Posted on 02/26/2007 4:18:14 PM PST by DAVEY CROCKETT
The United American Commitee Rally NYC
http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/24269.html
The United American Commitee Rally NYC
Last week, 3/31/07, I was asked to speak, by The United American
Committee,
at an anti-Islamic-terrorist rally in NYC at ground zero.
I could tell that the people present responded to my speech and were in
sympathy with my position. (No, it was not wishful thinking) I received
many
emails commending my anti-terrorist position, and as a Muslim, I was
applauded by the crowd and questioned heavily and candidly afterwards.
I
believe most Americans ARE NOT “Islamophobic”, but are understandingly
confused by the whole Islamic-fascist, Muslims vs. America madness.
However, I also received negative, and even hateful, emails from
Ibrahim
Hooper of CAIR and a group called “Jihad Watch”. Both of the groups
reviled
me personally. (Not my ideas, they ignored them at all costs)
CAIR with sarcastic comments on my “friends who hate Islam” and snide
suggestions that I was an apologist who hates Islam, The Qur’an and the
sunnah of the Prophet (pbuh). Cair suggested I was being somehow duped
by
“Islamophobes”. that I was being used by them and was too quick to
judge “my
Muslim brothers”. (gag) Oh, of course, the new “Neo-Con” name was
thrown at
me.I like that one.lol
Jihad Watch, of course, claimed I was a “Muslim agent” trying to lull
America into a false sense of security with “Islamic Lies” while I
prepared
the way for a takeover of Sharia-terrorists and that an American Muslim
was
an oxymoron. The old racist “only good Muslim is a dead Muslim” idiocy
was
prevalent in their comments.
Oh well...nothing new I’ve heard it all before.I actually expected it
.from
both sides. I just thought you would be interested to know. I will
continue
to speak out against Islamic murder in the name of Allah and I have
been
doing so since the USS Cole bombing on October 12, 2000. (I think
Clinton
was in a secret meeting with Monica at the time) When I asked for a
prayer
for the dead servicemen after Friday prayer at the local Mosque
(whew...one
would think I had asked to serve ham sandwiches after Ramadan)
Anyway. both Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR and the hyper-patriots on Jihad
Watch
acted true to form and poured from the same mold.
By the way...I AM NOT A MODERATE MUSLIM... never have been, never will
be...I don’t like moderates.
MOST Muslims, that I have encountered, will NOT condone terrorism, but
they
will NOT condemn it either. These are your “Moderate Muslims”. sitting
on
the fence. not making decisions.not making waves.no action.
THINK!
Ibrahim Abdul Mu’min
President of the NY Chapter of
“Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism”
Russia girds for anti-government marches
Friday, April 13th, 2007
By MIKE ECKEL — Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) The Kremlin and some of its most determined critics on
Friday prepared to face off on the streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg
in what could be a key test of the Russian opposition’s determination
before parliamentary and presidential elections.
As thousands of police stood ready in Moscow to thwart the so-called
Dissenters’ March on Saturday against President Vladimir Putin’s
government, exiled Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky added to
tensions by saying only force could bring down the “authoritarian
regime.”
If the protest in Moscow and a similar one in St. Petersburg the
following day draw large crowds, they could give momentum to Russia’s
beleaguered opposition and spur a long season of demonstrations against
the government, which critics say has rolled back democracy.
If they flounder, it could signal further irrelevancy for the
opposition
- fractured by infighting and marginalized by Putin’s popularity and
Kremlin maneuvering - as the country moves toward parliamentary
elections in December and next year’s critical presidential vote.
Since Putin took office in 2000, the Kremlin has moved to centralize
power in Russia, created an obedient parliament, abolished direct
gubernatorial elections and tightened restrictions on civic groups.
Kremlin critics are now rarely heard on major TV networks.
But Putin has brought stability to the country after a decade of chaos
and has presided over rapid economic growth, helped by high oil prices.
Polls rate him by far the most popular political figure in Russia.
The U.S. has accused Putin’s government of quashing independent voices
while Russia blasts Washington for meddling in its internal affairs and
in its historic sphere of influence.
The weekend protests would be the latest in a series of anti-government
demonstrations. Previous protests were dispersed by riot police or
broken up by mass arrests.
Moscow authorities have barred protesters from marching down a major
thoroughfare but proposed they could meet a single location.
Garry Kasparov, a former world chess champion and vociferous Kremlin
critic, said protesters will denounce Putin’s policy of consolidating
political power as well as the growing disparity between rich and poor
in Russia.
“The Dissenters’ March will clearly show that all this stability -
which
the Kremlin-controlled television stations trumpets, which is the bait
that unfortunately the Western media have swallowed - is an illusion,
an
illusion that will disappear when it collides with reality,” Kasparov
said Thursday.
