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August 31, 2006
Details Emerge in British Terror Case
Details Emerge in British Terror Case - New York Times
The blocked article that can't be viewed in the UK.
By DON VAN NATTA Jr., ELAINE SCIOLINO and STEPHEN GREY Published: August 28, 2006 LONDON, Aug. 27 On Aug. 9, in a small second-floor apartment in East London, two young Muslim men recorded a video justifying what the police say was their suicide plot to blow up trans-Atlantic planes: revenge against the United States and its accomplices, Britain and the Jews.
Source: Details Emerge in British Terror Case - New York Times
“As you bomb, you will be bombed; as you kill, you will be killed,” said one of the men on a “martyrdom” videotape, whose contents were described by a senior British official and a person briefed about the case. The young man added that he hoped God would be “pleased with us and accepts our deed.”
As it happened, the police had been monitoring the apartment with hidden video and audio equipment. Not long after the tape was recorded that day, Scotland Yard decided to shut down what they suspected was a terrorist cell. That action set off a chain of events that raised the terror threat levels in Britain and the United States, barred passengers from taking liquids on airplanes and plunged air traffic into chaos around the world.
The ominous language of seven recovered martyrdom videotapes is among new details that emerged from interviews with high-ranking British, European and American officials last week, demonstrating that the suspects had made considerable progress toward planning a terrorist attack. Those details include fresh evidence from Britain’s most wide-ranging terror investigation: receipts for cash transfers from abroad, a handwritten diary that appears to sketch out elements of a plot, and, on martyrdom tapes, several suspects’ statements of their motives.
But at the same time, five senior British officials said, the suspects were not prepared to strike immediately. Instead, the reactions of Britain and the United States in the wake of the arrests of 21 people on Aug. 10 were driven less by information about a specific, imminent attack than fear that other, unknown terrorists might strike.
The suspects had been working for months out of an apartment that investigators called the “bomb factory,” where the police watched as the suspects experimented with chemicals, according to British officials and others briefed on the evidence, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity, citing British rules on confidentiality regarding criminal prosecutions.
In searches during raids, the police discovered what they said were the necessary components to make a highly volatile liquid explosive known as HMTD, jihadist materials, receipts of Western Union money transfers, seven martyrdom videos made by six suspects and the last will and testament of a would-be bomber, senior British officials said. One of the suspects said on his martyrdom video that the “war against Muslims” in Iraq and Afghanistan had motivated him to act.
Investigators say they believe that one of the leaders of the group, an unemployed man in his 20’s who was living in a modest apartment on government benefits, kept the key to the alleged “bomb factory” and helped others record martyrdom videos, the officials said.
Hours after the police arrested the 21 suspects, police and government officials in both countries said they had intended to carry out the deadliest terrorist attack since Sept. 11.
Later that day, Paul Stephenson, deputy chief of the Metropolitan Police in London, said the goal of the people suspected of plotting the attack was “mass murder on an unimaginable scale.” On the day of the arrests, some officials estimated that as many as 10 planes were to be blown up, possibly over American cities. Michael Chertoff, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, described the suspected plot as “getting really quite close to the execution stage.”
But British officials said the suspects still had a lot of work to do. Two of the suspects did not have passports, but had applied for expedited approval. One official said the people suspected of leading the plot were still recruiting and radicalizing would-be bombers.
While investigators found evidence on a computer memory stick indicating that one of the men had looked up airline schedules for flights from London to cities in the United States, the suspects had neither made reservations nor purchased plane tickets, a British official said. Some of their suspected bomb-making equipment was found five days after the arrests in a suitcase buried under leaves in the woods near High Wycombe, a town 30 miles northwest of London.
Another British official stressed that martyrdom videos were often made well in advance of an attack. In fact, two and a half weeks since the inquiry became public, British investigators have still not determined whether there was a target date for the attacks or how many planes were to be involved. They say the estimate of 10 planes was speculative and exaggerated.
In his first public statement after the arrests, Peter Clarke, chief of counterterrorism for the Metropolitan Police, acknowledged that the police were still investigating the basics: “the number, destination and timing of the flights that might be attacked.”
A total of 25 people have been arrested in connection with the suspected plot. Twelve of them have been charged. Eight people were charged with conspiracy to commit murder and preparing acts of terrorism. Three people were charged with failing to disclose information that could help prevent a terrorist act, and a 17-year-old male suspect was charged with possession of articles that could be used to prepare a terrorist act. Eight people still in custody have not been charged. Five have been released. All the suspects arrested are British citizens ranging in age from 17 to 35.
Despite the charges, officials said they were still unsure of one critical question: whether any of the suspects was technically capable of assembling and detonating liquid explosives while airborne.
A chemist involved in that part of the inquiry, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was sworn to confidentiality, said HMTD, which can be prepared by combining hydrogen peroxide with other chemicals, “in theory is dangerous,” but whether the suspects “had the brights to pull it off remains to be seen.”
While officials and experts familiar with the case say the investigation points to a serious and determined group of plotters, they add that questions about the immediacy and difficulty of the suspected bombing plot cast doubt on the accuracy of some of the public statements made at the time.
“In retrospect,’’ said Michael A. Sheehan, the former deputy commissioner of counterterrorism in the New York Police Department, “there may have been too much hyperventilating going on.”
Some of the suspects came to the attention of Scotland Yard more than a year ago, shortly after four suicide bombers attacked three subway trains and a double-decker bus in London on July 7, 2005, a coordinated attack that killed 56 people and wounded more than 700. The investigation was dubbed “Operation Overt.’’
The Police Are Tipped Off
The police were apparently tipped off by informers. One former British counterterrorism official, who was working for the government at the time, said several people living in Walthamstow, a working-class neighborhood in East London, alerted the police in July 2005 about the intentions of a small group of angry young Muslim men.
Walthamstow is best known for its faded greyhound track and the borough of Waltham Forest, where more than 17,000 Pakistani immigrants live in the largest Pakistani enclave in London.
Armed with the tips, MI5, Britain’s domestic security services, began an around-the-clock surveillance operation of a dozen young men living in Walthamstow — bugging their apartments, tapping their phones, monitoring their bank transactions, eavesdropping on their Internet traffic and e-mail messages, even watching where they traveled, shopped and took their laundry, according to senior British officials.
The initial focus of the investigation was not about possible terrorism aboard planes, but an effort to see whether there were any links between the dozen men and the July 7 subway bombers, or terrorist cells in Pakistan, the officials said.
The authorities quickly learned the identity of the man believed to have been the leader of the cell, the unemployed man in his mid-20’s, who traveled at least twice within the past year to Pakistan, where his activities are still being investigated.
Last June, a 22-year-old Walthamstow resident, who is among the suspects arrested Aug. 10, paid $260,000 cash for a second-floor apartment in a house on Forest Road, according to official property records. The authorities noticed that six men were regularly visiting the second-floor apartment that came to be known as the “bomb factory,” according to a British official and the person briefed about the case.
Two of the men, who were likely the bomb-makers, were conducting a series of experiments with chemicals, said the person briefed on the case.
MI5 agents secretly installed video and audio recording equipment inside the apartment, two senior British officials said. In a secret search conducted before the Aug. 10 raids, agents had discovered that the inside of batteries had been scooped out, and that it appeared several suspects were doing chemical experiments with a sports drink named Lucozade and syringes, the person with knowledge of the case said. Investigators have said they believe that the suspects intended to bring explosive chemicals aboard planes inside sports drink bottles.
In that apartment, according to a British official, one of the leaders and a man in his late 20’s met at least twice to discuss the suspected plot, as MI5 agents secretly watched and listened. On Aug. 9, just hours before the police raids occurred in 50 locations from East London to Birmingham, the two men met again to discuss the suspected plot and record a martyrdom video.
As one of the men read from a script before a videocamera, he recited a quotation from the Koran and ticked off his reasons for the “action that I am going to undertake,” according to the person briefed on the case. The man said he was seeking revenge for the foreign policy of the United States, and “their accomplices, the U.K. and the Jews.” The man said he wanted to show that the enemies of Islam would never win this “war.”
Beseeching other Muslims to join jihad, he justified the killing of innocent civilians in America and other Western countries because they supported the war against Muslims through their tax dollars. They were too busy enjoying their Western lifestyles to protest the policies, he added. Though British officials usually release little information about continuing investigations, Scotland Yard took the unusual step of disclosing some detailed information about the investigation last Monday, when the suspects were charged.
A Trove of Evidence
“There have been 69 searches,” Mr. Clarke, the chief antiterrorist police official from Scotland Yard, said Monday. “These have been in houses, flats and business premises, vehicles and open spaces.”
Investigators also seized more than 400 computers, 200 mobile phones and 8,000 items like memory sticks, CD’s and DVD’s. “The scale is immense,” Mr. Clarke said. “Inquiries will span the globe.”
He said those searches revealed a trove of evidence, and officials and others last week provided additional details.
Four of the law firms that are defending suspects declined to comment.
When police officers knocked down the door to the second-floor apartment on Forest Road, they found a plastic bin filled with liquid, batteries, nearly a dozen empty drink bottles, rubber gloves, digital scales and a disposable camera that was leaking liquid, the person with knowledge of the case said. The camera might have been a prototype for a device to smuggle chemicals on the plane.
In the pocket of one of the suspects, the police found the computer memory stick that showed he had looked up airline schedules for flights from London to the United States, a British official said. The man is said to have had a diary that included a list that the police interpreted as a step-by-step plan for an attack. The items included batteries and Lucozade bottles. It also included a reminder to select a date.
In the homes of a number of the suspects, the police found jihadist literature and DVD’s about “genocide” in Iraq and Palestine, according to British officials. In one house searched by the police in Walthamstow, the authorities found a copy of a book called “Defense of the Muslim Lands.”
A “last will and testament” for one of the accused was said to have been found at his brother’s home. Dated Sept. 24, 2005, the will concludes, “What should I worry when I die a Muslim, in the manner in which I am to die, I go to my death for the sake of my maker.” God, he added, can if he wants “bless limbs torn away!!!”
Looking for Global Ties
In addition, the British authorities are scouring the evidence for clues to whether there is a global dimension to the suspected plot, particularly the extent to which it was planned, financed or supported in Pakistan, and whether there is a connection to remnants of Al Qaeda. They are still trying to determine who provided the cash for the apartment and the computer equipment and telephones, officials said.
Several of the suspects had traveled to Pakistan within weeks of the arrests, according to an American counterterrorism official.
