planning effectively meant that, once the final stages of the Exercise had commenced, the trainees were out of control. Nothing short of a specific order from an ASIS officer of P/EM's seniority at least, would have stopped the trainees from completing their assignment with single-minded determination - no matter what reservations any of them may have felt as to the propriety of their conduct (Australia 1984, p. 28).

The Royal Commissioner also called attention to what he perceived to be a lack of skills and experience appropriate to the leadership of such a raid.

I find it difficult to imagine that a real covert operation, similar in nature to the Exercise, would not require the presence of a leader with the experience, capacity and judgement which a military officer would have (Australia 1984, p. 21).

Whilst acknowledging the desirability of a certain amount of realism in training exercises, the Royal Commissioner contended that the degree of realism achieved in the Sheraton operation was excessive.

It simply was not necessary to break down a hotel door with a sledgehammer, to attempt to restrain the Hotel Manager, to carry weapons, and to display them to unwitting members of the public. The authenticity of the exercise would not have been compromised by a greater degree of simulation (Australia 1984, p. 24).

The Minister responsible for ASIS, Foreign Minister Bill Hayden, was absolved of responsibility for the agent's misconduct by the Royal Commissioner. Despite the argument by critics that security intelligence operations should be under strict ministerial control (Toohey 1983a), Mr Justice Hope concluded that Hayden had no duty to inquire into specific details of ASIS training programs, and the Acting Director General had no duty to inform him. 'Having given his general approval for the project ASIS had commenced, the Minister was entitled to believe that the Acting Director General would ensure that special operations activities were conducted legally, properly and safely' (Australia 1984, p. 18).

According to the Royal Commissioner, 'ASIS management recognised only belatedly the requirement for better supervision, closer direction and tighter control' of the covert action program (Australia 1984, p. 23). A decision was taken in early November 1983, to place the program under the control of a 'Directorate of Covert Action and Emergency Planning', scheduled to be established by 1 February 1984. In the interim, P/EM was denied the planning and administrative support which might have prevented breaches of the law arising from the Sheraton exercise.

Although P/EM bore primary responsibility for the planning and execution of the Sheraton raid, he failed to inform his immediate supervisor of the details of the operation, and to obtain his approval for the aspects which the exercise entailed. In giving brief outlines of the operation to the Acting Director General of ASIS and to the agency's Head of Emergency Planning, P/EM implied that the concealed handguns were to be carried and force was not to be used. Authorisation for the mission was granted on that basis.

The Royal Commissioner further criticised P/EM for not making it explicit to the trainees that force was not to be used in gaining entry to the hotel room, particularly as he had assured the Acting Director General that 'doors would not be bashed down' (Australia 1984, p. 37). The trainees thus assumed that the use of force, if necessary, had been authorised. P/EM moreover, was physically present when the trainees began their forced entry, and did not intervene.

P/EM failed to instruct the trainees regarding the use which they could make of the weapons which they were issued, and regarding their interaction with those members of the public with whom they might come in contact. The Royal Commissioner referred to the failure to instruct the trainees adequately as 'deplorable' (Australia 1984, p. 39).

The Acting Director General of ASIS, John Ryan, was faulted for having authorised a training operation to take place in public, in the Sheraton Hotel, involving the use of concealed weapons by trainees. The authorisation moreover, was given in ignorance of whether or not hotel management or the Victoria police were to be made aware of the exercise, or whether contingency plans had been prepared, or of what provisions for supervision had been considered.

The Acting Director General was criticised for not informing the Deputy Director General and the Assistant Director General of his interest in the exercise and of insisting that planning and implementation of the exercise occur through the normal lines of authority (Australia 1984, p. 43).

The immediate supervisor of P/EM was the Assistant Director General (Operations). He had, however, 'only the most general knowledge of the Exercise' (Australia 1984, p. 44). Whilst he apparently expected P/EM would keep him informed, he was criticised by the Royal Commissioner for taking insufficient steps to ensure that this was, in fact, the case. By virtue of the Acting Director General's passing involvement in the exercise, the Assistant Director General was less dedicated to the supervision of his subordinate than was necessary.

The Deputy Director General too came in for criticism for his lack of attentiveness to the covert action program and to the Sheraton raid. In the words of the Acting Director General, Mr Ryan:

[W]hen you run a Branch which includes a section which is engaged in an exercise, or when you run a Division that includes a Branch, that includes a section running an exercise, in my book you're expected to know what's going on (Australia 1984, p. 46).

The Royal Commissioner was more forgiving of the ASIS trainees. The team leader was criticised for not seeking clarification of the potentially illegal aspects of the exercise, and for seeking to restrain the hotel manager. Mr Justice Hope found that the trainees were entitled to assume that they were authorised to carry weapons, but not justified in brandishing them in the presence of members of the public.

In addressing specifically the Sheraton incident, Mr Justice Hope neglected to confront more general issues of accountability of such a traditionally secret agency. However, he may have dealt with these issues in the course of a secret report. But the precise managerial dynamics of just how an agency such as ASIS is mobilised to undertake a particular task, or prevented from engaging in other activities is a vexed issue. It has, for example, been alleged that 'ASIS officers have actually murdered people in Indonesia' (Toohey 1983a).

It has, moreover, been suggested that when the Whitlam government was in office, ASIS

was unaware of the help it was giving to the CIA by lending two officers to help in Chile at the time of the destabilisation project against the democratically elected Government of Salvadore [sic] Allende; (Toohey 1983a).

According to a previously secret document presented to the Fraser government, Mr Justice Hope himself acknowledged that espionage necessitates crime.

We should not allow the use of any euphemisms to cloud the central issue - that ASIS exists to conduct espionage against foreign countries and that to do it successfully ASIS must probably infringe the laws of those countries and certainly be prepared to do so (Toohey 1983b).

One of the getaway cars was apprehended by the Victoria Police a short distance from the Sheraton. in the car the police found one submachine gun, a sledgehammer, a jemmy, and four plastic masks, among other equipment.

The suspects declined to identify themselves on grounds of national security.

At the time of the Sheraton raid, Australian security and intelligence agencies were already the subject of a Royal Commission. This of course, had arisen out of the Combe-Ivanov affair in mid 1983 (Marr 1984). The Commissioner was approached informally on the day following the raid by the Foreign Minister to request that the circumstances of the raid be incorporated into the inquiry.

Mr Justice Hope began collecting evidence on 2 December. Formal hearings began on 12 December and concluded on 12 January 1984. The report was published the following month. Among the requests conveyed by the Prime Minister to the Royal Commissioner was that of exploring 'whether any breach of the law was committed by anyone carrying out or authorising the exercise' (correspondence: Hawke to Hope, 7 December 1983; Australia 1984, p. 76).

The Royal Commissioner remarked that it would be 'oppressive' for him to make specific findings about individuals' possible breaches of the criminal law of Victoria, and to present such findings to the federal government which would not be responsible for prosecution. Rather, His Honour specified those statutory provisions which seemed to apply. The list was embarrassing in its length.

Firearms Act 1958

Possessing a pistol without a licence s.22(l)
Carrying a loaded firearm s.29E(l)
Possession of a machine gun s.32(3)
Possession of a silencer s.34(l)

Crimes Act 1958

Common assault s.37
Burglary s.76(l)
Aggravated burglary (firearm in possession) s.77(l)
Possession of articles for use in the course of burglary s.91(l)
Wilful damage to property s.9
Intentional destruction of another's property s.197(l)
Possession of implement with the purpose of using it to destroy Property s.199
Aid, abet, counsel or procure the commission of an offence ss.323-4

Summary Offences Act 1966

Offensive or riotous behaviour in a public place s.17
Assault s.23
Assault in company s.24

Vagrancy Act 1966

Being found armed with an offensive weapon s.6(l)(e)
Possessing a disguise without lawful excuse s.6(l)(f)
Possessing housebreaking implements s.7(l)(g)
Being found within a building without lawful excuse s.7(l)(i)
Carrying a firearm with criminal intent s.8(a)

Motor Car Act 1958

Failure to provide a driver's licence or refusing to state name and address when requested to do so by a member of the police force s.29

Common Law

Common Assault
Affray
Conspiracy

The Royal Commissioner saw it as neither appropriate nor as part of his Terms of Reference to make findings or recommendations as to whether specific persons had committed any offence or whether they should be prosecuted.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs on behalf of the Commonwealth government submitted that as

the persons responsible for such breaches of state law as may have been committed in the course of or in relation to the exercise neither intended to commit such breaches as breaches nor committed such breaches for their own purposes but rather in accordance with the directions given to them by persons whom they reasonably believe to be authorised to give such directions, no good purpose would be served by the prosecution of the persons (quoted in Australia 1984, pp. 66-7).

Nevertheless, the Premier of Victoria, upon first learning of ASIS involvement in the raid, claimed that no-one in Victoria was above the law.

Nearly one year after the Sheraton raid, the High Court of Australia dismissed the pleas by the unfortunate ASIS agents that their identities not be disclosed to the Victorian authorities. The Court held that any contract between the agents and the Commonwealth government which forbade that any individual's name be divulged were under the circumstances unenforceable. The names of the agents were duly handed to the Victoria Police. For a while, it appeared that Victorian authorities might proceed, Indeed, state parliament had even passed special legislation to suppress the names of any defendants in proceedings arising from the raid, and to provide for court hearings to be held in camera. To allay concerns that the criminal justice system of Victoria was returning to the ethos of the Star Chamber, the special legislation was specifically limited to the Sheraton incident, and contained a sunset clause which provided for its cessation of operation after two years. But notwithstanding previous remarks to the contrary by Premier Cain that no-one in Victoria was 'above the law', there were to be no prosecutions. Public and private requests by the Commonwealth government not to proceed prevailed in the end. Officially, the Chief Commissioner of Police, on the advice of the state Director of Public Prosecutions, announced that matters would not proceed. It was maintained that as the suspects had worn masks, it was not possible to determine who had done precisely what, and that lack of evidence precluded the laying of specific charges.

There was, however, some justice for the victims of the raid. Shortly after the incident, hotel management initiated legal action on behalf of itself and its employees against the Commonwealth government. In an out of court settlement, Victorian Holdings, a subsidiary of Brick and Pipe Industries Ltd. and manager of the hotel at the time of the raid, received $259,000 in exemplary damages from the government (Australian Financial Review 30 October 1984, p. 81). Employees of the hotel received additional amounts which were not disclosed. It has been reported that the total settlement amounted to approximately $300,000 (The Age 22 March 1984).

The mechanisms of oversight and accountability for Australian security intelligence agencies which were inherited by the Hawke government when it came to power in March 1983 soon proved to be embarrassingly inadequate. Certainly, they were relatively modest compared to those safeguards which had been adopted over the previous decade in the United States and Canada. These sister English-speaking democracies had themselves suffered embarrassing scandals in the 1970s which provided the impetus for significant reforms.

In Canada, the findings of the McDonald Commission that the Security Service of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had engaged in warrantless entry and electronic surveillance, interceptions of mail, and other abuses led to the abolition of the RCMP security intelligence function and the creation of a new civilian security intelligence agency with a clear legislative mandate. Oversight is currently exercised by an independent Inspector General as well as by the Security Intelligence Review Committee, comprised of three privy counsellors appointed after consultation with the leader of the opposition and the leader of each party in the House of Commons (Rutan 1985).

In the United States, evidence of assassination programs overseas, of illegal entry and surveillance of American citizens at home, and of complicity in the Watergate affair on the part of the Central Intelligence Agency led to the creation of a variety of oversight mechanisms (Flanagan 1985). Both the US Senate and the House of Representatives established permanent bipartisan intelligence oversight committees by the end of the 1970s. In addition, Congress appropriates all funds for US intelligence agencies, thereby exercising a degree of fiscal oversight.

Each US intelligence agency has its own inspector-general. Executive oversight for intelligence activities is assisted by the Office of Management and Budget, and by the Intelligence Oversight Board, a panel of private citizens charged with monitoring, through the inspectors-general of the various agencies, the legality and propriety of intelligence activities.

The final report on Australia's Security and Intelligence Agencies was presented to the Commonwealth government in 1985. While much of it remains secret, the Prime Minister did reveal a number of the report's recommendations which pertained to ASIS. These included the recommendation that ASIS no longer have an 'attack function' and that its agents henceforth be forbidden to carry out 'special political action' in any foreign countries. It was also recommended that the use of weapons by ASIS agents be discontinued, and that the agency's existing supply of weapons and explosives be disposed of. On 22 May 1985, the Prime Minister announced in Parliament that these recommendations had been accepted by the government. Ostensibly, ASIS would thereafter stick to what it did best - the collection and analysis of foreign intelligence.

A representative of the Queensland government is reputed to have recommended that Australian intelligence agents be given special indemnity from prosecution for offences which they might commit during training exercises and operations (Kitney 1985). No such policy has been adopted, however. If the Sheraton case is any precedent, future offenders will be quietly diverted from the criminal process once media attention subsides.

The Prime Minister announced additional steps to improve the oversight and accountability of ASIS and related organisations. Henceforth, the Security Committee of Cabinet would meet regularly, and would develop clear guidelines and directions for security intelligence agencies. The Committee would be assisted by a full-time Secretariat in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. In addition, the Secretaries Committee on Intelligence and Security, comprised of permanent heads of relevant government departments, would be expanded to include the Secretary of the Attorney-General's Department and of the Department of Special Minister of State.

Following a recommendation of the Hope Report, the government would also establish an Office of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. The Inspector-General and a small supporting staff would perform an auditing function of security and intelligence agencies as recommended in the Australian Labor Party submission to the Hope Royal Commission. The Inspector-General would be approved to act at the request of the Attorney-General, in response to a complaint, on his or her own initiative.

The lack of strict ministerial scrutiny of ASIS activities which Mr Justice Hope found tolerable nevertheless remained troublesome to a majority of government members. While His Honour explicitly recommended against parliamentary oversight of security agencies by means of a bipartisan committee, the spotty record of the agencies in question, combined with a lingering suspicion on the part of many that the agencies were insufficiently accountable under existing arrangements, carried the day. The Leader of the Opposition referred to these additional safeguards as unnecessary, attributing them to 'left wing paranoia'. The fact that it was the government, and not the opposition, which faced the risk of embarrassment from any future indiscretions was not raised in response. Whether the new oversight structures and a narrower mandate for ASIS would succeed in preventing future malpractice by Australian intelligence agents is a question which may be answered in time.
References

* The Age 22 March 1984.
* Australia 1984, Royal Commission on Australia's Security and Intelligence Agencies: Report on the Sheraton Hotel Incident, Mr Justice Hope, Royal Commissioner, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra
* Australian Financial Review, 30 October 1984, p. 81.
* The Canberra Times, 14 January 1989, p. 1.
* ibid. 15 January, p. 17.
* ibid. 16 January, p. 1.
* Flanagan, S. 1985, 'Managing the Intelligence Community', International Security, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 58-95.
* Kitney, Geoff 1985, 'Sheraton Hotel Bungle May Cost ASIS its Covert Raiders', The National Times 1-7 March, p. 3.
* Marr, David 1984, The Ivanov Trail, Nelson, Melbourne.
* Rutan, G. 1985, 'The Canadian Security Intelligence Service: Squaring the Demands of National Security with Canadian Democracy', Conflict Quarterly, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 17-30.
* Toohey, Brian 1983a, 'Who's in Charge, Bill?', The National Times 2-8 December, p. 2.
* ------------ 1983b, 'Secret Report: Judge Content for ASIS to Break the Law', The National Times 9-15 December, p. 4.

Additional reading

* Simpson, B. 1984, 'The Criminal Proceedings Act and the Sheraton Raid', Legal Service Bulletin, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 194-6.

August 28, 2005 at 12:09 AM in Espionage - general | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

August 27, 2005

Killers in the neoghbourhood - courtesy of Militaryphotos.net

From militaryphotos.net - an amazing account of real life there.

Exclusive: How the death squads came to Washash and turned Shi'ites and Sunnis against one another

By TIM MCGIRK/BAGHDAD

There was a time when Mohammad al-Obaidi didn't worry much about safety. As a barber in Baghdad's gritty working-class Washash neighborhood, al-Obaidi would spend his days styling hair--for Sunnis, Shi'ites, Christians, whoever showed up at his World of Haircuts barbershop. Evenings, he would slip off to play soccer with friends. These days, however, as Iraq plunges deeper into civil unrest, al-Obaidi, 27, a stout, personable man who sports a buzz cut, spends much of his time calculating how to stay alive, wondering whether the anonymous killers who now stalk the streets of Washash will come after him, perhaps at his shop or on the long road home.

Al-Obaidi was snipping away at a customer's hair last month when a text message beeped on his cell phone. CHANGE YOUR PROFESSION, it read, OR ELSE YOU'LL LOSE YOUR HEAD. At first, he thought it was a joke. He immediately called back the number, expecting that he would reach a friend. After all, al-Obaidi is a barber, not a cop or a U.S. hireling, and he wasn't aware that he had any enemies. But in the climate of fanaticism that now prevails in Baghdad, barbers are being singled out by Sunni extremists who say that cutting a man's beard violates Islam. "Do what we say," a stranger on the line told him, "or we'll kill you."

A murder spree has erupted in Washash, as in countless neighborhoods across Baghdad. Death squads, which tend to move in Opel sedans, are entering what once were tight-knit communities and killing ordinary citizens, apparently to stir up sectarian hatred. The goal: to incite a civil war that each side hopes will give its sect dominance over the other. In Baghdad, a city of more than 5 million, there were at least 880 violent deaths last month, according to Faiq Amin Bakr, director of the Baghdad central morgue. (In New York City, with a population of more than 8 million, the total number of homicides for all of 2004 was 571.) And the figure for Baghdad excludes those killed by car bombings and suicide attacks, which, if included, would add nearly 100 to the total. Most of the victims were felled by gunshots. Some were beheaded. Few of the murderers have been captured. "Nobody knows who is doing this killing," says Bakr. "It seems they're trying to destroy our society."

The U.S. military officials in charge of protecting Baghdad would be hard-pressed to locate Washash on a city map. That's because it's one of the few places in the city where insurgents aren't shooting at American soldiers; the U.S. patrols in their humvees tend to roll right past. But the violence in this neighborhood is an extension of the war the U.S. is waging against Iraqi insurgents. If the direct attacks on American troops are aimed at driving the U.S. out, the killings in Washash are a grim portent of the kind of chaos that may lie in Iraq's future, whether or not U.S. soldiers stay on in force. "If the U.S. troops leave, we will have a civil war," says a Sunni ex-army officer who prefers not to reveal his name. "It will go on until one sect wipes out the other."

The killings have dramatically increased in the past two months, Washash residents say. And the list of potential targets seems to include just about everyone. Those murdered in recent weeks include a house painter, a juice seller, an ice vendor, a blind cleric and an herbalist specializing in love potions. Despite the warnings he received, al-Obaidi hasn't quit cutting hair; he doesn't know how else to make a living. But he is taking what precautions he can. He now works only one day out of every three, and he keeps an eye open for those Opel sedans.

Despite the brutality of Saddam Hussein's regime, Sunnis and Shi'ites in Iraq tended to live in relative harmony. Although the sectarian split occurred early in Islamic history and concerns a critical disagreement over who was the rightful successor to the Prophet Muhammad, members of the two groups often trace their roots to the same Arab tribes and frequently intermarry. Saddam, a Sunni, patronized his own kind, giving clansmen top jobs in the army, civil service and secret police, and when Shi'ites in southern Iraq revolted after the first Gulf War, in 1991, Saddam resolutely crushed them. In neighborhoods like Washash, however, there was little friction. Sunnis and Shi'ites played on the same sports teams and shared hubble-bubble pipes over domino games in cafÃ©s. "These two words--Sunni and Shi'ite--didn't exist for us," says Walid Ahmad al-Anei, a Sunni. "We were all Muslims."

But these days, as Walid learned to his horror, the division is all too real. Walid's brother Majid, a bean seller, was targeted two weeks ago as he left a mosque. First his assailants hit him with their car. Then, as he staggered to his feet and tried to escape over a wall, they shot him twice in the head and four times in the chest.

After Saddam fell, violence came quickly to Washash. The first wave of killings was straightforward, motivated by revenge against Saddam's thugs and informers. Few grieved for the victims. Then insurgents began to target anyone who worked with U.S. forces--as an interpreter, say, or a driver. To survive, those who stayed on the U.S. payroll learned to leave Washash before dawn and pretend they were commuting to jobs outside the city. By last December, the killings had taken on a sectarian slant. As more Sunni extremists poured in from abroad to join the insurgency, they tapped into latent anti-Shi'ite feelings among Iraq's Sunnis, prompting some to resort to violence. Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist who heads al-Qaeda's operations in Iraq, fanned the flames, denouncing Shi'ites as worse infidels than the Christian "crusaders," as he refers to the U.S. troops. Shi'ite groups like the Badr Corps, whose militias are apparently armed by Shi'ites in Iran, have responded with equal savagery against the Sunnis.

The revenge spiral is taking a dramatic toll. In December three Sunni brothers from Washash who belonged to the extremist, virulently anti-Shi'ite Salafi sect were gunned down just outside the neighborhood. The family sought retribution. On a subsequent evening, say witnesses, a mob of 15 gunmen, all relatives and friends of the three dead brothers, surrounded the house of popular Shi'ite clergyman Sheik Razzaq. A frail man in his 50s with a white skullcap and a ready smile, Razzaq had tried to stem the tide of sectarian hatred in the neighborhood, even accepting both Sunni and Shi'ite children into his Koran study classes. Sunni extremists found his message of tolerance threatening. "I was sitting with my wife and son and heard someone call out to me from the gate," recalls Razzaq. "As I walked to the door, my wife came up and put a woolen shawl on my shoulders. Next thing I knew, they fired at us through the door." Incredibly, Razzaq was untouched. But his wife Um Hussain lay dying, with 16 bullets in her body, and his son was left paralyzed from his wounds. After the shooting, the Sunni mob went to their mosque and announced over the minaret's loudspeaker, "Allah is great. We have killed the infidel." Razzaq shakes his head as he explains, "I'm a Shi'ite. My wife was a Sunni."

To this day, Razzaq doesn't know whether he was attacked solely out of revenge for the Salafi brothers' killing or his assassination had already been planned. Regardless, the killings then escalated. At least 33 people--Sunni and Shi'ite alike--have been killed in Washash this year, and the pace seems to be picking up. One of the latest victims was Shi'ite house painter Ali Jeri, whose death was especially painful to the neighborhood. Jeri was known as a kind and wise mediator who had many Sunni friends. Three gunmen pulled up in a car while he was painting and shot him in front of his child. Not long before that, Jeri had told his brother Ibrahim, "If I am killed because I am known as a religious man and a friend to many, so be it." That sentiment didn't resonate for long. In retaliation, seven Sunnis were murdered. Washash residents assume that Shi'ite militiamen did the killing.

These days Sunni and Shi'ite friends still sometimes sit together in the cafÃ©s, but the carefree ways of the past are gone. "Beneath our smiles, our hearts have closed," says a former army officer, a Sunni. "We no longer trust them, nor do they trust us." Residents believe the killers come from outside Washash, but they know there are informers within. Armed Shi'ite vigilantes patrol the streets, questioning strangers. Because Shi'ites are in the majority in Washash, the Sunnis tend to suffer more. Twenty-five Sunni men disappeared into police custody on Aug. 12, according to human-rights activists, who say the security forces are heavily infiltrated by the Shi'ite militia. No record exists of the arrests.

Gunmen in a car opened fire late last month on traffic police at a Washash crossroads. The men were chased down. One was shot dead, and three others were captured. They were Shi'ites but confessed to being hit men on the payroll of Ansar al-Sunnah, a Sunni rebel group. What's more, they revealed the names of several informers in Washash. As word of the capture began to circulate, families of the victims flocked to the police station, seeking the names of the assassins. One relative told TIME that police officers demanded a $500 bribe before giving out the informers' names, and in the spirit of revenge, the sum was gladly paid.

Regards,
Hist2004

August 27, 2005 at 06:48 PM in Iraq | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Journey of AK47 from war zone to a killing in the shires

Britain, UK news from The Times and The Sunday Times - Times Online

By Dominic Kennedy
The gun that killed a gangland figure has highlighted calls for international arms curb
BRITAIN’S gangland arms race took a frightening new twist with the discovery that an AK47 rifle made for special forces in Hungary had fallen into the hands of an underworld hit squad.

The Kalashnikov, which fired 26 armour-piercing bullets in three seconds during the 2003 killing of Dave King, a gangster, is the most powerful firearm yet used by hitmenin Britain. Ammunition recovered at the scene originated in the Bulgarian, Yugoslavian and Romanian militaries.

The journey made by the rifle — which passed through the hands of a notorious Belgian gunrunner — was uncovered by Oxfam as part of its campaign against the arms trade.

Three men were jailed this week following the death of King, 32, a former minder to Robbie Williams, in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire.

King, a 6ft 2in, 17-stone bodybuilder known as Muscles, was killed in a drive-by shooting after leaving a gym. He was not wearing his customary bulletproof vest.

Detectives believe that he may have been targeted as a result of a friendship that had degenerated into suspicion and fear. David Sharma, a former friend of King, is being sought for questioning in connection with the murder.

The dangers posed to the public by career criminals who have acquired war-standard weapons were spelt out by Mr Justice Wilkie at Luton Crown Court.

The murder “was committed in a public street in daylight and involved an automatic firearm, and it is only by great good fortune that no other passers-by were seriously injured or worse”, the judge said.

AK47s have been the weapon of choice for guerrilla movements from Vietnam to Afghanistan, Nicaragua to Palestine, for half a century.

The investigation into the weapon’s origin began when it was discovered in a holdall on the Norfolk Broads the day after the killing.

The National Criminal Intelligence Service found that it was an AK47 derivative, made in Hungary, with a special folding stock (shoulder rest) making it easier to handle at close quarters.

The weapon had been used by the Hungarian prison service but by 1992 was surplus to requirements and was sold to Eastronicom, a company run by Geza Mezosy, a Belgian arms dealer.

Mezosy sold weapons legally and illegally all over the world. His contacts included governments, manufacturers, guerrillas and criminals.

One theory considered by the police is that the weapon was sold to hitmen after being brought back as a trophy by a British soldier from the Balkans. Mezosy was jailed in Belgium for two years for illegal arms trafficking to and from Croatia and Bosnia- Herzegovina in breach of a UN embargo during their civil wars.

But Detective Inspector Paul Maghie, of Hertfordshire police’s major crime task force, said that the rifle appeared to have been well looked after. A weapon used in a war might have been more “bashed about”, he suggested.

A more direct route between Mezosy and the British underworld is also possible. The dealer confessed to the police that he had supplied a gun used in a brutal murder in Belgium and had become friends with the suspected killer because they had “a common interest — the arms trade”.

An intelligence source said that Mezosy also had a British contact who was involved in supplying firearms to the IRA.

Hertfordshire police found that neither Roger Vincent, 33, who pulled the trigger on King, nor David Smith, 33, who drove the stolen van from which the weapon was fired, had any contacts in the armed forces that could account for their possession of the weapon. Both men were jailed for life. Similarly Julian Elfes, 38, who booked a hotel room for the assassin and was jailed for five years for assisting an offender, did not have any military contacts.

But detectives did find out that Vincent had made a journey to America, where he went to shooting ranges.

The bad blood between King and Mr Sharma arose as a result of their arrest on heroin- smuggling charges in 2002. When proceedings were swiftly dropped against King, Mr Sharma was heard to say “You grass” to him in court.

The police later learnt that King was trying to have Mr Sharma killed. Under a rarely-used procedure, officers were obliged formally to tell Sharma that he was the target of a possible contract killing. “There was a problem between King and Sharma,” Mr Maghie said. “There was an identified risk. The police had to serve two notices warning Sharma of that fact. He had to flee the country.” The police do not tell potential targets the identities of those suspected of trying to kill them.

The killers were reported to be friends of Mr Sharma. Police believe that a telephone call made by Vincent one minute after the murder to a mobile phone in France may have been to Mr Sharma.

Police are still trying to find Mr Sharma. “We want to question him in relation to the murder of Dave King,” Mr Maghie said. The Assets Recovery Agency has frozen £1.6 million from King’s estate under powers to seize the proceeds of crime, including a £1 million house in Winchmore Hill, North London. Customs & Excise told the agency that King was a drug trafficker and money launderer who could not have legitimately afforded his property.

An Oxfam researcher investigated the trail of the AK47 that killed King as part of the charity’s campaign against the proliferation of small arms. The murder will be added to its dossier against the arms trade. “This weapon would never have ended up on the streets of Britain if there were tough international arms controls,” said Anna Macdonald, Oxfam’s director of campaigns.

“Automatic weapons like this fire 600 bullets per minute and can kill anyone caught in the crossfire up to 800 metres away. They destroy hundreds of thousands of lives every year, especially in the world’s poorest countries.

“Oxfam is calling on world leaders at the UN world summit in New York next month to publicly back an international arms trade treaty to control the deadly flow of arms around the world.”

August 27, 2005 at 06:36 PM in UK | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

A NEW SUN RISING

globeandmail.com

Structural reforms are lifting Japan out of years of stagnation. But the most dynamic force may be a new generation willing to throw out the old rules. GEOFFREY YORK REPORTS FROM TOKYO

By GEOFFREY YORK

Thursday, March 31, 2005

Anyone seeking a symbol of the new Japan need look no further than a swashbuckling spike-haired 32-year-old cyberspace tycoon named Takafumi Horie.

Japan's business establishment loathes him. Television audiences adore him.

He drives a blue Ferrari, wears black T-shirts and jeans, performs on quiz shows, collects comic books, writes bestsellers on how to get rich and infuriates the business elite by violating the traditional protocol against hostile takeovers.

Mr. Horie dropped out of Tokyo University and created his own Internet company when he was 23. Within seven years, he had earned his first $100-million (U.S.). His company, Livedoor Co., reported sales of $294-million and profits of $54-million last year, primarily through Internet services and DVD rentals.

Japan's young generation made him an instant hero when he launched a brash bid to set up a franchise in the exclusive Japanese baseball league last year. Young fans saw him as a bold reformer who would rescue the baseball league from financial ruin. But the baseball moguls refused to let him enter the league.

Last month he returned with a vengeance, stunning the corporate establishment with a bid for control of Fuji TV, one of Japan's leading broadcasters. Backed by financing from the U.S.-based Lehman Brothers investment bank, he used a series of secret off-hours trades to purchase 40 per cent of Nippon Broadcasting Systems, the largest shareholder in Fuji TV. The broadcasters fought back bitterly with a "poison pill" defence, issuing new shares that diluted Livedoor's stake.

The struggle for Fuji epitomizes all the conflicts and tensions of today's Japan.

On one side are the young Japanese entrepreneurs who see Mr. Horie as an icon of change in a stodgy corporate world. They are pushing for new competition and reform in Japan's slow-moving economy, opening the doors to globalization, foreign investment, new technology and fresh blood to challenge the cozy elites who traditionally control industries through cross-holdings. On the other side, Japan's older business leaders have been outraged by Mr. Horie's rude tactics and secret manoeuvring. They denounced him for "stepping into other people's homes without taking his shoes off." They alleged that his takeover bid was "an act of terrorism." And they accused him of allowing foreign financiers to gain influence in a strategically important industry.

Behind this clash is a deeper struggle between two visions of Japan's future. One vision is the confident, new Japan: taking an active role on the world stage for the first time in 60 years, sending troops to Iraq, seeking a seat on the United Nations Security Council, winning global influence through its pop culture and technology, aiming to send astronauts to the moon, opening up its economy, challenging the U.S. for dominance in the auto industry, and even supplying the hottest new superstars for American baseball teams.

The other vision is more anxious and angst-ridden. This is a country that obsesses over the possibility of future decline. It worries about its dropping birth rate and its aging populace. It broods over projections that its population will decline by 20 million in the next 50 years. It frets over the dramatic rise of China and the nuclear threat from North Korea. And it expresses its insecurities through an increasingly nationalistic class of politicians who oppose foreign investment and demand patriotic education in the schools.

Nobody should expect either of these two visions to gain the upper hand. The only certainty is that fundamental changes are under way, and they will have profound implications for the world.

Japan remains the second-biggest economy after the United States, a crucial force in Asian security and a key trading partner of Canada. Its emerging new identity will shape not only the global economy but also the potential for military conflicts in Asia.

Much of this shifting direction can be traced to the arrival of one man: Junichiro Koizumi. Since becoming Prime Minister in 2001, Mr. Koizumi has introduced a new populism and nationalism into Japanese politics, giving the country greater confidence and a willingness to engage on the world stage. He has pledged to revise Japan's constitution, removing the pacifist restrictions that made it unique in the world. He has been willing to clash politically with North Korea and China. He has signed onto the U.S. missile defence system and has sent Japanese troops to foreign combat zones.

Domestically, his populist style has helped ensure that "reform" is the new Japanese buzzword. And he has forced the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party to respond to the public mood. Despite decades in power, the LDP is now compelled to portray itself as the party of reform. "We are changing politics!" proclaims the latest LDP brochure. "Our job is to change Japan."

On the economy, too, Mr. Koizumi has tackled Japan's powerful bureaucracy and promised a new agenda of "reform without sacred cows" -- the kinds of reforms supported by the younger generation of business leaders. On these issues, however, the Prime Minister's record is much more mixed.

Certainly his policies have helped encourage more openness and efficiency in the economy, cutting wasteful public-works spending and reducing excess debts, especially in the banking sector where non-performing loans have been drastically reduced.

While Mr. Koizumi cannot claim all the credit, it is true that, following years of stagnation, Japan's economy is finally beginning to rebound. Its growth for 2004 was 2.7 per cent -- the best performance since 1996. Its banks are increasingly healthy, its corporations are more efficient, deflation is ending, personal consumption is rising, and money-losing "zombie" companies are finally dying off. Land prices in central Tokyo increased last year for the first time in 17 years, indicating an end to the property-value collapse that has plagued Japan since the 1980s.

"Japan is on the verge of showing vitality in its domestic economy for the first time in a decade," said Richard Jerram, chief economist at the Tokyo office of Macquarie Securities. "I think its banking system is basically solvent now, and that's extremely good news. The prospect is that the domestic economy will be much stronger now."

As the economy revives, Japan's younger entrepreneurs are increasingly willing to throw open their doors to global competition and corporate takeovers.

The cyber-tycoon, Mr. Horie, has become the symbol of the new era.

"His popularity among young people is shocking to the older generation, who see him as an Americanized capitalist," said Mari Miura, a political scientist at Sophia University in Tokyo. "In the past, there was lifetime security and you had a job until you died. Now you need to have mobility skills. People feel that they don't have to be loyal to their bosses any more. They feel that their income depends on their performance now. That's why they like Horie. He is challenging the establishment and he doesn't seem to care about social norms."

The most celebrated of Mr. Koizumi's reforms is his plan to privatize Japan's vast network of postal services, including the postal savings system -- essentially the biggest financial institution in the country. However, the postal privatization seems to be largely driven by political factors, rather than a genuine desire for economic reform, since Mr. Koizumi knows that the privatization would weaken his political foes. The postal system and its rural employees were the main stronghold of a rival faction of the ruling party, and Mr. Koizumi is determined to defeat it.

Moreover, the privatization plan has been weakened and delayed by strong opposition within his own party. He has repeatedly compromised with his opponents, watering down the reforms and pushing back the schedule to the point where some of the postal reforms will not be completed until 2017.

"I don't think he is a true believer in neo-liberalism or markets," Ms. Miura said. "His primary motive was to destroy the rival faction in the LDP. In reality, the postal system isn't likely to change very much."

There is, however, a new openness in the Japanese economy, and that is making it easier for foreign companies to invest and trade here. But analysts believe that Canada is failing to exploit these opportunities. Only 2 per cent of Japan's imports came from Canada in 2003, a substantial drop from Canada's 3.2 per cent share a decade ago.

"Canada's commercial relationship with Japan has declined significantly in recent years," said Carin Holroyd, a specialist in Canada-Japan trade relations, in a commentary published this year by the Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada.

"Canada's performance with Japan has been mediocre at best," she said. "Other countries have been more creative, better-informed, and more engaged with the rapidly changing Japanese market. . . . Canadian firms have done relatively little to respond to commercial openings in Japan. The country has suffered economically, and significantly at that, as a consequence."

Japan: an overview
Official name: Nihon

Government type: Constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary government

Electoral system: Universal suffrage at 20 years of age

Head of state: Emperor Akihito

Head of government: Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi

National legislature: The bicameral Diet (Kokkai) consists of the 247-seat House of Councillors (Sangi-in) and the 480-seat House of Representatives (Shugi-in)

National government: Under the constitution, the prime minister must command a parliamentary majority so after elections the leader of the majority party or leader of a majority coalition in the House of Representatives usually becomes prime minister, who them appoints the cabinet

Main political parties: Democratic Party of Japan; Japan Communist Party; Komeito; Liberal Democratic Party; Social Democratic Party

Area: Japan consists of four main islands: Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu, plus thousands for smaller islands. Their combined area is 377,873 square kilometres

Language: Japanese

Population: 126.9 million as of October, 2000, census (estimated at 127,333,002 in July, 2004)

Currency: Japanese yen (JPY)

Exchange rate: 100 yen = 94 cents (U.S.) or $1.14 (Canadian)

Largest cities and populations:

Tokyo, the capital (8.3 million)

Yokohama (3.43 million)

Osaka (2.6 million).