“The street is the only place where the people can really express their
views,” he said.
More than 9,000 police and Interior Ministry officers will be on Moscow
streets, a senior city police official said. Metal barricades were
erected on the central square where the march is set to begin.
“Unsanctioned acts will be dealt with by city authorities harshly,”
police spokesman Viktor Biryukov was quoted as saying by news agency
RIA-Novosti.
The marches are organized by Other Russia, an umbrella group of
factions
united almost solely by their opposition to Putin and including former
Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and ultranationalist novelist Eduard
Limonov.
Russia’s mainstream liberal parties, which some say have been co-opted
by the Kremlin, have largely kept their distance. They apparently do
not
want to be associated with political figures that have been portrayed
as
too extreme.
Ahead of the demonstrations, authorities stepped up pressure on groups
tied to Other Russia. Moscow’s city council passed strict new
regulations on rallies - including a rule limiting the density of
protesters to no more than two people per 10 square feet.
Opposition groups also said activists had been detained for questioning
in recent days. Stanislav Dmitriyevsky, whose rights group has been
critical of government policies in Chechnya, told Ekho Moskvy that he
was briefly detained as he arrived in Moscow Friday.
The government’s reaction shows “the weakness of the authorities and
their fear,” he said. His group, the Russian-Chechen Friendship
Society,
was ordered closed in January by the Supreme Court for allegedly
promoting extremism
The comments by Berezovsky were likely to rattle the Kremlin. The
former
Kremlin insider, who sought political asylum in Britain three years ago
and now lives in London, has been a persistent thorn in Moscow’s side.
“Putin has created an authoritarian regime against the Russian
constitution,” Berezovsky told The Associated Press. “I don’t know how
it will happen, but authoritarian regimes only collapse by force.”
Russian officials were outraged by the remarks, saying Berezovsky was
abusing his asylum status.
“There is a long-standing request to terminate the situation in which
Boris Berezovsky takes advantage of his refugee status, grossly abusing
this status, committing actions that, under British legislation,
require
his extradition,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
Lawsuit: Passenger Found in Jet Bathroom
(04-12) 03:56 PDT INDIANAPOLIS, (AP) — An airline passenger died in
the
restroom during a flight and wasn’t found until the cleaning crew
boarded
the plane after it landed, a federal lawsuit contends.
The passenger, Taisuke Matsuo, 66, apparently had a heart attack on an
American Airlines flight from Tokyo to Chicago during the first leg of
a
trip home to Indianapolis, according to the lawsuit filed Monday by his
wife, Carolyn D. Watts.
The lawsuit accuses American Airlines of negligence and seeks damages
of
about $150,000.
After the plane landed at Chicago O’Hare International Airport on April
13,
2005, passengers and flight crew disembarked and the jet was taken to
another gate for cleaning. Workers then discovered the bathroom was
locked
from the inside and found Matsuo’s body — about two hours after the
jet
landed.
“How could you lose a passenger?” Watts, who did not fly with her
husband
that day, told The Indianapolis Star. “If I was somewhere on that
plane, I
would hope someone would notice.”
Tim Smith, a spokesman for American Airlines in Fort Worth, Texas, said
the
company does not comment on pending litigation.
Another plane suffers engine problem at Lagos airport
Lagos - 13.04.2007 - Barely 24 hours after a Virgin Nigeria Kano bound
aircraft suffered hydraulic problem at the Murtala Muhammed Airport,
another
plane belonging to Bellview airline on Thursday sufered a similar
problem.
The plane, which was coming from Abuja to land at the Lagos airport at
about
9:30 a.m. was said to have developed engine problem.
According to sources, the pilot of the aircraft on noting that the
plane’s
engines had develop problem, contacted the control tower for emergency
landing.
To prepare the plane for emergency landing, the Federal Airports
Authority
of Nigeria (FAAN) fire fighters and other relevant agencies were at
once
positioned at the airport to avoid any tragedy.
The aircraft was cleared to land at the runway 18 right of the
international
wing of the airport.
The aircraft, according to sources, was able to land successfully but
with
only one engine, as the second engine had packed up.
Meanwhile, the nation’s aviation regulatory body, the Nigerian Civil
Aviation Authority (NCAA), has summoned Virgin Nigeria crew over the
emergency landing of its Flight VK051 at the Murtala Mohammed Airport,
(MMA)
Wednesday.
The flight, which was going to Abuja had to make an emegency landing as
a
result of a technical difficulty in its landing gear.