At a minimum, investigators say at least one of the suspects’ inspiration was drawn from Al Qaeda. One of the suspects’ “kill-as-they-kill” martyrdom video was taken from a November 2002 fatwa by Osama bin Laden.
British officials said many of the questions about the suspected plot remained unanswered because they were forced to make the arrests before Scotland Yard was ready.
The trigger was the arrest in Pakistan of Rashid Rauf, a 25-year-old British citizen with dual Pakistani citizenship, whom Pakistani investigators have described as a “key figure” in the plot.
In 2000, Mr. Rauf’s father founded Crescent Relief London, a charity that sent money to victims of last October’s earthquake in Pakistan. Several suspects met through their involvement in the charity, a friend of one of them said. Last week, Britain froze the charity’s bank accounts and opened an investigation into possible “terrorist abuse of charitable funds.” Leaders of the charity have denied the allegations.
Several senior British officials said the Pakistanis arrested Rashid Rauf without informing them first. The arrest surprised and frustrated investigators here who had wanted to monitor the suspects longer, primarily to gather more evidence and to determine whether they had identified all the people involved in the suspected plot.
But within hours of Mr. Rauf’s arrest on Aug. 9 in Pakistan, British officials heard from intelligence sources that someone connected to him had tried to contact some of the suspects in East London. The message was interpreted by investigators as a possible signal to move forward with the plot, officials said.
“The plotters received a very short message to ‘Go now,’ ” said Franco Frattini, the European Union’s security commissioner, who was briefed by the British home secretary, John Reid, in London. “I was convinced by British authorities that this message exists.”
A senior British official said the message from Pakistan was not that explicit. But, nonetheless, investigators here had to change their strategy quickly.
“The aim was to keep this operation going for much longer,” said a senior British security official who requested anonymity because of confidentiality rules. “It ended much sooner than we had hoped.”
From then on, the British government was driven by worst-case scenarios based on a minimum-risk strategy.
British investigators worried that word of Mr. Rauf’s arrest could push the London suspects to destroy evidence and to disperse, raising the possibility they would not be able to arrest them all. But investigators also could not rule out that there could be an unknown second cell that would try to carry out a similar plan, officials said.
Mr. Clarke, as the country’s top antiterrorism police official in London with authority over police decisions, ordered the arrests.
But it was left to Mr. Reid, who has been home secretary since May and is a former defense secretary, to decide at emergency meetings of police, national security and transport leaders, what else needed to be done. Mr. Reid and Mr. Clarke declined repeated requests for interviews.
Prime Minister Tony Blair was on vacation in Barbados, where he was said to have monitored events in London; Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott did not attend the meeting.
“While the arrests were unfolding, the Home Office raised Britain’s terror alert level to “critical,” as the police continued their raids of suspects’ homes and cars. All liquids were banned from carry-on bags, and some public officials in Britain and the United States said an attack appeared to be imminent. In addition to Mr. Stephenson’s remark that the attack would have been “mass murder on an unimaginable scale,” Mr. Reid said that attacks were “highly likely” and predicted that the loss of life would have been on an “unprecedented scale.”
Two weeks later, senior officials here characterized the remarks as unfortunate. As more information was analyzed and the British government decided that the attack was not imminent, Mr. Reid sought to calm the country by backing off from his dire predictions, while defending the decision to raise the alert level to its highest level as a precaution.
In lowering the threat level from critical to severe on Aug. 14, Mr. Reid acknowledged: “Threat level assessments are intelligence-led. It is not a process where scientific precision is possible. They involve judgments.”
Reporting for this article was contributed by William J. Broad from New York, Carlotta Gall from Pakistan, David Johnston and Mark Mazzetti from Washington.
August 31, 2006 at 01:45 AM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home
Details Emerge in British Terror Case - New York Times
The blocked article that can't be viewed in the UK.
August 31, 2006 at 01:43 AM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home
August 29, 2006
Bomb blasts knock Turkey off balance
Blasts knock Turkey off balance - World - Times Online
Foreign Editor's Briefing by Bronwen Maddox
THE latest terrorist blasts in Turkey are more serious than many in the past because the stakes are now higher.
The Kurdish Freedom Falcons, the offshoot of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) which claimed responsibility, says that it wants to destroy Turkish tourism. But it might trigger an even more destructive change, driving a wedge between Turkey and its allies in the US, Israel, Nato and Europe.
If you fly north from Baghdad to Turkey, the miles of brown scrubby land end sud- denly in the 10,000ft (3,050m) wall of the Kandil mountains. This is where the territory of Iraqi Kurds meets that of Turkish Kurds. To many there, this should be Kurdistan: a single, undivided country of its own.
For Turkey, the problem is hardly new. Its Kurds, in the southeast, have long felt allegiance to this notional “Kurdistan” rather than to Turkey. The PKK, in spasms of activity, has expressed this violently.
But the latest blasts come at a difficult time in Turkish relations with the rest of the world. Turkey, for so long valued by the West as a secular, Muslim ally, as a member of Nato, as a pioneering Muslim ally of Israel — generally, as a bridge between Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia — is finding the ambivalence a strain. The European Union, which has long assumed that Turks craved membership, has only slowly become alert to the danger that, at some price, they would not — as polls now show.
One test will come later this week, when parliament will vote on the controversial decision by the Prime Minister. Recep Tayyip Erdogan. to deploy peacekeeping troops in Lebanon.
Its passage is all but certain, as the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) dominates parliament. But the prospect has split opinion.
The Justice Minister, Cemil Cicek, has said that “Turkey cannot remain just a spectator, like a country which is distant from events . . . in the Middle East”. Those who want Turkey to the EU also see the deployment as essential.
But others (calling the move “neo-Ottomanist”) find it offensive. Turkey’s President, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, said last week that he did not believe the conditions warranted it.
Sezer’s role is largely ceremonia but he is a leading secular figure and has clashed with the Islamist-leaning Erdogan over several proposed laws. His opposition could still be costly to the Prime Minister.
The move will also show whether the Army is wholeheartedly behind the action; plenty of rumblings suggest it is not.
Monday’s blast in Antalya coincided with the swearing-in of the new chief of the Armed Forces, General Yasar Buyukanit. He has a reputation as a hardline secularist and has said cracking down on the PKK will be a priority.
The US’s appointment of General Joseph Ralston, former Nato Supreme Commander, as a special envoy on Kurdish terrorism should also help to warm up relations.
The frostiness in US-Turkish relations stems from 2003, when the Turkish parliament refused to allow the US to use Turkey as a base for a northern invasion of Iraq. US commanders have often argued since that much of the insurgency might have been avoided if they had fought their way to Baghdad from the north, through the “Sunni triangle”.
The past three years have not done a lot to repair relations, other than making this single decision seem less crucial, because of the proliferation of troubles in Iraq. Turkey, which feels taken for granted, says the US has paid too little attention to its fears of Kurdish separatism in giving its blessing to Iraqi Kurds’ efforts to run their own territory. Turkey also accuses the PKK of using northern Iraq to mount attacks in the Turkish southeast.
The PKK assault this week was carried out in the name of a territorial cause, not a religious one. But even so, they strain Turkey’s already fraught relations with the West.
August 29, 2006 at 11:43 PM in Middle East | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home
Churchill: Quotation - 1899
Datelines - The Churchill Centre
Quotation of the Decade?
Gregory Smith offers this Churchill comment on that great religion we are not fighting against, from The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248 50 (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899).
"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property‹either as a child, a wife, or a concubine‹must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science‹the science against which it had vainly struggled‹the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome."
August 29, 2006 at 09:08 PM in Muslim background | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home
August 27, 2006
Mullahs, knickerwallahs and Vande Mataram
Mullahs, knickerwallahs and Vande Mataram- The Times of India
It once galvanised Indians to gang up against the colonisers' pernicious plan the first partition of Bengal. Braving Britishers' brutality, singing the soul-stirring song, nationalists banished the firangs. But Vande Mataram, India's premier national song, never threw one thing off its back: controversy.
A central government directive wanted all schools to recite the first two stanzas of the song at 11 am on September 7 to mark the completion of the centenary celebrations commemorating adoption of the national song
However, it has snowballed into a controversy after some Muslim clerics in Uttar Pradesh opposed the order as, according to them, Vande Mataram's singing amounted to worshipping the motherland and Muslims cannot worship any other than Allah.
Soon HRD minister Arjun Singh retracted, making the song's recitation voluntary. Significantly, Singh's volte face came at a function in a madrassa in Uttar Pradesh, a state scheduled to go for polls in a few months.
Predictably, the BJP, desperate to polarise UP's voters along communal lines, raised its old, tired slogan: "Is desh mein rahna hai to Vande Mataram kehna hoga (If you want to live in this country, you will have to sing Vande Mataram)."
The media went to Imam Syed Ahmed Bukhari whose kingdom doesn't stretch beyond the walls of Delhi's Jama Masjid. Bukhari, as is his wont, didn't disappoint the sensation-seeking newswallahs and called Vande Mataram "anti-Islamic"
A few years ago, on a television programme, Bukhari had shown sympathy with the Talibans and opposed American invasion of Afghanistan. To which Shabana Azmi had said that Bukhari should be airdropped to Kandhar if he so loved Osama bin Laden.
Tragically, Vande Mataram is being victimised mostly because of the controversy that surrounded it during the communally charged 1930s and 1940s.
It suited the Muslim League's propaganda that Muslims would get further subjugated in Hindu India because they would be forced to sing a song that alluded to Hindu religion. Idol worship is anathema to Islam.
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee would not have imagined that his simple paean to rural Bengal, composed in 1876, would be a national debate over a century later.
Vande Mataram painted a beautiful portrait of an exotic rural landscape, with the sun shining on lush green fields, the moonlight glistening on gently rippling rivers and flowers dancing on trees.
Subsequently, Chatterjee included this patriotic paean in his 1882 controversial novel Anandamath. Some critics dismissed it as anti-Muslim as Anandamath glorified "the annihilation of Muslims and not the British rule in India."
Gurudev Tagore set Vande Mataram to tune and also recited it at the 1896 Bombay Congress session. But the song's golden moment was yet to come. When Viceroy Lord Curzon ordered the division of Bengal in 1905. Overnight, the hitherto little-known song became a national mantra.
Streets of Bengal reverberated with the cries of Vande Mataram as thousands opposed the "Banga bhanga" (Bengal's partition) tooth and nail. The British banned the song.