Nagoya (2.17 million)

Sapporo (1.8 million)

Kobe (1.5 million)

Kyoto (1.47 million)

GDP: 504.6-trillion yen

Per capita GDP: 3,954,545 yen

Real GDP growth rate: 2.7 per cent in 2004.

Unemployment rate (seasonally adjusted): 4.5 per cent in January

Inflation: Minus 0.3 per cent

Corporate bankruptcies: Fell 12.6 per cent In February from a year earlier, down for a 26th straight month

Current account surplus: Shrank 28.2 per cent in January from a year earlier to 774.9-billion yen ($7.46-billion U.S.)

Merchandise exports: Rose 1.7 per cent year-on-year in February

Merchandise imports: Rose 11.3 per cent in February year-on-year

Top trading partners: China (including Hong Kong) reached 20.1 per cent of Japan's total trade in 2004 at $213-billion (U.S.) in exports and imports; the United States was second at 19 per cent or $197-billion

Trade with Canada: Japan is Canada's second largest trading partner (after the U.S.), with almost $20-billion in exports and imports

Trade surplus: Fell 21.7 per cent in February from the same month a year earlier to 1.093-trillion yen ($10.36-billion U.S.)

Agricultural output: Japan's agricultural output totalled 8.901-trillion yen ($80.9-billion U.S.) in 2003, down 0.3 per cent

year-on-year

Industrial production: Rose 2.5 per cent in January, from a month earlier on a seasonally adjusted basis, and was up 1.5 per cent unadjusted year-on-year

Government budget: 82.2-trillion yen ($778-billion U.S.) for fiscal year 2005, which begins in April. The deficit will reach 15.95-trillion yen, down about 3-trillion yen from 2004. (The government hopes to achieve a surplus in the early 2010s)

Government debt: Set to climb to around 770-trillion yen ($7,296-billion U.S.) by the end of fiscal 2005/06 or about 150 per cent of GDP.

Foreign exchange reserves: $840.56 billion (U.S.) the world's biggest external reserves.

SOURCE: REUTERS, BLOOMBERG NEWS, ASIA PACIFIC FOUNDATION OF CANADA, THE MINISTRY OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS AND COMMUNICATIONS STATISTICS BUREAU

THE GLOBE AND MAIL

August 27, 2005 at 12:40 PM in Japan | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

GTA gets ready for flu pandemic

TheStar.com - GTA gets ready for flu pandemic

If one million people ill, outbreak could cripple the region
Health officials will meet next month to discuss their plans

RITA DALY
STAFF REPORTER

Every public health unit, hospital, town and city in the GTA is getting ready for a flu pandemic, officials say.

"There's a lot of things going on and have been going on for a long time," said Dr. Michael Gardam, head of infection control for the University Health Network and a key player in pandemic preparedness plans.

"I can say honestly, pandemic flu has taken up probably half my time in the last year."

Among the issues being considered are: the ability to staff hospitals, the need for triage centres to access ill people, alternative care facilities to deal with large numbers of sick people, the development of a volunteer management plan, morgue capacity and absenteeism.

"People have to realize everything we do in life will be affected by this," Gardam said yesterday.

Hospitals, nursing homes, school boards, ambulance services, business and government are working together to limit the impact of any pandemic in the GTA.Gardam said there's only so much that can be done to limit its destruction, which is why preparation is so important. And plans are being readied across the region.

In Toronto, public health officials have been discussing how to battle a pandemic since late 2002, with a pause in 2003 while the city wrestled with the SARS outbreak.

"Our job as public health officials is to make the assumption that it's going to hit," said Councillor Joe Mihevc, a member of council's board of health. "We want to be prepared."

A steering committee has been created with representatives from public health, hospitals and police and fire conducting monthly meetings. And business leaders have been alerted to the risk that a new flu virus could cause skyrocketing absenteeism, changes in demand for goods, decreased travel within the city and have other effects.

Next month, officials will hold a town hall meeting that will discuss ways of battling a possible flu outbreak.

Fears of a global outbreak have risen since the avian virus spread recently from Asia into Siberia in eastern Russia and Kazakhstan.

Health Canada, in its pandemic report released last year, estimates up to one-third of the population could fall ill and more than 50,000 people could die as a result of a pandemic.

About 1 million people in the Greater Toronto Area could fall ill, with at least 420,000 requiring medical treatment. Another 7,000 to 8,000 would need in-hospital care.

By comparison, 375 people in the GTA were sick with SARS.

In Peel Region, health officials are developing a plan that would co-ordinate their efforts with those of police and government, and also create a mechanism for informing the public about possible health risks.

Officials are also looking at measures to prevent an outbreak at Pearson airport. Airports can be points of entry for diseases.

"The region takes this matter very seriously, given that (Pearson) airport is within its jurisdiction," said Dr. Hanif Kassam, Peel's medical officer of health. "If there were to be a pandemic flu ... Peel would be at the hub of the pandemic."

And York Region has hired a full-time nursing manager to help combat any possible flu epidemic, said Dr. Helena Jaczek, medical officer of health for the region.

Gardam, who sits on the provincial and federal pandemic committees, said that a pandemic won't result in hospital closings or the screening of health-care workers.

But schools and businesses would be forced to shut down, which is why the Toronto public health authority is leading co-ordinating efforts and meeting regularly with various sectors.

with files from Alejandro Bustos and Paul Moloney

August 27, 2005 at 12:38 PM in Flu pandemic watch | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Bird flu kills rare civets in Vietnam

TheStar.com - Bird flu kills rare civets in Vietnam

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Bird flu has killed three rare civets born in captivity at a national park in Vietnam, marking the first time the virus has been reported in the species, officials said today.

The Owston civets died in late June at the Cuc Phuong National Park, about 120 kilometers south of Hanoi. Samples sent to a lab in Hong Kong came back positive for the H5N1 virus, said Scott Roberton, technical adviser for the civet conservation program at the park.

He said other animals at the park have been tested - including chickens, rats and other birds - but none have tested positive for the virus.

"It's another good example of how dangerous this thing is," Roberton said. "No animals are ill, no people are ill. We're still trying to figure out where the source was."

The civets were not fed any type of poultry, and 20 other civets of the same species in adjacent cages did not become sick, he said. The World Health Organization and Vietnam health officials are expected to test staff and animal keepers to determine if anyone caring for the civets has been infected with bird flu, he said.

Anton Rychener, head of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Organization for Animal Health in Hanoi, confirmed the results.

Cat-like civets are captured in the wild and served as a delicacy at restaurants in Vietnam and China.

Scientists suspect that SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which killed nearly 800 people worldwide in 2003, was passed to humans from civet cats and other mongoose-like animals sold in live food markets in southern China.

Peter Horby, an epidemiologist for the WHO in Hanoi, said the development would not make people more susceptible to bird flu because humans have less contact with civets than poultry.

"The interesting thing is that it's a new species," he said. ``It continues to surprise."

Bird flu had previously been found in other mammals, such as cats and tigers.

The virus has killed 61 people regionwide, with the bulk of those deaths in Vietnam. Health experts have repeatedly warned that the world is due for an influenza pandemic that could kill millions and cripple economies. They fear the bird flu virus will mutate and become easily transmitted from person to person. So far, most human cases have been traced back to contact with poultry.

Owston civets are globally threatened and found in southern China, Vietnam and Laos.

August 27, 2005 at 12:22 PM in Flu pandemic watch | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Deadly flu: `The only question is when'

TheStar.com - Deadly flu: `The only question is when'

Avian's arrival called inevitable
Experts fear global pandemic
Not if, but when for outbreak of disease: Experts

Avian flu virus is possible candidate for global infection

LYNDA HURST
FEATURE WRITER

The deadly avian flu virus is slowly but surely making its way around the world.

It now appears all but inevitable that it will arrive in North America this year or next, via migrating birds or, more likely, unwitting travellers, as with SARS in 2003.

The virus has already ravaged the poultry stocks of Southeast Asia and millions of peoples' livelihoods. It has also begun to kill other animals, including pigs, tigers and civet cats.

More forebodingly, if still only sporadically, it has crossed over into humans.

In the last two years, at least 109 people have caught the respiratory virus after being in close contact with diseased poultry. With little or no immunity — and no vaccine — about 60 of them died. Perhaps more.

China isn't saying, though it was there that this year's outbreak began, in April, with 6,000 dead wild birds.

The threat is now on Europe's doorstep, poised to enter when infected wild geese and other birds start migrating out of Russia.

The virus was detected there this month in regions as far apart as Siberia and the Caspian Sea.

When and how the virus will hit North America is unknown.

But if a global pandemic is in the cards, there is nothing anyone can do to stop it.

The loss of human life even in a mild pandemic would be devastating; anything more virulent, catastrophic. The cost of a world economy in shambles for several years can only be imagined, say analysts.

Margaret Chan, chief of influenza pandemic preparedness at the World Health Organization, no longer talks about if it is going to happen:

"The only question is: When? I don't think anybody has the answer to it. We have to be on the lookout for it any time, any day."

Specifically, scientists have to be on the lookout for human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 virus, the most lethal of the 16 known strains of bird flu. Once it occurs and is, with luck, detected, the frantic race against time will begin.

It is essential to stop the virus dead in its tracks as soon as it is picked up. Surveillance is key, says Alison Stewart, director of emergency planning at the Ontario Ministry of Health.

"If there's a pandemic, we won't be able to hold it off, so it is really important to contain it to buy time for a vaccine to be developed and distributed."

It may shock the public to learn that no vaccine for H5N1 exists, though American researchers think they found a possible one this month. Most health officials suspect the already mutating virus will mutate further before it takes off among humans. Therefore, until the exact strain is known, a demonstrably effective human vaccine can't be created.

"The U.S. has a `candidate' for a vaccine," says Dr. Paul Gully, Canada's deputy chief public health officer. "They're hedging their bets and going ahead with manufacturing it. But Canada isn't making a commitment to it."

Ottawa may obtain the "seed strain," however, to have in place if the American vaccine does prove viable.

Canada's Public Health Agency has had a contract since 2001 with ID Biochemical for it to launch into immediate vaccine production when the alarm is rung. Only problem is, it will take six weeks to three months to produce the first dose.

The only weapon during that time will be an antiviral drug, Tamiflu. Canada, like most Western nations and WHO itself, has been stockpiling it. Ottawa has bought 22.5 million doses; Ontario, 10 million.

But again, in this realm of unknowns, there is a problem. No one knows if Tamiflu, which retards the progress of ordinary human flu, will also work in the avian-human version.

"Our thinking is," says Stewart, "that even if it's not 100 per cent effective, it will provide some protection, slow down the spread in a person's system."

That doesn't mean doctors should start prescribing Tamiflu for people to hoard, as some already are. That threatens to deplete the available stock. The drug has been earmarked for the earliest patients, for health-care professionals, emergency and other vital workers, says Stewart. If it is misused by people with private caches, it could make the situation worse.

Dr. Carolyn Bennett, federal minister responsible for public health, warned this month that Tamiflu "is not for healthy Canadians to be keeping in their fridge until it is post-dated"

The people most at risk of getting the virus and potentially dying, she said, "aren't necessarily the people most able to buy the drug."

The most-at-risk are expected to be the frail elderly and the very young. But no one knows for certain. The 1918 Spanish flu epidemic that killed 40 million to 100 million people worldwide also started as a bird virus, and it targeted healthy young adults.

Either way, the delay in getting a vaccine and an effective treatment drug could endanger millions, even hundreds of millions, of people. To date, H5N1's human mortality rate is 50 per cent. No country will be safe.

If it happens.

Not everyone thinks it will. Ontario's former medical officer of health, Dr. Richard Schabas, is not convinced that H5N1 is a pandemic in waiting.

"Our science just isn't strong enough for us to know that and it's not strong enough for us to be making these kinds of alarmist predictions that we're hearing from WHO and others," he told the CBC last month.

"This is the third time WHO has told us were on the brink of an avian influenza pandemic. They said it in 1997 and they were wrong. They said it a year ago and they were wrong."

Others wonder if another "Y2K" fear-scenario is at work. In 1999, there was worldwide alarm that computer systems wouldn't be able to cope with the changeover to the new century. Billions were spent warding off an economically devastating global crash.

The crisis was averted. Many credited the pre-emptive action, but others questioned whether the threat had ever truly existed.

Could it be the same with H5N1?

No one is willing to take the chance: "If we sat back and waited for this to happen, it would be too late to tackle it," says Neil Ferguson, a leading British researcher.

His computer-modelling study, published in the journal Nature this month, found a bird flu pandemic could be controlled only if the first cluster of human-to-human infections are detected before they reach 50 cases. Within two days, quarantines, travel restrictions and medicines would have to be put in place.

Given the history of influenza pandemics — which occur about every 30 years, the last in 1968, all originating in birds — the planet is overdue, health officials say.

It is only common sense to prepare, and Canada has been meticulous. The federal plan was issued in February; Ontario's most recent plan was issued in June.

"And if the work is all for nought," says Stewart, "fabulous."

Her time won't have been wasted, she says. "Our mass immunization plan, for instance, can be used for other things, a meningitis outbreak, say."

Gully, at the national public health agency, vigorously agrees. Whatever happens with the current avian flu threat, the constantly updated federal plan will pay off in the future, he says.

"We've built on our vaccine capacity, surveillance capacity, diagnostic and communication capacities, and they're all applicable to other situations."

But if H5N1 does mutate and ignite among humans, he says, "Canada is prepared to respond."

Canada is considered by world health officials to be well prepared, a legacy of the lessons it learned during the SARS outbreak, when 438 Canadians were infected with a previously unknown virus, and 43 died.

But only about 45 countries have pandemic programs ready to launch. And in poorer parts of the world, there is little or no public health infrastructure, let alone emergency planning.

"Even if there is a vaccine," says Gully, "how does it get distributed there?"

Farmers in Southeast Asia often sleep in the same room with their otherwise free-ranging chickens and ducks. They go to markets where live poultry is slaughtered on site. Wild birds that survive an infection in their intestines can excrete the virus for at least 10 days, and the virus can remain viable for two weeks in droppings — making it easy to spread in such sites.

The Food and Agriculture Organization has said for months Southeast Asia, the virus epicentre, needs more than $100 million to build up virus-control programs. Barely 10 per cent has been raised, mainly from the U.S. and the European Union. But it's not enough and not coming through fast enough.

The flypath that migrating birds will be taking down through Europe in the weeks ahead ends in North Africa, potentially striking that trouble-plagued continent as well.

If ever a crisis called for a global response, say officials, an avian flu pandemic is it.

There is no better example of a borderless world than infectious diseases, as former Canadian foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy recently wrote: "Viruses do not observe national borders, nor do they differentiate between the wealthy and the desperately poor."

Virus pandemics least of all.

In the calm before the potential storm, the challenge is to make Canadians aware of the threat without overly alarming them or causing public panic.

And that, says Gully, "is a real thin line."

For details on Ontario's pandemic preparation plan: http://www.health.gov.on.ca/

For the Public Health Agency of Canada `s plan: http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/new_e.html

August 27, 2005 at 12:19 PM in Flu pandemic watch | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Spy craft take gull flight lesson

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Spy craft take gull flight lesson

Aviation researchers at the University of Florida have copied the wing action of seagulls to develop spy drones that can morph shape mid-flight.

The toy-sized drones are being developed for tricky urban missions so that they can zip around tight places.

They could fly into urban environments to detect biological agents.

The drones could shoot darts with microphones into rooms

You could have it shoot a small dart and the vehicle flies away, or the vehicle could change its shape to look like something else
Dr Rick Lind, University of Florida

Nature has always been a useful source for flight engineers

Funded by Nasa and the US Air Force, the unmanned, sensor-packed craft in development could be on missions in two to three years, say researchers.

By watching how seagulls alter their wing shape, and using morphing techniques, the agile craft can squeeze through confined spaces, such as alleyways, and change direction rapidly.

The micro air vehicles (MAVs) could automatically find their way to monitor locations, such as apartment blocks, where suspicious activity is detected.

Although a relatively new area, it is not such a challenge to get a craft to morph.

It is more of a challenge to do it under autopilot, Dr Rick Lind, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, told the BBC News website.

Fly like a bird

"The ultimate aim is to have an on-board autopilot so it can fly by itself through cities to search for bio-agents."

Essentially, the researchers want to take the human out of the loop.

"Autonomy for us involves using cameras or some other sensors to tell us about obstacles in its flightpath. We can assume it will have maps, but we cannot anticipate poles, trees and so on.

"The vehicles will need to identify unexpected obstacles, re-plan the flight path and go on with the mission," explained Dr Lind.

"We realised we needed better agility and manoeuvrability to move in the city so we asked, 'well, how do birds to do it?'" Dr Lind explained.

Research colleague Mujahid Abdulrahim studied the action of gulls in flight to develop the latest version of the drones, which range from 6in (15cm) to 2ft (61cm) in size.

Other US and global teams are also working on morphing drones, such as Darpa (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).

Its craft, said Dr Lind, would have wing spans of 20 to 30ft (6m to 9m), however, which are not suitable for urban environments.

The F-14 is the most well-known example of a shape-changing craft which can shift its wing shape for different manoeuvres mid-air, said Dr Lind.

As a former Nasa engineer, he also worked on a special Nasa version of the F-18, the Active Aeroelastic Wing (AAW), does twists its wings on command.

But the original masters of flight, the Wright brothers, were also an inspiration for the craft.

Their planes used the pilot's movements on a platform to control wing shape.

Dr Lind's craft are constructed of extremely lightweight and strong carbon fibre. The frame itself weighs about 50g, allowing for about 750g of payload.

On board is a small motor, batteries, GPS (global positioning system), a camera and communications equipment.

Eventually, the craft will be laden with sensors as well as communications to gather and send information back to base.

"A mission payload would include a mission camera, chemical sensors, and, potentially, acoustic sensors for listening outside apartment windows, for example," said Dr Lind.

"We have flown with a video camera but do not have chemical sensors yet - they are being developed by other organisations."

What the team hopes is that sensors and communications equipment can be developed to be as light and as power-efficient as possible.

Very small sensor technology is being developed, and some nanotechnology techniques could be deployed to drastically improve the technology.

"There are always smart and nano materials being developed," said Dr Lind. "Currently, they require too much electricity to be useful. But they have great opportunities for the future."

The craft is powered by lithium ion batteries, but there lies the greatest challenge for small vehicles.

"Batteries are being developed all the time, though. Every month there are better ones on the market," he said.

"A lot of development is by the cellphone industry. As they develop, they slowly come to market." Finding small, low-cost circuit boards is also a problem right now.

Swarms and darts

Eventually, the craft will be tiny, allowing them to work in swarms, thus making them even more inconspicuous, the team believes.

"Colleagues have built vehicles as small as four inches across. They are difficult to spot visually. From an audio viewpoint, they are very quiet," said Dr Lind.

Working in swarms, each craft would communicate with each other. A likely scenario would involve a "mother ship" stationed high above a city, he explained.

"It could maybe fly 20 smaller vehicles inside the city. Each small one sends information up to the ship, which can then make decisions about the job and redirect the vehicles to other areas," he said.

One possibility for the morphing craft as they get smaller is using them to plant monitoring devices, such as microphones, into specific locations.

"You could have it shoot a small dart and the vehicle flies away, or the vehicle could change its shape to look like something else. The wings could fall off, for example."

Autonomously controlled drones will be ready in two to three years, Dr Lind said.

"They could be deployed very rapidly," said Dr Lind. "We are comfortable that the vehicles are of consistent quality that they will perform in a variety of conditions."

But in 20 years' time, the vehicles will go from bird size to insect size, the researcher believes. They will, at that point, be able to morph considerably, changing colour and form.

"They will be like biological systems so that they mimic birds much more than they do now."

August 27, 2005 at 11:40 AM in Espionage - general | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

August 26, 2005

Macho drink culture keeps Britain apart from Europe

Britain, UK news from The Times and The Sunday Times - Times Online

By Ben Macintyre
Other countries may drink more, but they do it in a relaxed social environment. Britons do it to the point of violence, amnesia and illness night after night

IT IS a warm Saturday night in the centre of Toulouse and the cafés and bars are still thronged with late drinkers. The crowd is mostly composed of middle-aged men and a handful of wives and girlfriends. I can see no one who looks under the age of 25.

To British eyes, there is something not quite right about the scene: there is no tension, no chanting, no loitering police vehicle waiting for trouble. Indeed, there is no sense of occasion, or self-consciousness, at all. One man says his au revoirs, shakes hands all round; as he leaves, he staggers slightly and holds on to a tree. His companions jeer at him convivially; he grins ruefully and then weaves off down the street.

Compare that tableau with the scene at the Kingston Mill pub in southwest London last week. It is a weekday night, but 15 minutes before closing time the bar is heaving and the drinking is accelerating. A group of three women, identically blonde and identically blotto, have lined up a multicoloured thicket of alcopops. A fight is developing over the Extreme Hunting video game; hard when sober, impossible when drunk, and a recipe for intoxicated confrontation. I am the only person in the bar over 25. Everyone is shouting, and sweating and extremely drunk.

Finally it is chucking-out time, and chucking up time. One of the blondes is sitting on the kerb, while her companions totter around her, screeching with fake laughter. In an alleyway, a young man is being loudly and extravagantly sick. It has been a quiet night, a pale foretaste of what will come at the weekend up and down the country.

Here is one of the more unsettling insights offered by holidaymaking abroad: the extraordinary contrast between the way most countries consume alcohol and the way Britain, as a nation, gets drunk. A colleague speaks with awe of boarding a morning boat on the Danube with a group of beer-drinking Hungarians on a stag party who drink carefully all day but remain paragons of politeness.

My sister, who lives in New Orleans, party-capital of the US, points out that even at the height of Mardi Gras that city never comes close to getting as drunk as Birmingham on a Saturday night. A friend who has just returned from a year in Florence says she never saw anyone drunk in public, let alone the baying, aggressive display of binge drinking that is now a ritualised feature of every town in Britain.

We like to think of ourselves as a nation of hard-headed drinkers, but the simple truth is that the British have never learnt how to drink properly. Somehow, in British history, we have failed to realise the distinction between inebriation, which occurs in all cultures, and drinking to the point of violence, illness and amnesia, night after night.

Tinkering with pub opening hours will not quickly change this, because Britain’s history of boozing has become part of our national heritage. Here is a familiar scene: the boys start drinking at the pub before midday; they eat nothing, and continue all day; by evening, the drink is doing all the talking, and the mood is souring. There is an argument; fists fly, a knife flashes, and a man of 29 dies in a stew of blood and ale on the floor.

That may sound like a typically tragic event in one of the modern “drinking factories”; in fact, it is a simplified description of the death of the playwright Christopher Marlowe in a Deptford tavern in 1593.

Marlowe’s contemporary, William Shakespeare, recognised that the British drink differently, and competitively. When Iago, in Othello, speaks of drinking, he observes: “I learn’d it in England, where indeed they are most potent at potting: your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied Hollander — Drunk Ho! — are nothing to the English.”

Alcohol consumption is increasing in Britain (sales have risen 5 per cent in five years), but is falling in France and Germany. In Germany, the biggest drinkers are aged 20 to 24. In France, the under-25s are least likely to drink heavily, with hard drinking concentrated in those over 55. In Britain, there is no adult age group that drinks more than any other; we drink steadily though the ages.

Some have ascribed the peculiar nature of British boozing to national character, a shared reticence that can only be unlocked by drink. While other nations tend to drink in structured social environments — family meals, social gatherings with children — the British tradition is to drink in groups, usually of the same sex, and without food or restraint.

In the 19th century, people drank to find oblivion from endemic poverty. Today that has been reversed: heavy drinking has become one of the most visible characteristics of British consumerism. In French culture, like ours, drinking is associated with masculinity, but in France drinking too much is regarded as weakness; in Britain, by contrast, the sheer quantity of drink is the measure of manliness.

No other nation counts its drinks the way we do. American student parties, for example, traditionally buy beer in kegs. No one knows, or cares, exactly how much each individual has drunk. The measure of a good party is how much the collective has consumed.

Like all addicts, British drinkers find their addiction interesting and talk about it while doing it. Consider the vast number of British words we have evolved for the state of inebriation: blootered, smashed, wasted, rat-arsed and so on, with more evolving all the time.

We have grades of drunkenness, from tipsy all the way through to hog-whimpering. Eskimos may have 18 words for snow, but Glaswegians have many more for getting drunk.

The French, who do not find drunkenness as funny or as interesting as we do, have few terms for it, but one universal gesture: the dismissive fist held to the nose and turned one quarter clockwise.

The rich history of British boozing further illustrates a relationship that is quite unlike that of any other nation. It is said that Harold’s troops, routed by the Normans in 1066, were still hung-over.

Before the Reformation, British monks toped through eight pints of ale a day. By 1727, a population of six million people was sucking down five million gallons of gin a year, or a pint a week per adult.

And for as long as there has been drunkenness there have been voices raised in outrage. A law attempting to ban public drinking in 1736 declared: “Whereas the loathsome sin of drunkenness is, of late, grown into common use within the realm, being the root and foundation of many enormous sins, such as bloodshed, stabbing, murder, swearing, fornication, adultery and suchlike, to the great dishonour of God, and of our nation.”

But for the language, that might be a police statement from modern-day Kingston.

Hogarth’s portrayal of Gin Lane, with a gin-soaked woman allowing her abandoned baby to tumble from her arms, is an indictment of gin, but not of alcohol in general. In the same year (1750) Hogarth depicted Beer Alley, a place of peaceful, old English virtues. Beer, in Hogarth’s depiction, was a calming, benign tipple.

Then again, Hogarth had never seen the lager lads steaming out of Wetherspoon’s or Outback at closing time.

August 26, 2005 at 11:46 PM in UK | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Expert's terror warning - Asia

The Australian: Expert's terror warning [August 27, 2005]

Elizabeth Gosch
August 27, 2005

OSAMA bin Laden's al-Qa'ida is preparing a terrorist attack on a major financial centre - such as Sydney, Tokyo or Singapore - in an attempt to undermine investor confidence in the region, France's top terrorist investigator has warned.

Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere said some countries in the Asian region were less prepared than the US and Europe for terrorist attacks.

In the US, security was increased in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001, while bombings in Madrid, and more recently London, have put European police forces on high alert.

"We have several elements of information that make us think that countries in this region, especially Japan, could have been targeted," Judge Bruguiere said.

The judge, who has organised the arrest of hundreds of terrorist suspects in the past 20 years, said the capacity or desire of al-Qa'ida to destabilise the southeast Asia region had been somewhat overlooked.

"We forget that the al-Qa'ida organisation is sharpening its strategy -- more than just focusing on so-called soft targets, it is looking to hit economic and financial centres," he said. "They know the economic reality well. Any attack on a financial market, like Japan, would mechanically have an important economic impact on the confidence of investors. Other countries in this region, such as Singapore and Australia, are also potential targets."

In an interview with London's Financial Times, Judge Bruguiere said that there was not enough public consciousness of the terrorist risk.

"This lack of consciousness makes it extremely difficult for governments to pass laws that are pro-active and allow their law enforcement and intelligence services to pre-empt attacks and aggressively anticipate threats.

"There is more work to be done to sensitise the public to the threat."

John Howard agreed and warned that Australia should not imagine it was free from the possibility of a terrorist attack.

"We are, in my view, well prepared, but the important thing is not to have an effective response mechanism after the attack. The aim is to try to stop it occurring in the first place," the Prime Minister said.

"The best way you do that is by having as good as intelligence as possible and also working very hard to make sure that any people within our own community that might have a disposition to behave like a terrorist is identified and dealt with."

Judge Bruguiere visited Australia last month to question Jack Roche, the nation's first homegrown terrorist to be jailed for plotting to bomb Israeli missions in Canberra and Sydney.

He is also heading the investigation into suspected al-Qa'ida operative Willie Brigitte.

Authorities said Frenchman Brigitte, who married former Australian army signaller Melanie Brown, and worked in a cafe in the southwestern Sydney suburb of Lakemba, was plotting to blow up Australia's electricity grid.

August 26, 2005 at 08:09 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

The extraordinary days that changed the face of Europe

World news from The Times and the Sunday Times - Times Online

By Roger Boyes
THE Solidarity revolution that erupted in August 1980 was a mixture of carnival high spirits, faith, fear and pluck. Never in the history of communism had the police state been so openly mocked and the leaders so rudely snubbed.

Then, 16 months later, the system struck back — and closed down the nation. It proved the death knell of communism. For a foreign correspondent, the imposition of martial law on December 13, 1981, was a throwback to the days of 19th-century journalism when articles were sent back to head office by pigeon or on horseback.

Telephone lines were cut. Telexes fell silent. Young soldiers clustered around braziers in the snow enforcing the night-time curfew. Men in uniforms drove the trams and read the television news, which was little more than a long catalogue of forbidden acts.

Our “pigeons” were travellers — contract teachers fleeing for Britain, charity workers, Westerners escaping before the frontiers were sealed.

We disguised our articles as letters, handwritten or typed, and addressed them, in my case, to Dear Uncle Harry (Sir Harold Evans, the Times Editor) or Cousin Ivan (Ivan Barnes, the foreign editor).

There was a line of fake family chitchat to mislead any inquisitive Customs officer, and the rest was news, analysis and reporting from a country that had suddenly been amputated from Europe. Some “pigeons” panicked and flushed the letters down train lavatories before they reached the East German border, lest they be strip-searched or arrested.

But many got through, collected in the West Berlin Zoo station, or at a Scandinavian quayside, or simply posted from Dover as newspapers waited to discover if Solidarity had really been crushed.

Once published, the smuggled articles were picked up by Western broadcasters, Radio Free Europe and the BBC Polish service, and transmitted back into Poland: it was the first chink in the armour.

The post-carnival hangover lasted for much of the decade. General Jaruzelski’s regime came to understand that communism — propped up by tanks — needed to find new sources of legitimacy and so, very cautiously, he tried to open up.

When a gang of secret policemen murdered Father Jerzy Popieluszko, the chain-smoking priest who was Solidarity’s champion, in 1984, they were tried publicly. Foreign correspondents were as shocked as the Poles by the killing. The shy but affable priest, now en route to sainthood, had been a guest at our party. And the trial showed both us — and the exhausted supporters of the Solidarity underground movement — that a power vacuum had opened up in Poland. Jaruzelski could no longer lead, but Solidarity was not yet in a position to take over power.

I remember seeing a politburo member visiting an electric light factory in Warsaw. He smiled — an innovation of the mid-1980s — and held out his hand to the assembled women workers. It was a Friday, they had just been paid and had manicured their nails for the weekend ahead.

No one responded. There was not a spark of goodwill, only icy contempt for their leader. The man’s hand fell to his side and panic flickered over his otherwise blurred features. It was the end of fear; the cement of communism was crumbling fast.

Soon enough the regime grasped that it had to share power with Solidarity and, amazingly, a consensus was reached among the rival Solidarity chieftains about what level of surrender could reasonably be demanded.

The deal struck in 1989 was reproduced in different forms across the disintegrating Soviet empire: communists bought immunity and access to personal wealth (taking up management positions in privatised companies) in return for surrendering their unchallenged right to run the country.

We correspondents, swept along by the 1989 revolution, should have looked more closely at the small print. The seed of much current unhappiness in Eastern Europe was sown in that year.

Solidarity unravelled and a somewhat ramshackle party system took its place. Lech Walesa became Poland’s President, then lost office and became briefly the star of a television programme about angling.

The peasant cunning and political intuition that had made him such a brilliant strike leader were not enough to sustain a career as a statesman.

His weakness, then as now, was that he was too easily bored. In one interview, I spotted — hidden behind heavy but obviously unopened volumes of statecraft — two collections of crossword puzzles. During our talk he had been trying to solve several puzzles simultaneously. Outside, courtiers were waiting for him to make yet another decision.

Next week Mr Walesa — the man who clambered over the Gdansk shipyard fence 25 years ago to lead a revolution — will formally resign his Solidarity membership. “It’s changed,” he said, “and so have I. And that’s a good thing.”

Roger Boyes is the author of The Naked President, a biography of Lech Walesa (Secker and Warburg)

August 26, 2005 at 06:29 PM in Europe | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

For jihadist, read anarchist

The anarchists | For jihadist, read anarchist | Economist.com

Aug 18th 2005
From The Economist print edition

Mary Evans
Mary Evans

Repression did little to stop anarchist violence. But eventually the world moved on and the movement withered

BOMBS, beards and backpacks: these are the distinguishing marks, at least in the popular imagination, of the terror-mongers who either incite or carry out the explosions that periodically rock the cities of the western world. A century or so ago it was not so different: bombs, beards and fizzing fuses. The worries generated by the two waves of terror, the responses to them and some of their other characteristics are also similar. The spasm of anarchist violence that was at its most convulsive in the 1880s and 1890s was felt, if indirectly, in every continent. It claimed hundreds of lives, including those of several heads of government, aroused widespread fear and prompted quantities of new laws and restrictions. But it passed. Jihadism is certainly not a lineal descendant of anarchism: far from it. Even so, the parallels between the anarchist bombings of the 19th century and the Islamist ones of today may be instructive.

Islamists, or at least those of the Osama bin Laden stripe, have several aims. Some—such as the desire “to regain Palestine”, to avenge the killing of “our nation's sons” and to expel all “infidel armies” from “the land of Muhammad”—could be those of any conventional national-liberation movement. Others are more millenarian: to bring everyone to Islam, which, says Mr bin Laden, “is the religion of showing kindness to others, establishing justice between them, granting them their rights, and defending the oppressed and persecuted.” All this will come to pass once everyone is living in an Islamic state, a caliphate governed by sharia law. Hence “the martyrdom operations against the enemy” and the promise of paradise for those who carry them out.

Anarchists have always believed in the antithesis of a Muslim state. They want a world without rule. Their first great theoretician, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, wanted to abolish centralised government altogether. This, though, would not bring the chaos with which the word anarchy is often considered synonymous. On the contrary, a sort of harmonious order would ensue, the state being replaced by a system of autonomous groups and communities, glued together by contract and mutual interest in place of laws. Justice, argued this essentially non-violent man, was the “central star” governing society.

Though Proudhon is remembered for the dictum, “Property is theft!” he actually believed that a man had the right to possess a house, some land and the tools to work it. This was too much for Mikhail Bakunin, a revolutionary nationalist turned anarchist who believed in collective ownership of the means of production. He believed, too, that “the passion for destruction is also a creative urge,” which was not a description of the regenerative workings of capitalism but a call to the barricades. Regeneration, however, was very much an anarchist theme, just as it is a jihadist one. As one of anarchism's leading interpreters, George Woodcock, has put it, “It is through the wrecks of empires and faiths that the anarchists have always seen the glittering towers of their free world arising.”

What prompts the leap from idealistic thought to violent action is largely a matter for conjecture. Every religion and almost every philosophy has drawn adherents ready to shed blood, their own included, and in the face of tyranny, poverty and exploitation, a willingness to resort to force is not hard to understand. Both anarchism and jihadism, though, have incorporated bloodshed into their ideologies, or at least some of their zealots have. And both have been ready to justify the killing not just of soldiers, policemen and other agents of the state, but also of civilians.

The heads roll

For anarchists, the crucial theory was that developed in Italy, where in 1876 Errico Malatesta put it thus: “The insurrectionary deed, destined to affirm socialist principles by acts, is the most efficacious means of propaganda.” This theory of “propaganda by deed” was cheerfully promoted by another great anarchist thinker, Peter Kropotkin, a Russian prince who became the toast of radical-chic circles in Europe and America. Whether the theory truly tipped non-violent musers into killers, or whether it merely gave a pretext to psychopaths, simpletons and romantics to commit murders, is unclear. The murders, however, are not in doubt. In deadly sequence, anarchists claimed the lives of President Sadi Carnot of France (1894), Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, the prime minister of Spain (1897), Empress Elizabeth of Austria (1898), King Umberto of Italy (1900), President William McKinley of the United States (1901) and José Canalejas y Méndez, another Spanish prime minister (1912).

Such assassinations, it may be argued, were less similar to al-Qaeda's than to those of the Narodniki, the members of the Russian Party of the People's Will, who believed in “destroying the most powerful person in government” to undermine its prestige and arouse the revolutionary spirit. This they had undoubtedly done in 1881 by murdering Tsar Alexander II, even though he had been a reformer and, indeed, a liberator of the serfs. In truth, the practice of assassination is as old as the hills, though it got its name only in the 11th-13th centuries when it was followed by the Nizari Ismailiyun, a Shia sect that considered the murder of its enemies—conducted under the influence of hashish (hence assassin)—to be a religious duty.

Mr bin Laden would surely delight in some dramatic assassinations today. Presidents and prime ministers, however, do not nowadays sit reading the newspaper on the terraces of hotels where out-of-work Italian printers wander round with revolvers in their pockets, as Cánovas did, or walk the streets of Madrid unprotected while looking into bookshop windows, as Canalejas did. So Mr bin Laden must content himself with the assertion that on September 11th, “God Almighty hit the United States at its most vulnerable spot. He destroyed its greatest buildings...It was filled with terror from its north to its south and from its east to its west.”