The pilot of the aircraft, a Boeing 737-300 with registration number
5N-VND
took off from Lagos at about 5:20pm and was unable to retract its
landing
gear after take off and then decided to return to base for safe
landing.
http://www.tribune.com.ng/13042007/news/news9.html
In-flight smoke hampered air crew
Cabin crew had severe difficulty communicating with passengers during
an
emergency landing because the crew were wearing smokehoods, an accident
report said yesterday.
The plane landed safely at Leeds Bradford airport on the morning of
August 4
2005, with an emergency evacuation being carried out without injury.
The smoke on a Flybe flight from Birmingham to Edinburgh was thick
enough to
prevent the crew on the Bombardier DHC-8-400 aircraft seeing the length
of
the cabin, said the report from the Air Accidents Investigation Branch.
The cabin crew said the smokehoods had “severely hindered
communications
with passengers, impeding both hearing and being heard”, the report
added.
Because of this, one crew member removed her hood shortly before
landing.
The cabin crew had undergone smokehood training but “it appeared that
this
had not fully prepared them for the extent of the associated
communication
difficulties, raising questions about the training”, the report said.
With the pilots concentrating on making an emergency landing, the cabin
crew’s delay in getting a response from the flight deck had “caused
concern
as to the state of the flight crew”, the report added and the cabin
crew did
not hear the landing calls from the flight deck.
Yesterday’s report recommended a review of cabin crew smokehood
training.
It also called for improved communications between flight and cabin
crews.
n A councillor, his wife and their daughter were identified yesterday
as the
victims of a light aircraft crash.
John Smith and his family were killed when their plane crashed nine
miles on
farmland south of Oban in the West Highlands of Scotland on Tuesday.
Mr Smith was believed to be flying the plane.
He lived with wife Angela and daughter Jacqueline, thought to be in her
twenties, in Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex. He was a Conservative member of
Maldon District Council.
http://www.yorkshiretoday.co.uk/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleID=2697758&SectionID=55
April 14, 2007 Anti-Terrorism News
(Iraq) Karbala blast kills 72 Iraqis, injures scores of others
http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicSite/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=1724346&Language=en
(Iraq) Karbala car bombing in bus station kill dozens in Shiite area —
including women and children among dead
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/04/14/iraq.main/index.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070414/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_bomb_9;_ylt=Ahz.XTuGx76qADW5ERWPa5xX6GMA
(Iraq) Al-Qaida group threatens more “green zone” attacks
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_5666937?source=rss&nclick_check=1
(Iraq) 4 suicide bombers blow themselves up in Kirkuk
http://www.focus-fen.net/?id=n110125
Iraq: Suicide bomber kills 10 on Baghdad Jadriyah bridge - second
attack on major bridge in Baghdad this week
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1176152791916&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
(Iraq) Three US soldiers killed, eight others wounded in Baghdad
http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicSite/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=1724352&Language=en
(Iraq) Suspected al-Qaeda leader in Iraq detained - along with 17
suspected terrorists
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/51784.html
(Iraq) Sharp drop in Baghdad deaths after crackdown — Killings
increase beyond capital, however, and U.S. military toll rises
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18096437/
(Iraq) Fears for kidnapped Germans after ultimatum expires
http://www.expatica.com/actual/article.asp?subchannel_id=26&story_id=38745
(Iraq) Sunni Factions Split With Al-Qaeda Group
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/13/AR2007041300294.html?hpid=sec-world
(Iran/Iraq) U.S. won’t release 5 Iranians held in Iraq: Washington Post
report — Iranian intelligence agents linked with providing explosive
devices used to attack U.S. troops in Iraq
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070414/ts_nm/usa_iran_dc_1;_ylt=AnBcpCX7qQr8XYJZi7mRXGBSw60A
(Iran) USA General: U.S. has no plan to attack Iran
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070414/ap_on_re_eu/britain_us_iran_2;_ylt=AsPiAW8cidGhFLWVq7h2fvRSw60A
(Pakistan) Landmine explosion kills two soldiers in southwest Pakistan
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070414/wl_sthasia_afp/pakistanunrestsouthwest_070414061114;_ylt=AgmIL3mXbUIbV.6KcdCptl3zPukA
(Pakistan) Flag of jihad fluttering as extremists marching on the state
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\04\14\story_14-4-2007_pg7_22
(Pakistan) Red Mosque Lal Masjid cleric urges ulema to enforce sharia
http://www.dawn.com/2007/04/14/top6.htm
Pakistan president hits out at Afghan leader over security
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070414/wl_sthasia_afp/pakistanafghanistanunrestpolitics_070414051805;_ylt=ApL4lDqtAnAcaoFj04YBEUPzPukA