But, as a Bengali journal reported in May, 1906, "An unprecedented procession of Hindus and Muslims singing Vande Mataram passed through all the principal streets of the town." Next, the Congress adopted it as national song at the Varanasi session on September 7, 1905.
Soon it became the opening note of all the Congress meetings in future. Its powerful patriotic lines stirred the whole nation. Even Subhash Chandra Bose made it the Indian National Army's song and his Singapore-based radio station regularly broadcast it.
However, some Muslims objected to the song as the Congress planned to make Vande Mataram the national anthem.
Responding to the objections, the Congress Working Committee appointed a sub-committee in 1937 comprising Maulana Azad, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhash Chandra Bose and Acharya Narendra Dev to review the eligibility of Vande Mataram to become the national anthem.
The committee suggested that only the first two stanzas should be sung as they had no religious allusions and only these two stanzas were commonly sung even in Bengal. The Congress implemented the suggestion at its next convention in 1938. Mostly, the first two stanzas of the national song are sung at all functions since then.
Despite its popularity, Vande Mataram lost the race for national anthem to Tagore's Jana Gana Mana. According to historical accounts, some powerful members of the Congress thought Tagore's poem was easier to compose as a song and that for an anthem, the tune was more important than the words.
That the Congress subcommittee passed such observations could not be independently verified. Hindu communalists have pitted Vande Mataram against the Muslims as if the only test of patriotism is to sing this song. Muslims' narrow interpretation of the word vande as worship too, has come in for sharp criticism.
Islamic scholar Asghar Ali Engineer concedes that point. He says that vande need not mean only worship, an aspect that bothers Muslims.
He says, vande could also mean, "Bow or respect. I don't think Muslims would lose their religious identity if they use it as a respect to the motherland, not worshipping it." Interestingly, many Muslim poets, including Allama Iqbal, have eulogised the motherland using Hindu symbols.
Addressing the Hindus, Iqbal, in his famous poem Naya Shivala (New Temple), says: "Pathar ki moorton mein samjha hai tu khuda hai/ Khak-e-watan ka mujhko har zarra devta hai (You think your god resides in a stone idol/ To me every particle of the country's soil is a deity)." Yet no Muslim accuses Iqbal of apostasy.
"Muslims go to Allah in the namaaz but they also touch their foreheads to the land where they live in. This way they show respect to the country," Sanskrit scholar Pandit Ghulam Dastagir.
Interestingly, A R Rahman, a practising Muslim, cut the Vande Mataram album in 1995 to commemorate 50 years of India's independence. Rahman certainly doesn't wear a badge of patriotism on his chest as some communalists would like every Indian Muslim to.
August 27, 2006 at 10:42 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home
Pakistan eyes Afghan link in foiled London plot
Pakistan eyes Afghan link in foiled London plot | csmonitor.com
Suspect Rashid Rauf said he had connections to an Afghan national with Al Qaeda ties.
By David Montero | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
LAHORE, PAKISTAN – More than a week after the foiled London terror plot, investigators in Pakistan say they have shifted their sights to Afghanistan, after the prime suspect in custody, Rashid Rauf, divulged his liaison with a high-level Al Qaeda operative possibly based in Afghanistan's Kunar Province.
"So far, all agencies have failed to break [Mr. Rauf] in identifying the Afghan national who works as a frontline man of Al Qaeda," says an intelligence official, speaking anonymously. The official added that Rauf admitted to traveling to Afghanistan several times since 2002 to meet with the operative, who conveyed commands on Al Qaeda's behalf.
Against the backdrop of the investigations, evidence suggesting the role of Pakistan-based militants in the terror plot has sparked a fresh round of soul searching here in Pakistan. Over the weekend, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf reiterated a call for cracking down on extremism, and the federal government has reportedly put 400 alleged extremists linked to banned organizations on a watch list. Amid the debate by analysts and religious leaders, many are questioning the efficacy of such measures, calling them cosmetic solutions that only fan extremism while failing to address root causes.
Investigations into the alleged plot to blow up planes over the Atlantic took a new turn over the weekend. Intelligence sources say Rauf admitted to having an Al Qaeda liaison who is an Afghan national, purportedly a wealthy businessman with a high rank in the organization. Other news agencies, quoting intelligence sources, have identified the operative as an Arab who works out of Kunar Province, where US and coalition troops are battling Taliban forces. He is said to be a close associate of Al Qaeda's No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Despite repeated interrogations, intelligence officials say, Rauf would not disclose the operative's true identity.
Pakistan's Interior Ministry would neither confirm nor deny these reports. "We have said that this has got an Al Qaeda connection to Afghanistan," says Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Sherpao.
Afghan officials have repeatedly rejected such claims, characterizing them as diversionary tactics. Casting some doubt on any Afghan connection are the facts that Pakistan and Afghanistan frequently exchange accusations and the possibility that Rauf may be saying what his Pakistani interrogators want to hear.
London investigators are also facing skepticism over the magnitude of the alleged plot given the paucity of hard evidence made public during what is still an ongoing investigation. The BBC reported, quoting unnamed police sources, that laptops were found with martyrdom tapes, and that a bomb kit was found as well, but the police have refused to comment on this.
Even the simple detail of where the central suspect, Rashid Rauf, was arrested remains unclear. Mr. Sherpao maintains that Rauf was arrested in Bahawalpur, his family's hometown in southern Punjab and the alleged headquarters of Jaish-e Muhammed, a banned militant group. Intelligence sources, however, allege that Rauf was in fact detained in Zhob, near the Afghan border. Wearing a shalwar kameez and looking disheveled, according to investigators, he spent five hours on the Internet at a cafe, where he also made two phone calls to England. The phone calls roused the suspicion of the owner, who called the police, intelligence officials say.
After his arrest, Reuters identified Rauf as a member of Jaish-e Muhammed, notorious for extremism. The group, however, has denied that Rauf was ever a member, or that it had any role in the plot. Still, Rauf himself has admitted to investigators that he is connected by marriage to the group's leader. "As far as the family relationship, we admit it," says Talha Saif, a family spokesman. "But as far as Rauf's link to Jaish-e Muhammed, we deny that."
As these details continue to unfold, analysts here are compelled once again to question the extent of extremism on Pakistani soil, and the government's tactics in addressing it.
Some eight or nine months ago, the police began a sweeping crackdown on religious hatred here, marshaling police forces and government agencies to monitor the activities of the city's 5,000 mosques. Approximately 900 religious leaders in Lahore have been arrested so far, many allegedly for using their loudspeakers to spread sectarian hatred, and more than 2,000 in Punjab Province as a whole, according to police.
Police officials trumpet the measure as a resounding success, citing an absence of sectarian violence or militancy in Lahore. "I'm very satisfied with the campaign," says Aamir Zulfikar, chief of operations for the Lahore city police. "In 14 months, there has not been a single sectarian killing."
In Lahore's religious community, however, there is a growing tide of resentment toward such policies. "It is a wrong policy," says Mohammed Sarfaz Naeemi, general-secretary of Tanzeemul Madari, a congregation of Sunni religious schools. "[People] will simply turn against the Musharraf government," he says.
Many analysts agree, saying that while crackdowns may prove effective in the short term, they mask the inherent inability of a military-run government to harness public support for its efforts.
"It's a lack of political capacity. That political capacity comes from legitimacy and popular support, and this government does not have that," says Rasul Bakhsh Rais, head of social sciences at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. "They're more concerned with the political mechanisms of survival. They cannot really look deep down into the society and see the problems."
Those problems, other analysts add, are festering at the expense of political cohesion, creating pockets of sympathy for extremists groups.
"I for one don't drink water," says Sajjad Naseer, a political science professor at the Lahore School of Economics. "I have to put a filtration system in my house or buy a bottle of [mineral water]. The state can't even provide basic services."
The absence of a strong state, he argues, compels the alienated and the disenfranchised to seek support from nonstate actors, including extremist groups.
August 27, 2006 at 06:14 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home
A rebel's killing roils Pakistan: group seen as a counterweight to extremism represented in the region by a resurgent Taliban
A rebel's killing roils Pakistan | csmonitor.com
By David Montero | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
QUETTA, PAKISTAN – For years, Nawab Mohammed Akbar Khan Bugti battled the Pakistan Army. The 80-year-old renegade hidden in the mountains of Balochistan became a legend in his fight for greater autonomy against what he saw as colonial brutality.
Bugti was both hated and revered. But as a former federal minister and governor, he symbolized a political as well as a violent struggle. And his death this weekend, during a fierce three-day battle that left more than 30 dead, could prove a serious blow to Pakistan's stability.
It could also close a door to a group seen as a counterweight to extremism represented in the region by a resurgent Taliban, analysts say.
"This is not a good sign," says Samina Ahmed, South Asia director of the International Crisis Group. "Just a few years ago [Nawab Bugti] was talking to the government. Keeping that door open was the way to go. Now that door has been slammed shut."
Bugti's death could also reverberate in the region, some analysts say. The Balochis are spread across several countries, with millions living in parts of Iran and Afghanistan that border Pakistan.
"They will provide sanctuary to Baloch militants. There will be a lot of sympathy," says Lt. Gen. (ret.) Talat Masood, a defense analyst in Islamabad.
In recent weeks, the volley of attacks in Balochistan had increased, pitting thousands of Pakistani troops - the number is not disclosed - against a loosely organized but formidable federation of separatist militants.
On Friday, the day before Bugti was killed, two car bombs exploded in Quetta, wounding 13 people and shattering windows. Smoking ruins are a regular sight in Quetta and its environs as militants target military installations and government gas pipelines.
The Army has responded with aerial bombings and helicopter gun ships, Baloch leaders say, a claim Islamabad denies.
But Mohammed Anwar, a poor tribesman from Dera Bugti, Bugti's home, says he recently fled because of the Army's bombardment. Now he lives in a squalid refugee camp on the outskirts of Quetta.
"Why is the government saying we should leave our homes? It's our property," says Mr. Anwar. "The Pakistani constitution gives us that right."
Violence paralyzed parts of Balochistan Sunday, and Baloch leaders vowed to launch a nationwide strike.
The consequences of this escalation for the broader battle against terrorism could be serious, analysts say.
"This is disastrous," says General Masood. "It will divert attention from the war on terror ... by engaging the Pakistan forces in Balochistan in a much bigger way."
The Taliban are said to be growing in influence in Balochistan, allegedly using the province's capital, Quetta, as a base for directing operations in southern Afghanistan.