The anarchists, too, were happy to resort to more indiscriminate acts of terror. “A pound of dynamite is worth a bushel of bullets,” said August Spies, the editor of an anarchist newspaper in Chicago, in 1886. His readers evidently agreed. A bomb thrown soon afterwards was to kill seven policemen breaking up a strikers' gathering in the city's Haymarket Square.

France, too, had its dynamitards. One of their bombs blew up the Restaurant Véry in Paris in 1892. Another, some months later, which was destined for a mining company's offices, killed six policemen and set off a flurry of wild rumours: acid had been placed in the city's water supply, it was said, churches had been mined and anarchists lurked round every corner. A year later a young anarchist, unable to earn enough to feed himself, his lover and his daughter, decided to take his own life—and at the same time make a protest. Ready to bomb but unwilling to kill, he packed some nails and a small charge of explosive into a saucepan and lobbed it from the public gallery into the Chamber of Deputies. Though it caused no deaths, he was executed—and then avenged with another bomb, this one in the Terminus café at the Gare St-Lazare which killed one customer and injured 19. The perpetrator of this outrage, designed to “waken the masses”, regretted only that it had not claimed more victims. A popular street song boasted:

It will come, it will come,
Every bourgeois will have his bomb.

And many were inclined to agree. Four more bombs went off in Paris in the next two months.

Other countries were hardly more peaceful. A bomb was lobbed into a monarchist parade in Florence in 1878, another into a crowd in Pisa two days later. In 1893, two bombs were thrown into the Teatro Liceo in Barcelona, killing 22 opera-goers on the first night of the season. A year later a French anarchist blew himself up by accident in Greenwich Park in London, presumably on his way to the observatory there. Two years later, at least six people taking part in a religious procession in Barcelona were blown to bits by an anarchist bomb. Countless attempts were also made on the lives of bigger names, such as King Alfonso XII of Spain (1878), Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany (May and June 1878), Andrew Carnegie's business partner, Henry Clay Frick (Pittsburgh, 1892), a Serbian minister (Paris, 1893) and King Alfonso XIII and his English bride (Madrid, on their wedding day, 1906). In this last incident alone 20 bystanders died.

Then, as now, alarm and consternation broke out. Admittedly, violent attacks on prominent figures were quite frequent: one American president had been assassinated in 1865 (Lincoln) and another in 1881 (Garfield), and seven attempts were made on Queen Victoria's life before her reign ended in 1901, none of them by anarchists. Even so, governments could hardly do nothing. The response of some was repression and retribution, which often provoked further terrorist violence. Germany arrested 500 people after the second attack on the kaiser, many for “approving” of the attempts on his life. Spain was particularly prone to round up the usual suspects and torture them, though it also passed new laws. After the Liceo bombing, it brought in courts-martial for all crimes committed with explosives, and only military officers were allowed to be present during the trial of the supposed bombers.

France, too, resorted to unusual measures. After the bombing of the French Chamber of Deputies, 2,000 warrants were issued, anarchist clubs and cafés were raided, papers were closed down and August Vaillant, the bomber, was tried, found guilty and sentenced to death in a day. An apologist who declared that not a single man in France would grieve for the president if he confirmed the sentence (as he did), and then was assassinated (as he was), was jailed for two years for incitement to murder. The French parliament made it a crime not just to incite sedition but also to justify it. Criminal “associations of malefactors” were defined by intent rather than by action, and all acts of anarchist propaganda were banned.

Similarly, in Britain soon after last month's bombings, the prime minister, Tony Blair, announced that “condoning or glorifying terrorism” anywhere, not just in the United Kingdom, would become a crime. Places of worship used as centres for “fomenting extremism” are to be closed down. Measures will be taken to deport foreigners “fostering hatred, advocating violence to further a person's beliefs, or justifying or validating such violence.” Naturalised Britons engaged in “extremism” will be stripped of their citizenship.

Jihadists, of course, cross borders, and many are presumed to be indoctrinated by foreigners, even if they commit their deeds at home. So it was too with the anarchists, even though they often plotted and acted alone. Many of the ideas came from Russia. Besides Bakunin, Russia also produced Kropotkin, “an uncompromising apostle of the necessity of violence”, according to Barbara Tuchman in “The Proud Tower”.

Italy, by contrast, produced many of the assassins: for example, those who killed Carnot, Cánovas, Empress Elizabeth and King Umberto. It also exported utopians who founded anarchist settlements like the Cecilia colony in Brazil. Germany, too, had its share of fanatics, including Johann Most, the editor of an incendiary New York newspaper, Freiheit, and many of the Jewish anarchists who congregated in London's East End. France also sent anarchos abroad: a prominent theorist, Elisée Reclus, taught in Brussels. The man who shot McKinley was the child of Polish immigrants to America. And Switzerland, like England, played host to exiles who came and went with considerable freedom.

No wonder, then, that anti-foreigner feeling ran high in many places. In the United States, President Theodore Roosevelt asked Congress to exclude anyone who believed in “anarchistic principles” and, by treaty, to make the advocacy of killing an offence against international law. Congress duly obliged with an act that kept out anyone “teaching disbelief in or opposition to all organised government”.

By then an international conference had been held (in 1898) at the behest of Italy to seek help in fighting anarchism. The Italians did not get all they wanted: Belgium, Britain and Switzerland refused to abandon the right of asylum or to extradite suspected anarchists. But in 1893, just after the Liceo bombing, Britain had reluctantly banned open meetings of anarchists after the Liberal home secretary, H.H. Asquith, had come under attack for allowing an anarchist meeting to commemorate the Chicago Haymarket martyrs.

The vast majority of anarchists, like the vast majority of Islamists, were not violent, and some of those who once believed in bloodshed, notably Kropotkin, were to turn against it in time. But those who relished indiscriminate violence used an argument with striking similarities to that used by Mr bin Laden. Thus Emile Henry, who had left the bomb in the café at the Gare St-Lazare, was to justify his act by saying that those in the café were all “satisfied with the established order, all the accomplices and employees of Property and the State...There are no innocent bourgeois.” For his part, Mr bin Laden, in his “Letter to America” of November 2002, justifies the “aggression against civilians for crimes they did not commit” with a slightly more sophisticated variant. They deserved to die, he said, because, as American citizens, they had chosen “their government by way of their own free will, a choice which stems from their agreement to its policies.”

Such sentiments recall the characters of Conrad's “The Secret Agent” and Fyodor Dostoevsky's “Devils”. Inspired by 19th-century anarchist intellectuals and events, they describe men of almost autistic lack of empathy and contorted moral sense. For Conrad's protagonist, nicknamed the Professor, the world's morality

was artificial, corrupt and blasphemous. The way of even the most justifiable revolutions is prepared by personal impulses disguised into creeds. The Professor's indignation found in itself a final cause that absolved him from the sin of turning to destruction as the agent of his ambition. To destroy public faith in legality was the imperfect formula of his pedantic fanaticism; but the subconscious conviction that the framework of an established social order cannot be effectually shattered except by some form of collective or individual violence was precise and correct. He was a moral agent—that was settled in his mind. By exercising his agency with ruthless defiance he procured for himself the appearances of power and personal prestige. That was undeniable to his vengeful bitterness. It pacified its unrest; and in their own way the most ardent of revolutionaries are perhaps doing no more but seeking for peace in common with the rest of mankind—the peace of soothed vanity, of satisfied appetites, or perhaps of appeased conscience.

Anarchists like the Professor, a quiet man who went round with a bomb in his pocket that he could detonate with the squeeze of a rubber ball should he be arrested, were difficult to detect and impossible to deter. So why did their wave of terror pass? Not, it seems, because of the measures taken to deter them. The main reason, rather, was that the world became consumed with the first world war, the Russian revolution, the fight against fascism and the struggles against colonialism. Another was that, after a while, the more rational anarchists realised that terrorism seldom achieves the ends desired of it—as the IRA has recently acknowledged.

But in truth the wave did not entirely pass; it merely changed. The anarchist terrorists of 1880-1910 were replaced by other terrorists—Fenians, Serb nationalists (one killed the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and thus sparked the first world war), Bolsheviks, Dashnaks (revolutionary Armenians), Poles, Macedonians, Hindu nationalists (among them the killers of Mahatma Gandhi), fascists, Zionists, Maoists, Guevarists, Black Panthers, Red Brigades, Red Army Fractions, Palestinians and even al-Qaeda's jihadists. Few of these shared the anarchists' explicit aims; all borrowed at least some of their tactics and ideas.

And the world went on. It probably would even if yesterday's dynamitards become today's plutoniumards. But terrorism is unlikely to be expunged. As long as there are men like Conrad's Professor, there will be causes to excite them, and therefore deeds to terrify their fellow citizens.

Sources:

“
Anarchism”, by George Woodcock, Pelican Books, 1962.

“The Anarchists”, by James Joll, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1964.

“The Proud Tower”, by Barbara W. Tuchman, Macmillan, 1962.

“How Russia Shaped the Modern World”, by Steven G. Marks, Princeton University Press, 2003.

“East End Jewish Radicals 1875-1914”, by William J. Fishman, Five Leaves Publications, 2004.

“Violent London: 2,000 Years of Riots, Rebels and Revolts”, by Clive Bloom, Sidgwick & Jackson, 2003.

August 26, 2005 at 12:25 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Lessons from anarchy

Terrorism | Lessons from anarchy | Economist.com

Today's jihadists, like yesterday's anarchists, will fade. Terrorism won't

Mary Evans
Mary Evans

ON THE face of it, anarchists, who believe in no government, have little in common with jihadists, who believe in imposing a particularly rigid form of government on everyone. The theoreticians for both movements have often been bearded and angry, of course, and their followers have readily taken to the bomb. But there the similarities end, don't they, so what lessons can be drawn from a bunch of zealots who flourished over 100 years ago and whose ideology now counts for practically nothing?

At least two, actually. The first is that repression, expulsion and restrictions on free speech do little to end terrorism. All were tried, often with great vigour, at the end of the 19th century when the anarchist violence that terrified much of Europe and parts of America was at its zenith. As our report makes clear, governments had good reason to respond. Austria, France, Italy, Spain and the United States all lost an empress, king, president or prime minister to anarchist assassins. Such murders were so common that King Umberto of Italy, throwing himself aside to escape a stabbing, casually remarked, “These are the risks of the job.” (He was later shot dead.) Anarchists also killed lots of less exalted innocents.

Then, as now, governments responded to the clamour for action with measures to criminalise anyone preaching or condoning violence and, if they were foreign, to keep them out of the country. Spain brought in courts-martial for bombers, foreshadowing perhaps America's military commissions for Guantánamo trials. Britain, with a tradition of tolerating dissent, became home to many continental radicals, such as those driven out of Germany after the two attempts on Kaiser Wilhelm I's life in 1878. Britain, however, was not afflicted with bombings as other countries were. Spain, where every kind of retribution including the crudest of tortures were the standard response, suffered many more outrages. Yet few lessons seem to have been learnt. Several of the new measures announced on August 5th by Tony Blair, Britain's prime minister, echo almost exactly those passed in France after a bomb had been lobbed into the French parliament in 1893.

In both Britain and America, new attacks are said to be inevitable. Yet every new attack is followed by new measures, as though such measures could have averted an inevitability had they been in place before. They could not, both logically and because terrorism cannot be defeated, as countries can be. That is the second lesson to be drawn from the anarchists.

The enduring allure of idealism and violence

Throughout history, men seized with a sense of injustice, or purpose, or hatred, or inadequacy, have resorted to bloodshed. The anarchists were not the first. They were merely particularly potent believers in violence in the furtherance of an idealistic, millenarian vision. Jihadists are too. Most anarchists, like most Islamists, were not violent. But, like the jihadists, they had their firebrands and, like the jihadists, they had an ideology that could be twisted to appeal to a certain kind of wounded utopian lacking all capacity for empathy.

Such people can be caught, sometimes before they have done anything terrible. That argues for excellent intelligence and police work. Perhaps their numbers can be reduced by ameliorating the grievances that lend them the justification for their attacks. That argues for political action. And certainly the public needs reassurance. That argues for honest explanation—that terrorism does not threaten any western government, that retribution, like police injustices committed in nervous haste, is likely to provoke more violence, that new restrictions are unlikely to bring new safety. Honest explanation, and simple history, also suggest that this wave of terror will pass, just as the anarchist wave passed, but that terrorism will not—not as long as strange men are captivated by strange ideas. The jihadists will go. Others will take the stage.

August 26, 2005 at 12:24 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

August 25, 2005

US predicts Zarqawi Africa flight

BBC NEWS | Africa | US predicts Zarqawi Africa flight

A top US general has said al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, will try to relocate to the Horn of Africa if Iraq is stabilised.

Major-General Douglas Lute cited Yemen, Somalia, Sudan and Ethiopia as likely "safe havens" for jihadists.

He said that "vast ungoverned spaces" of east Africa were likely to appeal to Zarqawi's insurgents as operations in Iraq and Afghanistan become difficult.

US troops based in Djibouti already aim to stop infiltration from the Red Sea.

"There will come a time when Zarqawi will face too much resistance in Iraq and will move on," Maj Gen Lute said.

He warned that Zarqawi's network remained determined to demonstrate a "show of force" in the run-up to Iraq's constitutional referendum and subsequent elections.

"He has to go down fighting," Maj Gen Lute said.

Wider concern

The warning is the latest in a series issued by the US that al-Qaeda would try to reconvene in east Africa after its safe haven in Afghanistan was removed in 2001, when a US-led attack ousted the Taleban.

Since then the 900-strong US force has been deployed to Djibouti in an effort to stop militants entering the Horn of Africa at its tip.

US troops also train Eritrean and Ethiopian forces.

The BBC's Martin Plaut says US work in Somalia, where Islamic fundamentalists already have a foothold, has been hampered by the absence of an effective government.

The US recently warned that Africa's Sahel countries, including Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Chad, could become a terrorist haven, and has carried out troop exercises and training efforts in the region.

Maj Gen Lute is operations head at US Central Command, and is responsible for planning the way ahead over 12 to 18 months for almost 140,000 US troops, 8,000 British soldiers and 15,000 other foreign troops currently in Iraq.

August 25, 2005 at 05:29 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Bird flu 'will spread to the UK'

BBC NEWS | UK | Bird flu 'will spread to the UK'

Avian flu will inevitably spread to Britain through wild migrating birds, the president of the British Veterinary Association has warned.

Dr Bob McCracken said water fowl, such as ducks and geese, would be most at risk, followed by free-range poultry.

UK officials are urging poultry keepers to ensure high levels of bio-security.

Following the discovery of the flu in Russia, the European Union called on members to step up checks on flocks of migratory birds.

"The majority of our reared birds are still intensively reared and bred in large houses that are wild bird-proof"

Dr McCracken
President of the British Veterinary Association

A spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said guidance on how to assess the risk of avian flu will be issued to vets and industry across Britain.

However, it was not advising British farmers to follow the Dutch government's example of advising that birds be kept inside.

Defra officials earlier said the risk of the virus spreading to the UK was very low and that taking the same steps as those recently undertaken in the Netherlands would be "disproportionate".

Dr McCracken, and the EU Commission, agreed with this advice, but said it was important that adequate surveillance was in place.

Speaking at a gathering of European vets, Dr McCracken said: "Wild birds that have migratory pathways over Europe and the UK will become infected. It is inevitable that bird flu will be carried to this country by migrating birds.

"The majority of our reared birds are still intensively reared and bred in large houses that are wild bird-proof. The danger is to free range birds and to backyard flocks."

Import bans

His calls for greater surveillance were mirrored by the European Commission spokesman for health and consumer protection, Philip Tod.

Speaking after the EU meeting on Thursday, Mr Tod also said EU poultry import bans would be enforced.

"The key to this problem is early detection and rapid action," he added.

The Commission, he said, would make financing available to facilitate monitoring but he did not give a figure.

The Dutch measures were put in place after an outbreak of a type of bird flu which has killed at least 57 people in South East Asia was confirmed in Russia.

"If it got here, it would economically disastrous, never mind the human impact"
Professor Hugh Pennington

There are grave concerns of a global pandemic stemming from the H5N1 type if it mutates into a form which could spread easily from human to human.

It is feared that up to 50 million people around the world could die in a flu outbreak, including more than 50,000 in the UK.

In the UK, every GP in the country has been issued with guidance on how to deal with a possible outbreak.

Professor Hugh Pennington, the scientist who led the investigation into Scotland's e-coli outbreak which killed more than 20 people, said the issue was "very, very serious".

"This is a very nasty virus. It's doing enormous damage in the Far East at the moment. It's got into Russia.

"If it got here, it would be economically disastrous, never mind the human impact."

He also said an outbreak could claim more lives than the 250,000 lost in the UK - and the 40 million worldwide - when an influenza epidemic struck in 1918.

Farmers' leaders have also been meeting the government to discuss precautions against bird flu.

August 25, 2005 at 04:12 PM in UK | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

GTA firms join forces to fight flu pandemic

TheStar.com - GTA firms join forces to fight flu pandemic

Business leaders form advisory group
Examine methods for vaccine delivery

TYLER HAMILTON
BUSINESS REPORTER

Toronto's public health authority is setting up an advisory group of GTA business leaders this fall to explore ways of keeping the city's economic engine running in the event of a future flu pandemic, the Toronto Star has learned.

Meetings have already been held with key business leaders over the past few months, including those from the financial sector, and several large organizations are part of a pilot project to test a method for distributing vaccines to high-priority groups within large companies, such as providers of gas, hydro, and public transportation.

"There's an increase of interest from the business community," said Geri Nephew, lead manager for pandemic and influenza planning with Toronto Public Health. "We're helping them identify their risk with respect to pandemic influenza and what might be the impact on their business."

The impact could be huge.

Sherry Cooper, chief economist of BMO Nesbitt Burns, is predicting that, if a strain of the avian H5N1 virus that's spreading throughout Asia and eastern Russia in birds mutates to allow easy human-to-human transmission, the effect on the global economy would likely be "devastating."

Borders would close. Inventories would decline. Workforces would be crippled. Markets would plunge.

"Any disruption of the free movement of goods, services and people would undoubtedly spin into a decline in economy activity," Cooper said, adding the result would be negative growth of gross domestic product in most major regions of the world.

She said an executive committee and the board of Bank of Montreal have been busy working on emergency response plans in the event of pandemic-like events. "It's also my understanding that the other banks are doing this as well."

Toronto Public Health has been working on a pandemic influenza plan for the city since December 2002. It was put on hold in 2003 during the SARS crisis, but resumed in January 2004. The agency anticipates a final draft of the plan will be completed in October.

According to a recent staff report, "businesses in Toronto will be significantly affected by employee illness and absenteeism, changes in supply (and) demand of products and services, decreased travel within the city, and societal disruption."

Nephew said the working assumption is that 35 per cent of the population will fall sick in the event of a pandemic, but the impact on the workforce could be much worse because, "if there is a sick family member or sick child in the home, one of the parents is going to have to stay home. That's a reality businesses will need to think about."

What's clear is that some industry leaders haven't been thinking about it.

"This really hasn't been talked about at all. It just hasn't been on the radar screen," said Buzz Hargrove, head of the Canadian Auto Workers, the country's largest private-sector union. A pandemic would not only cause a major disruption in the assembly lines of Canada's auto manufacturing plants, it also could tighten borders and make it impossible to get the parts needed to assemble vehicles.

Companies that rely on just-in-time delivery of inventory would be hit hardest, said Donald Coxe, global portfolio strategist for BMO Financial Group.

He used the example of computer manufacturers that assemble products largely from parts out of Asia, such as Dell Inc. "What you'd have for that industry would be chaos completely let loose."

Sensing a need for better education and awareness in the business community, Philadelphia-based medical consultancy International SOS, which has an office in Toronto, launched a service this month that helps corporations plan for pandemics.

Its customer base is a who's who of corporate Canada, including telecommunications giant Nortel Networks Corp., and so far a handful of Canadian companies have already signed up for its pandemic planning services.

Dr. Myles Druckman, vice-president of medical assistance for International SOS, said that, as governments worldwide put programs in place and begin stockpiling antiviral drugs to slow the spread of outbreaks, most businesses are just waking up to the issue.

"We're in the infancy stages," said Toronto-born Druckman. "Most companies are still getting their hands around this."

He said companies with exposure in current avian flu hotspots — such as China and South Korea — have shown most interest, largely because of fears about how an outbreak would affect their global supply chain. But companies doing significant business in Asia and relying on frequent travel to the region are also growing concerned.

Brampton-based Nortel, for instance, has cited China, India, South Korean and other Asia countries as high-growth markets and is significantly building up its presence in the region.

Nortel spokesperson Joanne Latham said the company has had a comprehensive business continuity plan in place since the SARS outbreak. She said the company, like many others, would likely resort to video and teleconferencing technologies to conduct "virtual meetings" and training sessions for customers, to cut down on travel and reduce person-to-person contact in the workplace.

"We would rely on that pretty heavily if a travel ban were to come into play," said Latham.

Druckman said planning measures could include the creation of basic workplace hygiene and infection-control policies to the development of "corpse management" guidelines for human resources departments, which would have to respond to and report potentially large death rates among employees.

SOS International has gone so far as to advise some companies — among them Coca Cola, Motorola and Exxon Mobil — to stockpile antivirus drugs such as Tamiflu, which the World Health Organization and dozens of national governments have begun to accumulate.

"Some organizations are doing this. Some are considering it. Others are not considering it," said Druckman. He would not say if any Canadian firms have engaged in the strategy.

Canada has about 22.5 million Tamiflu pills stockpiled, enough to treat roughly 8 per cent of the population.

Corporate stockpiling of Tamiflu, if the practice were to emerge, would likely call into question whether corporate interests and dollars are undermining government efforts to protect the general public.

Already, consumers are beginning to stockpile the antivirus drug, with Canadian and U.S. Tamiflu sales jumping more than three-fold in the past year.

Nephew at Toronto Public Health said there is nothing to stop Canadian firms from stockpiling drugs such as Tamiflu and no policies to encourage or to discourage the practice. "It would be their decisions."

Additional articles by Tyler Hamilton

August 25, 2005 at 08:11 AM in Flu pandemic watch | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Al-Qaeda leader may flee to Africa

Al-Qaeda leader may flee to Africa - World - Times Online

By Michael Evans, Defence Editor

BRITAIN and the United States are training border guards in the Horn of Africa in the expectation that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, may seek sanctuary there if forced to flee Iraq.

Major-General Douglas Lute, the director of operations for US Central Command, which is responsible for Iraq and Afghanistan, said yesterday that once Iraq was stabilised, al-Zarqawi might head for the Horn of Africa to find a “safe haven”. He listed Yemen, Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia as “ungoverned spaces” where al-Zarqawi might seek sanctuary to run his terrorist operations.

Small US specialist teams, supported by British counterparts, are training border security guards and working with customs and immigration officials in the region, hoping that they will be ready to spot al-Zarqawi and other al-Qaeda leaders.

General Lute said: “We call this the long war, the fight against al-Qaeda and its affiliates. Even though al-Qaeda is not state-based or sponsored, its leaders still require physical sanctuary — they still need somewhere to live.”

Al-Zarqawi, already being squeezed inside Iraq, would have little option but to leave once the country was politically stable and secure. “We think he might move to the Horn of Africa. It’s a vast space, which causes us concern,” General Lute said.

He gave a warning that al-Zarqawi and other al-Qaeda “franchised” groups were increasingly turning to “virtual safe havens” — internet websites — to plot their terrorist attacks.

August 25, 2005 at 12:33 AM in Berlin | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

August 24, 2005

Industrial espionage and electronic eavesdropping surveillance: The Red Balloon

This is certainly a very important topic nowadays, and this site is a source of good information on how to plan.

From their site "The Red Balloon"

“The Red Balloon” Wins the coveted national 2005 Aurora “Platinum Best of Show Award” in the category of Issue Awareness/Training. Produced by Pinpoint Productions, Inc. and Charles Taylor, “The Red Balloon” is a two-hour video that delves into the depths of Industrial Espionage and Electronic Eavesdropping in the United States.
Previous Aurora Award recipients include A&E Television Network, Discovery Channel, ESPN, Fox Sports Net, The History Channel, The Learning Channel, Lifetime Television, PBS, TNT, Touchstone Pictures, The Travel Channel, Turner Broadcasting, Walt Disney Pictures, and Warner Bros. Corporate-sponsored and educational film and video award winners include Kentucky Educational Television, Smithsonian Institution, News 12 Connecticut, Philadelphia Zoo, Tampa Bay Advertising Federation, the United States Marine Corps and Xavier University.

“When you compete amongst thousands of entries and some of finest video and film production companies in the world, and to then be awarded their highest award is an extreme honor” according to Charles Taylor the video’s host and co-producer. “I know that all of us, the owners of Pinpoint Productions, the director and creative staff will all cherish this award for the rest of our lives.”
To learn more about “The Red Balloon” please go to www.tscmvideo.com.

August 24, 2005 at 09:39 AM in Espionage - general | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

August 23, 2005

Second Officer Says 9/11 Leader Was Named Before Attacks

Second Officer Says 9/11 Leader Was Named Before Attacks - New York Times

By PHILIP SHENON
Published: August 23, 2005

WASHINGTON, Aug. 22 - An active-duty Navy captain has become the second military officer to come forward publicly to say that a secret intelligence program tagged the ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks as a possible terrorist more than a year before the attacks.

The officer, Scott J. Phillpott, said in a statement on Monday that he could not discuss details of the military program, which was called Able Danger, but confirmed that its analysts had identified the Sept. 11 ringleader, Mohamed Atta, by name by early 2000. "My story is consistent," said Captain Phillpott, who managed the program for the Pentagon's Special Operations Command. "Atta was identified by Able Danger by January-February of 2000."

His comments came on the same day that the Pentagon's chief spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita, told reporters that the Defense Department had been unable to validate the assertions made by an Army intelligence veteran, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, and now backed up by Captain Phillpott, about the early identification of Mr. Atta.

Colonel Shaffer went public with his assertions last week, saying that analysts in the intelligence project were overruled by military lawyers when they tried to share the program's findings with the F.B.I. in 2000 in hopes of tracking down terrorist suspects tied to Al Qaeda.

Mr. Di Rita said in an interview that while the department continued to investigate the assertions, there was no evidence so far that the intelligence unit came up with such specific information about Mr. Atta and any of the other hijackers.

He said that while Colonel Shaffer and Captain Phillpott were respected military officers whose accounts were taken seriously, "thus far we've not been able to uncover what these people said they saw - memory is a complicated thing."

The statement from Captain Phillpott , a 1983 Naval Academy graduate who has served in the Navy for 22 years, was provided to The New York Times and Fox News through the office of Representative Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican who is vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and a longtime proponent of so-called data-mining programs like Able Danger.

Asked if the Defense Department had questioned Captain Phillpott in its two-week-old investigation of Able Danger, another Pentagon spokesman, Maj. Paul Swiergosz, said he did not know.

Representative Weldon also arranged an interview on Monday with a former employee of a defense contractor who said he had helped create a chart in 2000 for the intelligence program that included Mr. Atta's photograph and name.

The former contractor, James D. Smith, said that Mr. Atta's name and photograph were obtained through a private researcher in California who was paid to gather the information from contacts in the Middle East. Mr. Smith said that he had retained a copy of the chart until last year and that it had been posted on his office wall at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. He said it had become stuck to the wall and was impossible to remove when he switched jobs.

In its final report last year, the Sept. 11 commission said that American intelligence agencies were unaware of Mr. Atta until the day of the attacks.

The leaders of the Sept. 11 commission acknowledged on Aug. 12 that their staff had met with a Navy officer last July, 10 days before releasing the panel's final report, who asserted that a highly classified intelligence operation, Able Danger, had identified "Mohamed Atta to be a member of an Al Qaeda cell located in Brooklyn."

But the statement, which did not identify the officer, said the staff determined that "the officer's account was not sufficiently reliable to warrant revision of the report or further investigation" and that the intelligence operation "did not turn out to be historically significant."

With his comments on Monday, Captain Phillpott acknowledged that he was the officer who had briefed the commission last year. "I will not discuss the issues outside of my chain of command and the Department of Defense," he said. "But my story is consistent. Atta was identified by Able Danger by January-February of 2000. I have nothing else to say."

August 23, 2005 at 09:27 AM in US | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Cindy won't hurt Bush but the big boys will

Andrew Sullivan: Cindy won't hurt Bush but the big boys will - Sunday Times - Times Online

ANDREW SULLIVAN
Last week the American anti-war left had a ball. The bereaved mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, Cindy Sheehan, decided to camp out near President Bush’s holiday ranch in Crawford, Texas, to protest against the war.

MoveOn, the far-left group behind much anti-war activism, organised solidarity gatherings across America. Viggo Mortensen, the Lord of the Rings star, turned up. The left-blogs gushed. A bored media, left with only the historic withdrawal from Gaza and a new Iraqi constitution, finally saw a way to cheer themselves up in the Texas desert.

The only catch in this win-win spectacle for the press and the peaceniks was Sheehan herself. Her views on America’s role in the world are to the left of George Galloway. “The biggest terrorist in the world is George W Bush,” Sheehan said in a recent speech. “What they’re saying, too, is like, it’s okay for Israel to have nuclear weapons. But Iran or Syria better not get nuclear weapons . . . It’s okay for Israel to occupy Palestine . . . for the United States to occupy Iraq, but it’s not okay for Syria to be in Lebanon. They’re a bunch of (expletive) hypocrites.”

Sheehan went after Bush’s kids: “If (Bush) thinks that it’s so important for Iraq to have a US-imposed sense of freedom and democracy, then he needs to sign up his two little party-animal girls. They need to go to this war . . . We want our country back and, if we have to impeach everybody from George Bush down to the person who picks up dogshit in Washington, we will impeach all those people.”

Oh dear. She has every right to speak her mind; and every right to grieve for her son; and every right to oppose the war. But she is an extremist. Someone who wants to impeach litter cops in Washington for a war that deposed one of the grisliest dictators of modern times is not someone to take seriously.

There is no pleasing her. As the mother of a fallen soldier, Sheehan demanded an audience with the president. She got one. She demanded another. She was sent Stephen Hadley, one of Bush’s closest foreign policy advisers instead. Not enough.

The Sheehan left wants swift withdrawal from Iraq, whatever the consequences. It wants Democrats back in power. It can’t wait for another election; and it still believes that something was rigged about the last one. When you read the anti-war blogs or a New York Times columnist, you get the sense it actually wants Iraq to fall apart, or Al-Qaeda to regroup, or another terrorist atrocity to succeed. Hurting Bush is the overwhelming, empowering imperative.

If you want to know why the opposition is still weak even while the Bush administration remains riddled with error and denial, Sheehan is a good place to start. The emotional blackmail, the extreme rhetoric, the lack of any practical alternative to the current course in Iraq: these do not a future administration make.

But there is another opposition — more grown-up, less volatile and therefore more effective. You can see it in the very measured way in which Senator Hillary Clinton has visited US troops in Iraq, and argued for higher troop levels and more careful diplomacy.

You are also seeing it among Republican leaders who want to win the war but know that the cramped cocoon of Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Cheney is unlikely to get us there. Senator John McCain went fullout for Bush’s re-election but has repeatedly said that he has no confidence in Rumsfeld’s war management.

Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a ferocious critic of the mishandled post-war era, recently toured his bedrock Republican home state and found real worries. “The feeling that I get back here, looking in the eyes of real people, where I knew where they were two years ago or a year ago — they’ve changed,” Hagel said last week. “These aren’t people who ebb and flow on issues. These are rock-solid, conservative Republicans who love their country, support the troops and the president . . . The expectations that the president and his administration presented to the American people two and a half years ago is not what the reality is today. That’s the biggest credibility gap problem he’s got.”

It was the determination of adult Republicans and a handful of similarly grown-up Democrats who averted the abolition of the Senate filibuster earlier this year. They also helped encourage the White House to nominate John Roberts, a sane, careful jurist, to the Supreme Court rather than an ideological knuckle-dragger. They have begun to exercise real influence over Iraq policy as well. They know Bush has another three years and that mindless protest will not save Iraq or win the broader war. They want to help: putting more troops if necessary into Iraq, monitoring more closely the training of Iraqi security forces, correcting some of the more glaring errors of judgment in Bush’s inner circle.

Take prisoner policy. It takes real partisan blindness not to acknowledge that the Bush administration’s decision to exempt terror detainees from the Geneva Conventions, to relax legal strictures on abuse, and to set up extra-legal camps such as Guantanamo Bay have led to moral horrors and massive propaganda own goals.

So Republican senators McCain and Lindsey Graham are trying to provide new legislative guidelines for prisoners of war to bring policies back into line with historic American concern for humane treatment of even the most abhorrent captives. They hope to attach such regulations to the military appropriations bill to be debated this September. They may even exempt the CIA in a bow to White House sensibilities.

Cheney and Rumsfeld are mounting a ferocious counter-offensive, to kill any regulation of the president’s post-9/11 ad hoc powers to permit torture or abuse. Partly it’s the belief that the president should be above the law in wartime; partly it’s a defence of their own complicity in the policies that led to the abuse; partly it’s simple turf war.

The battle is real: the war has to be funded; and if McCain and Graham succeed in getting a majority of senators to back their proposals, it will be managed by more than a cabal of proven incompetents.

The real opposition has been elected to the Senate. We will find out this autumn how effective it is.

August 23, 2005 at 01:27 AM in US | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

August 21, 2005

Stop terrorists, not the police

Telegraph | Opinion | Stop terrorists, not the police

(Filed: 21/08/2005)

The death of Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian killed by police marksmen who mistakenly thought he was a suicide bomber, is a tragedy for his family. It raises serious questions about the procedures that led to firearms officers being authorised to shoot suspected terrorists. What it does not suggest is that the Metropolitan Police and its Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, have been involved in an attempt to cover up a conspiracy to murder Mr de Menezes.

That, however, is the essence of the allegation being made by the lawyers now calling for Sir Ian's resignation. It has no merit whatsoever. The worst that can be said of Sir Ian's handling of the issue is that he said too much too quickly. He was not in possession of the full facts when he suggested, within hours of the shooting, that Mr de Menezes had been killed because he had refused to obey a police order to stop. But nothing has emerged so far to suggest he was "lying", still less covering up sinister behaviour by the firearms team - as lawyers for the de Menezes family claim.

The only people helped by the campaign to force Sir Ian's resignation are the terrorists. A protracted, hostile investigation, on the lines of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, will be a colossal distraction from the force's main, and desperately urgent, task: protecting London from further bomb attacks.

It is also bound to inhibit firearms officers from dealing with future incidents effectively. Suicide bombers are a genuine threat. The policy of shooting them dead before they can detonate their bombs is the only way of dealing with the dangers they pose. Had the man the police followed into Stockwell station actually been a suicide bomber, the alternative to killing him would have been letting him detonate a bomb that could have killed scores of people. In that situation, there can be no question of which is the better alternative.

What the mistaken shooting of Mr de Menezes does show is that the procedures in place for establishing the identity of a suspected terrorist are in urgent need of review. Those procedures were clearly inadequate on July 22 when Mr de Menezes was shot. He was targeted on the basis of a message from one surveillance officer, who simply said that it would be worth someone else "taking a look" at Mr de Menezes. The atmosphere following the previous day's bomb attempts in London was, of course, highly charged - but it is extraordinary no attempt was made to check if he was the terrorist he was suspected of being.

It would compound the tragedy of Mr de Menezes' shooting if the officers who killed him were to stand trial for murder. The officers were clearly not out to "execute" an innocent man: they were following the instructions and the information they had been given. The fault is with the procedures that led to the instruction to "shoot to kill" without a serious attempt to check if the target had been correctly identified.

We face unprecedented dangers from suicide bombers, which must be combated by unprecedented measures. We need police officers who feel confident and able to discharge their duty to protect us. We do not need lawyers who exploit a family's grief, or who hover over a corpse like vultures waiting to pick over the bones.

August 21, 2005 at 03:41 PM in UK | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Army risks losing its reputation, warns general

Telegraph | News | Army risks losing its reputation, warns general

By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent
(Filed: 21/08/2005)

One of the Army's most senior officers has warned that it is in danger of losing its reputation as a "highly respected British institution" because it is being forced to recruit soldiers from a "morally corrupt and dysfunctional" society, where young men idolise foul-mouthed footballers.

Maj Gen Graeme Lamb branded many recruits as "cocky and arrogant and brought up on a diet of football brats and binge drinking. . . who are not educated in and able to recognise self-discipline".

His stark assessment came in a speech to senior infantry officers about the war in Iraq, entitled "Operational Success - Strategic Failure". He said that allegations of prisoner abuse against soldiers could fatally undermine the Army.

"We are in very real danger of losing our place in society as a highly respected British institution, an institution built on over two centuries of bloody investment and one which today stands virtually alone in the eyes of this and many other nations. . . This trust, this underlying admiration, is today under direct and sustained attack.

"This trust afforded to us by the Government and the public allows us to operate as an army unlike any other. If we lose this trust - like parts of the medical profession, the political parties, the police and even more recently the Catholic Church - the road back is simply blocked. Heed the warning, the road back if trust is lost will be blocked for the better part of my life if not a generation."

Gen Lamb, the commander of the Army's 3rd Division, received the DSO after leading troops in Iraq from July to December, 2003, when the Army was under almost daily attack from insurgents.