Pakistan says it’s reining in tribal areas
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/13/news/pakistan.php
(Afghanistan) Suicide bombing occurs in E Afghanistan - gate of the
police department of Khost province
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-04/14/content_5976201.htm
(Afghanistan) Taliban video shows French hostages
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070414/ap_on_re_as/afghan_french_kidnappped_2;_ylt=AitKcn2_nZoW_2hQ7LdGg0zOVooA
(Afghanistan) US resists NATO call for extra force trainers in
Afghanistan
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070414/wl_sthasia_afp/usafghanistannatomilitary_070414053808;_ylt=Ak7j95Sm4GCL8jw9QRwTtnbOVooA
(Algeria) US embassy warns new attacks planned in Algiers
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070414/wl_africa_afp/algeriaattacksus_070414083430;_ylt=AncGS4PMpSYw8zy0KFZgPxx6CC8A
(Nigeria) Security tight for Nigeria polls
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6554461.stm
(Nigeria) Gunmen attack police station on voting day in Nigeria’s oil
region; 7 police killed
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/04/14/africa/AF-GEN-Nigeria-Elections-Violence.php
Canada lets Egyptian terror suspect Mahmoud Jaballah out of prison
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070413/wl_canada_nm/canada_security_col_2;_ylt=AiWL1sbV5lCmBjI30C4cLiswuecA
(India) Five terrorists killed in Jammu and Kashmir
http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/detailed_news.asp?date1=4/14/2007#2
(Bangladesh) Eight Hizbut Tawhid militants arrested in Meherpur
http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/detailed_news.asp?date1=4/14/2007#6
Bangladesh increases security for New Year functions
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2007/April/subcontinent_April536.xml§ion=subcontinent&col=
(USA) Anti-Jihad Caucus
http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=261269500775357
(thanks to JihadWatch.org)
(USA) Islamist Group Muslim Brotherhood Denies Report of Hoyer
Invitation to Visit Congress
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200704/NAT20070413d.html
(Lebanon) PLO acts to contain Islamists in Lebanon camp
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2007/April/middleeast_April219.xml§ion=middleeast&col=
(Lebanon) Hizbullah says UN role could create ‘chaotic Lebanon’
http://www.terra.net.lb/wp/Articles/DesktopArticle.aspx?ArticleID=339633&ChannelId=4
(Gaza) Fierce confrontations with Israeli forces in Jenin
http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicSite/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=1724337&Language=en
(Philippines) Three dead, eight wounded in fresh Philippine fighting -
Muslim militant attack on Jolo military camp
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070414/wl_asia_afp/philippinesunrest_070414051742;_ylt=Al3QPspM5ZfvXbLTSwoNv3FUKYUA
(Thailand) Six Muslims killed in Thai south - Islamic rebel drive by
shootings continue
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070414/wl_asia_afp/thailandsouthunresttoll_070414071439;_ylt=AvCxCDTC7CI0m8YVVBOD1RfuNREB
(Sri Lanka) Five people killed as Sri Lanka marks New Year - Tamil
Tiger attack - kills three year old boy
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070414/wl_asia_afp/srilankaunrest_070414074140;_ylt=Al.DieLOfeZiBLVpkBLH0sItM8oA
(Sri Lanka/France) LTTE terrorists plan a new TV satellite channel in
France
http://www.indiantelevision.com/end/y2k7/apr/14aprge1.php
(Turkey) 150,000 Turks protest possible run for president by
Islamic-rooted prime minister - feel that if Erdogan wins the government will be
able to implement an Islamic agenda without opposition
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/04/14/europe/EU-GEN-Turkey-Secularism.php
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070414/ap_on_re_mi_ea/turkey_march_1;_ylt=AqSaI0FBAEaTxjFARhuhFuftfLkA
(Netherlands) Dutch Human Rights Group Invites Hamas Terror Leader
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=25123&only&rsssmall
(UK) Judge apologizes for July 21 terror trial delay
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1652664.ece
Swedish intelligence confirms it visited terror suspects detained in
Ethiopia
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20070413-1427-sweden-ethiopia-detainees.html
(Columbia) FARC denies links to car bomb attack in southwest Colombia
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-04/14/content_5975258.htm
NYC Play Centers on Assassination of President
NYC Play Centers on Assassination of President
By Jeff McKay
CNSNews.com Correspondent
April 13, 2007
New York (CNSNews.com) - It may only be a 15-minute
play that is part of a series of one-act performances,
but one off-Broadway show is gaining a lot of
attention in New York City’s Theatre District: It
depicts the assassination of the president of the
United States.
The play “President and Man” will be shown for five
days starting this week as part of a production called
“Armed and Naked in America,” performed by the Naked
Angels Theater Company. Manhattan’s Duke Theater on
42nd Street calls the series of one-act plays
“blistering, provocative takes on the current state of
American politics and culture.”