But the Baloch people are widely recognized as fiercely opposed to the Taliban. With the killing of their most respected leader by government forces, the prospects for peace are dim for the foreseeable future, many here say.
At the root of the longrunning insurgency is a sense of inequity over the distribution of natural resources. Balochistan, Pakistan's largest but most impoverished province, is as rich in mineral wealth and natural gas as it is in bloodshed.
Natural gas was first discovered in Balochistan in the 1950s, but it has mostly been shipped to Islamabad and parts of Punjab; some regions of Balochistan are still without it.
With demands for greater political autonomy and control of resources consistently rejected by the state, Nawab Bugti and other Baloch leaders have fought a succession of wars against Islamabad since the 1970s.
(Map) RICH CLABAUGH - STAFF
Balochistan, cut off by rough terrain and political differences from the central government, has pockets of extremism that the Taliban have long exploited. The province also shares hundreds of miles of unmanned border with Afghanistan, giving the Taliban a sprawling front for their operations.
The solution, such as it exists, masks a potent irony. The most effective counterbalance to the Taliban, observers say, are the very people the Army is targeting in its military operations.
Baloch nationals have acted as a countervailing force to extremists, espousing democratic and liberal political values, observers say. In the arena of the provincial assembly, Baloch leaders argue, they regularly battle against measures that create an amenable atmosphere to the Taliban.
Their struggle for autonomy and greater political rights, they add, dovetails with the broader agenda of the war on terror. "We are fighting in the same atmosphere as the United States," says Akbar Mengal, a member of the provincial assembly from the Balochistan Nationalist Party.
But instead of encouraging the Baloch parties, leaders and analysts charge, the government has actively undermined them, targeting them - and not the Taliban - with their weapons.
"All those weapons and aid that the US has given to Pakistan to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban, [the Pakistan Army] is using against the nationalists in Balochistan," adds Mr. Mengal. US officials have conceded as much to the Western media in the recent past, saying it cannot always control how the Pakistani Army uses its weapons.
These are troubling realities often overlooked by Washington and other Western powers, Ms. Ahmed and others say.
"If the menace of the Taliban are to be dealt with in Balochistan, the Baloch are a credible ally. It is in everyone's interest - Afghanistan, the United States - to see that there is peace in Balochistan," she cautions.
August 27, 2006 at 06:04 PM in Middle East | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home
Appalling British weather blew out early settlers
Appalling British weather blew out early settlers - Sunday Times - Times Online
Jonathan Leake, Science Editor
BRITAIN has had one of the most volatile climates on earth with up to 10 ice ages forcing early settlers into exile, leaving the land uninhabited for periods of up to 110,000 years, researchers have found.
A study — led by the Natural History Museum — of 700,000 years of human attempts to settle in Britain found that the Gulf Stream, which keeps the British Isles warm, kept collapsing, plunging them into Arctic cold. The lurches from temperate to freezing sometimes took as little as 10 years, says Professor Chris Stringer, head of human origins in the museum’s paleontology department, in a new book, Homo Britannicus, to be published in October.
After the last ice age humans returned to Britain only 11,500 years ago. Stringer said: “We might think that the roots of the British people lie deep in British soil but they can be traced back less than 12,000 years, far more shallow than those of our continental neighbours.”
His book summarises the findings of the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain (AHOB) project, a six-year study of thousands of artefacts and other remains left behind by prehistoric man during successive colonisations. Thirty archeologists, paleontologists and geologists from institutes across the country worked together to construct a detailed calendar of early humans’ arrivals and departures.
They concluded that the present temperate climate is an anomaly and steamy heat or bitter cold are far more typical.
Stringer said: “We have evidence that between 500,000 and 12,000 years ago humans were only in Britain for about 20% of the time. Between 180,000 and 70,000 years ago Britain was abandoned, completely empty of people.”
Such findings imply a major rewriting of British prehistory. It has long been known that climatic changes forced early humans out of Britain but not so many times.
There were other surprises, too. Until recently it was thought that the first humans arrived in southern Europe about 800,000 years ago but that none made it to Britain until 500,000 years ago. But Stringer says: “We have remarkable new evidence from East Anglia showing that humans arrived here 700,000 years ago, earlier than anyone believed. They lived in an environment with a balmy climate like that of southern Europe.”
Their stay was, however, not destined to last because about 470,000 years ago a huge ice cap spread across northern Europe, reaching the outskirts of what is now north London.
That glaciation was to be the first of many. By the time it receded, about 400,000 years ago, Neanderthals had evolved in Europe and it was they who recolonised Britain.
However, they too were driven out when the ice returned 380,000 years ago, a pattern that was to be repeated many times.
The most prolonged and enigmatic evacuation of Britain began with a new ice age that peaked about 140,000 years ago. When it finished, about 20,000 years later, many animals quickly returned to Britain, including deer, rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses and hyenas — but no humans. They remained absent for more than 100,000 years, says Stringer.
Eventually, about 60,000 years ago, Neanderthals did return to Britain, only to become extinct 30,000 years later.
Modern humans have proved better than Neanderthals at withstanding climatic changes but they, too, were driven back from Britain as a mile-thick ice-cap built up over Scotland 25,000 years ago, returning only 10,000 years later. The last ice age began 13,000 years ago and lasted 1,500 years.
August 27, 2006 at 05:54 PM in UK | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home
Humbling of the supertroops shatters Israeli army morale
Humbling of the supertroops shatters Israeli army morale - Sunday Times - Times Online
HUNDREDS of feet below ground in the command bunker of the Israeli air force in Tel Aviv, a crowd of officers gathered to monitor the first day of the war against Hezbollah. It was July 12 and air force jets were about to attack Hezbollah’s military nerve centre in southern Beirut.
Among the officers smoking tensely as they waited for news, was Lieutenant-General Dan Halutz, 58, a daring fighter pilot in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war who had become chief of staff a year earlier and now faced the biggest test of his career.
Over the Mediterranean, west of Beirut, the elite F-15I squadron made its final preparations to strike with precision guided weapons against Hezbollah’s Iranian-made long-range Zelzal rockets, aimed at Tel Aviv.
Just before midnight, the order “Fire!” — given by the squadron leader — could be heard in the Tel Aviv bunker. Within moments the first Hezbollah missile and launcher were blown up. Thirty-nine tense minutes later the squadron leader’s voice was heard again: “Fifty-four launchers have been destroyed. Returning to base.”
Halutz smiled with relief and called Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, who was enjoying a cigar as he waited by a secure red phone at his residence in Jerusalem.
“All the long-range rockets have been destroyed,” Halutz announced proudly. After a short pause, he added four words that have since haunted him: “We’ve won the war.”
Even as Halutz was declaring victory, 12 Israeli soldiers from the Maglan reconnaissance unit were already running into an ambush just over the border inside Lebanon near the village of Maroun a-Ras.
“We didn’t know what hit us,” said one of the soldiers, who asked to be named only as Gad. “In seconds we had two dead.”
With several others wounded and retreating under heavy fire the Maglans, one of the finest units in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), were astonished by the firepower and perseverance of Hezbollah.
“Evidently they had never heard that an Arab soldier is supposed to run away after a short engagement with the Israelis,” said Gad.
“We expected a tent and three Kalashnikovs — that was the intelligence we were given. Instead, we found a hydraulic steel door leading to a well-equipped network of tunnels.”
As daylight broke the Maglans found themselves under fire from all sides by Hezbollah forces who knew every inch of the terrain and exploited their knowledge to the full.
The commander of the IDF’s northern sector, Lieutenant-General Udi Adam, could barely believe that some of his best soldiers had been so swiftly trapped; neither could the chief of staff.
“What’s wrong with the Maglans?” Halutz demanded to know. “They are surrounded,” Adam replied quietly. “I must send in more forces.”
As the reinforcements of the Egoz brigade prepared to enter Maroun a-Ras and rescue their comrades, however, several were mown down in a second ambush. Hours of battle ensued before the Maglan and Egoz platoons were able to drag their dead and wounded back to Israel.
Hezbollah also suffered heavy casualties but its fighters slipped back into their tunnels to await the next round of fighting. It was immediately obvious to everyone in Tel Aviv that this was going to be a tougher fight than Halutz had bargained for.
As the war unfolded his optimism was brought crashing down to earth — and with it the invincible reputation of the Israeli armed forces.
In five weeks, their critics charge, they displayed tactical incompetence and strategic short-sightedness. Their much-vaunted intelligence was found wanting.
Their political leadership was shown to vacillate. Their commanders proved fractious. In many cases the training of their men was poor and their equipment inadequate. Despite many individual acts of bravery, some of the men of the IDF were pushed to the point of mutiny.
Last week, in an contrite letter to his soldiers, Halutz admitted to “mistakes which will all be corrected”. It is far from clear whether Halutz will remain in position to correct them.
As calls mounted this weekend — not least from the families of many of the 117 fallen Israeli soldiers — for the resignation of those deemed responsible for the failures, Olmert was expected to set up an inquiry into the conduct of the war. A poll showed that 63% of Israelis believed Olmert should quit, while 74% called for Amir Peretz, the defence minister, to go, and 54% wanted Halutz out.
“Olmert faces a serious risk of a no-confidence vote in the Knesset,” said Hanan Kristal, a leading political commentator. “A State Commission will give him four to six months of critical breathing time.”
Meanwhile the Israeli public are struggling to accept that the country’s security might now depend on whether a French-led United Nations peacekeeping force proves able to disarm Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. In addition to 7,000 troops already promised by EU states, the UN has received offers from several Muslim countries, some of which do not even recognise Israel. The force is unlikely to reach full strength for at least two months.
Much attention is being paid, however, to the deployment of these forces and especially to Israel’s apparent over-reliance on air power under the command of the Halutz.
Critics of Halutz, a former air force commander, believe he should have sent in overwhelming forces on the ground to drive Hezbollah back from border areas where they remained active right up to the end of the 34-day conflict.
“The air force can only assist ground forces; it can never win a war — any war,” said one veteran Israeli officer last week.
Another critical factor under consideration was that Hezbollah seemed so much better prepared. They launched nearly 200 rockets a day at Israel. They used advanced anti-tank missiles with lethal professionalism and stunned their opponents with their coolness under pressure and their willingness to “martyr” themselves in battle.
Apparently using techniques learnt from their paymasters in Iran, they were even able to crack the codes and follow the fast-changing frequencies of Israeli radio communications, intercepting reports of the casualties they had inflicted again and again. This enabled them to dominate the media war by announcing Israeli fatalities first.