The Sunday Telegraph has learnt that his comments, made to the Infantry Conference in Warminster, Wiltshire, recently, reflect concern among senior officers, including Gen Sir Mike Jackson, the Chief of the General Staff, that the military's reputation is being eroded by allegations of abuse in Iraq, bullying and sex scandals and the deaths of recruits at Deepcut.

In a reference to abuse in Iraq, Gen Lamb said: "The officers and men under our command did not live up to the standard we expected of them. Those who failed were empowered when they should not have been, were left unsupervised when we probably knew they should not have, were allowed to embrace and populate a culture that was simply unworthy of us all."

He appeared to suggest that the problems were exacerbated by having to recruit and retain soldiers of poor quality because of the pressure of military commitments.

"In striving to achieve hard manning targets we retained some of those we might not have, while we recruited from a society which has in the last 30 years become marginally more dysfunctional and increasingly self-interested and in places morally corrupt. And all the while being told we were out of step with 'Cool Britannia'.

"The argument over whether highly paid and very public football stars should be allowed to swear blind mouthed and in public at authority, in this case the referee, has a bearing on my point. These are the role models our recruits and soldiers are brought up on."

A senior officer who was at the conference said: "Gen Lamb is a highly respected officer and he didn't pull any punches. His reference to foul-mouthed footballers, which we all knew was a reference to Wayne Rooney and others like him, was absolutely accurate. It needed to be said."

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: "These are the personal views of Gen Lamb. The Army plays an important role in the personal development of new recruits and seeks to ensure the highest standards are maintained by providing first class training for all."

16 August 2005: New allegations against British soldiers in Iraq
Related links
Max Hastings: Soldiers behaving badly

John D Wood

Majorca-Hotels.com

August 21, 2005 at 03:39 PM in UK | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

August 20, 2005

US concern at Pakistan textbooks

BBC NEWS | South Asia | US concern at Pakistan textbooks

By Aamer Ahmed Khan
BBC News, Karachi

Children in a Social Studies classroom (Arif AliI/AFP/Getty Images)
Social studies was replaced with history and geography this year
The United States has described some of the material contained in Pakistani textbooks as "inciteful" and said it was an issue of "serious concern".

The US said it feared the material might "cause people to... lash out with violent actions".

Despite two government reviews of the textbooks, a leading Pakistan NGO says little has changed.

Pakistan's school curriculum has been in the spotlight since the 11 September attacks in the US.

Pakistan and the US are key allies in the latter's war on terror.

US State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, was commenting on media reports that jihad, or holy war, was still a part of school curriculum in Pakistan.

"We have engaged the Pakistani government on... the issue of textbooks and language that... was clearly, clearly unacceptable and inciteful or would cause people to perhaps lash out with violent actions," he told a press briefing on Thursday.

He said the US had raised the matter with the Pakistani education minister during his visit to Washington in March.

Independent review

The administration of President Pervez Musharraf asked the education ministry in March 2002 to undertake a comprehensive review of all textbooks.

Picture in a grade 7 history textbook showing a weapon used by Muslim warriors
Textbooks have been accused of glorifying war

But the review recommended that no major changes were required in the existing curriculum.

This prompted one of Pakistan's most respected non-government organisations, the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), to undertake an independent review.

It examined textbooks for Urdu, English, Social Studies and Civics from grades one to 12 (5-18 years) and came out with its report a few months after the ministry's review. The findings created a furore.

It found "falsehoods, distortions and omissions" in all the textbooks, which it said defied Pakistan's declared objective of turning into a modern, dynamic state.

I don't think anything has changed in substance
Ahmed Salim, Sustainable Development Policy Institute

It also found the books "full" of material "encouraging or justifying discrimination against women, religious and ethnic minorities and other nations".

The report said that most of the textbooks incited "militancy and violence, including encouragement of holy war and martyrdom".

There were repeated instances of "glorification of war and the use of force".

The religious parties in particular were incensed at the report and labelled it "paid Western propaganda".

Curriculum change

The report was taken seriously by the government which ordered another review.

Picture from a grade 7 history textbook
Religious parties called the SDPI report 'Western propaganda'

The second review, completed in mid-2004, recommended that references to holy war and the use of force be deleted.

The ministry also recommended that the social studies subject be scrapped.

The recommendations were implemented for the school year starting 2005.

"I don't think anything has changed in substance," co-editor of the SDPI report Ahmed Salim told the BBC news website.

The SDPI is planning to undertake another review which it expects to complete in a month's time.

August 20, 2005 at 02:05 AM in Muslim background | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Get used to officers with guns, police chief warns Scots

The Scotsman - Top Stories - Get used to officers with guns, police chief warns Scots

Armed police at Waverley station, Edinburgh: Likely to become more common.
Picture: Ian Rutherford

GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN
CHIEF NEWS CORRESPONDENT

THE London bomb attacks will mean fewer policemen on Scotland's streets because they are needed for counter-terrorist operations, one of Scotland's most senior officers warned yesterday.

Paddy Tomkins, chief constable of Lothian and Borders Police, said the public would have to accept that priorities had changed.

He revealed that Scottish specialists in counter-terrorism had already been seconded to London to help the Metropolitan Police investigations into the London attacks.

Mr Tomkins also warned that it would be naive to think that Scotland was immune from terrorist attack.

And he told The Scotsman that the increased terrorist threat meant the sight of armed police on Scotland's streets was likely to become more common.

While Scotland has been largely unaffected by last month's London bomb attacks, senior police officers believe that it remains a viable terrorist target and a location from which attacks could be launched against other parts of the United Kingdom.

Mr Tomkins said that the terrorist threat affected the whole of the UK.

"We have all got a problem," he said. "The global village is a reality. It would be an act of towering naivety to think that Edinburgh or Scotland was immune from being caught up in such events."

He said while London remained the most obvious target, it was reasonable to think that terrorists looking for a high-profile strike might also consider Scotland's cities.

"London is a very attractive target but then you start looking at other targets which have a major brand and you have to include major cities in Scotland in that," he said.

"We have no specific evidence, but the possibility can't be discounted and it would be stupid to be complacent."

The balancing act faced by senior police officers is that while the threat is perceived to have risen, there has been no increase in resources to use in tackling it.

Mr Tomkins said that in an ideal world he would have more officers, more resources and access to more databases to help target terrorist suspects.

But the reality was that compromises had to be made and people had to accept that might mean a reduction in the number of officers available for other duties.

"What I want is better understanding from all communities," he said. "We are all in this together and we need to explain to the people of Hawick, Dunbar and Livingston that their police are as involved in combating terrorism as those in Edinburgh and London. That will inevitably have an effect on local policing, for example, the removal of resources."

Just as Scottish chief constables were able to call on their English counterparts for assistance during last month's G8 summit at Gleneagles, the Metropolitan Police have sought the help of other forces in investigating the 7/7 and 21/7 attacks.

"While the attacks were taking place in London, it is very much a UK challenge," said Mr Tomkins. "It affected all of us.

"Other forces are supporting the Met, including Scottish officers. We have some counter- terrorism specialists in London at the moment."

Last month's bombings saw a massive increase in the presence of armed officers on the streets of London, and Mr Tomkins said that the Scottish public should also expect to see an increasingly visible armed presence. Armed officers are regularly deployed at Scottish airports, and after the 7/7 attacks they were also to be seen at train stations in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

"We expect to see more frequent deployment of those officers. People have become used to seeing armed officers at airports and that might extend to other transport and financial hubs," he said.

Despite the furore surrounding the shooting of the innocent Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes, Mr Tomkins said he did not believe there was any need for a change in the shoot-to-kill guidelines issued to forces across the country, though he sympathised with those having to make difficult decisions.

"The procedures that we train to adopt are quite clear and we'll stick to those," he said.

"I have great confidence in the training and expertise of the officers, but the sheer responsibility on them and me must weigh heavily on my mind and theirs.

"Having the means to use lethal force is a grave responsibility."

And he said he remained opposed to the routine arming of police officers, as "it changes the relationship between the police and the community".

The Metropolitan Police had been warning for some time that an attack on London was inevitable, and the L&B chief constable said that had been the only realistic assessment that could be made.

"It [the first attack] was a shock but not a surprise," he said. "We have all been saying - and the level of the security status in the UK was such - that it wasn't a question of if, but when. Knowing the profile of the UK and its desirability as a target, it was inevitable."

But he cautioned that a determined attacker always had a chance of getting through.

"It is unrealistic, given the complexity of modern society, to expect us to be able to anticipate every action by people who want to mount attacks."

He said he believed the only real long-term solution was to improve the relationship with the communities from which potential attackers could be drawn.

August 20, 2005 at 01:00 AM in UK | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

August 19, 2005

Police in the ranks are paid £100,000 a year

Britain, UK news from The Times and The Sunday Times - Times Online

By Adam Fresco, Stewart Tendler and Helen Rumbelow

SOME police officers are earning up to £100,000 a year, triple their basic salary, by putting in thousands of hours in overtime.

Figures obtained by The Times show that some constables in the Metropolitan Police work on average more than 36 hours a week in addition to their normal duties to cope with an increasing workload.

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The leading 20 earners among the Met’s constables and sergeants took home £900,000 in overtime in the last financial year.

The figures, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, will alarm London police regulators and reformers within Scotland Yard who are examining wideranging changes in the Met’s operations.

The top ten earning constables are on a basic wage of £31,092, and the sergeants on £34,994, but even the tenth- highest overtime earner took home more than £80,000. A superintendent’s basic pay is £66,139. Overtime has been phased out for all ranks above sergeant.

In 2004-05, one constable received £55,960 in overtime, making his final earnings £99,317. The average overtime payment for a uniformed constable is £4,000 a year, for 200 extra hours. Dectective constables can earn double that.

The top-earning sergeant last year was paid £62,741 in overtime, bringing his total to £109,643, including allowances of £11,908 — almost as much as the Prime Minister, who earns £121,437, and more than the £104,000 paid to a deputy assistant commissioner. On average, sergeants earned £5,000 in overtime.

Most of those who earn thousands in overtime will be members of Special Branch and close protection teams who spend long hours, often abroad, with their “principals”.

In its freedom of information response, the Met says: “These roles, by their very nature, require officers to work long hours.”

Last night, the Conservatives urged the Government to invest in more police to lighten the load on existing officers at a time when the fight against terrorism is costing the London force £500,000 a day.

David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, said: “With rising crime, and the threat of terrorism putting ever more pressure on the police, it is not surprising that officers have to work longer hours. If we really want to get a grip on crime, the Government must invest in more officers.”

Mark Oaten, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: “The fact that these policemen are working so much overtime clearly shows the need for more officers on the beat. If the Government scrapped the massively expensive ID card scheme and used the money to employ more police officers, our streets would be safer and we would avoid such a big overtime bill.”

The constables in the list obtained by The Times are paid £14.90 an hour, sergeants £16.75 an hour. The basic rate of overtime rate is time and a quarter but can rise to double pay.

Even on the maximum, a constable would have to work 36 hours a week overtime to earn £55,960 in overtime. They do this by working on days off and during annual leave.

The amount of extra hours that officers put in is also causing concern about their ability to work properly and safely.

Ann Cryer, Labour MP for Keighley and member of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said: “I just don’t think it’s a good idea for people to work double their normal hours. In as important a role as protection you need people to be alert and well. If people are putting their health at risk, in turn they are putting at risk the job they are trying to do.”

The Metropolitan Police Authority is so concerned at the extra hours that officers work that it has asked Scotland Yard to provide a monthly total of overtime.

Reshard Auladin, a member of the authority’s finance committee, said: “We have been concerned about the overall bill for some time and about how to reduce it.”

He said that members wanted more staff employed to reduce the burden on individual officers. Cutting the overtime bill would allow them to do this.

A force-wide review is under way which could introduce wideranging changes.

In the 1990s, Sir Paul Condon tried to end the practice where officers could remain in posts for years on end, earning large amounts of overtime, introducing limited tenure so that officers had to move posts.

August 19, 2005 at 10:38 PM in UK | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

August 16, 2005

Calif. man catalogs N.Korea's over-the-top rhetoric

Calif. man catalogs N.Korea's over-the-top rhetoric - Yahoo! News

By Paul Eckert, Asia Correspondent Sun Aug 14, 8:43 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Few can denounce the "imperialist ogre" or "kingpin of evil" as well as the writers at
North Korea's official news agency, and a California graphic artist is now cataloging their rhetorical masterpieces on a Web site.

Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA, is the only regular source of the views of the secretive government of Kim Jong-il available to diplomats, journalists and scholars.

But there was no way for them to search the archives of KCNA until Geoff Davis, fighting boredom during a rainy San Francisco spring, decided to hone his Web design skills on a topic he had followed in news reports on the North Korean nuclear crisis.

"Their propaganda is often unintentionally hilarious and I couldn't find an existing searchable database of the KCNA on the Web. Thus, NK News was born," Davis told Reuters.

Launched in May, www.nk-news.net boasts of having nearly every KCNA article since December 1996 -- "over 50 megabytes of hard-core Stalinist propaganda ... each article written in the unique and indelible style of the KCNA."

Readers can get a taste of that KCNA style from recommended key word searches, such as "burning hatred," which turns up 18 articles. The targets of that hot wrath include Japan, Yankees, "U.S. imperialist ogres" and "class enemies."

"Human scum" yields 25 KCNA reports applying that epithet to
President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and diplomat John Bolton. Rumsfeld also keeps company with Japanese officials in the "political dwarf" category.

RANDOM INSULT GENERATOR

The flip-side of withering scorn for North Korea's perceived foes is fawning praise for Kim and his father, state founder Kim Il-sung. Kim Il-sung, who died in 1994, is hailed as a "peerlessly great man" in 139 articles since 1996.

"Inveterate" is another popular KCNA word and a search for it returns an entry describing "U.S. imperialists" as "a pack of beasts in human skin and the inveterate enemy with whom the Korean nation cannot live under the same sky."

"From browsing through the KCNA's propaganda, even the most casual observer can see that the regime is a cult," said Davis, 31, who makes his living producing graphics for court trials.

Davis took 10 weeks to build www.nk-news.net, which he calls a "hobby site," and spends $10 a month to run it. He said he doesn't count page visits but he has tallied 5,000 searches and has received positive feedback from journalists and experts on North Korea.

For those seeking a comic diversion from blood-curdling diatribes and self-congratulatory reports, Davis created a "random insult generator" using pejorative words commonly found on KCNA.

"You loudmouthed beast, your ridiculous clamor for 'human rights' is nothing but a shrill cry!" reads one insult. One click later and the message is: "You sycophantic stooge, you have glaringly revealed your true colors!"

Although he has found a source of satire in a country that is mostly known for weapons threats, repression and famine, Davis does not joke about North Korea's nature and says the world must not cut Kim's government any slack.

"The 'axis of evil' remark pales in comparison to a single day of KCNA rhetoric," he said, referring a controversial 2002 Bush speech that lumped North Korea, Iran and prewar Iraq in a trio of malign countries.

August 16, 2005 at 05:08 PM in Far East | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Questions Unanswered in London Investigation

Questions Unanswered in London Investigation - New York Times

By ALAN COWELL and RAYMOND BONNER
Published: August 15, 2005

LONDON, Aug. 14 - With some fanfare in the weeks since the London bombings, the British authorities have quickly detained the main surviving suspects and, just as rapidly, embarked on a high-profile campaign to expel prominent, foreign-born Islamic figures as part of promised measures against extremism.

But the investigation into the lethal July 7 attacks and the failed July 21 attacks seems to have undergone some less publicized changes that have left important questions unanswered, in public at least. Some leads, once hotly pursued, have fizzled out. Others have proved to be blind alleys.

Investigators now doubt their early estimation that the two groups of attackers had an organizational link to Al Qaeda, a senior British police official said, though the attackers might have taken their inspiration from it. Nor have investigators identified any outside mastermind, or any evidence of an operational link between the groups of attackers.

Initially, Sir Ian Blair, commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police, said the July 21 attacks had some "resonance" with the earlier bombing: both attacks made targets of three subway trains and a bus; both involved young Muslim men with bulky bags or backpacks laden with homemade explosives capable, in his words, of wreaking "carnage."

Since then, comparisons of the two sets of attackers have become more nuanced. The groups differed in makeup. Three of the four July 7 bombers, who died with their 52 victims in subways and on a double-decker bus in London, were concentrated near Leeds, in the north, and were of Pakistani descent. The July 21 group, whose four bombs failed to go off in the London transit system, came from disparate areas, north, south and west of the city, and several of them were of African descent.

One of the suspects in the July 21 attacks, Hussain Osman, who is also known as Hamdi Issac and who fled to Italy, is an Ethiopian-born father of three who told investigators in Rome that their attacks were "copycat" attacks intended to frighten, but not kill, Britons, said his court-appointed lawyer, Antoinette Sonnessa. Still, investigators have not ruled out the possibility that the groups were linked, said diplomats here, and European and American law enforcement officials.

Philosophically, both groups seemed driven by a reverence for Osama bin Laden.

"Osama bin Laden is a hero in the Islamic view," said Mohamoud Nur, a Somali social worker, seeking to explain the draw of radical Islam among the 150,000 Somalis in London. "Somalis in Britain believe that Osama bin Laden stood against a superpower that oppressed people." But he denied that that belief would translate into suicidal terrorism.

Two weeks ago, the investigators thought they had identified a third cell, of six or seven men, that was preparing for another attack. But in recent interviews, two senior diplomats here who are kept informed of the investigation and an American official said investigators had concluded that the intelligence was faulty.

The investigation is entering a more difficult, grinding phase. Three of the four main suspects in the July 21 attack have been charged, which means that their interrogations have effectively ended - and that the police are legally severely limited in what they can say publicly about the case.

Some tasks are seemingly herculean. Investigators are trying to follow up on calls to Pakistan made from some of the homes and cellphones of the July 7 attackers. A Pakistani official said investigators were trying to trace more than 100 calls. But most were made to commercial telephone centers, which are common in many developing countries, where people pay by the call for connections.

"Can you imagine trying to get records from these call offices in Pakistan?" the official said.

Pakistani officials are also still tracing the activities of three of the July 7 bombers, who spent time in Pakistan in the last two years, the official said.

As the investigation continues, other possibilities for common strands between the groups of attackers have emerged.

They may have shared a sense of separateness from the society around them and from older generations - a phenomenon as familiar among second-generation immigrants in Leeds as among those in London. "These people do not have a strong identity," said Jemal Omar, a school career adviser from Eritrea, who is among 10,000 Eritreans who have found sanctuary here. "They are British more than their parents, and they are alienated because they don't fit in 100 percent."

That may make fundamentalism more alluring, said Mr. Nur, the Somali social worker. "If you are young and energetic and you feel marginalized and you meet this extreme ideology, it will be attractive."

Those influences could well have coalesced initially at the Finsbury Park mosque - once a hotbed of Islamic militancy under the stewardship of Sheik Abu Hams al-Masri, an Egyptian-born cleric wanted in the United States on terrorism charges dating from 1999. Mr. Masri is in detention facing extradition hearings.

Toaha Qureshi, the chairman of the trustees of the Stockwell mosque in south London, said Mr. Osman, the man held in Rome, was one of a group of Islamic militants in their 20's who tried to "take over" the Stockwell mosque in June 2003 after Britain's charitable authorities closed the Finsbury Park mosque.

Their intention was to use the mosque as a base for radical sermons and proselytizing, he said. According to the police, three of the July 21 bombers began their journeys at the Stockwell subway station, and Mr. Osman lived in a housing project in Stockwell with his wife, Yeshiemebet Girma, and their three children.

More conservative Muslims in Stockwell resisted the takeover attempt in 2003, Mr. Qureshi said. Thereafter, some of the radicals may have congregated in gyms - one of the bags in the July 21 attacks was from a chain of workout centers called Fitness First. The July 7 bombers, too, were reported to have operated outside mosques, congregating in places like Islamic bookstores and a gym.

Other suspects in the July 21 attacks who have been charged with attempted murder and explosives offenses in London include Ibrahim Muktar Said, an Eritrean-born British citizen who arrived in London with his parents at age 12 in 1990, and Yassin Hassan Omar, 24, a Somali refugee who arrived with his sister when he was 11.

But there were connections to cities besides London. One of the men accused in the July 21 attacks, Mr. Omar, was arrested in Birmingham, where a Somali minority has built in strength as Somalis migrate to Britain from other European countries like the Netherlands where, as refugees, they acquired citizenship enabling them to crisscross European frontiers at will.

Some of the people accused of helping Mr. Osman - who told British authorities he was a Somali when he came here from Italy in the mid-1990's - were seized in Brighton, on the south coast.

The ties between the July 21 attackers and their forebears' homeland seem to have been looser and less of an influence on their behavior than those of the July 7 attackers, with their travel in Pakistan, where religious extremism is strong.

"There's no link between them and Somali society whatever," Mr. Nur, the Somali social worker, said of the July 21 group, expressing a view echoed by Eritreans and Ethiopians. "Whatever developed in them was here in the United Kingdom."

Stephen Grey and Souad Mekhennet contributed reporting from London for this article, and William K. Rashbaum from New York.

August 16, 2005 at 08:24 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

August 15, 2005

Spies played movie critic during Cold War

TheStar.com - Spies played movie critic during Cold War

Scoured Soviet films for intelligence

Feared Arctic attack to start invasion

JIM BRONSKILL
CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA—Canadian spies secretly analyzed Soviet movies during the Cold War in the hope of gleaning useful intelligence, a newly declassified study reveals.

For a brief time in the mid-1950s, a little-known Ottawa agency played the role of film critic "in what may have been a unique intelligence-gathering project among its Western allies," the study says.

The Joint Intelligence Bureau gathered up prints of Soviet films screened in Canada and scanned them for background scenes of special interest, such as equipment, factories and military processions.

Officials then reproduced negatives of relevant footage for the "imaginative, but short-lived" initiative, says the book-length study prepared for the federal government by Wesley Wark, a University of Toronto history professor.

"The film project was a bit like watching the May Day parades — you might just catch a glimpse of something that maybe the Soviets hadn't really meant you to see," Wark said in an interview.

Canadian Press obtained a draft copy of Wark's 265-page manuscript under the Access to Information Act.

Substantial portions of the top secret document, including an entire chapter, were considered too sensitive to release — even though the Soviet threat crumbled along with the Berlin Wall years ago.

Wark especially questions the need for continued secrecy about Canada's efforts to establish an electronic eavesdropping outpost in the far North to keep tabs on Moscow.

The study, based on thousands of pages of mostly still-secret records, traces the history of the Joint Intelligence Bureau, a division of the defence department that took on numerous secret tasks after World War II.

It churned out reports on topics ranging from airfield construction in the East Bloc to the first Arab-Israeli War of 1948.

In the early days of the Cold War, Wark's study reveals, the Canadian military feared Soviet troops would seize Arctic islands as the opening salvo of a North American invasion.

A committee of intelligence officials surmised the most likely route for an air assault was via the north, with the Russians developing "secret intermediate air bases" on Spitzbergen, in northern Greenland, and Canada's Ellesmere Island as early as the 1950s.

"The Soviet air force will be capable of attacking all vulnerable areas in Canada and the U.S.A. with guided missiles and very long range air bombardment from captured bases in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago," read one strategic assessment from 1946.

The earliest Canadian appreciations of Soviet strength were often "quite fantastical," fuelled by an unwillingness to be critical and an often fatal absence of solid intelligence, Wark said in the interview.

The desire to keep abreast of Soviet intentions prompted the creation in 1956 of a secret listening station at the top of the world in Alert, N.W.T.

Other options, such as patrolling the Arctic with a Canadian equivalent of the American U-2 spy plane, were rejected.

Nonetheless, Wark says, the Soviet threat was hugely influential in spurring the federal government to embrace and transform the North through map-making, contact with remote communities and creation of the Distant Early Warning line of radar facilities.

In 1954, the Joint Intelligence Bureau began an annual "Arctic Indoctrination" course, primarily for curious members of allied intelligence services, that took them to northern Manitoba and other remote spots.

"One of the attractions seemed to have been a `camp out on the barrens,' which involved the tour officers spending a night under canvas in Churchill, no doubt with one ear cocked for roaming polar bears," Wark writes.

In reality, it was "an exotic holiday" that generated goodwill with allies including the United States.

The movie project died in '56, perhaps because of "stupor induced ... by the tedium of having to screen numberless Soviet propaganda films," he writes.

August 15, 2005 at 08:37 AM in Cold War | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

A momentous day for peace: why Gaza matters to us all this morning

The Times Online guest contributors Opinion

Shimon Peres
DISENGAGEMENT BEGINS today. So does the day after. History never rests. Not anywhere, and clearly not in the Middle East. For many months disengagement was looming large over Israel’s public life. Disengagement also became a focus of the international community’s relations with Israel and the Palestinians. For more than a year it pushed aside other initiatives and considerations. But now it is happening, and it is time to refer to what will be the day after.

Disengagement will not be the last phase of the political process with the Palestinians. It is an important first step. It demonstrates the moral decision we have taken not to turn our nation that escaped slavery in Ancient Egypt into a nation of masters in the Land of Israel. Disengagement reinforces the power of Israel’s moderates to make decisions, and exposes the true size and political power of the extreme Right. It proves Israel’s capacity for taking the initiative in correcting the mistakes it made in the past in building some of the settlements, and it opens the door to future steps towards peace.

In the Middle East it is wiser to make long jumps rather than high jumps. By taking long jumps, we can proceed to our desired goal one jump at a time. But if we take the risk of taking one major high jump to the end goal, as we tried in Camp David in 2000, we will break our back, and require years of recovery to try again. Disengagement is a long jump. Now it is time for another jump. It too will not be the last.

We will continue building on the momentum created by this current step. In doing so, we will open the door for the Palestinians to establish a state with provisional borders on evacuated territories in Gaza and the West Bank. We can then proceed to negotiate with the Palestinians the permanent borders between Israel and the Palestinian state. The questions of Jerusalem and refugees are a matter for the future. Our bitter experience has proven that these issues are too explosive to settle in the next jump we make. We should not hold ourselves hostage to our inability to reach an agreement on these matters at the present. We must move forward on the things on which we can reach an agreement, such as the establishment of a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank, and opening negotiations on permanent borders based on UN resolutions 242 and 338. The “road map” is there in place to help us to realise this shared vision of two states living side by side, peacefully and in security.

The Palestinians at their end have to move rapidly to establish law and order in the evacuated territories as well as a capability to prevent terrorism. Gaza should set the stage for the future. The Palestinians should succeed in establishing a functioning authority in Gaza. The world will be watching. Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority) has demonstrated his commitment to a vision of a coherent, legitimate, democratic rule that has its citizens’ welfare at heart, and to unifying security forces. In a world divided between terror and anti-terror, the Palestinians also cannot afford to be on the wrong side of the dividing line.

But the world should not only watch. It should help, as it has done in the past. It should do so by privatising peace. Privatisation and globalisation are moving in lock step. A global world needs to be a peaceful world. So corporations should mobilise to help to build and secure the peace. Governments have budgets, but corporations have money. Governments are unwieldy and corporations are nimble. Corporations can become an agent of peaceful relations between nations. As we make peace with each other, we should also make peace with the age. In an age of open borders, global communications, human mobility, and wealth that is extracted from the mind rather than the land, economics is the new politics. Private corporations can help to bring this age to the Middle East. Every company that opens a branch, a factory, an office in Gaza and the West Bank is making future conflicts and wars a little less likely.

Today and the day after, Israel will continue to change its internal priorities as well. After we disengage from Gaza, we need to re-engage in strengthening our society, our economy, our relationships with each other. At the same time, we are developing two regions important to Israel’s future — the Negev and Galilee. We intend to invest greatly in further revitalising both regions, including improving education, health and transportation, and paving the way for further economic development and the promotion of industry. Thus, we are investing in our “many days after” so that we will be stronger economically, socially and geopolitically.

The Labour Party entered the National Unity Government to support disengagement. It was the responsible thing to do. Without our consistent support for disengagement in government and in parliament, it would not have taken place. We did so in line with our long-standing world view that calls for a resolution of the conflict with the Palestinians based on moral principles, mutual recognition and the establishment of two states. This continues to be our policy. We will work to make it happen. History stops for no one. There is not enough ice in the world to freeze its march. We can only hope to take the right steps necessary to make sure that history books will one day tell the tale of Israeli and Palestinian reconciliation.

Shimon Peres is the Vice-Prime Minister of Israel

August 15, 2005 at 01:09 AM in Middle East | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

August 14, 2005

CIA’s Bin Laden hunter to reveal near-miss raid

CIA’s Bin Laden hunter to reveal near-miss raid - Sunday Times - Times Online

Sarah Baxter
DRESSED in flowing Afghan robes, Gary Berntsen led the CIA undercover team, codenamed Jawbreaker, assigned to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden in the mountains of Tora Bora during the dying days of the Afghan war.

Now he is on a new mission: to convince the White House — and the American public — that the Al-Qaeda chief was genuinely within his grasp. In his book Jawbreaker, scheduled for publication in October, he claims his team had pinpointed Bin Laden’s location and “knew for certain” he was there

Berntsen’s manuscript is being vetted by the CIA. He is suing his former employers for taking too long to assess his material and for demanding excessive cuts.

A White House spokesman last week repeated a claim made during the presidential election by General Tommy Franks that, “We don’t know to this day whether Mr Bin Laden was at Tora Bora in December 2001.”

Berntsen, 48, insists he can shoot down that “surprising” statement and has offered to provide proof to Andrew Card, President George W Bush’s chief of staff. “I’d welcome the opportunity to meet White House officials at any time to explain how we knew of Bin Laden’s presence there,” he said last week.

Berntsen’s claim is the most authoritative that the architect of the September 11, 2001 attacks could have been captured. As commander of the Jawbreaker unit, he had the latest intelligence on Bin Laden’s whereabouts.

Berntsen has been decorated by the CIA for counter-terrorist activities in the Middle East and east Africa. He is becoming persona non grata, however, because his account of the Afghan campaign conflicts with the White House version of events.

“Gary co-ordinated most of the boots on the ground,” said Roy Krieger, his lawyer. “We knew where Bin Laden was within a very circumscribed area. It was full of caves and tunnels but we could have bombed them or searched them one by one. The Pentagon failed to deploy sufficient troops to seal them off.”

Berntsen’s book may contain other secrets that the CIA would rather keep. “He wasn’t just involved in the hunt for Bin Laden,” said Krieger.

Berntsen helped to provide co-ordinates for American airstrikes and collected computers from bombed-out Al-Qaeda hiding places. In the book he describes how some Taliban leaders were lured to their capture and sent to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. He also handed cash to Northern Alliance warlords to keep them on side. He was not impressed by their fighting ability and believes that the Pentagon was wrong to rely on their forces in Tora Bora.

For the moment Berntsen is unable to reveal more details. His CIA work is classified although he left the agency in June. It has the last word on what can appear in his book.

The CIA is meant to vet manuscripts in 30 days but has held on to Berntsen’s for nearly 90 days. The CIA said the time limit “could be extended if the book is lengthy or the subject complex”.

The real struggle may come over what the agency wants to cut. “As far as we know they are going for everything,” said Berntsen. “It is starting to look like a cover-up.”

August 14, 2005 at 11:05 AM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

US warns of new attacks on London

US warns of new attacks on London - Sunday Times - Times Online

DAVID LEPPARD
Read the document
AMERICAN intelligence chiefs have warned that Al-Qaeda terrorists are plotting to drive hijacked fuel tankers into petrol stations in an effort to cause mass casualties in London and US cities in the next few weeks.

The leaked warning, contained in a bulletin issued by the US Department for Homeland Security last week, says the attacks aim to create catastrophic damage at about the time of the fourth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

The warning came as it emerged that the British Department for Transport had for the first time issued guidelines ordering a tightening of security around the UK road tanker fleet.

The US warning has been circulated among law enforcement agencies and fuel transport agencies. Although a preamble states that “no other intelligence exists to corroborate this specific threat”, the intelligence report is highly specific.

It says: “Al-Qaeda leaders plan to employ various types of fuel trucks as vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIED) in an effort to cause mass casualties in the US (and London), prior to September 19. Attacks are planned specifically for New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. It is unclear whether the attacks will occur simultaneously or be spread over a period of time. The stated goal is the collapse of the US economy.”

The document goes on to suggest that the proposed methods will involve suicide drivers: “Some of the vehicles used will be hijacked. The type of vehicle may be anything from gasoline tanker trucks to trucks hauling oxygen and gas cylinders. Water trucks filled with gasoline or other highly combustible material may also be used. The detonation of the vehicles will be carried out by driving them into gas stations or ramming explosive-laden vehicles into the trucks carrying the fuel.”

The intelligence report says that the terrorist cells thought to be planning the attack will “execute the plan upon receipt of an order”. It goes on to speculate that the videotape released last week by Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda’s deputy leader, may have been meant as “the activation signal to the cells”. In the video al-Zawahiri warned that attacks would continue in Britain until it pulled out of Iraq.

The report says that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, one of the alleged masterminds of the September 11 attacks, has told US interrogators that he had developed plans for targeting petrol stations. This was “due to their apparent vulnerability and the potential destructive force of a fuel-driven explosion”, it says.

The use of petrol tankers as mobile bombs has been a well-tested Al-Qaeda tactic in the Middle East. Terrorists in Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Iraq have all used large fuel tankers against military and civilian targets.

A fuel tanker attack on the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996 killed 19 US servicemen. Four weeks ago terrorists exploded a fuel tanker in a busy market town 25 miles south of Baghdad killing nearly 100.

Although the specific threat of a tanker attack on London is thought to be new, Scotland Yard and MI5 have long feared that Al-Qaeda would try vehicle attacks on key targets in the capital.

Last year police disrupted an alleged plot to bomb a “soft target” — thought to be a Soho nightclub — with a truck bomb. More than half a ton of fertiliser, which can be used to make explosives, was recovered in a raid in north London.

Security sources say that fears about the use of fuel tankers has led to them being closely monitored when they enter the City of London.

Concrete security barriers have been placed in other key locations across the capital to stop vehicles packed with explosives reaching buildings such as parliament.

The Americans have previously been fearful that terrorists might use commercial vehicles for bomb attacks and warn that delivery vans could gain easy access to high-value economic targets. The FBI has also said that terrorists could use limousines packed with explosives to get near VIP targets.

The British Department for Transport issued new guidance on July 1 to prevent fuel tankers being hijacked and used as weapons. The security measures require carriers to be properly identified and transit sites to be made secure. All relevant staff are to be given security training. The measures apply to all dangerous goods transported by road or rail.

In California and Australia the authorities are introducing remote-controlled shut-down devices to stop any fuel tanker if it is hijacked. In Singapore the government has just begun putting tracking devices on petrol tankers to monitor their movements. Details of the latest intelligence warning were leaked to the American media last week, but no mention was made of the threat to London. The bulletin said the “stated goal is the collapse of the American economy”.

The disclosure of the warning has led to a disagreement among officials about the seriousness of the threat. Senior officials in Washington who were briefed on it last week said it was described as specific enough to warrant attention.

The FBI cautioned that the source of the information was not necessarily reliable. They said that the specific threat of a tanker attack to mark the anniversary of September 11 could not be verified.

This weekend British officials said they were unwilling to make any detailed comment on the warning. One government official said he knew of no specific intelligence warning of a fuel tanker attack in Britain: “It’s obviously a particular type of Al-Qaeda modus operandi used. But it hasn’t been used in Europe before.”

# As The Sunday Times revealed last week, MI5 has provisionally found the July 7 and July 21 bombings were not linked and found no evidence of a single mastermind. It points to “self-starter” units inspired rather than directed by Al-Qaeda.

August 14, 2005 at 10:42 AM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

August 13, 2005

Hizb ut-Tahrir

Hizb ut-Tahrir - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Hizb ut-Tahrir (Arabic: ﺣﺰﺏ ﺍﻟﺘﺤﺮﻳﺮ; meaning Party of Liberation) is an an independent Islamist political party. The organization was founded by Taqiuddin al-Nabhani, a religious judge (qadi) of Jerusalem (al-Quds) in 1953. Hizb ut-Tahrir claim to be dedicated to the re-establishment of the Khilafah state, and the removal of what the organization consider to be Imperialistic non-Islamic control of what they consider to be "the Muslim lands usurped by the Kuffar from the Muslims". According to Hizb ut-Tahrir, these influences include: non-Muslim military capacities, such as the US Armed Forces presence in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan; non-Islamic laws and legal concepts; and Muslim trust in non-Islamic thoughts (secularism, philosophy, and so forth).

August 13, 2005 at 07:19 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Al-Muhajiroun

Al-Muhajiroun - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Al-Muhajiroun (Arabic: The Emigrants) was an Islamist group operating in the United Kingdom, which splintered from Hizb ut-Tahrir in 1996. It was led by Anjem Choudary and was notorious for its conference "The Magnificent 19", praising the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks.

The Vision of Al-Muhajiroun

Al-Muhajiroun's proclaimed aims were as follows:

1. To establish public awareness in society about Islam as a belief (Aqeedah) from which emanates a complete system of life i.e. Shari'ah in order that Islam becomes the Intellectual leadership in society.
2. To create public opinion in society about Islam as a complete system of life and about the call of Al-Muhajiroun.
3. To persuade Muslims to implement Islam and to persuade non-Muslims to embrace Islam or to accept it as a political way of life and a solution for their problems.
4. To highlight the issues and the problems facing Muslims locally or globally in order to establish an Islamic bond between the community and the Umma i.e. Muslims worldwide.
5. To create a high profile for Al-Muhajiroun to enable them to penetrate into the society and to let the whole world talk about them and their ideas in order to establish contact and links with the masses and the people of power i.e. the army.
6. To formulate a fifth column as a community pressure group which is well equipped with the Islamic culture e.g. ruling, social, economic, judicial, penal and ritual systems in order to become capable of implementing Islam fully and comprehensively in society.
7. To establish Al-Khilafah in order that Islam dominates the World (Izhaar ud-Deen) and becomes the World order.