The play, which stars Chris Sarandon as the commander
in chief, was written by Louis Cancelmi, who has been
quoted as saying his work does not mention President
Bush by name but depicts a leader in crisis. Sarandon
was once married to anti-war activist and actress
Susan Sarandon.
Cancelmi was not available to comment when contacted
by Cybercast News Service, but he did tell the New
York Daily News that his play is “about a president
who’s lost confidence in himself and who seems to have
lost confidence in the people he governs, and has
become paranoid about being gotten rid of, as it
were.”
In the short play, the character playing the president
is stabbed by his chief of staff.
“Plays and movies about killing a sitting president,
no matter what their politics, is stepping over the
line,” said Steve Malzberg, an award-winning
conservative talk show host.
“This is systematic of how the left deals with
issues,” he said. “When Bill Clinton was president,
there was never talk or movies or plays about
assassinating him by those who did not believe in his
policies.”
“I also blame the right for not speaking out,”
Malzberg said. “This play emulates the killing of a
president, which tarnishes the office and is wrong and
should not be tolerated. If there were [more media
reports on the play], I also believe the average
person would be against this.”
Outside of the play, some theatre-goers expressed the
view that there was nothing wrong with the play, even
if it depicts the killing of the president.
“I can understand if you were some right-wing wacko or
Bush fan that you might not like ‘President and Man,’”
said Cheryl Seibert of Manhattan. “In this
performance, the president faces crisis of judgment,
which describes the wars we are fighting. It was
tastefully done and very well performed. It’s
theatre.”
“I don’t understand the fuss. It’s just a
performance,” said Manhattan resident Narendar Singh.
Last year, a movie called “Death of a President” —
which depicted the assassination of President Bush
outside of a Chicago hotel — raised eyebrows and drew
criticism from many conservative groups.
http://tree-in-the-sea.blogspot.com/2007/04/nyc-play-centers-on-assassination-of.html
http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2007/04/article_russian_nuclear_forces.php
Article: Russian Nuclear Forces 2007
[Mobile SS-27 (Topol-M1) launch sequence]
At the beginning of 2007, Russia maintained approximately 5,600 operational nuclear warheads for delivery by ballistic missiles, aircraft, cruise missiles and torpedoes, according to the latest Nuclear Notebook published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The Russian Notebook, which is written by Hans M. Kristensen of FAS and Robert S. Norris of NRDC, breaks down the Russian arsenal into roughly 3,300 warheads for delivery by strategic weapon systems and 2,300 warheads for delivery by tactical systems.
In addition to operational warheads, the Notebook estimates that Russia has a stock of roughly 9,400 warheads intended as a reserve or awaiting dismantlement, for a total stockpile of approximately 15,000 warheads.
The Importance of START
The future of the START agreement could have a significant effect on the size and composition of Russia’s arsenal of deployed strategic warheads. If START is extended beyond 2009 and announced programs implemented, Russia’s arsenal of deployed strategic nuclear warheads will continue to decline to approximately 2,000 warheads by 2015 and roughly 1,800 warheads by 2030.
If START is allowed to expire in 2009, however, and Topol-M is equipped with three warheads (MIRVs, Multiple Independently Targeted Reentry Vehicles) each and missile production continues, then the arsenal will level out around 2,200 warheads in 2015 but could increase to some 2,300 warheads by 2030, depending on missile production rates (see figure below).
Russian Strategic Nuclear Warheads 2006-2030
The future of START will have a significant impact on the size of Russia’s arsenal of deployed strategic warheads. Beyond 2015, plans for the Russian force structure are uncertain. This projection assumes continued production of Topol-M at current level and up to six Borei-class SSBNs with 6 MIRVs per missile. The lower chart assumes up to 3 MIRVs on both silo and mobile Topol-M.
Col. Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov, the commander of the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces (SRF), declared in December that Russia will begin to substitute the single warheads on Topol-M ICBMs with multiple warheads after START expires in 2009. He did not specify if that includes both the silo-based and mobile Topol-Ms. If only the silo-based Topol M is MIRVed, then Russia would have 2,100 strategic warheads in 2015 and approximately 2,030 warheads deployed by 2030.
Russia might also decide that it doesn’t need to continue Topol-M production after 2015, but that would leave it with “only” 180 ICBMs, less than half of what the United States plans to have at that time. Since Russian planning also takes into consideration the Chinese posture, it is reasonable to assume continued ICBM production also after 2015. As a result, the future of START becomes very important.
“For us,” President Vladimir Putin said in May 2006, “this idea of maintaining the strategic balance will mean that our strategic deterrence forces must be capable of destroying any potential aggressor, no matter what modern weapons systems this aggressor possesses.”