“They monitored our secure radio communications in the most professional way,” one Israeli officer admitted. “When we lose a man, the fighting unit immediately gives the location and the number back to headquarters. What Hezbollah did was to monitor our radio and immediately send it to their Al-Manar TV, which broadcast it almost live, long before the official Israeli radio.”
Hezbollah appears to have divided a three mile-wide strip along the Israeli-Lebanese border into numerous “killing boxes”. Each box was protected in classic guerrilla fashion with booby-traps, land mines, and even CCTV cameras to watch every step of the advancing Israeli army.
“Our brass stupidly fell into the Hezbollah traps,” said Raphael, an infantry battalion reserve major. “The generals wanted us to attack as many villages as possible for no obvious reason. This was exactly what Hezbollah wanted us to do — they wanted to bog us down in as many small battles as possible and bleed us this way.”
The casualties from Russian-made anti-tank missiles have caused particular concern. An Israeli-invented radar defence shield codenamed Flying Jacket and costing £200,000 was installed on only four tanks. None of them was struck by anti-tank missiles.
But Hezbollah hit 46 tanks that lacked the shield. “£200,000 per tank is not beyond Israel’s means,” noted one military source acidly.
While the regular army was reasonably well equipped, the reservists were not. “We arrived at our depots only to find that our combat gear had been opened and equipment given to regular soldiers,” revealed Moshe, a fighter in the Alexandroni brigade. “The equipment was, of course, never returned.”
The Alexandroni fought in the west, near the Mediterranean, and did well initially. But logistics were appalling. “We had no fresh water as it was too dangerous to ship it to us,” Moshe added. “I’m ashamed to admit we had to drink water from the canteens of dead Hezbollah, and break into local shops for food.”
The Israeli leadership became determined to destroy the Hezbollah stronghold of Bint Jbeil because of its powerful symbolism to the enemy.
This was the place where Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbollah’s general secretary, had given his keynote speech after Israel withdrew in 2000, ending 18 years of occupation. Nasrallah said in Bint Jbail that Israel would be destroyed. Now Israeli leaders wanted to show him how badly mistaken he had been.
“Conquer Bint Jbail,” Halutz told Adam, the northern sector commander. Adam is said to have replied: “Hold on, Halutz. Do you know what that means? Do you realise that the casbah [old quarter] of Bint Jbail alone contains more than 5,000 houses? And you want me to send in one battalion?”
Adam nevertheless did as he was told and sent the 51st battalion of the Golani brigade to fight a heroic but hopeless, battle.
As the Israeli soldiers approached the town from the east they fell straight into yet another ambush. Hand grenades killed battalion commanders. Then a rescue operation was mounted, which took all night.
Hezbollah fighters were also hit but retreated and waited for Israeli reinforcements to arrive. Brig Gen Gal Hirsch, the commander of the 91 Galilee division, announced: “We control Bint-Jbail.” The next day more Israeli soldiers died as they, too, were ensnared in Hezbollah’s trap.
The Israeli media began to attack the army. “Idiotic military manoeuvres,” was how one commentator on TV1, the state-owned station, summed it up.
Tension now set in among the top brass. Halutz dispatched his deputy, Maj Gen Moshe Kaplinsky, as his special representative to the north, placing him above Adam.
Adam threatened to resign if Kaplinski issued orders to his units. Kaplinski nevertheless did so. Adam did not resign but is expected to go public soon with his story of the war.
Relatively inexperienced reservists were called up. Oded, 27, a reservist from Jerusalem in a combat infantry brigade, was among those summoned to active duty. “In the past six years I’ve only had a week’s training,” he revealed.
“Soon after we arrived, we received an order to seize a nearby Shi’ite village. We knew that we were not properly trained for the mission. We told our commanders we could control the village with firepower and there was no need to take it and be killed for nothing.
“Luckily we were able to convince our commander,” he concluded with a faint smile.
Oded blamed the Palestinian intifada for his unit’s insufficient training. “For the last six years we were engaged in stupid policing missions in the West Bank,” he said. “Checkpoints, hunting stone-throwing Palestinian children, that kind of stuff. The result was that we were not ready to confront real fighters like Hezbollah.”
On the day the chaos in Bint Jbail reached its peak, Amir Peretz, the new and inexperienced defence minister, flew to the northern border to meet reservists about to go into action.
Aviv Wasserman, a reserve major with the 300 brigade who is about to study for a doctorate at the London School of Economics, asked Peretz not to throw them into “unnecessary adventures”.
Lieutenant Adam Kima, of the combat engineering battalion, was in even more rebellious mood after being asked to take his men and clear the road leading to Bint Jbeil from the west. Studying the plan, Kima rejected the idea — 10 Israeli soldiers had already died there “We were foolishly told it was all right — there are no Hezbollah forces ahead of us,” said Corporal Nimrod Diskin, one of Kima’s soldiers. “We didn’t have the equipment to clear this road. We were not ready for the mission.”
When the brigade commander realised that Kima and his soldiers would not carry out their orders, he called the military police. The men were sentenced to 14 days in jail, although they were released a few days later. The soldiers, most of them fathers of small children, believe Kima saved their lives.
“I noticed behaviour I’d never heard of in the Israeli army,” Kima said last week on Israeli television. “In my training I got used to the idea that the commander shouts ‘Advance!’ and is the first to face the enemy. Here my battalion commander was in the back of the group and the brigade commander didn’t even cross the border into Lebanon.”
As the fighting dragged on, some veteran officers lost patience with what they saw as the inexperience of the chief of staff and defence minister. “What are you doing in Lebanon, for God’s sake?’ the former defence minister, General Shaul Mofaz, asked Olmert. “Why did you go into Bint Jbeil? It was a trap set by Hezbollah.”
Mofaz proposed an old-fashioned IDF assault plan to launch a blitzkrieg against Hezbollah, reach the strategically important Litani river in 48 hours and then demolish Hezbollah in six days. Olmert liked the idea but Peretz did not appreciate his predecessor’s intervention and rejected it.
Olmert appeared to lose confidence and began to issue conflicting orders. “Our mission changed twice, three times, every day,” complained one soldier.
Many Israelis have been left furious that the legendary deterrent power of their army has been shattered. Even though Hezbollah has lost a quarter of its fighters, its military base in Beirut and its bunkers in the south, Israelis feel less secure.
They hear President Bashar al-Assad of Syria warning that he may retake the Golan Heights by force and the Iranians threatening that if the Americans attack them, Tel Aviv will be hit by ballistic missiles in retaliation.
On the final day of the war, Halutz was sitting in his favourite seat at the air force bunker in Tel Aviv, waiting for the results of a massive airborne operation. Then the news came through that a Sikorsky CH-53 helicopter had been shot down by a Hezbollah rocket. He is said to have felt defeated, both personally and professionally.
Halutz and his political masters may now be living on borrowed time. Israeli’s military elite, such as its fighter squadrons and commando units, may still be among the best in the world but the mediocrity of much of the army has been exposed for all in the Middle East to see.
Israelis can forget and forgive many things, but not the perceived defeat of an army that commanded worldwide respect but suddenly no longer strikes so much fear into its enemies.
Click here to find out more!
Copyright 2006 Times Newspapers Ltd.
August 27, 2006 at 05:35 PM in Israel | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home
Bad times follow Taliban back to town
TheStar.com - Bad times follow Taliban back to town
A letter from kandahar | After a brief taste of prosperity, the provincial capital is once again a place of fear and suspicion, writes author Nelofer Pazira
Aug. 27, 2006. 01:00 AM
NELOFER PAZIRA
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
Only a few months ago, the city of Kandahar seemed to be on the road to prosperity.
Newly paved streets with proper signs (one named for Queen Soraya, wife of 1920s Afghan reformer King Amanullah Khan), a park with a children's playground, and several smart guesthouses were part of the provincial capital's new image.
Near the Kandahar market, the foundation of many new modern buildings and houses had been laid.
But now, fear permeates the city. Suspicious eyes watch every passerby and every car is scrutinized.
People shrink from me when I ask for an interview; they run away when they see a camera.
But a few brave souls are still willing to talk to a journalist, among them Mohammad Hikmat.
Hikmat and his younger brother bought land here — $45,000 for 400 square metres — to build a home.
Over the last five years, they'd made good money working with foreign reporters and aid agencies. But six months ago, it all came to an end. The Taliban was coming back — and fear of reprisals spread like a fire.
Then came a series of suicide attacks and printed decrees, often hung on the walls of mosques, ordering the people to stop supporting the government.
The construction company for which Hikmat worked as an engineer laid off most of its staff.
He decided to shelve his dream of owning a house and pack his family off to safety in Quetta, a six-hour drive across the Pakistan border.
His brother, who'd worked as a cameraman for foreign television reporters, destroyed all the press cards and letters of recommendation he'd collected. He erased all the images he'd recorded — footage of the city, interviews with American soldiers — for fear of punishment by the Taliban.
An Indian company that built the road between Kandahar and Spin Boldak withdrew when rumours spread about the Pakistani army helping Taliban forces reach Kandahar.
"The Americans abandoned Afghanistan," says Hikmat. "When they were around, people were making money. The Taliban had run away, but they were not all defeated and the Americans knew that, too. Yet the U.S. decreased the number of its troops."
People here say the Taliban was well positioned when NATO troops — mostly from Canada, Britain and the Netherlands — replaced American forces in the region last month.
Maiwand district — an hour's drive southwest of the capital and the site of a great British military defeat during the Second Afghan War in 1880 — is now the seat of resistance to the government and NATO forces.
"I can't go home because I know the Taliban will kill me," says a Maiwand resident who is hiding in Kandahar and working at a hospital here.
"From our entire village there are only two educated people. It's not hard for the Taliban to find us there. They have continued to issue decrees announcing that the killing of all those working with the current government or any of the foreign agencies — especially the military — is an Islamic duty."
Taliban forces control most of neighbouring Helmand province, where some 4,000 British troops are stationed.
In Helmand, a sinister note, which I recently saw pinned to the wall of a mosque, proclaimed that the Taliban would award $1,000 to anyone who brings in the head of a government worker or foreigner.
"Now, the Taliban is everywhere," says Alia, a nurse in Kandahar's Polyclinic Hospital.
She and her family returned from Pakistan four years ago and now live in the Khoshal Mena neighbourhood, a short distance from the city centre.
"There was a doctor called Aziz in this building who received a threat" she says. "The Taliban hung a leaflet on his door, telling him that if he didn't stop working for the government and didn't take his children out of school, he would be killed."