[edit]

Disbandment

On October 13, 2004 the disbandment of Al Muhajiroun was announced. However, it is believed that The Saviour Sect is to all intents and purposes Al Muhajiroun operating under a new name.

August 13, 2005 at 07:15 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Going it alone Down Under

TheStar.com - Going it alone Down Under

MARTIN REGG COHN
ASIA BUREAU

HONIARA, Solomon Islands—Federal agent Simone Kleehammer dons a helmet and flak jacket before linking up with an army escort for her nightly police patrols.

This is where her police colleagues were shot late last year — one killed, one injured — after local gunmen targeted Australian police on this anarchic South Pacific island nation 3,000 kilometres northeast of Sydney.

TORSTEN BLACKWOOD/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
In this file photo from July 2003, the first soldiers of an Australian-led intervention force come ashore at Honiara to restore law and order to the Solomon Islands. The amphibious landing was the start of a massive, decade-long intervention in the troubled South Pacific nation.

The shootings "felt like all of us getting kicked in the stomach," admits Kleehammer, 31, as she drives past the shooting scene. "But we were all here to do a job and we knew this could happen."

The deadly ambushes sent a chill through this dusty tropical town, demoralizing Australian police deployed here on a precedent-setting mission: to rebuild a failed state by reviving its faltering police force.

Australia reacted to the shootings by airlifting combat troops and arming its cops on the beat. Now, nighttime patrols are still tense, but by daybreak Kleehammer dumps her body armour, ditches her military escort and leaves the safety of a police outpost blanketed in barbed wire.

Relying on a smile and a 9-millimetre Glock handgun, she patrols with her local partners — fresh recruits from the discredited Royal Solomon Islands Police.

Hunched in a rickety cruiser, they begin a bone-jarring sweep through "Borderland," the deadliest district in this ramshackle capital.

Despite the threats, most residents of this dirt-poor island chain look upon the strapping Australian men and women in blue as saviours.

Two years ago, these outsiders rescued the islanders from themselves — from the chaos of a failed state riven by ethnic cleansing and gang violence culminating in the government's collapse.

In fact, Kleehammer is one of 300 foot soldiers in an Australian experiment that has redefined her government's approach to global trouble spots. The police deployment is the centrepiece of a massive, decade-long intervention launched in mid-2003 with an amphibious landing by 1,700 combat troops.

As they restored order, the $1 billion operation was bolstered by squads of elite civil servants reviving the moribund machinery of government, ranging from treasury economists to customs agents patrolling the airport. It is a virtual takeover of a sovereign country — albeit by invitation.

The Solomon Islands rescue mission has served as the inspiration for an equally ambitious police deployment in Papua New Guinea — another crime-infested, corruption-ridden troublespot off Australia's northern coast.

Saving the day is becoming a habit for Australians. The federal police have set up an "international deployment division" as part of its "core business," says Will Jamieson, who ran the division before relocating here to run the Solomon Islands police mission.

Australia's biggest and boldest intervention came in late 1999, when its military deployed decisively into nearby East Timor as it was struggling for independence from adjacent Indonesia in mid-1999. While Western countries stood by paralyzed, the global spotlight was shining on 5,700 Australian troops as they stared down Indonesian-backed militiamen.

Today, Australia projects its power from Iraq and Afghanistan in the West, to the Solomon Islands and other South Pacific nations in the East. Beyond the sheer sweep of territory, Australia's increasingly muscular and activist strategy suggests a country that is punching far above its weight.

Bruised by the 2002 Bali bombing that claimed 88 Australian lives and left the country reeling, it emerged more determined to ally itself with Washington's war on terror.

An early clue to Australia's inclinations came when Prime Minister John Howard famously agreed with an interviewer that he was America's "deputy sheriff" in the region; he created an even bigger stir by threatening pre-emptive strikes against terrorists plotting against Australians from neighbouring countries.

But Australia's influence is about more than muscle and sabre-rattling. Australians beat the rest of the world to the punch by donating a remarkable $1 billion within hours of last December's tsunami, and sending in the first waves of military rescue teams.

Compared to Canada — with a similarly modest population and compact military — Australia is emerging as a global player and diplomatic powerhouse. It is often said that there no two countries more similar than Canada and Australia in terms of size and British parliamentary traditions, but on defence and foreign policy the two countries are following distinctly different paths.

While Canada concentrates on peacekeeping and emphasizes multilateralism, Australia opts for rapid responses to shore up failing states — even without United Nations approval.

Canada proudly wears its multilateral memberships on its sleeve and heralds the United Nations as the foundation of its foreign policy, while Australia's government is openly dismissive of Security Council consultations that go nowhere.

Australia's long-serving foreign minister, Alexander Downer, is a harsh critic of "sclerotic" multilateralism that has become "a synonym for an ineffective and unfocused policy of internationalism of the lowest common denominator."

Interviewed in his Sydney office this month, Downer restated Australia's determination to follow its own course — in close consultations with its American ally — rather than taking its cue from others overseas. And like many influential Australian foreign policy analysts, he made plain his displeasure with Ottawa's readiness to sit on the sidelines while others do the "heavy lifting."

Despite the apparent similarities, Canada can coast on Washington's protective umbrella while Australia has to look after itself, while keeping firepower in reserve for neighbours in need.

Downer says Australians are keen on looking after themselves because "this is our neighbourhood. Canada's neighbourhood is completely dominated by the United States."

He adds that Australia is more than merely self-reliant — it is also a reliable ally.

"We pull our weight," Downer says pointedly.

The contrast with Canada, which prides itself on being a "middle power" that absented itself from Iraq, is inescapably unflattering.

Despite significant domestic opposition — the country is still split on the issue — Australia didn't hesitate to send troops during the U.S.-led invasion and now has about 400 soldiers in Iraq. It is also sending more soldiers to Afghanistan, again.

Nor did it wait for U.N. approval before dispatching forces to the Solomon Islands, fearing a Security Council veto by China.

"The political will comes from a commitment to try to make a contribution to dealing with some of the world's problems," Downer says.

"Sometimes we can do it alone — at least lead the operation, as we did in East Timor," he continues.

"We did the heavy lifting. Same in the Solomon Islands. With Papua New Guinea we do it alone with the PNG government."

Australians are unabashed about flexing their muscle.

"We're all very proud to be punching above our weight," says Susan Windybank, head of foreign policy research at Sydney's Centre for Independent Studies. "We don't want our backyard to become a junkyard."

The risk, however, is that Australia is stretching itself thin while trying too hard to please the Americans, says Owen Harries, a foreign policy advisor to previous Australian governments.

Despite his skepticism of Australia's over-arching ambition to be in the big leagues, Harries is contemptuous of Canada's more cautious foreign policy.

"I don't admire Canada's foreign policy very much. For a country of its weight, it should be doing more than engaging in good works."

Additional articles by Martin Regg Cohn

August 13, 2005 at 06:41 PM in Espionage - general | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Radical cleric will not be allowed back to UK

London bombs terror attack The Times and Sunday Times Times Online

By Sam Knight, Times Online

The radical cleric Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed will not be allowed to return to Britain from Lebanon, where he is on holiday, the Home Office announced today.

Sheikh Bakri Mohammed, who has lived in North London for 20 years, left Britain for Beirut six days ago, where he said he was visiting his mother.

This morning, the Home Office said the 47-year-old cleric, who has been under police investigation on incitement to murder charges because of his extremist views, would not be allowed back into the UK.

"The Home Secretary has issued an order revoking Omar Bakri Mohammed’s indefinite leave to remain and to exclude him from the UK on the grounds that his presence is not conducive to the public good," said a Home Office spokesman.

Sheikh Bakri Mohammed, who has called the perpetrators of the July 7 bombings the "fantastic four", has 14 days to appeal the decision.

Sheikh Bakri Mohammed, who is Syrian, was granted indefinite leave to remain in Britain in 1993, after coming to London in 1985 from Saudi Arabia, where he was deported for being a member of Hizb ut Tahrir, the radical Islamic group he has continued to promote in speeches across the country.

Syrian officials have given warning that Sheikh Bakri Mohammed could face prosecution if he attempts to return to his homeland. He fled Syria in 1982 after authorities stamped out the Syrian branch of the radical Muslim Brotherhood organisation.

Sheikh Bakri Mohammed left London last Saturday, the day after Tony Blair announced tough new measures to proscribe the activities of "preachers of hate". The Prime Minister said members of al-Muhajiroun, the officially-disbanded group Sheikh Bakri Mohammed has led since 1996, would be arrested.

Supporters of Sheikh Bakri Mohammed, nicknamed the "Tottenham Ayatollah", reacted with dismay to the news of his exclusion from the UK.

"I think it's completely outrageous that the Government can exclude someone simply because they disagree with his views," Anjem Choudary, a close associate of Sheikh Bakri Mohammed, told Sky News. "It seems to be that this is a failure of the freedoms that you espouse."

Mr Choudary said Sheikh Bakri Mohammed would find plenty of support if he remained in the Middle East and that he had already suggested he would not return to Britain if he was not welcome here.

This week the Sheikh said that he intended to return to Britain in four to six weeks and yesterday, he told a Lebanese news channel in Beirut that he had an appointment at a hospital in London for a heart operation later this year.

"I have every right to come back. Britain is my home. My family are there and I have done nothing wrong," he told Future TV.

As he left the television studios he was detained by the Lebanese authorities. A Lebanese prosecutor has since ordered his release, according to judicial sources.

Speaking to Voice of Lebanon radio, Lebanon Justice Minister Charles Rizk said that Sheikh Bakri Mohammed’s case was "purely legal." The country's General Security department has said in a statement that he was being interrogated about the circumstances of his entry to Lebanon. Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said that he was arrested as a "precautionary measure". Under Lebanese law, a suspect can remain in "administrative detention" for up to 96 hours before a decision is made on whether to prosecute him or release him.

Lebanese newspapers reported today that Syria would like Lebanon to hand over the preacher, but this could not be confirmed with the Syrian authorities as today is the Muslim sabbath. He holds Syrian and Lebanese citizenship.

Yesterday the Crown Prosecution Service confirmed that it had compiled a file on Sheikh Bakri Mohammed to investigate whether to charge him with incitement to murder on the basis of his outspoken support for Islamic holy war.

Sheikh Bakri Mohammed, a father of seven, is understood to have received tens of thousands of pounds in benefits payments in his time in the UK and has told followers to claim as much as they can while doing all that they can to allegedly "wage war" against Britain.

In the past, his website has boasted of sending British recruits to fight in Afghanistan and other conflicts such as Kashmir, Bosnia and Chechnya but this stopped once anti-terror laws were brought in after the September 11 attacks which could have seen the site risk prosecution.

August 13, 2005 at 05:42 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

August 12, 2005

Did DoD lawyers blow the chance to nab Atta?

GSN Magazine

By Jacob Goodwin

In September 2000, one year before the Al Qaeda attacks of 9/11, a U.S. Army military intelligence program, known as “Able Danger,” identified a terrorist cell based in Brooklyn, NY, one of whose members was 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta, and recommended to their military superiors that the FBI be called in to “take out that cell,” according to Rep. Curt Weldon, a longtime Republican congressman from Pennsylvania who is currently vice chairman of both the House Homeland Security and House Armed Services Committees.

The recommendation to bring down that New York City cell -- in which two other Al Qaeda terrorists were also active -- was not pursued during the weeks leading up to the 2000 presidential election, said Weldon. That’s because Mohammed Atta possessed a “green card” at the time and Defense Department lawyers did not want to recommend that the FBI go after someone holding a green card, Weldon told his House colleagues last June 27 during a little-noticed speech, known as a “special order,” which he delivered on the House floor.

Details of the origins and efforts of Able Danger were corroborated in a telephone interview by GSN with a former defense intelligence officer who said he worked closely with that program. That intelligence officer, who spoke to GSN while sitting in Rep. Weldon’s Capitol Hill office, requested anonymity for fear that his current efforts to help re-start a similar intelligence-gathering operation might be hampered if his identity becomes known.

The intelligence officer recalled carrying documents to the offices of Able Danger, which was being run by the Special Operations Command, headquartered in Tampa, FL. The documents included a photo of Mohammed Atta supplied by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and described Atta’s relationship with Osama bin Laden. The officer was very disappointed when lawyers working for Special Ops decided that anyone holding a green card had to be granted essentially the same legal protections as any U.S. citizen. Thus, the information Able Danger had amassed about the only terrorist cell they had located inside the United States could not be shared with the FBI, the lawyers concluded.

“We were directed to take those 3M yellow stickers and place them over the faces of Atta and the other terrorists and pretend they didn’t exist,” the intelligence officer told GSN.

DoD lawyers may also have been reluctant to suggest a bold action by FBI agents after the bureau’s disastrous 1993 strike against the Branch Davidian religious cult in Waco, TX, said Weldon and the intelligence officer.

“So now, Mr. Speaker,” Weldon said on the House floor last June, “for the first time I can tell our colleagues that one of our agencies not only identified the New York cell of Mohammed Atta and two of the terrorists, but actually made a recommendation to bring the FBI in to take out that cell.”

Weldon has developed a reputation for making bold pronouncements and, occasionally, ruffling the feathers of some of his colleagues. His recent non-fiction book, “Countdown to Terror,” which draws on information from an Iranian expatriate source Weldon has dubbed “Ali,” has drawn criticism from the CIA, others in the intelligence community and some congressional colleagues.

A longtime champion of firefighters and first responders, Weldon has a particular interest in this subject because he has been openly and actively pushing since 1999 for the establishment of an integrated government-wide center that could consolidate, analyze and act upon intelligence gathered by dozens of U.S. agencies, armed services and departments.

Weldon’s proposal was based on the innovative intelligence gathering capabilities he had witnessed at the U.S. Army’s Information Dominance Center, based at Fort Belvoir, VA, (which was formerly known as the Land Information Warfare Assessment Center.) This Army center had employed data mining, profiling and data collaboration techniques before several other intelligence agencies, and was using such cutting edge software tools as Starlight (developed by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) and Spires.

For years, the CIA resisted the congressman’s recommendation, Weldon told GSN in a telephone interview on August 1, claiming that his plan to integrate dozens of discrete and classified intelligence streams was both unworkable and unnecessary. Weldon had dubbed his proposed organization the National Operations and Analysis Hub, nicknamed NOAH, because the center was intended “to protect our nation from the flood of threats,” he explained.

Sixteen months after 9/11, such a “data fusion center,” named the Terrorism Threat Integration Center (TTIC) was indeed established by the Bush Administration.

At the urging of the 9/11 Commission, the TTIC has since been restructured and renamed the National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC).

Weldon is pleased that steps have been taken to unify the nation’s intelligence gathering and analysis capabilities, now headed by a newly established Director of National Intelligence, Joseph Negroponte, but Weldon remains concerned that the “stovepipe” mentalities that plagued the intelligence community in the past continue to inhibit true information sharing between intelligence agencies.

He is also extremely frustrated by the fact that so little official attention seems to have been paid to the intelligence failure related to the Mohammed Atta cell in Brooklyn. Weldon contends that few in the Bush Administration seem interested in investigating that missed opportunity.

“If we had had that [military intelligence] system in 1999 and 2000, which the military had already developed as a prototype, and if we had followed the lead of the military entity that identified the Al Qaeda cell of Mohammed Atta, then perhaps, Mr. Speaker, 9/11 would never have occurred,” Weldon said during his special order remarks.

According to Weldon, staff members of the 9/11 Commission were briefed on the capabilities of the Able Danger intelligence unit within the Special Operations Command, which had been set up by General Pete Schoomaker, who headed Special Ops at the time, on the orders of General Hugh Shelton, then the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. Staffers at the 9/11 Commission staffers were also told about the specific recommendation to break up the Mohammed Atta cell. However, those commission staff members apparently did not choose to brief the commission’s members on these sensitive matters.

Weldon said he was told specifically by commission members, Tim Roemer, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana; and John Lehman, a former secretary of the Navy; that they had never been briefed on the Able Danger unit within Special Ops or on the unit’s evidence of a terrorist cell in Brooklyn.

“I personally talked with [Philip] Zelikow [executive director of the 9/11 Commission] about this,” recalled the intelligence officer. “For whatever bizarre reasons, he didn’t pass on the information.”

The State Department, where Zelikow now works as a counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said he was traveling and unavailable for comment.

“Why did the 9/11 Commission not investigate this entire situation?” asked Weldon on June 27. “Why did the 9/11 Commission not ask the question about the military’s recommendation against the Mohammed Atta cell?”

Weldon is also disappointed with himself for not pushing harder against the intelligence bureaucracy that he saw as resisting his proposal to set up a more integrated intelligence-gathering operation. But he saves some of his greatest ire for the lawyers within the Department of Defense -- he is not sure if they were working within the Special Operations Command or higher up the organizational chart, within the Office of the Secretary of Defense -- for their unwillingness to allow Able Danger to send to the FBI its evidence and its recommendation for immediate action.

“Obviously, if we had taken out that cell, 9/11 would not have occurred and, certainly, taking out those three principal players in that cell would have severely crippled, if not totally stopped, the operation that killed 3,000 people in America,” said Weldon.

Shining a spotlight on this intelligence gaffe has not been easy. Russ Caso, Weldon’s chief of staff, explained to GSN the steps his boss has taken to shed light on the situation.

Weldon spoke with Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, about conversations he has had with several members of the Able Danger intelligence unit. Weldon has urged Hoekstra to investigate the reasons why Able Danger’s revelations were not shared with the FBI. Hoekstra looked into the matter at the Pentagon, but after several days of fruitless inquiries, was unable to find anyone at the Defense Department who seemed to know anything about Able Danger or would acknowledge the intelligence unit had ever existed, explained Caso in a telephone interview with GSN.

Unwilling to let the matter drop, Weldon arranged for a face-to-face meeting in late July between Hoekstra, himself and the former intelligence officer who had worked with Able Danger, and who outlined his former unit’s evidence and recommendations for Hoekstra.

“Congressman Weldon has met with several people who were working on Able Danger to identify where Al Qaeda was set up around the world,” said Caso. “They made the suggestion that this information be passed to the FBI, and lawyers within the Defense Department -- whether within Special Ops or within OSD, we don’t know -- and the lawyers said, ‘No’.”

A report about some of these events appeared last June 19 in The Times Herald newspaper, of Norristown, PA, which is located in the Philadelphia suburbs that Rep. Weldon represents in Congress.

August 12, 2005 at 03:02 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Counter-Terrorism in Somalia: Losing Hearts and Minds?

International Crisis Group (Crisis Group) - Conflict prevention and resolution

Africa Report N°95
11 July 2005

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Nearly four years after 9/11, hardly a day passes without the "war on terrorism" making headlines, with Iraq, Afghanistan, Indonesia and now London holding centre stage. But away from the spotlight, a quiet, dirty conflict is being waged in Somalia: in the rubble-strewn streets of the ruined capital of this state without a government, Mogadishu, al-Qaeda operatives, jihadi extremists, Ethiopian security services and Western-backed counter-terrorism networks are engaged in a shadowy and complex contest waged by intimidation, abduction and assassination. The U.S. has had some success but now risks evoking a backlash. Ultimately a successful counter-terrorism strategy requires more attention to helping Somalia with the twin tasks of reconciliation and state building.

During the 1990s, jihadism in Somalia was synonymous with al-Itihaad al-Islaami, a band of Wahhabi militants determined to establish an Islamic emirate in the country. Al-Qaeda also developed a toehold, contributing to attacks on U.S. and UN peacekeepers in the early part of the decade and using the country as a transit zone for terrorism in neighbouring Kenya; some leading members of al-Qaeda's East African network continue to hide in Somalia.

Since 2003, Somalia has witnessed the rise of a new, ruthless, independent jihadi network with links to al-Qaeda. Based in lawless Mogadishu and led by a young militia leader trained in Afghanistan, the group announced its existence by murdering four foreign aid workers in the relatively secure territory of Somaliland between October 2003 and April 2004. Western governments, led by the U.S., responded to the threat of terrorism in and from Somalia by building up Somali counter-terrorist networks headed by faction leaders and former military or police officers, and by cooperating with the security services in Somaliland and neighbouring Puntland. The strategy has netted at least one key al-Qaeda figure, and as many as a dozen members of the new jihadi group are either dead or behind bars.

Despite these successes, counter-terrorism efforts are producing growing unease within the broader public. Few Somalis believe there are terrorists in their country, and many regard the American-led war on terrorism as an assault on Islam. Unidentified surveillance flights, the abduction of innocent people for weeks at a time on suspicion of terrorist links, and cooperation with unpopular faction leaders all add to public cynicism and resentment. Without public support, even the most sophisticated counter-terrorism effort is doomed to failure.

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Militants have responded by assassinating at least a dozen Somalis working for Mogadishu's Western-backed counter-terrorism networks. Meanwhile, an Ethiopian intelligence network hunts Islamist militants and insurgents among Somalia's small, fearful community of Oromo migrants and refugees.

Since the formation of the new Transitional Federal Government (TFG) for Somalia, in October 2004, the dirty war between terrorists and counter-terrorist operatives in Mogadishu appears to have entered a new and more vicious stage that threatens to push the country further towards jihadism and extremist violence unless its root causes are properly addressed. Urban terrorism has claimed the lives of a female BBC producer, two young Somali footballers and a Somali woman working for an international NGO. Eager to earn the support of Western governments as an ally in the war on terrorism, the TFG leadership has attributed the attacks to Islamist extremists but some of the evidence appears to implicate supporters of the interim president instead.

The threat of jihadi terrorism in and from Somalia is real. But attempts by the new Somali leadership and its regional allies to exploit this threat for short-term political gain risk plunging the country into even greater crisis. Several key leaders in the deeply divided transitional government are notorious for smearing adversaries and critics with allegations of terrorist linkages -- conduct that threatens to deepen the schisms within the government. More alarmingly, the faction of the TFG aligned with the interim president has tried to use the threat of terrorism to justify deployment of a regional intervention force to Somalia -- a widely unpopular and deeply divisive proposition that would not only irrevocably split the government and trigger renewed conflict, but would also dramatically strengthen the jihadis.

Ultimately, the threat of jihadi terrorism from Somalia can only be addressed through the restoration of stable, legitimate and functional government. Dealing with that threat requires Somalia's friends to do more to assist in bringing Somali society together again and rebuilding the state. But such assistance must be carefully planned and finely calibrated in order to ensure that it does not empower one faction of the TFG at the expense of another or otherwise destabilise a fragile peace process.

A successful counter-terrorism campaign requires more engagement with the broader public, including civil society organisations and more moderate Islamist groups. Somalis must be persuaded not only that some individuals guilty of terrorism are indeed in their country but also that the counter-terrorism agenda does not involve subjugation by factional or foreign interests. At the same time, Somalia's partners must become involved with the peace process, helping to overcome the TFG schisms and to forge a genuine government of national unity. If they fail to do so, jihadis will gradually find growing purchase among Somalia's despairing and disaffected citizenry, and it will only be a matter of time before another group of militants succeeds in mounting a spectacular terrorist attack against foreign interests in Somalia or against one of its neighbours.

Nairobi/Brussels, 11 July 2005

August 12, 2005 at 01:59 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

London suspects have ties to East Africa, where al-Qaida-linked groups may be growing

London suspects have ties to East Africa, where al-Qaida-linked groups may be growing - Fosters

By CHRIS TOMLINSON Associated Press Writer

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — At least three of the four suspects in the July 21 attempted bombings on the London subway and a bus were born in East Africa, where al-Qaida-linked groups still operate and may be growing in strength, according to a new assessment by counterterrorism experts.

The attackers, at least two of them naturalized British citizens, were born in Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea and there is no evidence they have been back there recently. But East Africa has several indigenous terror groups and has suffered three al-Qaida attacks since 1998.

"There is a genuine threat, there is no doubt the networks are still present and they retain the capacity to strike again," said Matt Bryden, an East Africa analyst for the think-tank International Crisis Group. "On the other hand, much more is known about these groups, there has been an intelligence surge in the last few years, they are kept under pressure."

Osama bin Laden moved to East Africa in 1991 at the invitation of Hassan al-Turabi, an Islamic fundamentalist once considered the spiritual, if not de facto, leader of Sudan. Bin Laden brought with him Afghan war veterans, millions of dollars and plans to start al-Qaida.

In 1992, bin Laden dispatched some of his deputies to Somalia, where a U.S.-led peacekeeping operation was under way. The operatives trained members of a Somali Islamic group called al-Itihaad Islamia, according to former Somali fighters.

Al-Itihaad members took at least partial credit for shooting down a Black Hawk helicopter in 1993, a battle that left 18 U.S. soldiers and hundreds of Somalis dead. Bin Laden considered the subsequent withdrawal of U.S. troops from Somalia his first victory against America.

During this time, al-Qaida operatives reached out to other Islamic fundamentalist groups in the region, including Eritrean Islamic Jihad and the Ethiopian branch of al-Itihaad.

Under U.S. pressure, the Sudanese government expelled bin Laden in 1996, forcing him to move to Afghanistan. But al-Qaida left cells behind in East Africa, and two of them attacked the U.S. Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in 1998, killing 12 Americans and more than 200 Africans.

The al-Qaida controller for those attacks, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, escaped Kenya to Somalia following the bombings, and in 2002 organized the car bombing of an Israeli hotel in Mombasa, after which he again went to Somalia, suspects have told interrogators.

While al-Itihaad was largely destroyed or disbanded by Ethiopian troops fighting inside Somalia by 1997, some of its members have regrouped under new guises and have begun to grow in strength, according to an International Crisis Group report released in July.

Somalia, divided into warring fiefdoms, remains fertile ground for terrorists.

The United Nations and ICG have identified Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, a former al-Itihaad member and now leader of Somalia's Islamic courts, as a key figure. He is also on a U.S. list of suspected al-Qaida members.

In his ICG report on Somalia, Bryden identified an Aweys associate who trained in Afghanistan, Aden Hashi Ayro, as the leader of a new "small but ruthless network based in Mogadishu." Ayro's group has been implicated in a number of assassinations in Somalia, the July report said.

The Islamic courts have heavily armed militias and financial support from powerful Somali businessmen, who try to keep their political activities secret, Mogadishu residents have told The Associated Press.

Aweys has refused to participate in forming a new government for Somalia and has threatened a religious war if foreign troops are brought in to help disarm the rival militias.

A counterterrorism force deployed in Djibouti by the U.S. has concentrated on improving the ability of East African governments to fight terrorism. The Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa provides intelligence-gathering help, regional cooperation and border protection, as well as humanitarian projects to improve the U.S. military's image among Muslims.

Bryden said that while there is still a clear threat of more terrorist attacks in East Africa, important strides have been made.

"There has been an investment in border controls, the computerization of immigration information and the upgrading of security forces," Bryden said. "The sharing of intelligence among countries in the region has been stepped up considerably."

Still, no one has been convicted in any East African country of a terrorist act, and most East Africans deny there is a terrorist threat in the region.

The men under investigation in London are the first East Africans suspected of involvement in a terrorist attack outside the continent since the Sept. 11 attacks.

August 12, 2005 at 01:53 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

9/11 Commission's Staff Rejected Report on Early Identification of Chief Hijacker

9/11 Commission's Staff Rejected Report on Early Identification of Chief Hijacker - New York Times

By DOUGLAS JEHL and PHILIP SHENON
Published: August 11, 2005

Correction Appended

WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 - The Sept. 11 commission was warned by a uniformed military officer 10 days before issuing its final report that the account would be incomplete without reference to what he described as a secret military operation that by the summer of 2000 had identified as a potential threat the member of Al Qaeda who would lead the attacks more than a year later, commission officials said on Wednesday.

The officials said that the information had not been included in the report because aspects of the officer's account had sounded inconsistent with what the commission knew about that Qaeda member, Mohammed Atta, the plot's leader.

But aides to the Republican congressman who has sought to call attention to the military unit that conducted the secret operation said such a conclusion relied too much on specific dates involving Mr. Atta's travels and not nearly enough on the operation's broader determination that he was a threat.

The briefing by the military officer is the second known instance in which people on the commission's staff were told by members of the military team about the secret program, called Able Danger.

The meeting, on July 12, 2004, has not been previously disclosed. That it occurred, and that the officer identified Mr. Atta there, were acknowledged by officials of the commission after the congressman, Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, provided information about it.

Mr. Weldon has accused the commission of ignoring information that would have forced a rewriting of the history of the Sept. 11 attacks. He has asserted that the Able Danger unit, whose work relied on computer-driven data-mining techniques, sought to call their superiors' attention to Mr. Atta and three other future hijackers in the summer of 2000. Their work, he says, had identified the men as likely members of a Qaeda cell already in the United States.

In a letter sent Wednesday to members of the commission, Mr. Weldon criticized the panel in scathing terms, saying that its "refusal to investigate Able Danger after being notified of its existence, and its recent efforts to feign ignorance of the project while blaming others for supposedly withholding information on it, brings shame on the commissioners, and is evocative of the worst tendencies in the federal government that the commission worked to expose."

Al Felzenberg, who served as the commission's chief spokesman, said earlier this week that staff members who were briefed about Able Danger at a first meeting, in October 2003, did not remember hearing anything about Mr. Atta or an American terrorist cell. On Wednesday, however, Mr. Felzenberg said the uniformed officer who briefed two staff members in July 2004 had indeed mentioned Mr. Atta.

Both Mr. Weldon's office and commission officials said they knew the name, rank and service of the officer, but they declined to make that information public.

Mr. Weldon and a former defense intelligence official who was interviewed on Monday have said that the Able Danger team sought but failed in the summer of 2000 to persuade the military's Special Operations Command, in Tampa, Fla., to pass on to the Federal Bureau of Investigation the information they had gathered about Mr. Atta and the three other men. The Pentagon and the Special Operations Command have declined to comment, saying they are still trying to learn more about what may have happened.

Maj. Paul Swiergosz, a Pentagon spokesman, said Wednesday that the military was working with the commission's unofficial follow-up group - the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, which was formed by the panel's members when it was disbanded - to try to clarify what had occurred.

Mr. Felzenberg said the commission's staff remained convinced that the information provided by the military officer in the July 2004 briefing was inaccurate in a significant way.

"He wasn't brushed off," Mr. Felzenberg said of the officer. "I'm not aware of anybody being brushed off. The information that he provided us did not mesh with other conclusions that we were drawing" from the commission's investigation.

Mr. Felzenberg said staff investigators had become wary of the officer because he argued that Able Danger had identified Mr. Atta, an Egyptian, as having been in the United States in late 1999 or early 2000. The investigators knew this was impossible, Mr. Felzenberg said, since travel records confirmed that he had not entered the United States until June 2000.

"There was no way that Atta could have been in the United States at that time, which is why the staff didn't give this tremendous weight when they were writing the report," Mr. Felzenberg said. "This information was not meshing with the other information that we had."

But Russell Caso, Mr. Weldon's chief of staff, said that "while the dates may not have meshed" with the commission's information, the central element of the officer's claim was that "Mohammed Atta was identified as being tied to Al Qaeda and a Brooklyn cell more than a year before the Sept. 11 attacks, and that should have warranted further investigation by the commission."

"Furthermore," Mr. Caso said, "if Mohammed Atta was identified by the Able Danger project, why didn't the Department of Defense provide that information to the F.B.I.?"

Mr. Felzenberg confirmed an account by Mr. Weldon's staff that the briefing, at the commission's offices in Washington, had been conducted by Dietrich L. Snell, one of the panel's lead investigators, and had been attended by a Pentagon employee acting as an observer for the Defense Department; over the commission's protests, the Bush administration had insisted that an administration "minder" attend all the panel's major interviews with executive branch employees. Mr. Snell referred questions to Mr. Felzenberg.

The Sept. 11 commission issued its final report on July 22, 2004. Mr. Felzenberg noted that the interview with the military officer had taken place in the final, hectic days before the commission sent the report to the printers, and said the meeting reflected a willingness by the commission to gather facts, even at the last possible minute.

"Lots of stuff was coming in over the transom," Mr. Felzenberg said. "Lots of stuff was flying around. At the end of the day, when you're writing the report, you have to take facts presented to you."

Correction:

A headline in some copies yesterday about a military officer who told the staff of the 9/11 commission that a secret unit had identified the leader of the attacks as a potential threat a year beforehand misstated the staff's reaction. As the article said, the statement was reviewed and rejected because its description of the movements of the plot leader did not match travel records. It was not ignored.

August 12, 2005 at 01:33 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Muslims are right about Britain

The Spectator.co.uk

Many moderate Muslims believe that much of Britain is decadent. They are right. Mr Blair says that the fanatics who want to blow us up despise us, but he won’t admit that their decent co-religionists — who are the best hope of undermining the extremists at source — despair of us. They despair of the moral decline and the ugly brutishness that characterise much of urban Britain. They despair of the metropolitan mix of gay rights and lager louts. And they despair of the liberal establishment’s unwillingness to face the facts and fight the battle for manners and morals.

They are not alone. The Windrush generation of Caribbeans came to Britain with the most traditional of values — proud Christians with dignity and a sense of duty — the kind of people so steeped in our history that they gave their children names like Winston, Milton and Gladstone. As vice-chairman of the British Caribbean Association, I recently had the chance to ask such people why so many young British blacks had got into trouble with the law. They unequivocally blamed the licence they encountered almost as soon as they arrived here, which made it so hard to inculcate their standards ...

August 12, 2005 at 01:34 AM in UK | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Israeli hawks circle Iran's N-plants

Telegraph | News | Israeli hawks circle Iran's N-plants

By Tim Butcher in Jerusalem
(Filed: 12/08/2005)

Ever since its 1979 Islamic revolution the only fate Iran has had in mind for Israel has been simple: its destruction. Now that Teheran seems to be moving towards acquiring its own nuclear arsenal, its plans for its great enemy threaten to be both fiery and radioactive.

Sometimes Iran's stated policy towards Israel is couched in inflammatory rhetoric, like that on a 40ft banner that used to hang outside the entrance of the foreign ministry in Teheran bearing the message: "Israel Must Burn".

Sometimes the language is tamer, such as the "Down With Israel" chants of students who march after Friday prayers in Teheran week in, week out.

But whatever the tone, the message remains the same. The Jewish state has survived wars, internal upheaval, intifadas and bloody entanglements in the internal affairs of its neighbours. But now a major enemy, one committed to its annihilation, appears close to deploying the most destructive force known to Man.

"Having the ayatollah regime armed with nuclear weapons is an existential threat to the state of Israel," Mark Regev, senior spokeman at its foreign ministry, admitted grimly. "We take the issue extremely seriously.''

But while the danger Israel faces is clear, what it should do about the threat poses much more of a quandary.

Some Israelis cite the precedent of the 1981 unilateral Israeli airstrike on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor. Israel, they argue, should do the same again and launch pre-emptive military attacks on Iran's growing nuclear infrastructure.

But Iran has developed its nuclear programme with such a scenario in mind. It has deliberately spread its facilities far and wide, using nine locations, according to one intelligence source.

And each facility is buried under tons of reinforced concrete, making it more difficult to destroy, even with the help of the BLU-109 "bunker-buster" bombs the US is selling its closest Middle Eastern ally.

Iran, moreover, is further away from Israel than Iraq, raising even greater doubts about the ability of the F15 and F16 planes Israel would use in any air raids to reach their target and then make it home without being refuelled.

And there is also the question of how the aircraft would get close enough to hit their targets. The US controls Iraqi airspace but it seems inconceivable that Washington would open it up to Israeli combat jets and tankers.

While the problems facing air strikes are significant, Israel's military nevertheless believes it has the means to cause serious damage to the Iranian nuclear capability.

Israel's cruise missiles, launched from planes or submarines, give the country a capability that it did not have in 1981 when it attacked the Iraqi reactor with a conventional bombing sortie.

"It's a bit more challenging in Iran but the military option remains a real one," said David Ivri, a retired Israeli air force officer who commanded Operation Opera, the attack on Iraq's reactor.

"After all, the aim would not be to neutralise the Iranian nuclear programme. That would be impossible. But what we could do is delay it considerably.

"That was our aim in Iraq and that is what we achieved - a very long delay.''

The calculation Israel must make is a simple one: when will Iran become a nuclear power?

The Iraq attack was launched only when Israel's intelligence concluded that Saddam Hussein's regime was within a year of producing its own nuclear weapons.

It also followed a lengthy diplomatic campaign by Israel to dissuade France from selling nuclear technology to Iraq. When that failed, Mossad agents blew up components due to be shipped to Iraq at a warehouse in France.

Only when it was clear that Iraq's nuclear programme continued did Operation Opera get the green light.

According to a senior figure in the Israeli Defence Force quoted in the Jerusalem Post, Iran will not be able to produce a nuclear bomb until 2008 at the earliest; 2012 is a more realistic date and experts believe that the current situation is insufficiently acute to warrant military action.

"The best-case scenario for Israel is that the negotiations between Iran and the European Union succeed," said Emily Landau, senior research associate at the Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv. "And at the moment that is still the most likely possibility.