A Need For Additional Arms Control
Russia is currently, like the United States, making the decisions that will shape the long-term size and composition of its nuclear forces. Seventeen years after the Cold War ended, those decisions are still closely tied to the size and composition of the U.S. nuclear posture.
Putin proposed in June 2006 that START be replaced with a new treaty, and warned that “the stagnation we see today in the area of disarmament is of particular concern.” But a U.S. decision may be delayed till after the presidential election in 2008.
The governments of both countries urgently need to articulate and decide on a new phase of arms control that will replace the open-ended nuclear planning of today with a framework for how to get to very low numbers with the medium-term goal of concluding the nuclear era.
Background: Russian Nuclear Forces 2007 | Status of World Nuclear Forces |
Posted by Hans Kristensen on April 13, 2007 12:00 PM |
http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2007/04/iraqs_looted_arms_depots_what.php
Iraq’s Looted Arms Depots: What the GAO Didn’t Mention
In a recent report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) attributes the looting of Iraq’s arms depots to the “ovewhelming size and number” of these depots and “prewar planning priorities and certain assumptions that proved to be invalid.” The report finds that the US military “did not adequately secure these [conventional munitions storage] sites during and immediately after the conclusion of major combat operations” and “did not plan for or set up a program to centrally manage and destroy enemy munitions until August 2003…” The munitions looted from Iraqi arsenals, claims the GAO, have been used extensively in the deadly improvised explosive device (IED) attacks that have become tragically commonplace in Iraq.
But the IED threat is only part of the story. Iraq’s arsenals were also brimming with shoulder-fired, surface-to-air missiles, thousands of which disappeared during the widespread looting of the regime’s numerous arms depots in 2003.
While estimates of Iraq’s pre-war shoulder-fired missile holdings vary, most agree that Saddam’s regime accumulated several thousand Soviet-designed SA-7, SA-14 and SA-16 missiles, including more than 3,000 that it looted from Kuwaiti arsenals in 1990. Thousands of these missiles disappeared from Iraqi arsenals during the looting.
Recognizing the particular threat posed by the loose MANPADS, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) established a buyback program that “has met varying degrees of success”, in the words of one Defense Department spokesman. While aggregate data on the number of missiles collected is not publicly available, information pieced together from media and government sources suggests that the program has recovered at least several hundred missiles; according to the New York Times, 317 missiles were collected from May through October 2003 alone. In one particularly noteworthy example, US soldiers at a collection point in Dohuk received over 200 SA-7 missiles from a single enterprising Iraqi, who bought them from other Iraqis and sold them to coalition forces for $250 apiece. Collection points in other parts of the country also received shoulder-fired missiles, albeit in smaller quantities. Raids on insurgent arms caches have yielded at least several dozen more.
Despite these efforts, many of Iraq’s shoulder-fired, surface-to-air missiles remain at large. In November 2004, analysts from the Defense Intelligence Agency estimated that 4000 of the missiles were still missing and, in turn, adjusted upward their estimate of black market manpads three-fold from 2000 to 6000. Given the demand for anti-aircraft weapons amongst Iraqi insurgents, most of the missiles are probably still in Iraq. Yet it is not inconceivable that some of these missiles have made their way into the international black market. In the hands of trained terrorists, these missiles, and particularly the more advanced SA-16s reportedly in Iraq’s arsenals, pose a grave threat to military aircraft and commercial airliners.
Recovering the remaining missiles will be a challenge, and it is not clear what more that the US and its allies in Iraq can do in this regard. The Army Corps of Engineers - the lead agency on ordnance destruction in Iraq - has already destroyed more than 400,000 tons of munitions (including 96 missiles),* secured over 340,000 additional tons, and continues to destroy roughly 200 tons of munitions discovered in large caches each month. Coalition and Iraqi troops are seizing and disposing of smaller arms caches almost daily, some of which contain MANPADS.**
While these efforts are all necessary, they are probably insufficient. The looted MANPADS are too widely dispersed and demand for them is too high to realistically expect the US military and the Iraqi government to locate and recover all of the missiles. What the US (and the rest of the international community) can do is take steps to prevent similar looting in the future. The GAO recommends that the Defense Department “incorporate conventional munitions storage site security as a strategic planning factor into all levels of planning policy and guidance...” This step - along with more troops, better overall planning, and more resources - would undoubtedly help the US military to better handle similar scenarios in the future. But even with proper planning and adequate Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) resources, it is doubtful that every arms depot in a country as saturated with weapons as Iraq could be located and secured in time.