The doctor and his family fled immediately.
Now, Alia has taken down the sign on her door that carried her name and occupation.
"My children are also in school and I'm worried that I may face a similar threat," she says.
Kandaharis have strong opinions on whom to blame for the Taliban's resurgence.
Wakil Sahib, a member of the Religious Council of Kandahar, says Pakistan doesn't want its neighbour to be economically independent.
"They want to keep Afghanistan as their market. They want us to continue to go to their doctors, buy their medicine, use their products. To serve their own interests, the Pakistani intelligence service funds the Taliban."
Saifullah, a man too frightened to identify his job, agrees.
"Pakistan, with the help of the U.S., originally created the Taliban," he says. "And to this day they are providing them with weapons and money."
Rafi, an unemployed engineer, points a finger at both the United States and the Kabul government.
"After the U.S., the responsibility lies with our own government, which has also failed to deliver," he says. "But I wonder if the war in Afghanistan is less about the Taliban and Pakistan, and more about the rivalry between America and Europe. Afghanistan has become a victim once again, just like it was during the Cold War.
"It would be easier to live under the full control of one or another government, be it the Taliban or a U.S.-supported Afghan government. But this is like living in purgatory."
Nelofer Pazira, 33, was raised in Kabul. She fled the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan with her family in 1989 and settled in Canada a year later. She is the star of the movies Kandahar and Return to Kandahar, and the author of A Bed of Red Flowers: In Search of My Afghanistan.
August 27, 2006 at 12:37 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home
August 25, 2006
Japan police plan arrests over nuclear parts
Japan police plan arrests over nuclear parts: report | Top News | Reuters.com
TOKYO (Reuters) - Tokyo police were planning on Friday to arrest several executives from a Japanese company suspected of exporting equipment that could be used in producing nuclear weapons, Kyodo news agency said.
Mitutoyo Corp., which produces precision measuring equipment, is suspected of exporting to Malaysia without a license two devices that could be used in uranium enrichment, the report said.
Television showed police entering Mitutoyo premises in Kawasaki, near Tokyo.
A police spokesman said he had no information on the arrests, and no one answered the phone at the company's head office.
Police have been investigating possible export routes from Japan after a device made by the firm was found at nuclear facilities in Libya inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency between December 2003 and March 2004, media reports said earlier this year.
Mitutoyo is also suspected of exporting equipment to Iran, and police have raided an Iranian trading company in Tokyo in connection with the case, Kyodo said.
Mitutoyo, founded in 1934, has some 2,300 employees in Japan and 2,000 overseas.
© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved
August 25, 2006 at 12:07 AM in Iran | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home
August 20, 2006
Jill Carroll - Part 1
The Jill Carroll Story - Introduction | csmonitor.com
Jill Carroll, a freelance reporter for the Christian Science Monitor, was held hostage in Iraq for 82 days. This is her story.
Jill Carroll, a freelance reporter for The Christian Science Monitor, was kidnapped by Sunni Muslim insurgents in Baghdad on Jan. 7, 2006.
Over the next 82 days, she was shuttled blindfolded among at least six safe houses and had closer contact with Sunni insurgents than any American who has lived to tell the tale.
She cooked with the women. She played with the children. She was locked away in rooms to the sound of cocking guns.
Deprived of control over the smallest aspect of existence, she feared for her life every day.
Her chief captor required his journalist hostage to "interview" him for hours at a time. He would expound on the insurgent worldview and the ruling council set up by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Ms. Carroll stared at the floor. She was afraid to meet his gaze, lest he decide that she knew too much about his features.
In her last hours of captivity this man told her: "Forget about the council. You can only say I am a member of a medium group. You can't talk about the women or the children. You have to say you were in one room the whole time. Everything is forbidden. You must forget it all."
My chief captor had an idea about how to prod the US government into action: another video.
He said this one would be different, and left.
I turned to the two guards sitting on cushions a few feet away and started to panic. Really, really panic.
"Oh my God, oh my God, they're going to kill me, this is going to be it. I don't know when but they're going to do it," I thought.
I crawled over to Abu Hassan, the one who seemed more grown-up and sympathetic. His 9mm pistol was by his side, as usual.
"You're my brother, you're truly my brother," I said in Arabic. "Promise me you will use this gun to kill me by your own hand. I don't want that knife, I don't want the knife, use the gun."
I started to cry hysterically. By now I'd been held captive by Iraqi insurgents for six weeks. They'd given me a new hijab, a new name (Aisha), and tried to convert me to Islam. They'd let me play with their children - and repeatedly accused me of working for the CIA.
At night I'd fall asleep and be free in my dreams. Then I'd wake up and my situation would land on me like a weight. Every morning, it was as if I was kidnapped anew.
That particular morning I'd received a visit from Abu Nour, the most senior of my captors. As usual, the distinctive scent of his spicy cologne had announced his presence. As usual, I'd snapped my eyes to the ground to avoid seeing his face.
"We need to make a new video of you," he'd said, in his high-pitched, yet gravelly voice. "The last video showed you in good condition, and that made the government move slowly."
The British government had moved quickly, he'd said, after a video had shown hostage Margaret Hassan in bad condition. They wanted to push the US in the same way.
Margaret Hassan! An Irish aid worker married to an Iraqi, she'd been seized in Baghdad in October 2004, while on her way to work. Less than a month later, she was killed.
After the leader left, I sat and stared into the glowing metal of the propane heater, my knees drawn up under my red velveteen dishdasha. I was completely terrified.
If it was going to happen, I wanted it to be quick. So I crawled over to Abu Hassan and begged.
"I don't want the knife!" I sobbed.
Neither Abu Hassan nor his fellow guard - the blubbery, adolescent Abu Qarrar - really knew what to do about my outburst.
"We're not going to kill you. Why? What is this?" said Hassan.
His voice was flat and sounded insincere.
"Abu Qarrar, you speak English. You have to tell my family that I love them and that I'm sorry," I implored.
I sat against the wall of a house whose location I didn't know, under a window to an outside I couldn't walk through, and cried and cried.
• • •
In Baghdad, Jan. 7, 2006 was a sunny Saturday. For me it promised to be an easy day.
Not that my life in Baghdad was easy. Freelance journalism is a tough business everywhere. But I didn't want to sit in a cubicle in the US and write, as I had, about the Department of Agriculture food pyramid. Here I was living my dream of being a foreign correspondent - even if that meant sometimes living in a hotel so seedy it was best to buy your own sheets.
First up were some routine interviews of Iraqi politicians trying to form a new government. Three weeks before, the country had chosen its first democratically elected permanent government. But Sunni politicians were dismayed at how few seats they'd won.
Later, I planned to leave my virus-ridden laptop (stashed in the trunk) with a techie friend of my interpreter, Alan Enwiya.
Alan was vital to my newsgathering process. We had been a team for almost two years. We were also friends - it felt as if we were almost siblings - who'd worked through Iraq's difficult and increasingly dangerous conditions.
In our time together we'd eked out a living freelancing for the Italian news agency ANSA, USA Today, US News & World Report, and now The Christian Science Monitor. We had been threatened by militia members, mobbed after Friday prayers, and seen bullets rain down from passing police vehicles. We'd walked hours through Baghdad soliciting interviews from ordinary Iraqi voters.
During long days in traffic jams, Alan would tell me funny stories about his daughter and infant son, marveling at how fast they were growing. I would tease him that I was a spy for his wife, Fairuz, and would report to her if I caught him looking in the direction of a pretty girl.
The first interview on our list that morning was Adnan al-Dulaimi, a Sunni politician. While there was a handful of what Western journalists considered no-go neighborhoods in Baghdad - his office wasn't in that category yet. But we had taken our normal security precautions. I was dressed, for example, in a black hijab that hid my hair and Western clothes. We'd been to Mr. Dulaimi's office several times before without a problem. Our last trip had been two days earlier to set up this interview.
In retrospect, that was a fatal mistake; we had given someone 48 hours to prepare for our return.
Adnan Abbas, the Monitor's longtime driver - who'd shared many of our harrowing experiences - guided his maroon Toyota sedan along the familiar route to Dulaimi's office, dropping us off 20 minutes earlier than the scheduled time of 10 a.m.
Inside, Dulaimi's aides steered us away from the usual waiting room full of men drinking sweet tea in tiny glasses, and into an adjoining room where we were alone. Alan and I noticed the strangeness of this move at the same moment.
"Well, it's better," Alan said. "You're a woman and there are a lot of men in there."
The minutes passed and aides walked through the room chatting on cellphones. I understood through my rudimentary Arabic that they were telling various people that a reporter was waiting to see Dulaimi. But a little after 10 a.m. the same aide who had made the appointment for us approached us.
"Sorry, Dr. Dulaimi has a press conference right now," the aide said. "He can't talk to you. Can you come back at 12?"
I wondered why I hadn't heard about the press conference before now.
We agreed to come back later and stepped out into the bright sunny morning where Adnan was waiting for us.
As we walked to the car, Alan reminded me that we needed to call ahead to make sure our next interview was still on. He climbed into the front, and I handed him my phone from the back seat, my usual place. He began shouting into the phone, trying to make himself heard over Baghdad's overloaded, spotty cellphone network.
Adnan had begun to pull away, but suddenly a large blue truck with red and yellow trim backed out of a driveway in front of us, completely blocking the road. Several men were standing around it, motioning to help it back out.
But in an instant they turned, trained pistols on us, and briskly approached the car.
Adnan hit the brakes, and he and Alan put their hands up. It was a routine we had become familiar with in Baghdad, where private security details often brandish weapons to clear a path for their clients.
But unlike the previous times, the men didn't lower their weapons - and they kept advancing. The man closest to the car, a rotund person with salt-and-pepper stubble, had his gun aimed right through the windshield at Adnan.
My eyes were glued to him. I was confused about why he didn't lower his pistol. At the same time Adnan and Alan opened their doors and began to get out of the car.
The gunmen ran at us. A whisper exploded from me into a scream, "No, no, NO!" as I tried to get out. The door closed on my right ankle as someone shoved me back in, pushing so hard that the right lens of my glasses popped out. Through the crack in the door - before the intruder slammed it - I saw the last moment of Alan's life.
Adnan was gone. The rotund man was in the driver's seat now. Other men jumped in sandwiching me between them. We sped away, out onto the main road, then turned right.
"Jihad! Jihad! Jihad!" my abductors shouted, excited and joyful. "Jihad! Jihad!"