"If you look at the wording of every statement by Iran, they sound defiant but always include some sort of reference to the talks and the possibility of some sort of new initiative. As long as this sort of language continues, then a full-blown crisis can be avoided."

This would suit Israel, which backs the negotiations and wants to avoid turning the current crisis into a row between Iran and itself.

As long as international negotiators are taking the lead, Israel is happy to stay on the sidelines.

And there is one important factor at play: it is one of the Middle East's worst kept secrets that Israel has the nuclear bomb. Iran certainly knows this and it will have a clear deterrent effect.

The result is that Israel might not need to take pre-emptive military action against Iran - if only because Teheran would never use a nuclear weapon against Israel for fear of itself being attacked, and annihilated, by the Jewish state's nuclear arsenal.

tim.butcher@telegraph.co.uk

11 August 2005: Teheran's nuclear defiance continues
10 August 2005: UN nuclear watchdog debates sanctions as row with Iran deepens

Previous story: BA grounds all Heathrow flights
Related links
Iran bomb 'is a decade away'

Years of tension

Iran factfile

External links
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French Property News

August 12, 2005 at 12:26 AM in Iran | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Analysis: Iran plays nuclear cat and mouse

Analysis: Iran plays nuclear cat and mouse - World - Times Online

By Times Online

Ramita Navai, Tehran Correspondent for The Times, believes that Iran's decision to break the seals at the Isfalan nuclear plant is symbolically important, but many stages remain before crisis is reached.

"The seals were put in place when Iran made a voluntary agreement to suspend its nuclear activities at Isfalan last year. The EU3 (France, Germany, Britain) requested that they were used to ensure that these activities could not be resumed in secret.

"For ordinary people, the removal of the seals has become a uniting issue of national pride. It's the first single issue to bind all Iran - reformists, conservatives, young and old - since the Islamic revolution. The people here feel very strongly that it is their right.

"Everyone you speak to believes that Iran can continue to use the plant for the production of nuclear energy without breaching the Non-Proliferation Treaty. They genuinely see Isfahan as a gas enrichment plant - but this is not simply an energy issue.

"Iran is surrounded by countries which it regards as being less sophisticated than itself but which nevertheless have nuclear military capabilities - India, Pakistan and Israel. People here believe that if those countries have nuclear weapons, then so should they.

"Outwardly, there is a good deal of sabre-rattling going on with the President saying that he is not scared by the threat of sanctions. Iran has just signed a massive gas export deal with China and believes that because of their close economic ties, China would veto any attempt to introduce such penalties.

"But even though there is this outward mood of defiance, the Iranians clearly do not want the talks to break down with the UN Security Council.

"There is the suggestion among some analysts that what we are seeing is part negotiation and part a continuation of the cat-and-mouse game which Iran has been playing with the EU over its nuclear ambitions for years.

"The difference now is that Ali Larijani, who has just been appointed the new chief nuclear negotiator, is taking a far harder line on the issue than his predecessor Hassan Rohani who was more open to negotiations.

"He has described the deal offered by the EU3 as 'giving up a pearl for a sweet' - which signifies a real hardening of Iran's approach.

"Nobody knows what the reaction of Europe and the US to today's annoucement will be. This is an important gesture but many stages remain before we reach a situation that could be described as critical.

"Senior analysts remain convinced that, even though this symbolic step has been taken, if President Ahmadinejad was offered a really mouth-watering deal he could be persuaded to suspend activities at Isfahan again."

August 12, 2005 at 12:24 AM in Iran | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Oil bonanza offers new opportunity for wealth distribution

World news from The Times and the Sunday Times - Times Online

By Bronwen Maddox
THE good news is that the Gulf states are keeping far more of the oil bonanza at home than they have done before — and investing some of it in new businesses, schools and universities.

That offers a flicker of hope that the region is finally about to tackle its own urgent need for educating its young people, and for creating jobs that will save them from unemployment and the lure of militancy.

The bad news is that a torrent of cash is also pouring into fanciful property developments as well as into the region’s embryonic stock markets, which rose by between a quarter and 88 per cent last year.

Dubai, already constructing the world’s tallest building, is now working on “City of Arabia”, with 35 skyscrapers, and the $7.5 billion “Dubailand” theme park, twice the size of Disney in Florida, with a ski slope and dinosaur park.

It would be daft to talk of a bubble bursting soon. The oil price shows no sign of falling, and so the pressure of cash looking for a home may well keep prices high.

But this kind of investment hardly offers the social transformation these countries need.

The Gulf “is in the midst of a period of exceptional economic performance” because of soaring oil prices, notes a report by the International Institute of Finance, a US-based association.

For the six nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) — Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman — it forecasts economic growth of nearly 25 per cent this year. Most of that is due to record oil prices, which have trebled since 1999. Howard Handy, IIF director for the Middle East and Africa, said he expects that those countries’ revenue from exporting oil will rise by 49 per cent this year to $291 billion.

Of course, there have been booms before. Much past wealth was soaked up by palaces, Bentleys and trappings coveted by those in power. A lot went into US stock markets.

The spectacle spawned a vigorous academic debate on whether wealth in resources always fosters corruption.

But the IIF report is one of several saying, cautiously, that this time, the use of the windfall looks promising. Charles Dallera, IIF managing director, notes that this boom “appears to be having more dynamic effects across the region”.

This time, much more of the cash is staying at home, encouraged by tighter financial controls in the US and Europe since September 11. According to the Basle-based Bank for International Settlements, “oil revenues have not been channelled into the international banking system” — overseas bank deposits of the main oil countries have barely risen.

According to the IIF, more than $120 billion will be invested in building projects this year, including hospitals and universities. Harvard Medical School is building a medical school in Dubai and Cornell University is backing an offshoot in Qatar.

In the past, wealthy Gulf Arabs have often sent their children to the West for education and spent much of their summer in Western medical clinics.

There are signs that the wealth is spilling over to the wider region: Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and Pakistan.

Even if some of the investment has simply inflated asset values, some has gone to improve infrastructure and lay foundations which will attract other businesses.

Will it do the trick in helping the region wean itself off its dependence on oil, and at the same time move towards greater political stability? The question is most critical in Saudi Arabia, where the sight of fabulous spending by the Royal Family is a provocation to the growing population, and the ranks of young, unemployed men.

Although Saudi Arabia produces almost half as much oil again as the other GCC countries, its income per head is less than a third of that in Qatar, and half of that in Kuwait.

The Saudis perhaps should take a leaf out of the book of President Chavéz of Venezuela, who has tried to demonstrate to poor people the benefits of the oil boom. But unless the Royal Family fritters away the bonanza on its own pleasures as conspicuously as in the past, the investment stimulated by this boom must take the edge off unrest, for a while at least.

August 12, 2005 at 12:17 AM in Middle East | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

August 11, 2005

Cruise missile is tested without warning

World news from The Times and the Sunday Times - Times Online

From Chiade O'Shea in Islamabad
PAKISTAN has test-fired its first cruise missile, with President Musharraf heralding the event as a success in the country’s arms race with nuclear rival India.

Congratulating the scientists on a successful test, General Musharraf said: “We were feeling there was an imbalance because of the acquisition of Patriot missiles by India, but this improves the balance.”

The President said the Hatf VII Babr cruise missile could be fired with “pinpoint accuracy”.

The weapon is capable of carrying either conventional or nuclear warheads over 300 miles and can adjust its path to fly low over the target area. This is intended to help the missile to avoid increasingly sensitive detection systems.

India was not told of the test before it took place, despite the high-profile announcement over the weekend that the countries would warn each other before test launches. Major-General Shaukat Sultan, a military and presidential spokesman, said that Pakistan was not obliged to advise India because the terms of the agreement did not cover the new cruise missile technology.

“We are only supposed to give pre-warning for ballistic missiles,” he said.

In a dig at India’s acquisition of a US-imported weapons system, General Musharraf said: “This missile is totally indigenous and I’m proud of our scientists.”

The missile was tested as Iran, Pakistan’s western neighbour, came under increasing pressure from the International Atomic Energy Agency to suspend all nuclear-fuel related activities.

Pakistan itself has been the centre of investigations into a nuclear black market run by Dr A. Q. Khan, who led the country’s nuclear programme. Last year he confessed to providing nuclear secrets to Libya, North Korea and Iran.

Sabre-rattling rhetoric is frequently exchanged between Pakistan and India , and missile tests are considered cause for great celebration in Pakistan, a highly militarised nation. News of the successful test was fêted on national television throughout the day between special programming leading up to Pakistan’s Independence Day celebrations on Sunday.

“It also happens to be the President’s birthday,” Major-General Sultan said.

There was no immediate reaction to the test from Delhi. India unveiled its first cruise missile, a supersonic joint venture with Russia named the BrahMos, in 2001.

August 11, 2005 at 11:34 PM in Middle East | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Pakistan fires new cruise missile

BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | Pakistan fires new cruise missile

Pakistan says it has fired its first cruise missile, describing the launch as a "milestone" in its history.

The Babur missile is capable of carrying nuclear and conventional warheads and has a range of 500km (310 miles), a military spokesman said.

Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said the launch was a birthday gift to President Pervez Musharraf.

The launch comes days after Pakistan and India agreed to give each other advance notice of future nuclear ballistic missile tests.

India was not informed about Thursday's test because the agreement did not cover guided missiles, a Pakistan military spokesman said.

Mr Ahmed said the "milestone" launch had been a success, adding: "The nation is proud of its team of scientists who have raised the country's prestige in the comity of nations."

He said it was a gift from scientists to Gen Musharraf, 62 on Thursday.

Cruise missiles are usually low-flying guided missiles.

"The technology enables the missile to avoid radar detection and penetrate undetected through any hostile defensive system," the Pakistan military said in a statement.

Pakistan has its own range of intermediate and short-range ballistic missiles which are test-fired quite regularly.

Army spokesman Maj Gen Shaukat Sultan said Pakistan had now joined the few countries "that can design and make cruise missiles".

Reversal

Separately, the UK has said it will ease curbs on the export of nuclear technology to India.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw cited Delhi's improved relations with Islamabad, its commitment to nuclear non-proliferation standards and to tackling climate change as reasons for the decision.

Last month, US President George W Bush said he would seek congressional approval for a plan to help develop India's civilian nuclear programme, reversing existing US policy.

The UK Foreign Office said it was also discussing co-operation on nuclear issues with Pakistan.

Scrutiny

The BBC's Zaffar Abbas in Islamabad says Pakistan's cruise missile test is likely to ring alarm bells in many countries.

Pakistan has been under close scrutiny by the international community since its leading nuclear expert, AQ Khan, was found to have leaked nuclear secrets two years ago.

India and Pakistan routinely test-fire their missiles.

In March, Pakistan successfully tested a long-range nuclear-capable missile - the Shaheen II, with a range of 2,000km (1,250 miles).

The two countries have twice veered close to war since their nuclear tests in 1998 - over Kashmir in 1999 and again in 2002.

Both countries have limited command-and-control structures, and neither has developed the technology to recall a nuclear-tipped missile fired in error.

August 11, 2005 at 05:55 PM in Middle East | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

August 10, 2005

Special forces turn sights from Iraq to hunt terrorists in Britain

Special forces turn sights from Iraq to hunt terrorists in Britain - Britain - Times Online

Michael Smith

BRITAIN’S special forces commanders have temporarily switched the main thrust of their attention from Iraq and Afghanistan to hunting down suspected terrorists at home.

A number of special forces teams are on an hour’s notice to move anywhere in the UK to support police operations against the terrorist threat.

The teams have a number of aircraft, including civilian helicopters and two small executive jets, assigned to them to ensure they can get anywhere in Britain as swiftly as possible.

“The UK is now at the top of our agenda and the two (terrorist) incidents will result in significant changes to our workload for the near future,” a senior defence source said.

Each of the rapid reaction teams includes a mix of SAS and Special Boat Service counter-terrorist experts, specialist human surveillance operatives and special forces bomb disposal officers.

They also include technical surveillance experts from a fifth special forces unit, 18th (UKSF) Signal Regiment, which was secretly created this year. The regiment is the third new special forces unit set up to support 22 SAS Regiment and the navy’s SBS in an expansion of Britain’s special forces to cope with the war on terror.

The new regiment includes soldiers who can monitor mobile and satellite phones and has a number of high-tech methods of listening in to conversations from up to half a mile away.

The Sunday Times revealed last week that special forces intelligence personnel were part of the surveillance operation that resulted in the shooting of an innocent Brazilian.

SAS troops also played a role in the capture nine days ago of three men suspected of taking part in the failed July 21 bomb attacks. The soldiers provided expertise in explosive entry techniques to back up raids by police firearms officers.

The extent of the involvement by special forces and the scope of their capabilities have remained secret until now. “Our people are carrying out what I can only describe as a vital role within the current operation,” one source said. “It is complex and spread across a large part of the UK. The team includes aspects of the new units assigned to UKSF (UK special forces) within the past year.”

Part of this role is understood to involve special forces merging into the background in London and other British cities. Plainclothes SAS teams have also monitored airports and main railway stations to identify any security weaknesses.

Members of the SBS have worked alongside Home Office officials on exercises at key ports to try to spot security problems. One exercise scenario involved suicide bombers hijacking an oil tanker which they aimed to blow up in a port.

However, defence sources said that although the elite military teams are under the overall control of the director of special forces, any counter-terror operations will remain under the authority of the police.

August 10, 2005 at 08:34 PM in SAS | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

New drinking laws will end in violence, warn judges

Britain, UK news from The Times and The Sunday Times - Times Online

By Richard Ford and Stewart Tendler
JUDGES in England and Wales have warned government ministers to expect a huge increase in rapes, domestic violence and serious assaults as a result of the relaxation of drinking laws this year.

Senior judges have told the Home Office to expect incidences of alcohol-fuelled violent crime to soar when the new law allowing round-the-clock drinking comes into force in November.

A paper from the Council of Her Majesty’s Circuit Judges said: “Those who routinely see the consequences of drink-fuelled violence in offences of rape, grievous bodily harm and worse on a daily basis are in no doubt that an escalation of offences of this nature will inevitably be caused by the relaxation of liquor licensing which the Government has now authorised.”

Chief constables joined the assault on the plans, giving warning that British town centres could soon resemble notorious foreign holiday resorts such as Faliraki in Greece, where young Britons binge-drink and engage in sexual activity in public.

Cities and town councils also alerted the Government to the consequences of the longer opening hours. Birmingham City Council insisted that, without tough new measures, drunken violence may become “unmanageable”.

Ministers will be thrown on to the defensive by the attack on the changes to licensing laws from the council representing 636 circuit judges who deal with cases in the Crown Court in England and Wales. They warned the Home Office to expect an increase in drink-related violence on the streets and in the home and ridiculed ministerial suggestions that the new measures will lead to more responsible, “continental-style” drinking.

But it is the judges’ prediction that rapes and violent crime will rise that will cause most alarm in 10 Downing Street and the Home Office.

The judges were in no doubt that many crimes of violence are directly linked to the consequences of drunkenness, which fuels aggression and a loss of control. They are angry that the Government did not consult them before pressing ahead with what will be the biggest shake-up in the licensing laws for 90 years.

Last week, James Purnell, the Licensing Minister, rejected suggestions that the changes would increase binge drinking.But the judges said: “We regard it as wishful thinking to suppose that the introduction of the Licensing Act will bring about the cultural change which the Government envisages.” The paper said that the only way to curb alcohol-fuelled violence was to increase the price of drink to make it too expensive to drink to excess.

But the judges held out little prospect of the Government taking their advice. “Of course we do not expect the Government to heed this advice since it would be politically unacceptable,” the paper said.

As the judges delivered their verdict on the changes to the licensing laws, which come into effect on November 24, Britain’s chief constables echoed their concerns.

A paper from the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) said: “One only has to look to popular holiday destinations to see the effect of allowing British youth unrestricted access to alcohol.”

Acpo questioned the fundamental argument behind the Government’s policy, namely that variations in closing times would lead to less trouble at night. “The assertion that 11pm closing leads to binge drinking is simply not supported by the evidence,” the association said.

The criticisms are contained in four volumes of responses to a Home Office consultation paper on dealing with disorder on the streets. The responses were released yesterday at Westminster after being placed in the House of Commons library.

Last night, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said that the alcohol-related crime and disorder blighting Britain’s town and city centres was happening under the present legislation. A spokesman said: “That is why it needs reforming, to tackle head-on drink-fuelled violence.”

He added: “The Act is already delivering real progress by giving police a chance to comment on new licensing applications so that they can pick up problems that would have previously gone unnoticed.”

LEGAL OPINION

‘A gallon is common, 12 pints by no means rare. Often these quantities are diluted by spirits. It is becoming common for cocaine to be taken as well’

‘For a while these people are simply savages, angry, blind and brutal. They are in this condition because of what they have been drinking’

‘The situation is already grave, if not grotesque . . . making drinking facilities more widely available is close to lunacy’

August 10, 2005 at 08:33 PM in UK | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

City terror attack 'inevitable'

BBC NEWS | Business | City terror attack 'inevitable'

It is only a matter of time before London's financial centre is attacked by terrorists, police believe.

Potential targets in the Square Mile have been staked-out a number of times but no arrests made, said City of London Police Commissioner James Hart.

While the security "ring of steel" has been extended twice since 9/11, only half of firms have made contingency plans, he told the Financial Times.

Business group the CBI said "good links" have been formed with police.

"There is an ongoing dialogue," it told the BBC News website. "But more can always be done to raise awareness."

'Maximum disruption'

While there was no specific threat against the City, the mindset of terrorists meant that it was an "obvious target", said Mr Hart.

"If you want to hurt the government, hurt people at the same time, and you want to cause maximum disruption...where better to hit than at the financial centre?"

He added: "I think it is a matter of when, rather than if."

Mr Hart said the City of London had been a target for terror attacks for years, highlighting the number of times the area had been hit by the IRA.

In April 1992 three people were killed when a bomb exploded outside the Baltic Exchange and one person was killed in April 1993 when a bomb targeted the Bishopsgate area. Big business outside the City was targeted in 1996, when a large bomb was detonated in the Docklands.

Potential targets could now include prominent sites and business - "anywhere where the maximum damage can be inflicted on the financial systems," Mr Hart said.

'Sharpen up'

The City of London police estimate that only half of City firms have made adequate provisions for a terrorist attack.

Chief executives need to take a greater role in developing security policies, Mr Hart said.

"I need to get the matter of security on to their business agendas, so it is a little bit of a call to sharpen up."

While many of the large City firms were taking the threat seriously, there was a need to "sensitise those people that are a little bit complacent about this kind of thing".

Mr Hart said the larger firms needed to put "a friendly arm around smaller businesses within their shadow" as not all companies could afford sophisticated security staff.

Overall review

It is often a problem of insufficient time and money that prevents smaller firms from developing contingency plans, the Confederation of Small Businesses said.

It called for expert advice and tax breaks to be provided to the companies, many of which "have become more aware of their need to plan for emergencies and, in particular, terror attacks", since 9/11 and the London bombings.

Business lobby group London First says that 50% of companies are unprepared for a significant event, with small and medium companies particularly vulnerable.

It is estimated that 50% of firms that shut down temporarily in New York after 9/ll never reopened.

And the CBI says that only two-thirds of its members had conducted a strategic overall review of security in 2004, but it expects that after the London bombings businesses would take the threat more seriously.

August 10, 2005 at 08:37 AM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

August 09, 2005

Blair snubs Cook funeral for his holiday

The Scotsman - Top Stories - Blair snubs Cook funeral for his holiday

HAMISH MACDONELL AND FRASER NELSON

Key points
• Tony Blair likely to face storm over funeral decision
• PM decides to put holiday first
• Blair's action seen as final snub

Key quote
"I'm not aware the Prime Minister has any plans to return from his holiday, but clearly if there was to be some kind of memorial service in the future, he would be attending that." - Prime Minister's spokesman

Story in full
TONY Blair will deliver a final snub to his former foreign secretary Robin Cook by staying on holiday in the Caribbean rather than returning to attend his funeral in Edinburgh on Friday.

Mr Cook's funeral will be one of the biggest political commemorations Edinburgh has seen. The "celebration of Robin Cook's life" will take place in St Giles' Cathedral at 11am on Friday and will be a major national event.

Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, Jack McConnell, the First Minister, and dozens of other senior Labour figures will attend the service.

Mr Brown will make the main contribution while Madeleine Albright, a former United States secretary of state under Bill Clinton, and a close friend of Mr Cook's, is also expected to deliver an address at the service.

But Downing Street said last night that the Prime Minister does not intend to break his stay in the Caribbean for the event, preferring instead to attend a later memorial service, possibly in Livingston.

If that is what happens, Mr Blair will be a very notable absentee from a funeral which will be the biggest gathering of past and present Labour figures in Scotland since the funeral of Donald Dewar five years ago.

No 10 said Mr Blair would attend a later memorial service.

"I'm not aware the Prime Minister has any plans to return from his holiday," said his spokesman. "But clearly if there was to be some kind of memorial service in the future, he would be attending that."

Lord (Martin) O'Neill of Clackmannan, whose friendship with Mr Cook dates back to their student days, said it would be "unfortunate if the Prime Minister did not turn up" but said he imagined Mr Blair would not want to make a fuss.

"A lot of Robin's former constituents will want to attend. The problem with these almost state funerals is that they must involve ordinary people."

Downing Street said John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, would attend in Mr Blair's place.

Mr Cook and Mr Blair fell out very publicly when the then Leader of the Commons resigned in protest at the Prime Minister's decision to take Britain to war in Iraq.

Mr Cook then called for Mr Blair to stand down and be replaced by Mr Brown.

Neither move would have pleased Mr Blair but it is nevertheless surprising that the Prime Minister has chosen to stay on holiday rather than attend the funeral of one of his longest-serving and most high-profile colleagues.

The funeral will be a church service, despite Mr Cook's strongly held non-religious views, but Richard Holloway, the former Episcopalian Bishop of Edinburgh, who gained notoriety for his liberal approach to Christian theology, will lead the service.

Mr Holloway said that while he hoped the public would be able to attend the service in the cathedral which can hold about 1,000 people, there were safety issues to consider and also the fact that Fringe events were being held in close proximity, in the Royal Mile.

John McCririck, a close friend of Mr Cook's from the horse- racing circuit, is also expected to make a contribution during the service.

It is understood that the Labour Party discussed the funeral arrangements with Mr Cook's family yesterday and tried the balance the family's desire for an intimate service - allowing them to bid farewell to Mr Cook - with the increasing clamour within the party for a major event.

Lord Foulkes, a long-time friend of the former foreign secretary, said he had been inundated with calls yesterday from politicians and party workers who wanted the chance to pay their respects to Mr Cook. He said there was likely to be a memorial service later for those who could not attend, but expected the funeral to be a big, political event.

"I would have thought that most of the Cabinet would have wanted to be there," he said.

A post-mortem examination will be completed later today but it is thought that the 59-year-old Mr Cook suffered a heart attack before falling about eight feet down a ledge on Ben Stack, where he and his wife Gaynor were walking.

The post-mortem is taking place at Inverness's Raigmore Hospital, where Mrs Cook formally identified her husband's body on Sunday. It is understood she was at the couple's home in Edinburgh yesterday, being comforted by friends as funeral arrangements were finalised.

After her husband had been airlifted to the hospital, where he was declared dead at 4:05pm, Mrs Cook was left to make her way down the mountain on foot.

In a statement yesterday she described his love as "the greatest gift I will ever receive".

And she added: "I loved and admired my husband - for his generosity, his tolerance, his integrity and his great joy in life."

Margaret Cook, the former foreign secretary's first wife, said she was unconcerned by Mr Blair's absence from the funeral.

She stressed that the extra security arrangements which inevitably accompany a Prime Ministerial visit would have changed the feel of the service so she was not surprised or disappointed that Mr Blair was staying away.

She is expecting to attend the funeral and is in contact with Gaynor through her two grown-up sons, Peter and Christopher.

In Scotland, flags flew at half mast across West Lothian yesterday as a mark of respect for the Livingston MP and books of condolence have been opened in council buildings across the region.

Edinburgh city council, where Mr Cook started his career in politics, announced yesterday it was considering a permanent memorial to the former foreign secretary.

ANALYSIS

Party's homage to 'patron saint' is a time to be seen

THE politics of funerals has been a murky affair ever since Mark Antony came to "bury Caesar, not to praise him". The death of Robin Cook looks like being no exception.

It is set to be a big summer event, where various Labour grandees will pay respects to a man of the party's anti-war left.

It will be a convention of "Real Labour", burying one of their warriors.

How fitting, then, that Tony Blair should be off on holiday - lying somewhere hot, clutching something cold, while the Old Labour he never really understood has a sombre family reunion.

Death has a unique power in politics. Those who wish to become the deceased's successor do themselves no harm by being seen as the closest friend, the most grief-stricken, and the biggest presence at the funeral.

It was for this reason that Stalin gave Trotsky the wrong date for Lenin's funeral - keeping his rival away from the event and then from power.

It was a simple trick that changed history.

And after Donald Dewar was buried, the wake which followed was an arena of furious black-tied political networking. At one point, Mr Blair approached Henry McLeish and touched his arm - bypassing Jack McConnell completely. It was as if the succession was assured in that moment.

But Mr Cook has no mantle to hand down (other than an ultra-safe Labour seat) - so what could be the political forces at play this time? Simply to remind the grassroots Labour membership that Mr Blair is not one of them.

As a son of the manse, Gordon Brown specialises in pulpit-style public speaking, and it was no accident that the Chancellor was able to say he was coming to the funeral even before the arrangements were disclosed.

For anyone serious about the soul of the Labour Party, Friday's funeral will be the event of the summer. In death, Mr Cook is rapidly being seen as a patron saint of the party, upholding its purity, which was defiled by the Blair government during the Iraq war.

So ministers and MPs who would never have dared being seen associating Mr Cook when he was alive and causing so much mischief over the Iraq war can safely come and pay homage now.

The images will be in every newspaper on Saturday of a funeral with people such as Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton's secretary of state, flying in specially. All the great and the good of Labour.

And one conspicuous absence: Tony Blair, a man who sacked Mr Cook from the Foreign Office in 2001 and drove him to resign from the Cabinet two years later.

Mark Antony's speech inspired his fellow Romans to rise up against those who conspired against Caesar.

Those who listen very carefully on Friday may detect a similar theme running throughout the Chancellor's eulogy.

FRASER NELSON

August 9, 2005 at 08:45 PM in UK | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Prescott tells extremist: 'Enjoy long holiday'

ePolitix.com - Prescott tells extremist: 'Enjoy long holiday'

John Prescott has called on Islamic extremist Omar Bakri Mohammed not to return to the UK in the near future.

The deputy prime minister, in charge of government while Tony Blair is on holiday, spoke out after it emerged that the preacher had travelled to Lebanon on Saturday.

"Enjoy your holiday - make it a long one," Prescott said.

Bakri has said he would not return to Britain if he is not welcome.

Asked if Bakri should come back, Prescott added: "I don't think he is welcome by many people in this country, is he?

"But at the moment he has the right to come in and out. That is the circumstances at present and we have to change situations in this country by law.

"It's a democracy, not a dictatorship, for God's sake."

Bakri told BBC Radio Five Live he had travelled to Lebanon to visit family but planned to return in four weeks.

Prescott was non-committal on whether the controversial cleric would be allowed to return to Britain.

He said: "These are matters to consider when it happens. You [the media] are already talking about the changes that take place.

"We will have to look at how the circumstances change.

"You know that the home secretary's already made clear he has powers. He intends to extend them under the existing powers he has got at the moment. So let's wait and see what those proposals are.

"We have to act as the law is and as the convention operates."

August 9, 2005 at 05:48 PM in Current Terrorism | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

A farewell to arms

The IRA | A farewell to arms | Economist.com

Jul 28th 2005
From The Economist print edition

As one terrorist problem engulfs Britain, another subsides

IN POLITICS, even the violent politics of terrorism, timing can mean everything. On July 28th, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) at long last issued the statement for which most people in Britain and both parts of Ireland have been waiting for years. The IRA declared that its leadership had “formally ordered an end to the armed campaign”, and told all its units to “dump arms” and work through “exclusively peaceful means”. If it truly means a permanent end to Irish terrorism, then the statement will be as “historic” as Irish republicans are claiming. But even if the IRA means what it says, there are still many questions left unanswered.

Northern Ireland's unionists will be the loudest in voicing many of these. By the obfuscating standards of past IRA statements, this week's announcement is crystal clear. But unionists will point out that it does not contain the exact phrase “the war is over”, which is something that they have long sought, and it does not say explicitly that the IRA itself is disbanding, which is something they have long demanded. Both are fair points. And yet the IRA was never going to adopt the precise phraseology demanded by unionists. To all intents and purposes, the IRA has now officially ended its violent campaign, turning a prolonged ceasefire into a permanent halt.

The more important questions go beyond the critique of Northern Ireland's unionists. The first concerns the province itself. Can the IRA's statement break the stalemate in Ulster and help to establish something resembling a normal government? That is not clear (see article).

Five or six years ago, soon after the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, such a statement from the IRA would have been electrifying, and would probably have forced unionists into a power-sharing government. Today, 11 years after the IRA's first ceasefire and endless bitter arguments, it looks like too little, too late. The IRA is clearly trying to salvage the political fortunes of Sinn Fein, which have been badly tarnished by the IRA's own continuing criminal activity. For many in both parts of Ireland, the IRA's grand gesture will look like little more than a desperate ploy.

The second and bigger question is: what lessons does the IRA's abandonment of terrorism—or “armed struggle” as it always preferred to call it—hold for the task of combating and defeating today's more virulent forms of terrorism? Here the answer contains reasons for both optimism and pessimism.

The optimistic bit is that talking to terrorists can, sometimes, stop violence and bring peace. There was plenty of justified scepticism when the IRA first began to make its overtures to the British government in the early 1990s, and many strongly felt that speaking to bombers and assassins was not only morally reprehensible, but would not work. And yet the peace process has, after many ups and downs, brought real peace to Northern Ireland and a gradual halt to Irish terrorism.

Talking to the IRA was justified and effective, ultimately, because the unpalatable truth was that they were fighting for something that many in Northern Ireland believed was a legitimate goal—Irish unity. The IRA had an aggrieved constituency, which eventually realised that violence was getting it nowhere. Today's much more violent Islamic-inspired terrorism, by contrast, recognises no limits, makes no demands which can be addressed and seems to represent no one but the fanatics themselves. There is no point in talking to them. They can only be defeated.

August 9, 2005 at 09:12 AM in IRA | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Secret terror courts considered

ePolitix.com - Press Review

Home Office sources have told the Guardian that the government is considering introducing special anti-terror courts sitting in secret to determine how long suspects should be detained without charge.

Ministers are considering making a French-style "security-cleared judge" responsible for assembling a pre-trial case against terrorist suspects, with in-camera access to sensitive intelligence evidence, including currently inadmissible phone-tap evidence.

The plan under consideration could also involve the use of security-vetted "special advocates" as legal representatives of those detained.

However, a former minister and senior Blairite MP has criticised the government for its apparently panicked handling of initiatives to counter the threat posed by Islamist extremists.

John Denham, the Labour chairman of the home affairs committee and a former Home Office minister, told the FT he was concerned by the way senior government figures had rushed out a number of controversial moves without prior consultation.

"What is more worrying is the sense of slight panic that seems to be emanating from the government over the last few days," he said.

"After the [London] bombings, there was a very sensible and measured approach recognising things needed to be done and discussed. The flurry of announcements over the last few days, many of which haven't been developed fully, gives the sense that the government is not fully in control of events and that's unfortunate."

Meanwhile, four men alleged to have been involved in last month's failed bomb plot were charged formally and remanded in custody when they appeared at Bow Street Magistrates' Court sitting at the maximum security Belmarsh prison in London.

A fifth suspect, Hussain Osman, is being held in Rome awaiting an extradition hearing.

August 9, 2005 at 09:10 AM in UK | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Oil for food programme

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August 9, 2005 at 12:20 AM in Iraq | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

MI6 drops secrecy over spy jobs

Britain, UK news from The Times and The Sunday Times - Times Online

By Michael Evans
Service is to modify recruiting practices because of interest from Muslims after the London bombs

THE Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, is to break with nearly a century of tradition and recruit openly for spies.

The decision comes after what has been perceived as a remarkable development since the suicide bombings in London on July 7.

According to intelligence sources a significant number of applications for jobs through existing methods of recruiting had come from Muslim graduates, who said that they wanted to do something for their country.

They had applied through the only available outlet, a PO Box address on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website. The unexpected rise in interest encouraged the hierarchy at Vauxhall Cross, the headquarters of the service by the Thames, to change its longstanding methods of recruiting and to tap into what appeared to be a rich vein of eager patriots.

Although there is no decision yet on how the service intends to make itself more open to those interested in a spying career, intelligence sources say that it aims to advertise in a way that would make it obvious that it was MI6 offering a job.

It will be a significant break from traditional recruiting practice, which has largely depended on talent-spotting by trusted university dons.

The only advertising deployed by MI6 until now has been so opaque that applicants arriving for initial interviews have had no idea who their potential employers might be.

They get an inkling only after they have been through several interviewing hoops, perceived to be necessary to ensure that only suitable applicants reach the stage where the details of a potential spying career are revealed.

Too much secrecy at the recruiting end of the game is now seen to be counterproductive. MI6’s sister service, MI5, across the Thames, has for many years been more transparent and runs its own website which includes job application forms.

However, MI6 has always treasured its secretiveness, arguing that as the focus of its work involves covert intelligence-gathering overseas, it has an obligation to its agents to remain in the shadows.

The development towards open advertising is expected to lead to a surge in applications from ethnic minorities and women, although the numbers are already high: in 2004-05, 9 per cent of new entrants were from ethnic minorities and 41 per cent were women.

Since the London bombings, the number of people applying to join MI6 through the PO Box number has risen by a fifth, many of whom referred to the attacks.

MI6 created the number — PO Box 1300 — in 1992 but started using it as a recruiting tool only in 2001. That in itself was a break in tradition, but only those who were aware of the existence of the number or found it by chance on the Foreign Office website applied by that route.

So the talent-spotting method, familiar to readers of the George Smiley spy novels of John Le Carré, reigned supreme.

It has not always had beneficial results. During and after the Second World War, a top talent scout of a different kind, at Cambridge University, recruited the infamous spy ring of undergraduates, including Harold “Kim” Philby, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean who worked as double agents for the Soviet KGB.

IN THE SHADOWS
# The core of MI6’s operational or agent-running cadre is drawn from “high-calibre graduates with a commitment to public service who exhibit integrity, strong intellectual skills, strength of character and an interest in international affairs”
# Those with analytical skills, able to map out terrorist networks, linguists, particularly Arabic speakers, and computer specialists are also wanted
# All graduate entrants are expected to serve abroad as intelligence officers during their careers
# The starting salary for a 23-year-old agent is about £24,000
# Non-graduate entrants with two A levels work in support roles, but also serve abroad
# Candidates, who should be in their early 20s to early 30s, may include those bored with other careers
# About a quarter of the 2,000 staff serve as undercover intelligence officers in British embassies
# It can take up to six months to complete the vetting process
# Famous MI6 spies: David John Moore Cornwell (or John Le Carré), Graham Greene and Malcolm Muggeridge
# The model for James Bond: Sir Fitzroy Maclean

August 9, 2005 at 12:17 AM in MI6 | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

August 08, 2005

Having failed to privatise the post box, leader turns to ballot box

World news from The Times and the Sunday Times - Times Online

From Richard Lloyd Parry and Leo Lewis in Tokyo
JAPAN’S Prime Minister announced a snap general election yesterday when he lost a bitterly fought vote on the privatisation of postal services.

The election, scheduled for September 11, will be a bruising struggle that could permanently alter the political terrain in Japan after 50 years of almost unbroken rule by the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

If Junichiro Koizumi’s gamble pays off, he will purge the LDP of his reactionary opponents and recreate the party in his own image: as a radical populist force, intent on structural reform of Japan’s government and bureaucracy.

If he fails, he risks splitting his party, and handing power to an increasingly confident opposition, the liberal Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ).

When the results were announced, the DPJ MPs were on their feet punching the air and hugging one another. “We’ve been steadily making efforts for this day,” Katsuya Okada, the DPJ’s leader, told his jubilant MPs. “Now we finally have an opportunity to change the government.”

The LDP-led coalition Government had been expected to lose yesterday’s vote in the upper house of Japan’s diet, but the margin of defeat was greater than expected — 125 MPs opposed the postal privatisation Bills and 108 supported them, after 22 LDP members voted against their own party leader and eight either abstained or failed to vote.

Yesterday evening, as he had threatened to do for weeks, Mr Koizumi dissolved the lower house, insisting that party backing would be withdrawn from all those who defied him. “I will destroy the LDP,” he told his Cabinet ministers. “I am determined to create a new party which make its priority the welfare of the people.”

Attention will now focus on the rebel MPs, many of whom have sworn to stand for re-election against the new officially appointed pro-Koizumi candidates. They may decide to form a new party, which would put great strain on the unity of the LDP in its 50th year. In that time, it has only once been out of power, for eight months, after an election defeat in 1993.