Instead, the trick is to keep MANPADS out of the hands of weak, unstable, and aggressive governments in the first place. The Soviets sold thousands of MANPADS to Iraq in the 1980s despite its history of destabilizing military coups and Saddam Hussein’s demonstrated proclivity for international aggression and adventurism. The international community must guard against similar MANPADS build-ups by monitoring proposed sales to militaristic or unstable regimes and intervening to stop them if necessary. Reducing existing stockpiles of surplus and obsolete missiles is also important, particularly in weak and failing states. President Bush recently requested a significant increase in funding for the State Department program that secures and destroys such missiles. This increase, along with proactive monitoring of potentially problematic missile transfers, would be a cost effective way to prevent future MANPADS crises like the one in Iraq.
* Information about the type of missiles destroyed is classified and therefore it is unclear how many (if any) of the munitions secured or destroyed by the Army Corps of Engineers were MANPADS.
** The status of CPA’s MANPADS buyback program is unclear. Budget data from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction reveals that the amount of disbursements has slowed significantly over the past couple years, although it is not clear what it means. The decline could indicate a preciptious drop-off in the number of missiles collected or that funding for missile buybacks is now coming from another account. Without more information from the US miilitary, it is impossible to tell. The FAS has submitted several requests for additional information and will update this posting with information from any responses.
Photo: huge weapons cache discovered in Northern Iraq on 22 November 2004. The cache contained, among other weapons, 15,000 antiaircraft rounds, 4,600 hand grenades, and 25 SA-7 surface-to-air missiles. Source: Army News Service (http://www4.army.mil/ocpa/uploads/large/Cache22004-11-22.jpgz0
Sources:
DOD Should Apply Lessons Learned Concerning the Need for Security over Conventional Munitions Storage Sites to Future Operations Planning, U.S. Government Accountability Office, GAO-07-444, March 2007.
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, “Register of the trade and licensed production of major conventional weapons, 1950-2004.”
Report of the Secretary-General on the Return of Kuwaiti Property Seized by Iraq, 11 March 1994.
“The Struggle for Iraq: Missing Weapons; U.S. Cant Locate Missiles Once Held in Arsenal of Iraq,” New York Times, 8 October 2003.
“Civilians turn in missiles, soldiers pick up to destroy,” Iraqi Destiny, 16 October 2003.
“US Expands List of Lost Missiles,” New York Times, 6 November 2004.
Coalition Munitions Clearance (CMC) Summary, Information Paper, US Army Corps of Engineers
Corps makes Iraq a safer place to live and work, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Support Center
Correspondence with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Public Affairs officer, 3 April 2007.
The Small Arms Trade, Oneworld Publications, 2006. See pp. 115-117.
Posted by Matt Schroeder on April 9, 2007 12:00 PM |
SPIEGEL ONLINE - April 12, 2007, 05:48 PM
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,476324,00.html
AL-QAIDA RELOADED
Five Years After 9/11, Bin Laden’s Network Is Back
By Yassin Musharbash
As Western intelligence agencies are discovering, al-Qaida is by no means finished. Training camps have reappeared in Afghanistan and now in Pakistan, as Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network regains its strength.
The news is alarming. US and French intelligence agencies are convinced that terrorist network Al-Qaida has reorganized, and even that it has developed new training camps, both in Afghanistan and the remote tribal regions of northern Pakistan. They believe that a new generation of terrorists has come of age, and some are suspected of planning attacks in the West.
Photo Gallery: Students of Jihad
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Click on a picture to launch the image gallery (16 Photos)
Five and a half years have passed since Sept. 11, 2001 and the beginning of the war against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The physical presence of Osama bin Laden’s network was largely destroyed at the time, with the terrorist camps which had trained an estimated 20,000 men quickly reduced to rubble. Two years ago, the White House crowed that two-thirds of Al-Qaida’s leadership had been eliminated. “We’re winning,” US President George W. Bush claimed recently. “Al-Qaida is on the run.”
But are they really on the run? Of course, there can be no doubt that the network no longer has nearly the capacity it had when it organized 9/11. But the attempts to reorganize are obvious, and the new camps are an indication that the efforts have been successful. According to Time magazine, each of the camps has the capacity to train between 10 and 300 jihadists. “We know they exist, but it’s like finding a needle in a haystack,” the magazine quotes a US military official in Afghanistan as saying.
The border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan, Major General Michael D. Maples of the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) recently said, is “a refuge for al-Qaida.” The Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, agrees, calling the region a “deployment zone for the new al-Qaida.” Indeed, a German who planned to travel to Waziristan recently attracted the attention of German authorities.