***
The taking of Jill Carroll off a Baghdad street on Jan. 7, 2006, created many hostages, of whom Jill herself was simply the central one, and the most endangered.
For her family and many friends and colleagues, normal life ended in the hours and days to come, as they heard what had happened. Henceforth, there would be worry, sometimes fear, and new routines that had one aim: free Jill.
Their solace was action. The first thing her father Jim Carroll did that black Saturday morning was fire up his computer to see what he could learn, while Mary Beth, her mother, contacted family members. Sister Katie, who worked for an international development consulting company, began calling every number she knew in the Middle East.
In Boston before the sun rose, the Monitor assembled an ad hoc Team Jill - Marshall Ingwerson, the managing editor; David Scott, the foreign editor; and Amelia Newcomb, the deputy foreign editor. Richard Bergenheim was in Mexico taking his first vacation since becoming the paper's editor. He caught the next flight back.
For the next 82 days, they met every few hours, sometimes starting at 5:30 a.m. and often finishing the day at 10 or 11 p.m. with a conference call with Baghdad. Some of these editors had dealt before with the stress and emotion over the kidnapping - and even murder - of foreign correspondents filing for the paper. But none were truly prepared for what lay ahead.
Jill herself, isolated by Islamist insurgents, did not envision such rallies to her cause. In the weeks to come she sometimes would avoid thinking about her family, because it made her sad; when she did, she imagined them apprehensive, waiting for some sort of word from the US government. As for the Monitor, well, she was just a freelancer, and it wasn't a rich paper. She figured that following her kidnapping and the murder of her interpreter, its rotating Baghdad staff would have fled Iraq.
She was wrong.
- P.G.
***
In the first minutes after my abduction, my captors peppered me with questions in Arabic. I played dumb, fearful they would think I understood too much and kill me.
They quickly drove Adnan's Toyota onto the highways of western Baghdad and surrounding farmlands, going in circles, apparently to kill time. Their "success" was granted by God, they believed, and they issued thanks repeatedly. "Allah Akbar" they said, "God is greatest."
"They're going to take me out into a field and kill me," I thought as we bumped down rural back roads.
They seemed to read my thoughts, perplexed that I was afraid amidst their jubilation.
"Why you worried?" they asked in stilted English. "No, no, no, [this is] jihad! [We are] Iraqi, Iraqi mujahideen! Why you worried?"
Sunni Muslim insurgents were - still are - the most active hostage-takers in Iraq. Many were allied to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian who led Al Qaeda in Iraq until he was killed by a US airstrike June 7.
But the outside world didn't know much about these groups. These weren't people who held press conferences or articulated their grievances through the political process.
They were a powerful force in Iraq, but they were like shadows behind a curtain. We could see broad outlines, but were left to guess at who they really were, how they think, and what motivates them.
Alan and I had been focusing for several months on piecing together a clear picture of Iraq's Sunni community. Their tacit support for the insurgency allowed it to operate; understanding them was key to understanding the forces violently splitting the country.
Now I was to gain the insight we had so long sought. At such a price to Alan, I have never been so desperate for ignorance.
***
On the morning of Jan. 7, the phone rang in Monitor staff writer Scott Peterson's Istanbul home just as he was stepping out the door, headed to the airport. His wife, Alex, picked up, and gave the caller Scott's cellphone number. If he stopped now, he might miss his flight to eastern Turkey, where he was traveling to report a story on bird flu. Better to talk in the taxi, on the way.
Lean and intense, Mr. Peterson is a veteran foreign correspondent, the sort of person who wears a scarf as a memento of an attack by a poisonous snake in Africa. He's such a dedicated rock climber that he's built a climbing wall within the Monitor's small Baghdad apartment, where he spends four to six weeks at a time on assignment, to help himself stay physically and mentally sharp.
Five minutes down the road, the call came through. It was a British security firm that advises many journalists in Iraq. After a brief conversation, Peterson asked his driver to turn around. He called the foreign editor to inform him of his new destination - Iraq.
Sometime that day, Peterson, a habitual notetaker, wrote "Jill Abducted in Baghdad" in one of the small blue books he uses to document his life.
Underneath that line, in smaller letters, he wrote one word: "prayers."
- P.G.
***
The room was small, with furniture that was fancy by Iraqi standards - two couches and an overstuffed chair covered in dark velvet with gold trim. The TV and its satellite box were in the corner.
Abu Rasha - a big man whom I would come to see as an organizer of my guards - lay down on one of the sofas. His wife and one of his children sat next to him on a chair.
Then Abu Rasha handed me the remote. "Whatever you want," he said.
How do you channel surf with the mujahideen? I asked myself that question as I flipped from one show to another, trying to act casual. Politics was out. News was out. Anything that might show even a flash of skin was out.
Finally, I found Channel 1 from Dubai, and Oprah was on. OK, good, Oprah, I thought. No naked women, no whatever, she's not in hijab, but it's OK.
The show was about people who had had really bad things happen to them, and had survived, and had hope. One woman came on who had been a model in the '70s and had breast cancer, and now she's a famous photographer. It really had an impact on me. Oprah talked about how people get through these things, and I thought, well, this is sort of prophetic, maybe.
I had only been in captivity a few hours. This house, big, with two stories, was the second place I'd been taken.
The first had been a tiny, three-room house among tall crops on Baghdad's western outskirts. It was a poor place, built of cinder blocks. My captors gave me a new set of clothes, and I changed in the bathroom while the stern-faced woman of the house looked on.
They took pains to explain they wouldn't take the $100 in cash they'd found in my pockets.
"When you return to America, this with you," said one, waving the $100 bill.
Who were these people? Kidnapping was justified but taking money was not? And less than an hour after killing Alan to kidnap me, they seemed to be saying they would eventually let me go.
Then we drove to the second house, which appeared to be the home of one of the kidnappers, who'd given his name as Abu Rasha.
They took me upstairs to the master bedroom. Within a few minutes an interpreter arrived, and an interrogation began.
They wanted to know my name, the name of my newspaper, my religion, how much my computer was worth, did it have a device to signal the government or military, if I or anyone in my family drank alcohol, how many American reporters were in Baghdad, did I know reporters from other countries, and myriad other questions.
Then, in a slightly gravelly voice, the interpreter explained the situation.
"You are our sister. We have no problem with you. Our problem is with your government. We just need to keep you for some time. We want women freed from Abu Ghraib prison. Maybe four or five women. We want to ask your government for this," the interpreter said. (At the time, it was reported that 10 Iraqi women were among 14,000 Iraqis being held by coalition forces on suspicion of insurgent activity.)
"You are to stay in this room. And this window, don't put one hand on this window," he continued. "I have a place underground. It is very dark and small, and cold, and if you put one hand on this window, we will put you there. Some of my friends said we should put you there, but I said, 'No she is a woman.' Women are very important in Islam."
After that they fed me from a platter of chicken and rice that would have been fit for an honored guest. And I was invited downstairs to watch television with Abu Rasha's family.
That's when we'd watched Oprah. Afterward, Abu Rasha asked me what I liked to eat for breakfast, and what time I had it. It was part of this pattern - they all seemed concerned that I think they were good, or at least that they were treating me well.
It sounds hospitable. But in my mind every second was a test - the choice of food, TV program, everything - and they would kill me if I gave the wrong answer.
Eventually I told them I wanted to sleep, and they led me upstairs. I lay in bed, on the far side away from the window. The clock was ticking loudly, and then it started to rain. I love rain, and I thought, oh, maybe this is a good sign.
But I'd been performing all day, holding in my emotions, and with darkness they came flooding back.
"Oh my God. They killed Alan." A tide of emotion was racing toward me. It was going to drown me or send me flinging myself against the walls in anger and screams. I had to stop it.
"I cannot grieve now. I cannot do this now. I have to put it away," I thought.
I looked up into the darkness of the ceiling toward Alan. "I'm sorry," I told him. "I'll take care of you later." I felt disloyal. I thought to survive, I had to push aside the memory of his brutal murder. But I knew that at some point I'd have to come to terms with the guilt I felt for his death.
As night fell, I wondered if my friends had heard. I knew that by this point Alan's family, his wife, Fairuz, was realizing the worst.
"Well, now they must know," I thought. "It's dark. He hasn't come home. They must be screaming. Fairuz must be screaming."
How to help
Alan Enwiya is one of nearly 100 journalists and media assistants killed in Iraq since March 2003. Alan is survived by his wife, Fairuz, his two children, Martin and Mary Ann, and his parents.
In response to readers, the Monitor has set up a fund to help support Alan's family and to enable them to start a new life in the US, where they have relatives.
Donations may be sent to:
The Alan Enwiya Fund
c/o The Christian Science Monitor
One Norway Street
Boston, MA 02115
August 20, 2006 at 10:24 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home
Hezbollah
Hezbollah - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Hezbollah[1](Arabic: حزب الله ḥizbu-llāh,[2] meaning “party of God”) is a Shia Islamist organization in Lebanon comprising a militia, a political party, and an extensive program of social development.[3] Formed in 1982 to fight the incipient occupation by Israel,[3] It was officially founded on February 16, 1985 when Sheik Ibrahim al-Amin declared the group's manifesto. [4] It originally sought to bring the Islamic Revolution to Lebanon,[5] and wanted to transform Lebanon's multi-confessional state into an Iranian-style Islamic state. According to a BBC analysis, "This idea was eventually abandoned and the party today is a well-structured political organisation with members of parliament".[6] Calls continue for the elimination of “the Zionist entity” (i.e. The State of Israel), a founding objective of the organization.[7] The current Secretary-General of Hezbollah is Sheikh Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who has held the office since 1992.