Yesterday’s dramatic events were the culmination of weeks of mounting tension over a project which Mr Koizumi has made his central goal — the privatisation of Japan’s post office, one of the richest and most influential institutions in the country. Against ferocious opposition, his Cabinet has pushed through a set of Bills which would privatise mail delivery, life insurance, post offices services and, above all, the post office savings system to which Japanese entrust 340trillion yen (£1.7 trillion).

The money represents a source of funding for the lavish and often wasteful public spending that has been the life blood of Japanese politics. In rural Japan, postmasters are influential figures whose support underwrites many LDP politicians. Hence the bitter opposition to the Bills, which squeaked through the lower house a month ago by just five votes.

In a measure of the intensity of the feelings, Yoji Nagaoka, a member of an anti-Koizumi LDP faction, hanged himself last week after voting in favour of the postal legislation. Heizo Takenaka, the minister behind the reforms said: “The rejection is a major blow to Japan’s future and its economy.”

August 8, 2005 at 10:07 PM in Japan | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Robin Cook

Robin Cook - Comment - Times Online

February 28, 1946 - August 6, 2005
Labour politician who stood well to the left of his party, and resigned from the Cabinet over the decision to wage war on Iraq
IN Opposition and in Government alike, Robin Cook showed himself to be one of the finest parliamentary performers of his generation.

Certainly he was one of the Labour Party’s most skilful politicians. In Opposition, he destroyed the career of one Conservative Cabinet Minister and attacked others to the point of persecution. He spoke with wit, elegance, occasional cruelty and not seldom with arrogance.

Yet in parliamentary performances as different as his demolition of the Government position over the Scott report on arms to Iraq in 1996 and the speech he delivered on his resignation as Leader of the Commons over the invasion of Iraq in 2003, he commanded respect and admiration even from those who disagreed profoundly with him.

But his career seesawed between extremes, and the public perception of him did so likewise. At one time it had been possible to think of him as a future Prime Minister. Even after Tony Blair became Labour leader — in a contest which Cook decided not to enter, though afterwards he regretted this — he retained hopes of succeeding. But events in the first period of the Blair Government, in which he served as Foreign Secretary, went a long way to putting paid to these.

The public and painful breakup of his marriage in 1997, involving the revelation of a double life, considerably lowered his personal stock. While travelling to Heathrow Airport with his wife, Margaret, to start a holiday, he was alerted to the fact that a Sunday newspaper was about to expose his affair with his personal secretary, Gaynor Regan. He commandeered a VIP lounge at the airport in which to tell his wife that their marriage was over. The marriage was dissolved with expedition, and Ms Regan swiftly became his second wife.

But Margaret Cook took her revenge in revelations that Cook was a drunkard and philanderer; that he had been ostentatiously obsequious to Tony Blair; that he had relinquished his longstanding beliefs in the party’s Clause 4, nuclear disarmament and opposition to Europe, in the hope of office. Wisely Cook refused to comment on these allegations.

The weakness of his position as Foreign Secretary was that he had never wanted the post. He would much preferred to have been Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the fact that this did not happen was one reason for his dislike of Gordon Brown. Yet their rivalry went back to their early days in Scottish politics. So bitter was the dislike that on the morning of April 2, 1997, at the moment of their party’s greatest election victory since the Labour landslide of 1945, they took separate aircraft from Edinburgh to the celebrations in London.

Shortly afterwards, having been given the overseas portfolio, Cook served notice that he was going to make waves. He implied that he was not going to be the creature of his civil servants. Certainly he made waves. On the Queen’s visit to the Indian sub-continent he infuriated the Indians. On his visit to the Middle East he infuriated the Israelis. Despite his promise of an uncompromisingly ethical foreign policy the sale of British arms to several dubious countries continued.

Although a former CND member he supported the bombings of Iraq, which had continued after the Gulf War of 1991.

Certainly he had his successes. Discarding his earlier views on Europe, he made a good impression in Brussels. He worked doggedly on the various crises in the former Yugoslavia. There was trouble, though, with his party colleagues in the Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee when he brushed aside their criticism of the Foreign Office over the arms-to-Sierra Leone furore and backed his officials all the way. He pointedly published his memo exonerating Sir John Kerr, the much- criticised Permanent Secretary, and persuaded Tony Blair to join him in rebutting the committee’s criticism. He may not have been the creature of his civil servants but he was certainly their ally.

All this was in contrast with his years in Opposition, when he had been so much the iconoclast, the conscience of the party, and a leftwinger who might yet be seen as a possible challenger to the New Labour philosophies of Tony Blair. At that period the constituency parties elected him year after year to the national executive, and in the earlier part of his career he had seemed to represent the views of the majority of his party members more accurately than almost any other member of the Shadow Cabinet. He had every qualification to lead his party except one — which he himself acknowledged — his face did not fit.

Arresting though his parliamentary debating style was in its sheer forensic brilliance, it was a hard fact that by the time he came to high office, performance in the chamber had become largely secondary to appearances on the television screen in the public mind. His colleagues believed his appearance would gain no votes, and might well produce ridicule. With his springy red hair, pointed beard and prominent eyes, ears and nose, Cook seemed destined to be lampooned as a garden gnome.

Additionally, he had an irritating and self-righteous manner of speaking. When asked an awkward question he would sound affronted and swallow half of his words in an effort to emphasise only those that he considered positive.

Cook himself recognised that nerve, doggedness and outstanding political talent were not enough to gain the leadership of the modern Labour Party. Despite holding the respect of many of party members he decided not to stand against Blair after John Smith’s death. He admitted: “I didn’t have the votes.”

And he was equally realistic about his chief handicap when he said on another occasion: “I have never been under any illusion that I got elected to anything because of my classical good looks.”

Robert Finlayson Cook was born in 1946, in Belshill near Glasgow. An only child, he was brought up in his early years in extremely modest circumstances. His father was a headmaster, and this made him determined to succeed as a pupil. He was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School and the Royal High School in Edinburgh and once summed himself up: “I have always had the character of the school swot. I was not massively popular at school.”

Things were easier for him, as they often are for intelligent children, at university. He went to Edinburgh University with the aim of becoming a Presbyterian minister, and read English literature, since an arts degree was a useful asset in the Church of Scotland. However, he soon lost his faith and he later he admitted that the Labour Party was a substitute for his original religion.

He had been a schoolboy socialist, having been converted by the New Statesman when he was 14, but it was only at university that he started thinking of a political career. He was elected chair of the Labour Club in the year Malcolm Rifkind was chairman of the Conservative Club.

Cook became a comprehensive school teacher and then a lecturer for the Workers’ Educational Association, but all the time he was thinking of Westminster. He fought Tory Edinburgh North in 1970 and then, after serving as chairman of Edinburgh City Council’s housing committee, he was chosen as the candidate for marginal Edinburgh Central. He won it by fewer than 1,000 votes in the first election of 1974, which was held on February 28. It was his 28th birthday.

He had been attracted to Labour by unilateralism, and as a backbencher he attacked Cruise and Trident, questioned the wisdom of belonging to Nato and voted against the defence estimates instead of following the party line of abstaining. In the House he was a model Tribune Group member. He was always careful to distance himself from the far left, however, and was deeply critical of Tony Benn’s decision to run against Denis Healey for the deputy leadership. And he realised the dangers posed by the Militant Tendency long before some other leftwingers.

He started to emerge as the brightest of the 1974 intake. He duly served his apprenticeship on various party committees before gaining his reward in 1980, being appointed deputy spokesman on Treasury and economic affairs. But just as his stock rose in the House, his hopes of holding Edinburgh Central fell. He realised he would be extremely lucky to win there again. Relief came in the form of Livingston, the new overspill town between Edinburgh and Glasgow. Although there was talk of Benn trying for the seat it was secured by Cook, who held it easily for the rest of his career.

Proof of his growing reputation came when Neil Kinnock chose him as his campaign manager in the leadership contest after the disastrous 1983 election. Cook was also asked to be Roy Hattersley’s campaign manager but, predictably, refused.

Although 1983 was a bad year for Labour, it was a good year for Cook. He was elected to the Shadow Cabinet and given the post of European spokesman — a move that symbolised Labour’s attitude to what was then the EC, because Cook was publicly doubtful about Britain‘s membership.

It was not all plain sailing. Kinnock, who thought Cook was becoming over-confident, shifted him to the lesser post of Labour’s campaign co-ordinator. For a time he was off the front bench, but then his career revived. He became deputy trade and industry spokesman, specialising in the City, and began to be feared — in the City as well as the Commons.

His majority at the 1987 election was up by 6,000 and he was appointed Shadow Social Services spokesman. This was the start of a series of memorable shadow posts — health, trade and industry and foreign affairs — in which he delivered the coruscating speeches which made him Labour’s most menacing front bench performer.

His attacks on two successive Health Secretaries, Kenneth Clarke and William Waldegrave, gained him The Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the Year award in 1991. Michael Heseltine had rarely been made so uncomfortable as when Cook harried him on pit closures. But it was his controlled fury and apparent contempt when dealing with John Moore, the hapless Secretary of State for the Department of Health and Social Security, that virtually ended Moore’s political career. Before he encountered Cook at the dispatch box Moore had been mentioned as a future Prime Minister. This may have been an over-assessment, but after his duels with Cook it was obvious that Moore’s only future was in the House of Lords.

But Cook’s towering performance in Opposition was at the presentation of the Scott report on arms to Iraq in the House of Commons in February 1996. The report had been in government hands for some time. Cook was given only three hours in a sealed room at the Department of Trade and Industry to take in its 1,800 pages. For the Government, Ian Lang, with the advantage of foreknowledge, appeared to be winning the argument until Cook rose and demolished the government case in a series of witheringly destructive points, which showed he had somehow managed to beat the clock and master all he needed.

But though he may have won the argument — few disagreed about that — he won nothing else. Sir Nicholas Lyell and William Waldegrave, the two ministers he hoped to harry into resigning, both survived. There were no resignations from others involved in the affair, no prosecutions, no civil service demotions. It was his greatest triumph yet he left without a trophy.

Nevertheless, his reward from the party leader after the Labour victory at the general election of 1997, was one of the highest offices of state in his appointment as Foreign Secretary. But Cook did not see it as such. He had always regarded the channelling of his energies into foreign affairs, while Labour had been in opposition, as an attempt to keep him out of policy making at the centre of the party. His insistence on an “ethical” dimension at the very heart of British foreign policy became a high-risk strategy, well meant but unsustainable in the face of Britain’s long-standing commercial alliances and the hideously complex Europe emerging in the wake of the breakup of Yugoslavia.

After the general election of 2001 Cook was relieved of his ministerial responsibilities and offered the leadership of the House of Commmons. It was an obvious demotion, and one designed to keep him even further removed from any influence in the counsels of the party. Yet he accepted it with good grace and announced an intention to set about a process of reform that should modernise the way both houses went about their business. Dearest to his heart was a completely elected Upper House, but this was never a government priority, and was to remain a dream.

When it became clear from 2002 onwards that Blair intended to commit Britain to war on Iraq alongside the US, Cook made his unease clear to the Cabinet. He said with some force that he did not believe that the intelligence proved that Saddam Hussein could possibly pose a strategic threat to a country such as Britain, and that it was preposterous to claim that this menace could be launched in the short time that was being posited. But his objections were pointedly ignored, and his career in the senior ranks of Labour government finally came to an end when in March 2003 he resigned from the Cabinet over the impending war, in a speech that was given a standing ovation in some parts of the House.

That was the effective end of his career. Yet he remained loyal to the Labour Party, refusing, once he had had his say, to snipe at what he felt had been a decision both morally and strategically wrong, and one that was likely to enmire Britain and her forces for a long time to come. Evidence that Blair, in spite of their political differences, still respected his political abilities came when Cook was asked to tour the country during the election campaign this year, specifically to try to reassure Muslim communities over British engagement in Iraq. It was an uncomfortable task that he unhesitatingly agreed to undertake.

Though he altered over the years, notably in his attitude to Gordon Brown, towards whom he had latterly mellowed, at bottom there was an undeniable whiff of Old Labour about Robin Cook. He was a closet Keynesian, and still believed in public spending and taxing to find the money. What remained basic to him was his feeling for the party which turned him from a potential theologian into a practical politician.

Besides the Labour Party Cook loved horses. He rode at every opportunity. He spoke and wrote knowledgeably about racing, and his tipster’s column in The Herald of Glasgow was widely read. He published Point of Departure, an insider’s account of the buildup to the invasion of Iraq, in 2003. He also enjoyed deer-watching, and was a keen mountain walker. It was while he was enjoying this favourite pastime that he apparently suffered a heart attack that led to his death.

Robin Cook married in 1969, Margaret Whitmore, whom he had met at university. The marriage was dissolved in 1998. He married in that year Gaynor Regan. She survives him with the two sons of his first marriage.

Robin Cook, PC, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 1997-2001, was born on February 28, 1946. He died on August 6, 2005, aged 59.

August 8, 2005 at 10:04 PM in UK | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Clever, cool and complex: a man with plenty left to offer

Britain, UK news from The Times and The Sunday Times - Times Online

By Alastair Campbell
A colleague with convictions – and the ability to admit error
IN A world that demands simple answers, politics is a complex business and Robin Cook was a complex man. He was all the things Saturday's tributes said he was — a great parliamentarian, a forceful intellect, a sharp wit, a passionate crusader for social justice.

His death aroused many thoughts and memories, but three endured above all. The first dates back to 1994, when Tony Blair was telling senior Labour figures one by one of his intention to announce a review of Labour's Constitution, heralding the replacement of Clause 4. Robin was appalled, and warned Tony it would tear the party apart. But that leads me to a related memory further down the track, when he admitted his judgment had been wrong, and he wanted to play his part in the campaign to win support for the new Constitution. His strength within the party made that an important moment in the process that delivered a bold strategic step forward, and helped to lay the foundations of election victory.

The second powerful memory is of the extraordinary sang froid he showed when I had the unpleasant task of calling him, as he and his then wife Margaret were being driven to the steps of a plane taking them on holiday, to tell him that the News of the World was about to expose his affair with Gaynor Regan.

I was able to speak openly. He, for obvious reasons, was not. “I see,” he said when I had finished telling him what I knew. “And what would you advise in circumstances such as these?” “It's entirely a matter for you and Margaret, but I would advise clarity.” “I'm sure that's right,” he said. “I'll talk to Margaret and call you back.” From that exchange, and the days working together to manage the subsequent media firestorm, emerged a strengthened working relationship founded on trust, but also the myth that I had “ordered” him to choose between wife and mistress.

The reality is that Robin made the choice because his marriage was over, he loved Gaynor and felt the future happiness of all three depended on admitting that reality. I was impressed at how he handled it. Robin was not someone to panic. Nor did he ever lose his capacity for clear thinking and clear expression, nor his sense of humour. “Not exactly the easiest marital conversation Heathrow has ever known,” was how he began the promised call back.

The third powerful memory is of the time he and I sat down in Downing Street, as he moved inexorably towards resignation from the Cabinet over Iraq, to discuss the statements that would be issued. He had the calm and inner strength of someone convinced he was doing the right thing. But he never stopped thinking politically. He knew this would be a blow to the Government but was working with us to soften it.

He was also working to ensure bridges would still exist. He delivered a couple of classic Robinisms to make the point. There should be “elements of cordiality” in exchanges between him and No 10 and we should ensure space for “useful future discourse.” We took several days to work through various drafts and such discourse led to him and his battered green overnight case travelling the country during the election to get out the message that however strongly people opposed war in Iraq they should still support the re-election of a Labour Government. He was Labour every second of his life.

Inevitably, he will be remembered as a foreign policy politician, but his domestic role should not be overlooked. He was a brilliant Shadow Health Secretary who did enormous damage to the Tory government, as John Moore, once tipped as a future party leader, knows. His handling of the “arms to Iraq” scandal brought together forensic, political and presentational skills in a formidable cocktail. With Tony Blair, John Prescott and Gordon Brown, he was one of the unofficial “ Big Four” who met before Shadow Cabinet meetings to thrash out big strategic questions.

As a very assiduous chair of the National Policy Forum, he was never afraid to fight his corner. Tony was not the first Labour leader who learnt you had to keep a very close eye on Robin when policy debates were working their way through the party. Though suspicious when appointed to foreign affairs in Opposition, he loved being Foreign Secretary. He was not a natural Atlanticist but worked hard at his relationship with the US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, which became important during the Kosovo crisis. He described the reversal of Milosevic's ethnic cleansing as one of his and Labour's proudest moments.

He was a round peg in a round hole when chairing EU meetings during the first UK presidency of the Blair Government. I even heard President Chirac singing his praises once, and sounding like he meant it. Robin knew the detail and knew how to build alliances and win arguments. Knowing my distaste for the Continental habit of men kissing men in greeting, he would regularly inform me “I have kissed seven men on both cheeks today in pursuit of the UK national interest.” He did not instantly accept the shift to Leader of the House, and was clearly hurt at what he knew would be seen as a demotion. He asked for time to think, and used that time to work out how to make the job bigger than it had been before.

Similarly, after he resigned, and delivered a typically powerful resignation statement in the Commons, he was determined, unlike others, not to let bitterness and personal animosity form a route to irrelevance. He had a lot left to offer. He was making himself heard and felt in policy areas beyond Iraq. He may even have thought he had the chance of a return to Cabinet under a new leader. It is a tragedy for his family, and for politics, that we will never know.

Alastair Campbell was Tony Blair’s spokesman from 1994 to 1997 and Press Secretary and Director of Communications for the Prime Minister’s office from 1997 to 2003

August 8, 2005 at 05:44 PM in UK | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

August 07, 2005

Overpopulation seen spawning terrorism

World Peace Herald

By Raza Naqvi
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published July 2, 2005

WASHINGTON -- A report released Thursday by the Population Institute links increases in global terrorism to "unprecedented" population growth in the past 50 years.

Speaking at a press briefing, Werner Fornos, president of the Population Institute, said if population growth remains unchecked in certain regions there could be "serious security consequences" for that region and others surrounding it. Yemen, Palestinian territories and Afghanistan, breeding grounds for Islamic terrorists, have some of the highest growth rates in the world, he added.

"Particularly in Palestine, many women turn suicide bombers," Mr. Fornos said. "[Population congestion] leaves young women convinced this is what they need to be active in."

According to the Population Institute report, entitled "Breeding Insecurity: Global Security Implications of Rapid Population Growth," the world's population will increase from 6.5 billion today to 9.1 billion by 2050, with most of the increase occurring in developing countries.

Aside from the security threat, the Population Institute's report highlighted a number of other political crises that could mushroom into global security threats.

"Revolution and other manifestations of political unrest are likely to originate within groups of youth looking to change the current political system," Mr. Fornos said. The report says 40 percent of the world's population is under the age of 20, the vast majority of whom live in developing countries.

The other major concern arising from population growth is the scarcity of fresh water to support it.

"Currently, about a third of the developing world's population lives in countries with severe water stress," the report states. "As the populations of countries sharing water grows, water shortages will become inevitable."

Mr. Fornos added that the world's population currently has to share 1 percent of the Earth's water supply.

The report cites a number of government reports since the Nixon era that have linked overpopulation to potential terrorist breeding grounds. According to the Population Institute study, "Vice President George H.W. Bush's 1976 task force on terrorism report, youth bulges and youth unemployment were recognized as demographic detriments of terrorism." Youth bulges are caused by "the combination of high fertility rates and declining infant mortality rates," both symptomatic of excess population growth.

The issue of population growth is not receiving the attention it merits, according to Mr. Fornos. At a poorly attended press conference, he regretted not being invited to the White House and other Washington policy institutes.

"Terrorism is not the major problem in the world today," he said. "Terrorism and population growth are important."

The United Nations Population Fund recommended $1.5 billion is needed to adequately tackle the problem, but last year's contribution to the U.N. fund was only $500 million, ironically the largest single contribution to date.

August 7, 2005 at 11:49 PM in Muslim background | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Overpopulation Seen Spawning Terrorism

Why Population Matters of WOA!! World Population Awareness

A report links increases in terrorism to population growth in the past 50 years and if population growth remains unchecked in certain regions there could be serious security consequences. Yemen, Palestinian territories and Afghanistan have some of the highest growth rates in the world. In Palestine, women become suicide bombers, when population congestion leaves young women convinced this is what they need to be active in. The world's population will increase from 6.5 billion today to 9.1 billion by 2050, with most of the increase occurring in developing countries. Revolution and other political unrest are likely to originate within groups of youth looking to change the current political system. 40% of the world's population is under the age of 20, the vast majority live in developing countries. The other concern is the scarcity of fresh water and water shortages will become inevitable. The world's population has to share 1% of the Earth's water supply. A number of reports linked overpopulation to potential terrorist breeding grounds. Youth bulges and unemployment were recognized as demographic detriments of terrorism. Youth bulges are symptomatic of excess population growth. Terrorism and population growth are important and UNPF has recommended $1.5 billion to tackle the problem, but last year's contribution was only $500 million, the largest single contribution to date. July 02, 2005 Population Institute/Washington Times 014432

August 7, 2005 at 11:32 PM in Muslim background | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Europe’s Muslim Street 11-03-2003

The Muslim News

By Omer Taspinar

Washington, Foreign Policy:

Islam may still be a faraway religion for millions of Americans. But for Europeans it is local politics. The 15 million Muslims of the European Union (EU)—up to three times as many as live in the United States—are becoming a more powerful political force than the fabled Arab street. Europe’s Muslims hail from different countries and display diverse religious tendencies, but the common denominator that links them to the Muslim world is their sympathy for Palestine and Palestinians. And unlike most of their Arab brethren, growing numbers of Europe’s Muslims can vote in elections that count.

This political ascendance threatens to exacerbate existing strains within the trans-Atlantic relationship. The presence of nearly 10 million Muslims versus only 700,000 Jews in France and Germany alone helps explain why continental Europe might look at the Middle East from a different angle than does the United States. Indeed, French and German concerns about a unilateral U.S. attack on Iraq or Washington’s blind support for Israel are at least partly related to nervousness about the Muslim street at home.

Whether Brussels, Berlin, Paris, or Washington like it or not, Europe’s Muslim constituencies are likely to become an even more vocal foreign policy lobby. Two trends are empowering Europe’s Muslim street: demographics and opportunities for full citizenship.

It’s worth remembering that Europe’s Muslim population is an unintended consequence of actions taken nearly a half century ago. During the postwar labor shortage in the 1950s and 1960s, Turks, Algerians, Moroccans, Tunisians, and Pakistanis were called to help spur Europe’s economic recovery. No host country expected these “guestworkers,” as the Germans called them with characteristic frankness, to overstay their welcome. Like all good guests, they were supposed to leave, preferably when the recession hit and the party was over in the 1970s. They didn’t. Instead, their families joined them, and new generations of European Turks, Algerians, Moroccans, Tunisians, and Pakistanis were born.

More are on the way. Today, the Muslim birth rate in Europe is three times higher than the non-Muslim one. If current trends continue, the Muslim population of Europe will nearly double by 2015, while the non-Muslim population will shrink by 3.5 percent.

A parallel process of Muslim enfranchisement is accompanying this population surge. Nearly half of the 5 million to 7 million Muslims in France are already French citizens. The situation is similar for most of the 2 million Muslims in Great Britain. Most recently, in 2000, Germany joined the countries where citizenship is granted according to birthplace instead of ancestry. The new German citizenship laws added already a half million voters to the rolls and have opened the road to citizenship to all other Muslims in Germany. With currently 160,000 new Muslim citizens a year, the number of voters might total 3 million in the next decade.

In Germany and elsewhere in Europe, a Muslim swing vote is already having a critical impact. Consider the electoral push that newly enfranchised “German Turks” gave to Germany’s incumbent Social Democrat (SPD)-Green coalition in last September’s down-to-the-wire election. These Muslim Germans punished the anti-immigrant Christian Democrats, who oppose Turkey’s membership to the EU. And they expressed their gratitude for efforts by the SPD-Green coalition to change the archaic laws of German citizenship. The bad news for the German Christian Democrats is that in the next general elections in 2006, roughly 1 million German Turks will be eager to cast their votes.

A big boost to the organizational capacity of Muslims in Europe came most recently from France, home to Europe’s largest Muslim community. The country’s diverse Muslim community is now represented by a unified French Council of the Islamic Faithu—a potential boon to its lobbying clout. French Muslims have also gained higher political visibility with the inclusion in Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin’s government of two cabinet members of North African origin.

Armed with the power of the vote and quickly learning the mechanics of lobbying, the Muslim street in Europe is on its way to having more political weight than the Arab street of Egypt or Saudi Arabia. But the attacks of September 11 have cast the growing influence of European Muslims in a more ominous light. Although the overwhelming majority of Muslims living in Europe (or, for that matter, the United States) are peaceful and law abiding, many European governments worry under their breath about the role of some European Muslims in past and future terrorist attacks—a concern stoked by the discovery of al Qaeda cells in Germany, France, Italy, and Britain. Given these not-so-latent suspicions and prejudices, one casualty of a major Islamic terrorist attack on European soil would likely be Europe’s budding multiculturalism.

Another major concern is the relationship between Europe’s Muslims and what is perceived in some quarters as Europe’s growing anti-Semitism. True, continental Europeans are much more critical of Israel and generally more supportive of the Palestinian cause. Overall, Europeans have a difficult time understanding how a small country like Israel can have so much influence over the sole superpower. But few in the United States notice that the communities most resentful of Israel in Europe are Muslim. The perpetrators of anti-Semitic incidents in France are not right-wing extremists protecting the “French race” from Jewish contamination: The 400 or so anti-Semitic incidents documented in the country during 2001 have mostly been attributed to Muslim youth of North African origin. Such incidents tend to spike upwards during times of Israeli-Palestinian trouble—further proof of the Muslim role. Economic problems such as unemployment and a lack of upward mobility also contribute to the frustration of Muslims in Europe, who often feel discriminated against.

On the positive side, demographic growth and enfranchisement are already integrating European Muslims into the political mainstream and have the potential to produce a moderate type of Euro-Islam. Yet the implications of a more vocal Muslim lobby in Europe’s Middle East policy offer no good news for the United States. Home to a minuscule Jewish minority and growing Muslim masses, Europe will only get better at confronting the United States at the game of ethnic-lobby influence—a small price to pay, perhaps, for the emergence of a truly multicultural Europe.

Omer Taspinar is a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and an adjunct professor in the European studies department at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.

August 7, 2005 at 11:31 PM in Muslim background | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

World Population Prospects

Introduction

August 7, 2005 at 11:23 PM in Espionage - general | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Intelligence Briefs: January - August 2001

Intelligence Briefs - July 2000

An Irish arms dealer - code-named "Mr Weinstein" by the FBI - is at the centre of the agency's cover-up into an "illicit weapons shipment" to China - only months after Washington and Beijing had been involved in the first confrontation of the Bush Administration over the downing of a U.S. spy plane by a Chinese fighter in the South China Sea.

"Mr Weinstein" had obtained the shipment of missiles from a supposedly "cancelled" U.S. military defense program.

The shipment consisted of "Lemmings" - the Pentagon code-name for sophisticated explosive bolts used in the separation of guided missiles with ranges up to 2600 miles.

Washington analyst Al Martin - a former senior officer in the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence - said this week that "the incident may prove to be the opening of a Pandora's Box with regard to the Bush Administration's covert and illicit policy of secretly arming China."

The FBI intercepted a rented truck en route to New Orleans from the Redstone Arsenal at Huntsville, Alabama. The truck had originally been stopped by Huntsville state troopers for speeding.
But the FBI had been tailing the truck from the arsenal. When they moved in, they found it was stacked with crates marked "Lemmings".

Their destination was given as Shanghai. The Chinese port has several nuclear missile facilities in its suburbs.
It was from Shanghai that the Chinese fighter took off to intercept the U.S. spy plane and force it down last March. The Chinese pilot was killed. The spy plane's crew were eventually repatriated to the U.S.
The FBI have refused to give any details about the Irishman other than he is an authorised arms procurer.
Al Martin claims that "prior to the shipment of the Lemmings, Weinstein had procured actual missiles into which the Lemmings would be fitted. They are explosive bolts and form an integral part of a missile's automatic detonation system. He bought both missiles and the Lemmings at the weekly weapons sale at the Redstone Arsenal".

It appears that Weinstein did not tell arsenal staff the Lemmings and missiles were destined for China.
That information was only known to senior White House staff and officials at the Pentagon.
Both the White House and Pentagon have refused to comment.

The FBI office in Huntsville have also refused to discuss the matter.

But Martin - whose connections in Washington are legendary - believes "the FBI agents who seized the truck were out of the loop".

Later, when Washington intervened, says Martin, a massive cover-up operation went into action. The truck load of Lemmings and missiles that the FBI agents had originally confiscated "disappeared off the radar" - as did "Mr Weinstein".

He received a cell phone call from a senior FBI agent in Washington telling him to "cool it until you are told it is okay to move".

The Lemmings and weapons are now believed to be in a military airbase in California - waiting to be shipped to China.

The CIA have supplied Israel's Defence Force snipers with 50 of its ultra-secret super-pressure rifles that fire tiny transuranium bullets.

The bullets have no tell-tale muzzle flash - but have twice the impact of ordinary sniper rifles. The guns have a killing range of 2 kilometres.

Approval to supply the rifle was personally given by George Tenet, CIA Director, during his doomed recent attempt to broker peace between the PLO and Israel.

Sources close to the CIA director say the Israelis insisted on having the new sniper rifles as part of their "defence system" in the event of Tenet's initiative breaking down.

Days after the 45 year old Director had returend to Washington, his hopes of brokering peace had failed. But he still agreed - "as a mark of our good faith", claims one CIA source - that the rifles should be sent.

On July 4th, America's Day of Independence, the consignment of rifles plus crates of the bullets were loaded on an El Al 747 and flown to Tel Aviv from New York.

Intelligence community relations between the United States and Britain's MI5 and MI6, as well as those of Germany's BND, have been seriously compromised by accused FBI spy, Robert P Hanssen.

The rift revolves around Hanssen's role as the FBI's acknowledged expert on computer software. It was in that capacity that Hanssen visited Britain's intelligence agencies and those of the BND at its headquarters at Pullach, Germany.
The British and German agencies now fear that Hanssen used those visits to learn valuable information about the U.S. software installed at the MI5, MI6 and BND facilities - and that he later passed on that information to his Russian handlers. They, in turn, passed the data on to Osama bin Laden, enabling the most wanted terrorist in the world to monitor efforts by all three agencies to track him down.
Confirmation of all this has emerged in Washington in the past few days via CIA and FBI sources. Some details have been leaked to The Washington Times.
Writer Jerry Seper, who covers the Justice Department for the newspaper, wrote: "The sophisticated software gives Bin Laden access to databases on specific targets of his choosing and the ability to monitor electronic banking transactions, easing money-laundering operations for himself or others."
What Seper did not reveal is that Hanssen, before his arrest, had played an important role in installing the U.S. software in MI5, MI6 and BNC facilities. The software was an upgraded version of a program known as Enhanced Promis, developed in the 1980s by a small Washington company called Inslaw. Since then the company has heavily modified and revised its software.
Bill Hamilton, CEO of Inslaw, told me this week that his information was that bin Laden has been provided with the latest version of Enhanced Promis - for which he paid his Russian handlers over US$2 million.
Hamilton confirmed that the BND had ceased to buy U.S. software and had mounted a "thorough review" of what had been installed.
Similar moves are underway in London.
"The technical manual the FBI alleges Hanssen gave to the Soviet Union may, therefore, have been related to the use of Promis as the standard software of the U.S. intelligence community," Hamilton said, noting that Mr Hanssen was a "computer savvy FBI agent" who reportedly was instrumental in introducing the Promis system into the FBI foreign counterintelligence division.
Inslaw battled the Justice Department for more than a decade over a $10 million, three-year contract to install the Promis program. A federal court initially ruled the department used "trickery, fraud and deceit" to steal the Promis program, but that ruling was later overturned in the government's favor.
The House Judiciary Committee, following a three-year investigation, ruled in 1992 there was "strong evidence" the Justice Department had conspired to steal the Promis program.
Mr Hanssen pleaded not guilty May 30 to federal charges of passing highly classified U.S. secrets to the Russians over a 15-year period. He faces trial tentatively schedule for Oct 29, and could be sentenced to death if convicted.
Arrested by FBI agents Feb 18 as he tried to leave a package of classified documents at a secret drop-off location in a park near his Vienna, Va., home, he was indicted by a federal grand jury May 16 on charges of selling U.S. intelligence secrets to the former Soviet Union and later Russia beginning in October 1985. Fourteen of the 21 counts carry the death penalty.
The indictment said Hanssen "betrayed his country for over 15 years and knowingly caused grave injury to the security of the United States." It said he conspired with agents from the Soviet KGB and its successor intelligence agency, the SVR, to deliver to Moscow "information relating to the national defense of the United States."
The former FBI counterintelligence agent is accused of giving his Russian handlers classified information concerning satellites, early-warning systems, means of defense or retaliation against large-scale attacks, communications intelligence and major elements of defense strategy.
Bin Laden, now believed to be in Afghanistan, is a self-proclaimed international terrorist being sought in the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed 224 persons, including 12 Americans.
The 41-year old fugitive millionaire was indicted in November by a federal grand jury in New York in the simultaneous explosions Aug. 7 at the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
U.S. authorities believe he directed the attacks as part of a campaign aimed at changing U.S. foreign policy by killing U.S. civilians and military personnel worldwide.
His organisation, known as al-Qaeda, is believed to have targeted U.S. embassies and American soldiers stationed in Saudi Arabia and Somalia.
The organization also is accused of housing and training terrorists and of raising money to support its cause.

A Top-Secret Reports on how the World's Main Intelligence Services are likely to behave has been prepared by the CIA.

Copies of a top-secret report were constantly consulted by President George W Bush and his key advisers during the spy-plane crisis with China.
It enabled Washington to predict Beijing's real reaction behind its public posturing - when Washington should be firm and when conciliatory.
The 70-page report is entitled "Global Trends Up To 2015". The document was prepared by over 50 CIA analysts plus a number at the Institute of International Studies in London, a think-tank frequently consulted by the world's major intelligence agencies.
The report begins by stating that all those agencies will face a common enemy:
"Powerful criminal groups who will corrupt leaders of unstable economically fragile states. The criminals will institute themselves into banks and businesses and take over insurgent political movements to control substantial geographic areas. Their income will come from narcotics, trafficking in women, smuggling nuclear materials, illicit arms, military technologies. The groups will indulge in global financial fraud and racketeering. The most dangerous time will be between the period 2002 and 2008."
The report then analyses the role of the intelligence services in this scenario.
CHINA: Its Secret Intelligence Service (CSIS) will stage an escalating series of crises to ensure China will become the new superpower of the Third Millennium.
"CSIS will provide the biological and chemical weapons and the 'suitcase bombs', small nuclear devices, to wage terrorist war against the United States. CSIS will increasingly support such rogue states as Iran and Iraq who will have developed long-range missiles by the year 2005. By 2015 those weapons will have the capability of hitting any city in the United States and Europe. Those weapons will carry nuclear, chemical and biological warheads."
The report predicts the CSIS will exploit Europe's growing ethnic refugee problems, "especially in Germany, Italy and Britain."
The document argues that, as the world's population would grow by another billion by the year 2015, coming close to eight billion, the "mega cities in the developing world will become a breeding ground for terrorism. In Europe and Japan an ageing population and virtually static birth-rate will mean that allowing more immigration will be the only way of meeting the chronic shortages of workers. Many of those workers would be trained in terrorist activities."
Again the report breaks down how major intelligence services will respond to such threats.
ISRAEL: "A succession of increasingly hard-line governments will encourage Mossad to use 'fight fire with fire' tactics. Mossad would pave the ground for Israel to launch a limited nuclear war to survive if Mossad senses that Iraq or Iran are about to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike. The way the Second Intifada shows no sign of stopping could lead to such a situation well before the end of the current decade."
GREAT BRITAIN: Its two prime intelligence services, MI5 and MI6, are "both understaffed and underfunded. Where once they had a deserved reputation for humint (human intelligence gathering), they now rely increasingly upon technology that is becoming out-dated. The days of the Thatcher-Reagan alliance has gone. Britain's prime minister is not so prepared to rubber stamp all that the Washington intelligence community requires. This has led to friction and tensions."
GERMANY: Overall its agencies have lost much of their hard edge. "The most often heard phrase among their staff is 'to what purpose?' During the pre-collapse of Communism, those agencies were the ones the CIA turned to for confirmation the Soviets could be about to attack."
The report claims the BND is "still trying to set itself apart, remaining locked into old goals and attitudes. Leadership is not what it was. Too many good officers have left."
RUSSIA: The report devotes considerable space to the various Russian intelligence services. It begins with the monolithic Federal Counter Intelligence Services, FCS. With a current staff of 142,000, "it is really the KGB updated". It works closely with the other most powerful Russian agency, the SCR. Both run a world-wide multi-layered intelligence gathering operation.
"Their prime targets are industrial and commercial intelligence in Germany, Great Britain and the United States. Their operations also include assassinations in those countries."
The report singles out the GRU, operated by the Kremlin and now under the personal command of Vladimir Putin, as "undoubtedly on the same level as China's CSIS and Mossad. The GRU has good operatives and state-of-the-art intelligence equipment".
FRANCE: "All its varied intelligence services have a common thread. They will continue to operate well internally but are no longer in the major league of global intelligence gathering. Their main use to other services is their capability to keep close track of terror groups out of Africa and the Middle East."
Finally, the report does not spare itself:
THE UNITED STATES: The CIA requires an urgent number of fluent Chinese speakers. The agency must become "more aggressive" in pursuing terrorists, if necessary killing them. Osama bin-Laden is a prime example. "Like all intelligence services, the CIA's true annual budget is a closely guarded secret. "But still more money is required to fund secret wars against terrorists." The report identifies 67 groups known to oppose the United States.
The report states that the CIA "cannot expect the same degree of support from European agencies or even Mossad as it did in the past." "The agency must fight its own battles - and increasingly those are for the survival of our country."
The report predicts that Africa will continue to face famine and economic and political turmoil. "The result will be massive death loss and survivors will make more serious attempts to find sanctuary in Europe. In turn its security services will be under increasing pressure to stop this influx. It is doubtful if they will succeed."
The document calculates that China's economic growth will overtake Europe by the year 2010, while Russia's will have contracted to barely a fifth of the United States.
"China will start a trade war, likely to begin before the end of this decade. It's intelligence service will further develop its alliance between terrorist groups to attack the West."
Finally the report concludes: "As a result of a lengthy period of economic stagnation, by the year 2015 the United States will have abdicated its role as the world's policeman. The CIA, while re-energised by the new presidency, will find itself a lone warrior (apart from Mossad) in the intelligence fight against China.
"All the indications are that there could be a major war breaking out before the year 2015. The protagonists will most likely be China and America," concludes the report.
Have the first shots been fired in the current US-Sino relations?