Contents
[hide]- 1 Introduction
- 2 History
- 3 Ideology
- 4 Flag
- 5 Media operations
- 6 Social services
- 7 Political Activities
- 8 Military activities
- 9 Foreign and domestic relations
- 10 Outside views of Hezbollah
- 11 See also
- 12 Notes
- 13 Literature
- 14 External links
Introduction
Hezbollah was formed to combat the Israeli occupation following the 1982 invasion of Lebanon,and with a goal of the elimination of the Israeli state.[8] It was officially founded on the 16th of February, 1985 when Sheik Ibrahim al-Amin declared the group's manifesto. It follows a distinct version of Islamic Shia ideology developed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran.[9][7][5]
Hezbollah and Israel have participated in many military clashes against each other since 1982 [6], Hezbollah is believed to be responsible for multiple kidnappings,[10][11][12] [13] murders,[14][15][16] [17] hijackings,[18] and bombings.[19][20][21][22] against Israel. There is a wide disagreement about how these violent acts, and thus the organization as a whole, should be characterized. Israel occupied part of Lebanon during a time when many of these attacks took place, and although Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000, it is still considered by Hezbollah and Lebanon, but not the UN, to occupy Sheba Farms which it captured from Syria in 1967. Additionally, Israel holds some Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails. Finally, Hezbollah and some of the Arab and Muslim world characterize Israel as an illegitimate state. For these reasons, many consider violent acts performed by the organization to be acts of Jihad. Although some Arab states (Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia) have condemned Hezbollah's actions saying they harm Arab interests,[23] throughout most of the Arab and Muslim worlds Hezbollah is highly regarded as a legitimate resistance movement.[8] Some countries regard Hezbollah's violent acts to be terrorist attacks, and thus Hezbollah is considered by some states to be a "terrorist" organization. The United States, Canada, Israel and the Netherlands considers all of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, while the United Kingdom and Australia consider only Hezbollah's external security organization to be a terrorist organization. Russia,[24] the European Union,[25] and several other countries including the China, India, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia, among others, do not consider Hezbollah a terrorist organization. The European Union does not list Hezabollah or its constituent groups in its list of terrorist organizations, but does list Hezbollah's senior intelligence officer Imad Mugniyah.[26][27]
- Further information: Hezbollah#Designation as a 'terrorist organization'
One argument against labeling Hezbollah a "terrorist" organization is their wider mission as a religious, political, and social group. Hezbollah is currently one of the two main organizations representing the Shia community, Lebanon's largest religious bloc, but the only militant one.[28] It is also a recognised political party in Lebanon,[29] currently taking just over 10% of the seats (14 out of 128) in the Parliament of Lebanon. The bloc it forms with others, the Resistance and Development Bloc, 27.3% (see Lebanese general election, 2005). Hezbollah also organises an extensive social development programme which runs hospitals, news services, and educational facilities. Its Reconstruction Campaign ('Jihad al-Bina') is responsible for numerous economic and infrastructure development projects in Lebanon.[30]
History
The neutrality of this section is disputed.
Please see the discussion on the talk page.
-
Main article: History of Hezbollah
Hezbollah was formed primarily to combat the Israeli occupation following the 1982 invasion of Lebanon[6][31]It was officially founded on February 16, 1985 when Sheik Ibrahim al-Amin declared the group's manifesto. The publication of the manifesto was timed to coincide with the anniversary of Ragheb Harb's death.[32]
Scholars differ as to when Hezbollah came to be a distinct entity. Some organizations list the official formation of the group as early as 1982 [33] whereas Diaz and Newman maintain that Hezbollah remained an amalgamation of various violent Shi’a extremists until as late as 1985.[34] Another version states that it was formed by supporters of Sheikh Ragheb Harb, a leader of the southern Shiite resistance killed by Israel in 1984.[35] Regardless of when the name came into official use, a number of Shi’a groups were slowly assimilated into the organization, such as Islamic Jihad, Organization of the Oppressed on Earth and the Revolutionary Justice Organization.[citation needed] These designations are considered to be synonymous with Hezbollah by the US,[36] Israel[9] and Canada.[37]
Hezbollah's strength was enhanced by the dispatching of one thousand[38] to fifteen hundred[39] members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the financial backing of Iran. It became the main politico-military force among the Shi'a community in Lebanon and the main arm of what became known later as the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon.[38]
They have fought with Israel for more than twenty years and tens of Hizbullah leaders and officials including the former Secretary-General,Seyyed Abbas al-Musawi have been assassinated by Israel.[40][35]
Ideology
Hezbollah follows a distinct version of Islamic Shi'a ideology (“Willayat Al-Faqih”) developed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran.[9][8]
Iranian Expediency Council Secretary and former commander of the Revolutionary Guards Mohsen Rezai said in August 2006, "Iran is a model and example for Hizbullah. The Iranian faith, tactics and experience are being put to practice in Lebanon... Hizbullah looks to Iran for tactics and moral [support], and we are proud that our experience [serves] other Muslim countries."[41][42]
Hezbollah initially aimed to transform Lebanon into an Islamic republic; there is some speculation that this goal has been abandoned[8][6] although doubts remain.[43] Nasrallah has been quoted as saying:
- "We believe the requirement for an Islamic state is to have an overwhelming popular desire, and we're not talking about fifty percent plus one, but a large majority. And this is not available in Lebanon and probably never will be."[44]
Position on Israel
Hezbollah's founding aims included resistance against the occupation of Lebanon by Israel (1978-2000). From the inception of the organization to the present [7][5][45] [46][47] the elimination of the state of Israel has been one of Hezbollah's goals. Secretary-General Nasrallah’s has stated that “Israel is an illegal usurper entity, which is based on falsehood, massacres, and illusions.”[48], and considers the elimination of Israel to be fundamental to the establishment of peace in the middle east: "There is no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel."[49][50] In an interview with the Washington Post, Nasrallah said "I am against any reconciliation with Israel. I do not even recognize the presence of a state that is called "Israel." I consider its presence both unjust and unlawful. That is why if Lebanon concludes a peace agreement with Israel and brings that accord to the Parliament our deputies will reject it; Hezbollah refuses any conciliation with Israel in principle.". [51]
Israel's occupation of the Shebaa Farms (along with the presence of Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails) is often stated as justification for the organization's continued hostilities against Israel after Israel's withdrawl from Lebanon in 2000. Hezbollah's spokesperson Hassan Ezzedin, however, had this to say about the Farms: "If they go from Sheba'a, we will not stop fighting them. Our goal is to liberate the 1948 borders of Palestine...[Jews] can go back to Germany or wherever they came from.”[52]
In a 1999 interview, Nasrallah outlined the group’s three “minimal demand[s]: an [Israeli] withdrawal from South Lebanon and the Western Bqa’ Valley, a withdrawal from the Golan, and the return of the Palestinian refugees.”[48] An additional objective is the freeing of prisoners held in Israeli jails[53][54][8], some of whom have been imprisoned for eighteen years.[55] Hezbollah's desire for Israeli prisoners that could be exchanged with Israel led to the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict.[56]
After the successful conclusion of a "war of liberation", Hezbollah's spokesperson Hassan Ezzedin has stated that, "[Jews who lived in Palestine before 1948] will be allowed to live as a minority and they will be cared for by the Muslim majority".[57]
In contrast to the above, in recent interviews Nasrallah has answered questions concerning the establishment of a Palestinian state established alongside an Israeli state in a way which suggested that the organization no longer has the intent to destroy the state of Israel. . Hezbollah’s present leadership disclaims any interest in contesting Israel’s right to exist outside of disputed territories.[5] In a 2003 interview, Nasrallah stated that "at the end of the road no one can go to war on behalf of the Palestinians, even if that one is not in agreement with what the Palestinians agreed on."[58] "Of course, it would bother us that Jerusalem goes to Israel... [but] let it happen. I would not say O.K. I would say nothing."[58] Similarly, in 2004, when asked whether he was prepared to live with a two-state settlement between Israel and Palestine, Nasrallah said he would not sabotage what is a Palestinian matter.[5] He also clarified that outside of Lebanon, Hezbollah will act only in a defensive manner towards Israeli forces, and that Hezbollah's missiles were acquired to deter attacks on Lebanon.[59]
Position on Jews
Nasrallah has a history of making anti-Semitic statements (e.g. “if they [Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide”[60]). Hezbollah's website, however, marks a distinction between "Zionist ideology" and Judaism. It sees the rejection of Zionism as an attitude hold across "races, religions, and nationalities". It likens Zionism to "the concept of creating 'Israel' by the use of force and violence, by stealing the Arabs’ lands and killing Palestinians". "[O]pposing the Zionists ideology is not opposing setting a home for Jews".[61]
In 2004 the Hezbollah-owned television station Al-Manar was banned in France on the grounds that it was inciting racial hatred. The court cited a 23 November broadcast in which a speaker accused Israel of deliberately disseminating AIDS in Arab nations.[62]
Women’s rights
In keeping with Lebanon’s generally secular and egalitarian culture, Hezbollah recognizes and promotes women’s rights (in the mold of the Western liberal tradition) somewhat more strongly than do other groups associated with Islamic jihad, or for that matter than does Iran, Hezbollah’s self-proclaimed “model and example”[41] (see Women in Muslim societies).[63]
One member of the Hezbollah Political Council, speaking to an Online Journal correspondent in July 2006, claimed that “Hezbollah differs from many Islamic groups in our treatment of women. We believe women have the ability like men to participate in all parts of life.”[63] The Online Journal correspondent writes,
- From its founding in the 1980s, Hezbollah women have headed education, medical and social service organizations. Most recently Hezbollah nominated several women to run in the Lebanese elections. It named Wafa Hoteit as a chief of Al Noor Radio (also recently bombed), and promoted 37-year-old Rima Fakhry to its highest ruling body, the Hezbollah Political Council. Part of Fakhry's duties include interpreting Islamic feminism in Sharia law for the Committee for Political Analysis.[63]
Hezbollah’s inclination towards secular liberal values should not be overstated, however. For example, its official stance on homosexuality hews close to traditional religious teachings (see Gay rights in Lebanon: Politics).
Flag
The red lettering at the top of the Hezbollah's flag is a verse from the Quran from which its name is derivated, reading "It is only the party of god who wins."[64] The large green lettering is the name of the group — with the first letter of "Allah" reaching up to grasp a Soviet AK-47. The red lettering at the bottom reads, "The Islamic Resistance in Lebanon." Besides the AK-47, additional symbols on the flag include a globe, a book, a leaf, and a sword.
Media operations
Hezbollah operates a satellite television station from Lebanon, Al-Manar TV ("the Lighthouse") as well as a radio station, al-Nour ("the Light"). Kabdat Alla ("The Fist of God") is the monthly magazine of Hezbollah's paramilitary wing.
Al Manar broadcasts news in Arabic, English, French and Hebrew and is widely watched both in Lebanon and in other Arab countries. Its transmission in France (even via satellite, not by any station based on French territory) is controversial. It has been accused of promoting religious and racial hatred (against Jews), which is a criminal offense in France. On December 13, 2004, the French Conseil d'État, acting on the request of the French TV authorities, issued an injunction to Eutelsat to cease the broadcasting of Al Manar in France.[65]
The Hezbolla