FBI Spy Betrays U.S. Top Secret Tracking Device to Bin-Laden

Osama bin-Laden has obtained America's most secret tracking device. The software was stolen by Robert Hanssen, the renegade FBI officer, for his Russian KGB controllers in an intelligence operation that the FBI says "compromised an entire technical programme of enormous value, expense and importance."
Hanssen, who had spied for Russia since 1985 until his arrest last February 18, has now told his FBI/CIA interrogation team that a copy of the software was sold-on to bin-Laden late last year for "over two million U.S. dollars" by his KGB controllers.
The software was originally developed for the FBI and other US intelligence agencies by the Washington company Inslaw under the brand name of Promis. Hanssen supervised its installation into the FBI headquarters.
Hanssen, who was then head of FBI counter-intelligence, was the agency's acknowledged computer expert. He has told his interrogators in Washington that with the software, bin-Laden could track any attempt by Western intelligence agencies to locate him. At the same time he could also have the software programmed to keep tabs on any target of his choice.
"The core of the software is its simplicity. It requires the minimum of computer knowledge. It is all built into the software disc and is designed to be operated from a simple laptop - the kind on sale in any high street," said Ari Ben-Menashe, the former Israeli government expert on counter terrorism.
FBI agents believe that the KGB agent who sold the software did it for the same reason that Hanssen betrayed America's secret - purely for money.
A copy of the software is now believed to be in one of bin-Laden's redoubts in Afghanistan. Another copy is said by CIA sources to be in Sudan.
The CIA have now sent Britain's MI6 a "red alert" that the software could be used to track and mount a strike against Prince William when he visits Africa as part of his sabbatical year.
Western intelligence agencies are also urgently investigating reports that bin-Laden may have made contact with the Real IRA - who are said to be looking for another "big name" target to strike against after the BBC.
Using the Promis software, it would be possible for any terrorist group to have vital prior knowledge of how and where to reach a target.
Bin-Laden, labelled by the United States "the world's most wanted terrorist" is a wealthy Saudi millionaire who has declared war on the West - including Britain's Royal Family.
Bill Hamilton, President of Inslaw, said that "if he has a copy of the latest Promis software, it could allow him to carry out the kind of terror attack that would be almost unstoppable."

Ariel Sharon has approved a secret meeting between agents of Mossad and China's secret intelligence service, CSIS.
A report on the meeting was sent this week by CIA Director George Tenet to President George W Bush.
The meeting took place in the Hong Kong office of the Chinese News Agency earlier this month.
The CIA has long categorised the agency as a cover for intelligence gathering operations and treats its journalists as spies.
Among those present at the Hong Kong meeting, the CIA report claims, were senior Chinese officials from two of its key intelligence departments. These are the Military Intelligence Department which reports from STD, China's Science and Intelligence Department which is controlled by the Ministry of Defence in Beijing.
The Mossad team was led by a number of officers from its Operations Department.
The CIA report categorises the meeting as "significant". It goes on to warn President Bush that "this is a further indication we have of the growing ties between the two intelligence services."
The report follows a document that the CIA prepared for Bush when he entered office. The 70-page document states that:
"China is determined to become the new superpower of the Third Millennium. To achieve this it will be quite prepared to wage war against the United States. It will do this by supporting rogue states such as Iraq and Iran who will have developed the capability of launching long-range missiles by the year 2010. Such weapons will be able to hit the United States."
The meeting between China's intelligence service and Mossad is believed to be also connected by the new Bush Administration's refusal to supply a "shopping list" of weapons that it had requested from former President Clinton.
When Bush came into office he told the Pentagon the Israeli order was "on hold".
The CIA report this week suggests that China may have been asked by Israel to fulfil the order.
"It certainly has the capability to do so," states the report.
During the Hong Kong meeting it was arranged for Israeli scientists to visit the Science and Technology Department at the rear of Beijing's Ministry of Defence HQ in the Dongcheng district in the city.
The single storied building is known by the CIA to be staffed with computer experts who had returned to China after working in California's Silicon Valley, employed by companies such as Dell and ICM.
The Chinese are known to have developed advanced ultrasonic detectors sensitive to noise and motion which would be invaluable to the Israeli Army in its war against the PLO.

Fugitive Jewish financier Marc Rich, pardoned by President Bill Clinton on his last day in office, is a Mossad agent - rated by the Israeli intelligence agency as highly as they once did Robert Maxwell, the newspaper tycoon.
At Maxwell's funeral, Prime Minister Shamir eulogised, "Robert has done more for Israel than can be said today".
It is increasingly clear the same can be said for Rich. So far he is wanted in the United States for evading almost $50 million in taxes, fraud and participating in illegal arms deals with terrorist Abu Nidal.
Now the FBI want to know how much Bill Clinton knew of Rich's secret work for Israel. This included organising Israeli passports for members of the Russian Mafiya. So far thirty known members of various Mafiya groups are currently travelling on Israeli passports.
The FBI are also investigating Rich's connections to various money-laundering operations involving mid-European banks and those in Canada and the United States.
Rich's prime use for Mossad is not as a mere field agent but as someone who moves in the highest financial circles in Europe, the Middle East and South America.
It is these links that the FBI and other teams of US investigators are examining to see if they are linked to the large sums of money being paid to the Clintons.
US Federal prosecutor Mary Jo White has already launched a criminal investigation into Rich's financial links between Clinton and his wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
White has already obtained copies of all White House phone logs and those of Air Force One, the Presidential aircraft. The logs cover all calls the President and Mrs Clinton made to Rich. There is also a complete record of all his calls to them. Normally all official calls are monitored by the US communications team that accompany the President and his wife on all visits.
The calls are described as "a key element in our investigation" by one of White's aides.
It is these calls that could be "the smoking gun" that could bring the former president and Mrs Clinton to face serious charges, one of White's aides said.
District Attorney Morgenthau of New York who is masterminding one aspect of the investigation - the Clintons live now in his jurisdiction - has told his assistants that "this could be bigger than Watergate".
Rich is alleged to have transferred $109,000 from one of his Swiss bank accounts to help fund Mrs Clinton's successful Senate campaign.
But the heat on the Clintons has been cranked up by a CIA report sent to White this week. This alleges that Rich was recruited by Mossad in 1996 by Danny Yatom. Yatom did so days after taking over as director-general of Mossad - and recruited Rich with the full agreement of Israel's then prime minister, Benyamin Netanyahu.
Israel's new prime minister, Ariel Sharon, could be asked by the US Justice Department to allow both Yatom and Netanyahu to be questioned in the ever expanding probe into how much the Clintons knew about Rich's background - and did he send the Clintons money to encourage the President to grant him a pardon - which would place Rich beyond further criminal investigation by the United States.
But the revelation that Rich is still a Mossad "asset" will almost certainly harden the determination of President George W Bush to have the criminal investigation into the Clintons press ahead.
Clinton himself received from Rich just before leaving office a cheque for $450,000 to help him set up his Presidential Library Fund. Rich also sent $1.1 million last year to the Democratic Party to help Al Gore fight for the Presidency.
These payments alone are certain to focus Attorney White's investigation into what Rich did after he fled to Switzerland in 1988.
His connections with Mossad will certainly deepen the investigation.
CIA agents in Switzerland this week have already established that shortly before he was kidnapped by Hezbollah last October, Mossad agent Hanan Tannenbaum had visited Rich in his heavily-guarded Swiss mansion.
Tannenbaum had been sent last October to see Rich by Danny Yatom to discuss what Tel Aviv sources yesterday admitted were "intelligence matters of the highest order".
Hezbollah somehow spirited Tannenbaum out of Europe to their base in the Beka'a Valley. His present fate is not known.
At the time, Yatom was personal security adviser to prime minister Ehud Barak.
Yatom had hoped the post would be a stepping stone to his return to running Mossad. Israeli sources say that Sharon, Israel's new leader, has not discounted the idea.
Both CIA and other US intelligence services in Washington believe that Rich replaced Maxwell as Mossad's highest level sources since Maxwell died in November 1991. Persistent reports remain that Maxwell was murdered at sea off the Canary Islands.
This coming week the US Senate Judiciary Committee will examine documents that show Marc Rich played a crucial role shortly after Maxwell's death in helping the Bank of Credit and Commercial International (BCCI) arrange for Abu Nidal to receive "hundreds of millions of US dollars for illegal arms transactions in an effort to persuade its wealthy Middle East backers that the bank was staunchly pro-Arab."
A sworn affidavit by Ghassan Quassem, for 17 years a senior officer with BCCI, states: "British weapons secretly destined for Abu Nidal were financed through BCCI offices and shipped under export documents that Marc Rich knew to be phoney. My role at the bank was to handle the Nidal account. I later became a spy for the CIA and MI6."
At the time of the BCCI scandal, Clinton was already President and had established a relationship with Rich.
The investigation led by Federal attorney Mary Jo White is likely to enquire into Clinton's knowledge of how much Rich told him about BCCI's involvement in Pakistan's nuclear programme. The Bank's manipulation of commodities and securities markets in Europe and Canada, BCCI's activities in India, including its relationship with the business empire of the Hinduja - a contact which led to the fall of Peter Mandelson, Britain's Northern Ireland Secretary of State.
Of more concern to the CIA is evidence it has uncovered of Rich's close but secret relationship with former CIA director William Casey.
The Clintons are banking that, under the US Constitution, presidents have an absolute right to issue pardons to men like Marc Rich which cannot be subjected to review by any incoming administration.
But the fact that President Clinton was closely involved with a powerful agent of a foreign intelligence service may override that.
A clue of what lies ahead came yesterday from the words of Senator Charles Schumer of New York. "What is emerging stands our criminal justice system on its head."
An associate of Attorney White, who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity, said: "We are going to examine bank and telephone records involving the Clintons and Rich for evidence of serious illegal conduct. The bottom line is: did Rich buy his pardon in return for vast sums of money paid to the Clintons? The other bottom line is how much did Clinton tell Rich? To pass on any information to an intelligence agent of a foreign power, however friendly Israel is with the United States, is a most serious matter - and could end up being seen as treason."
How far that charge could begin to stand up would depend on whether Prime Minister Sharon would allow Netanyahu and Yatom to travel to Washington to give evidence before the Senate and House Committees who are deeply probing the murky past of Marc Rich.
A source close to Sharon said that "following Israel's previous position in all such matters we will not allow any country to remove our citizens for any questioning."
The irony of the matter is that Attorney White was appointed to her post in 1993 by President Clinton. She confirmed yesterday, "the pardon to Marc Rich by the president was granted without any consultation with my office. This, despite the fact that President Clinton knew this office had previously indicted Rich for his many offences."

Israel Plans Infowar Against P.L.O.

Israeli scientists trained at the United States super-secret Intelligence and Security Command in Northern Virginia have perfected the technique of morphing, among others, the images of Yasser Arafat and Saddam Hussein onto television screens.

Using specially doctored voice tapes of the actual Arafat and Saddam speaking, these have been re-spliced and perfectly lip-synced so that either leader appears to be making totally outlandish statements against their own people - which could lead to them being toppled.
These close-circuit test transmissions have been carried out deep inside the Kirya, Israeli Defence Force headquarters in Tel Aviv.

The transmissions could be relayed to both PLO and Iraqi television stations. They would then replace real-time programmes and cause panic, anger and havoc.

This development is an extension of what was done by the United States 193rd Operations Group stationed in Pennsylvania. During the Persian Gulf War in 1991, a specially converted 737 flew over Iraq and broadcast reports directly into Baghdad radio stations urging Iraqi soldiers to desert before the next bombing.

In the past few days, Israel has sent a formal request to the Pentagon for one of the aircraft, known as "Commando Solo". Costing $85 million, the aircraft has an eleven-man crew and is filled with computers, cassette decks, compact discs and VHS tape players. Powerful transmitters can reach any radio or TV station in the Middle East.

The equipment also has the capability to jam a country's TV and radio broadcasts - and substitute false messages.

Deadly Chemicals Used by Israelis to Track PLO Stone-Throwing Dissidents

Israeli scientists have armed Shin Beth agents with radioactive aerosol sprays. When PLO and other dissidents are arrested and taken to an Israeli police station or detention centre, they are strip-searched. Their clothes are then given a small squirt from an aerosol which contains a radioactive chemical. The chemical is invisible, odourless and leaves an undetectable residue on the clothes. But a small squirt of the substance enables Israeli agents and Defence Force "snatch squads" to detect a person previously arrested. This is done by detector vans equipped with ultra-sophisticated Geiger counter that pinpoints a person who has been previously sprayed. The vans are identical to those already used by IDF patrols. The aerosol and detector equipment was developed at Israel's top-secret institute for Biological Research situated in the Tel Aviv suburb of New Ziona. Its laboratories are partly staffed with East German and Russian Jewish scientists who had worked for both their countries' intelligence. Most of its twelve acres of laboratories are underground and protected by state-of-the-art security systems. Details about the aerosol and other work carried on at the Biological Institute were revealed last week by CIA Director George Tenet in a briefing to the incoming Bush transition team. Some of its members were described as being "absolutely horrified" by what they had been told. It is likely that when he assumed office, Secretary of State Colin Powell will raise the matter with the Barak government. Last week the Institute allowed a rare visitor from the outside - Ariel Sharon, almost certain to be Israel's next prime minister, according to the pollsters. The contents of the sprays is made from radioactive material known as Scandium 64. This is highly lethal over a lengthy period as it permeates clothing with gamma radiation. Former Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky who has previously revealed much about the activities at the Institute has confirmed that lethal tests on Arab prisoners have been conducted there. The decision to use the aerosols was approved by Avraham Dichter, the head of Shin Beth. Dichter is a former commando leader who served in the army under Ehud Barak. The two men met in Tel Aviv on December 28. At the meeting Dichter produced documents which claimed to show that the PLO have trained some 7,000 youngsters in basic military training - and that the PLO have obtained Stinger missiles and Sam-16 anti-aircraft missiles. Mossad sources say that the weapons were smuggled in from Iran. The Atomic Energy Commission in Vienna, Austria, confirmed that one of the side-effects of Scandium 64 is to create impotency in a male and severely damage the fallopian tubes of a woman. The doses used for aerosol spraying are believed to be in the region of 150 millisierverts per spraying. According to the Atomic Energy Commission scale for the weekly regulation maximum exposure dose - this is 149 times higher than is internationally accepted. Senior intelligence sources in Tel Aviv have told me that during his visit to the Biological Institute, Sharon was fully briefed on the use of the aerosol - and is reported to have given full support for its use.

Secret Nuclear Base in Botswana

Technicians from Israel's nuclear facility at Dimona in the Negev Desert have secretly helped install an underground nuclear arms facility in the tiny land-locked republic of Botswana in southern Africa. The arms dump is situated close to the Moremi wildlife reserve on the largest inland delta in the world. Many millions of US dollars are being used to establish a Rapid Response Airfield on the delta. The finance is provided by the United States government. The nuclear facility is buried inside the airfield perimeter in one of the remotest places in Africa. Allowing Israeli experts to supervise the installation of the nuclear facility was agreed in a secret meeting between senior South African and Israeli officials and Botswana's president Quitt Ketumile Masire in the country's flea-blown capital, Gaborone. Since that meeting two months ago, a large number of Dimona technicians have flown into Botswana in Israeli Air Force transporters. The aircraft have also contained nuclear weapons manufactured in Dimona. Other nuclear weapons have been brought overland from storage sites out in the South African veldt. In a country racked with unemployment, urban drift and a rocketing birth rate - plus the growing spread of AIDS - work on the Rapid Response airfield has come as a welcome boost to the ruling Botswana Democratic Party. This latest move by Israel to further its ongoing "African Safari" is also part of its long-term policy to establish itself as a powerful player on the continent. It has further increased the presence of Mossad in South Africa in the past month bringing the total number of katsas, field agents, operating there to nineteen. In the past week two of them have been transferred to Botswana. One is based at Gaborone. The other out at the nuclear facility. The area is a maze of lagoons that teem with wildlife, including crocodiles. Few tourists visit the area. Twenty-eight years ago this week, in December 1972, Israel technicians helped South Africa test a crude nuclear device on a remote island in the Indian Ocean. Later that year Israel and the then apartheid regime of P W Botha signed an agreement that if either country was attacked and required military assistance, the other would come to its aid. When Nelson Mandela came to office, he readily agreed to extend the agreement until the year 2002. Sources in Tel Aviv confirm that the decision to now install the nuclear facility in Botswana was what one senior intelligence man called "a natural precaution. Both Israel and South Africa want to have a safe nuclear storage facility, given the uncertain situation in both countries." In the past few months a number of foreign intelligence services have begun to focus on Southern Africa. Among them are the Chinese Secret Intelligence Service. A confidential CIA report alleged a month ago that the Chinese agents were working with a number of Triad gangs trafficking in drugs throughout the continent. A South African intelligence officer who asked not to be named, told me this week that "the real reason we have worked so closely with Israel is that we fear a terrorist group might steal some of our nuclear weapons and hold us, or even the world, to ransom. Burying them in Botswana gives us some comfort. For the Israelis, having a range of nuclear weapons so secure, but only a comparatively short distance from Tel Aviv is also a comfort. More than one Israeli has told me that, given the way matters are developing, the unthinkable could become a possibility - that Dimona, which gives the country its ultimate protection, might no longer be as secure as Ehud Barak would like."

Massacre of PLO Children

Ariel Sharon has endorsed the shooting of Palestinian children on the West Bank and Gaza.
He did so during a visit earlier this week to an Israeli Defence Force base at Glilot, north of Tel Aviv. The base is a training camp for Israeli snipers.
Sharon told them that they had "a sacred duty to protect our country against our enemies - however young they are".
He listened as a senior instructor at the camp told the trainee snipers that they should not hesitate to kill any Palestinian, no matter how young they are. "If they can hold a weapon, they are a target", the instructor is quoted as saying.
The visit to the camp by Sharon came the day before the BBC's "Newsnight" programme broadcast on Wednesday the first detailed report of the number of deaths of Palestinian children and young teenagers in the current Intifada.
The programme revealed that a third of all 200 plus fatal casualties so far had been children and young teenagers.
Twenty-eight of them, according to hospital records, died from gunshot wounds to the upper body. Over half of those died from single shots to the head.
The revelation that Sharon supports such a policy of murderous killing will almost certainly further inflame the outrage over the shootings.
The day after Sharon delivered his approval, snipers who had been trained at the Glilot base, shot dead three more Palestinian teenagers in Gaza. One was only 15 years old.
The killings have provoked increasing division within Israel itself.
Veteran commentator Barry Chamish reported yesterday that right-wing elements are pressing the Barak government to take "active measures" to stop foreign journalists from producing further Newsnight-style reports.
"Among the measures protestors are advocating are the picketing of homes of foreign journalists working in Israel," Chamish confirmed.
However, other Israelis are expressing mounting concern that the shooting of Palestinian children and teenagers is turning world opinion even further against Israel.
Yesterday the mother of an IDF sniper in the Raman Gat suburb of Tel Aviv agreed to talk to me on the phone under the guarantee of anonymity.
This is what she said:
"My son is in the IDF. He has been told by his officers that any PLO youngster who appears to threaten in any form, whether it is with a catapult or throwing stones, is to be shot.
"He and the other soldiers in his unit are now equipped with special night-sights that would enable them to pick out their targets most clearly.
"My son says that on several occasions he has in the past week had an Arab child in his sights and has deliberately shot wide.
"He did so even after his officer had told the unit that they were entitled to shoot children and teenagers because they could become the leaders of tomorrow and continue the Intifada.
"My son says there is no doubt a deliberate policy by his commanders that killing the children and teenagers is all right.
"Two thousand years ago the tyrant king Herod slaughtered our innocents because he feared they would act against him in the future if they were allowed to live. Now our leaders are doing the same."
The mother said that an increasing number of Israelis were starting to express the same concerns.
"But we are warned that in a war situation like this we must say or do nothing that will give comfort to the Palestinians," she added.

Mossad has activated every available "sleeper" agent on the West Bank and Gaza. Many have received special training by Mossad's kidon unit - the service's team of assassins. Over the past ten years kidon has claimed to have murdered almost a hundred persons - the majority overwhelmingly Arab.
The decision to activate the "sleepers" who are agents who have lived under deep cover among their Arab neighbours for many years - came following a meeting in Tel Aviv last Sunday between the hard-line Likud Party leader, Ariel Sharon, and prime minister Ehud Barak.
The meeting was attended by senior Israeli intelligence officers and Barak's own intelligence adviser, Danny Yatom.
One of those present confirmed it was Sharon who "pushed hard for the sleepers to be activated".
At the meeting, Yatom insisted that if news leaked about the sleepers being put on full alert, the official line to the Israeli media was that the agents were being activated to try and track Palestinian suicide bombers planning to strike at Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities.
But sources have told me that "in reality the agents are being activated to carry out two functions". One is to target local Arab community leaders for members of kidon to kill. The other is to carry out those killings themselves "should the opportunity arise".
Already Tawfiq Tirawi, the chief of Yasser Arafat's intelligence service has warned that he would deal "fully" with any Israeli undercover agent.
The problem Tawfiq Tirawi faces is that the Mossad agents are often of Arab origin - and were "turned" by Israel against their own people either by bribes or coercion.
While no precise figure is available, the number of "sleepers" is estimated at under fifty.
Mossad's kidon squad is based at a high-security camp in the Negev desert. All its members are in their twenties and include several women.
The squad is trained in how to administer a lethal injection in a crowd and how to make a killing appear accidental.
Its members are made to memorise the faces and habits of scores of potential targets on the West Bank and Gaza.
All details of new buildings and street layouts in every Arab village and town in those areas are constantly updated on kidon's state-of-the-art computers.
On missions - such as the attempt to kill the Hamas leader in Jordan two years ago - the unit works in teams of four.
Now they are on stand-by to move into the West Bank or Gaza - further escalating Israel's response to Barak's desperate efforts to stay in office by agreeing to Sharon's demands.

Israel's confirmation that it is deploying secret undercover squads on the West Bank and Gaza was careful to hide that those squads will be equipped with weapons that contravene all international treaties.
The weapons that the Israeli undercover squads will use include a variety of fast-acting poisons that will leave no trace unless a victim is subjected to minute examination by a specially-trained pathologist.
No fewer than six varieties of poison have been developed in the past two years at Israel's Institute for Biological Research, housed twelve miles south-east of Tel Aviv.
The first time the weapon was used was in September 1997 when a Mossad kidon unit attempted to assassinate Hamas leader Khaled Meshal on an Amman, Jordan, street. That operation was bungled by the team.
But since then chemists at the Institute have created more sophisticated delivery systems. These include powerful pistols that can fire such weapons at up to 50-metre range. On impact the specially designed actual bullet-head releases a needle-thin dart containing the poison.
Israeli marksmen are taught not to fire the dart at a target's head, but into his body.
All the poisons are fast-acting and leave no trace.
The pistols which fire them are completely silent. The bullet that acts as the delivery system is designed to have minimum body penetration. The killing is done by the needle-like dart. It leaves no more than a pinprick. The Israelis calculate that, in the mayhem of the fighting in the West Bank and Gaza, no one will spot the pinprick.
These silent killer darts have been prepared at the Institute by German-Jewish chemists who formerly worked for the East German Stasi security service.
The news that Barak's government is now prepared to break all international laws to cling to power has disturbed some of the more moderate members of Israel's intelligence community.
One of them confirmed to me that Barak's military intelligence chiefs have drawn up a list of "no fewer than 400 Palestinians who are targeted for assassination by these means".
News that Israel had been working towards such illegal weapons at the Institute has been confirmed by the former Mossad agent, Victor Ostrovsky. He claims that captured Palestinians have been "taken to the Institute and used as guinea pigs. They were human guinea pigs used to make sure the weapons being developed would work properly. It is my certain knowledge that no PLO prisoner has ever left the Institute alive".
The full range of weapons available to the undercover teams include a number of nerve agents, choking agents, blood agents and blister agents.
All these are designed to bring about quick deaths. Also available to the undercover teams are other killer gases that are also strictly outlawed under international treaties.

The Israeli citizen, Hanan Tannenbaum, kidnapped by Hizbollah in Switzerland, is a Mossad katsa, field officer.
He was in Switzerland on a mission personally approved by Danny Yatom, the former director-general of Mossad, and now personal security adviser to Israel's prime minister, Ehud Barak.
The mission was to discover links between Hizbollah and Iranian arms dealers and financiers who are believed by Israel to be the "godfathers" behind the PLO uprising in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel.
Tannenbaum - who in the past has used a number of aliases and passports on his missions to Switzerland - operated out of the Mossad station in Amsterdam's Schipol Airport.
The station forms part of the heavily-guarded El Al complex at the airport. It is from there that Mossad controls its European operations.
In the past three years Tannenbaum has carried out a number of missions in various Swiss cities - including one in 1998 that was intended to bug the apartment of Abdullah Zein, the man Mossad believed was Hizbollah's fund raiser in Europe. At the time he was living in Liebefeld near Berne.
The operation became the most celebrated of Mossad's bungled missions - and led to the sacking of Danny Yatom as Mossad's chief.
Tannenbaum - then operating under the pseudonym of "Matti Goldberg" - managed to escape from Switzerland. His companions were arrested by police - and became the centre of a diplomatic furore between Switzerland and Israel.
The kidnapping of Tannenbaum has rekindled the row this week.
Mossad has sent a team of officers to Switzerland to try and trace how Tannenbaum was abducted.
Senior Tel Aviv intelligence sources told me yesterday that they believe a "mole" inside a Swiss police agency may have tipped off Hizbollah that Tannenbaum was once again back in the country.
While Barak has called the kidnapping a "Mafia act", and Hizbollah leader Sheikh Nassan Nasrallah has taunted Israel with "if you want to know what happened, go and search" - certain facts have emerged.
After the bungled 1998 operation, Tannenbaum was assigned to the Mossad training school at Herzelia on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.
Then, when Yatom was appointed as Barak's security adviser, he recalled Tannenbaum to active service.
With his background of being an artillery colonel in the Israeli Defence Forces - Tannenbaum had served for a time on Israel's northern border with Lebanon - and his fluency in French and German, a cover story was quickly devised for Tannenbaum.
He was given the cover of being a "consultant" to one of Israel's leading arms manufacturers, Rafael.
Ten days ago he reported to his controllers at Mossad that he had developed important contacts.
That was the last anybody in Israel has heard from him.
Mossad have established that he was in Lausanne at the time.
Its officers are trying to discover how Tannenbaum was smuggled out of Europe and back to southern Lebanon. He is now in the Beka'a Valley, Mossad believe.
If so, Hizbollah have carried out a kidnapping that Mossad itself would find hard to equal in its ruthless audacity.

Israel's government is considering a deal to free "a large number" of its Arab prisoners in return for the "guaranteed" safe return of its three captured soldiers and its Mossad agent.
All are believed to now be held by the Hizbollah in Southern Lebanon.
What a senior Israeli intelligence source calls "the bones of the deal" were put by President Clinton to Prime Minister Ehud Barak shortly before the end of the summit at Sharm el-Eheikh.
The proposal was discussed at one of the private meetings the president held with both sides.
Details of the deal had earlier been discussed between Danny Yatom, Barak's chief security adviser, and George Tenet, the head of the CIA. Tenet had been in the region for the past two weeks.
A hint of the deal was given by Clinton in his post-Summit briefing to journalists.
"We have made important commitments against a background of tragedy and crisis. We should have no illusions about the difficulties ahead".
Those "difficulties" emerged within hours of the deal being proposed.
Barak said he could do no more than "consider" the proposal, according to that Israeli intelligence source.
But, within hours of returning to Israel, he found himself confronting a furious Ariel Sharon, the leader of the hard-line Likud Party.
He made it clear he would "fight Barak tooth and nail" to stop any such deal.
As news of their bitter clashes leaked, Israel's usually outspoken newspapers were ordered by the government not to report any details of the proposed deal. The grounds given were the usual one in such cases that Israel's "national security was involved.
This is the second time this week that Israel's strict censorship laws have been used to muzzle local news media.
Earlier this week, Shin Bet - Israel's internal security service - obtained a court injunction to stop publication in Israel of any news about the capture of the Mossad agent, Hanan Tannenbaum.
Shin Bet's lawyers went to court in Tel Aviv on behalf of its sister service, Mossad. To protect its anonymity, Mossad always works in such matters through Shin Bet.
Since then, Israeli newspapers have had to watch foreign newspapers (including this one) continue to report the Tannenbaum case. If nothing else, its background has the potential to create considerable embarrassment to the embattled Barak government.
The reporting restrictions on the case also applies to all Israeli-based foreign reporters. The agent's wife has also been told not to talk to the media.
Yesterday, further details emerged about the operation Tannenbaum was involved in three years ago in Switzerland.
Operating then under the pseudonym "Matti Goldberg", Tannenbaum and four other Mossad agents bungled an attempt to bug the apartment in Liebefeld of Abdullah Zein. Mossad believed Zein to be Hizbollah's prime fund raiser in Europe.
The operation was planned by Danny Yatom. Its failure led to him being fired as head of Mossad.
It has now emerged that Yatom, shortly after he was appointed by Prime Minister Barak as his security adviser, travelled to Switzerland. There he lobbied Swiss government officials to release the only member of the Mossad bugging squad. The man had been arrested and subsequently sentenced to a term of imprisonment. This was commuted by the Swiss Supreme Court to a year's suspended sentence for "political espionage".
Last March Yatom personally brought the man back to Israel. The agent now holds a position within the Israeli Defence Ministry.

The most powerful figure in Israel's intelligence community until his fall from grace is staging a spectacular comeback which could have a significant effect on future peace talks over the Middle East.

As the luxuriously appointed 737 of Ukraine's president winged its way from Israel to the Black Sea resort of Yalta one morning late last August, the only passenger on board could reflect that fate had been kind.
Sat in his tan leather armchair, sipping vintage champagne and eating spoonfuls of best Russian caviar, Danny Yatom surely experienced an understandable sense of déjà vu.
Until three years ago he had been used to this lifestyle of Mossad. A bullet-proof car went with the job, along with a swipe card to access the most important offices in Israel. He had been privy to more secrets than any other man in the country.
Then suddenly it had all ended. On that morning in March 1998 when Yatom had been sacked by the then prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for masterminding two operations which had left Mossad's reputation in tatters and the service's morale at its lowest-ever ebb.
At the age of fifty-one, Yatom's career seemed over. The spy chief with the ruthlessness of a street fighter found the only decision he had to make was whether to lop off the heads of flowers in his garden close to the electrified fence marking the border between Israel and Jordan.
His white-walled home, standing on the very ground where the spies of Gideon, the Old Testament warrior, had prepared their missions, was no longer a place from where Yatom organised the operations which finally led to his downfall.
But now, with the August sun warming the interior of the president's plane, Danny Yatom knew his career was once more in the ascendancy. He was travelling as the prime minister's personal envoy to Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchoma to brief him on Israel's next moves following the collapse of the Camp David talks with the Palestinians.
Despite the simmering resentment from the Israeli Foreign Office who felt a seasoned diplomat, not a once disgraced intelligence chief, should have been sent on such an important mission, Yatom had told close friends he would use his influence to gather support both within and without Israel for a hard-line approach to any future peace talks.
It has been less than a year since Yatom had been brought back into the inner circle of Israeli decision making.
Barak had given him an office close to his own. With his receding hair, steel-framed spectacles and thin lips, Yatom rejoices in his nickname of "The Prussian".
Many of Barak's staff have learned to fear Yatom. In his black leather bomber jacket, open-neck shirt and grey pants - clothes have never interested him - he cuts an intimidating figure.
Since his appointment as Special Adviser to Barak, Yatom has indicated it is a stepping stone to what he really wants - command of Mossad again.
"He has told friends that is the only way he can show how wrong it was for Netanyahu to have dismissed him," an old friend Rafi Eitan has said. Eitan was a former Director of Operations for Mossad, driven by the same ruthless behaviour that Yatom displayed.
"Danny took chances - and paid the price", Eitan added.
That price was the bungled Mossad operation to assassinate the Hamas leader, Khalid Meshal, on the streets on Amman, Jordan, in July 1997. That same year a graver embarrassment surfaced. A senior Mossad officer, Yehuda Gil, admitted he had faked reports - and drawn huge sums of money from Mossad's funds to pay a non-existent agent. Finally Yatom had ran a failed intelligence operation in Switzerland against another Hamas operative, Abdullah Zein. The affair became known as "Bunglegate" and finally led to Yatom's dismissal.
"He believed, with some justification, that he was the victim of Netanyahu - who knew all the details beforehand of the operations. To save his own skin, Netanyahu fired Yatom as publicly as he could," claimed Israeli-intelligence watcher Barry Chamish.
But Yatom is an expert player in the game of Israeli politics. Barak saw the virtue of having Yatom at his elbow.
To overcome the fierce opposition from Israel's Foreign Ministry at such an appointment, Barak gave Yatom the job of overseeing the Nativ agency.
Officially the agency is responsible for handling the immigration of over a million Jews to Israel from Eastern Europe. It is hardly a job for a former spy chief.
But in the past six months Yatom has turned Nativ into one of the key agencies in the Barak Administration.
It is staffed with men drawn from the Israeli Defence Forces who have an intelligence background. Some have served in Shin Bet or Mossad.
Yatom has used his position with Nativ to revisit his old stomping grounds in Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Gadi Baltiansky, Barak's adviser on media affairs, has reluctantly confirmed that Nativ, "like Mossad, sends officials to work in our diplomatic missions abroad. Their task is to establish ties with local Jewish communities."
Yossi Melman, defence correspondent of the Israeli daily, Haaretz, last week pointed out that Nativ staff "collect political, economic and military data and their work is, in practical terms, espionage."
Nativ now finds itself in open conflict with Mossad. But Mossad, which continues to struggle with morale - and has been driven to advertise globally for staff - is losing the battle.
Increasingly Barak has taken to using Yatom as his envoy to discuss sensitive matters with Europe's intelligence chiefs.
Many believe this is what lay behind the sudden and unexpected departure of Amiram Levine as Mossad's deputy director earlier this year.
"He was manoeuvred out of office by Yatom," said an Israeli source.
But Yatom is not interested in having Barak replace him as Mossad's deputy chief. Yatom is only interested in one job - running Mossad again.
Meantime, since his trip to Yalta, Yatom has continued to strengthen his position with Barak. During last week's clashes in Jerusalem, Yatom was in the city reporting directly to Barak. Sources say that he has continued to urge a strong line against demonstrators.
He has also made several trips to Western European capitals. ostensibly his job has been to check on large Jewish concentrations of immigrants from the former Soviet Union. In reality he has been testing the strength of the links he established when head of Mossad.
"The longer he remains away from when he last had that post, the closer he is to regaining it," said an Israeli intelligence source.

Mossad, Israel's secret intelligence service, has increased its presence in South Africa by stationing two katsas, field agents, in Cape Town to monitor the activities of the growing Islamic Fundamentalist movement in the country.
This brings the total number of Mossad agents in the country to seven. They have established safe houses in the Western Cape.
They are supported by analysts at the newly-reinforced South Africa "Desk" at Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv.
Originally the Mossad agents in South Africa had seen a value in collaborating with the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) responsible for internal security.
The intention had been to collaborate on a shared intelligence basis.
But, following what a Mossad report called an "intelligence shambles" over car bomb attacks in Cape Town against a number of foreign franchised companies in the city, Mossad's director general, Danny Yatom, ordered the agents to break off collaborating with NIA.
The report states that NIA is poorly led and that cooperation with its sister service, the South African Secret Service (SASS), is at a minimum.
So great is the dissension that the country's already over-burdened police force has created a special unit to do the work that NIA should be doing. The unit is called "the Scorpion Force".
But Mossad feel it lacks the essential "prior knowledge" that is a prerequisite for any successful intelligence gathering.
In recent months there have been a spate of car and pipe bombings in the city. The targets have inc