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The CIA and US Vice President Dick Cheney have already made their concerns clear to the Pakistani government of President Pervez Musharraf. To back up their claims, they brought along marked-up maps. Not much is visible on the black-and-white images at first glance. However the maps show small but significant settlements — the camps US intelligence believes are al-Qaida’s new training facilities are often little more than farm-like structures that usually consist of two or three houses surrounded by high walls.
Islamabad has always had trouble controlling the so-called “tribal areas” where the camps are located. Tribal leaders operate here as they please and offer shelter to members of al-Qaida and the Taliban. Although some US military officials are already discussing air attacks on Pakistani territory without Musharraf’s approval, those who prefer not to undermine the authority of the country’s military leader any further still have the upper hand at the Pentagon. “We believe they could do more,” new US Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said bluntly in February, referring to the US’s Pakistani allies.
Al-Qaida’s coming home
Al-Qaida has proven to be extremely robust in recent years. The network’s reaction to the war in Afghanistan came in the form of two decisions. The veterans, Bin Laden ordered, were to return to their home countries and continue the organization’s work from there. Terrorism experts dubbed the phenomenon “al-Qaida comes home,” in an effort to make sense of the network’s sudden presence virtually everywhere, as attacks in places from Bali to Madrid and Riyadh to London showed.
INTERACTIVE MAP
Al- Qaida Reloaded: SPIEGEL ONLINE presents the most important new nodes in the international jihadist network.
SPIEGEL ONLINE
The second reaction was to open up the network to its sympathizers. Al-Qaida leaders made it clear that all the organization’s supporters should feel free to commit acts of terror in the name of the network, and they provided both the ideology and the necessary know-how.
Although it acknowledged both reactions with horror, the Western world was convinced about one thing: that at least al-Qaida’s former headquarters had been wiped out.
But apparently al-Qaida was also capable of finding ways to revitalize itself in this respect. A whole new generation of al-Qaida fighters has moved up the ranks, intelligence services warn.
Ayman al-Zawahri, bin Laden’s second-in-command, could be pulling more strings than was previously believed. According to CIA agents operating in Pakistan, the Egyptian has the capability to respond to inquiries from other field commanders within 24 hours. “The days of rigorous caution seem to be over, and men like Al-Zawahri are becoming more self-confident,” a Western intelligence official recently said in Islamabad. In one case intelligence agents even intercepted instructions on how to deal with prisoners. “The chain of command has been re-established,” the New York Times quotes a US official as saying.
It was the investigations that followed on the heels of terrorist attacks in the West that brought the intelligence agencies to the conclusion that al-Qaida must have more organizational structures than previously believed. Last summer, Islamists planned to blow up several passenger aircraft en route from London to the United States. The plan was thwarted, but the tracks led, for the first time in a long while, back to a known al-Qaida heavyweight. According to the New York Times, Egyptian Abu Ubaidah al-Masri is viewed as a key figure in the planned attack. He is considered a possible successor to Hamza Rabia, the al-Qaida operations chief who was killed in 2005 and was already the fourth successor of the legendary Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Other known al-Qaida cadres are beginning to resurface. They act as liaisons in Iran, travel frequently back and forth between Iraq and Pakistan to exchange information or regularly cross the border into Afghanistan.
No one assumes that al-Qaida is as well organized today as it was before 9/11, when there were paychecks, memos from bin Laden and regulated vacation periods. Even the new camps are not comparable to the terrorist schools of days gone by. But there is a clear trend nonetheless.
There are too many uncontrolled areas for al-Qaida to be driven completely out of the region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The organization is relatively safe there, and Western intelligence services believe that some of its members are busy developing new international attack scenarios.
Berlin-based terrorism expert Guido Steinberg of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) also recognizes a “clear trend toward reorganization.” But he does point out that it is not clear how close the ties between certain named individuals and al-Qaida are.
Steinberg does not see a new al-Qaida headquarters developing. “If there is reorganization, it will take a new form,” he believes. In his view, the most recent developments can best be described as a “Pakistanization of al-Qaida.” Steinberg notes that the importance of Pakistani militant groups has grown tremendously in recent years. For example, the July 7, 2005 London subway and bus bombings and the prevented attacks of July 21, 2005 were traced back to Pakistan. “There is a Pakistani terror infrastructure and there are Pakistani volunteers,” says Steinberg. “What is new is that al-Qaida is taking advantage of this.”
The London connection does appear to be turning into an important one for Islamist terrorism. Britons, the New York Times reports, are increasingly being accepted into Pakistani military camps. US intelligence czar Mike McConnell recently conceded that attacks against the West are most likely being planned in Pakistan.
Winning by not losing
Steinberg believes nonetheless that the history of the revival of al-Qaida in Pakistan is not as clear-cut as some believe. But his argument is no less disconcerting.
He points out that Algerian jihadists, for example, recently changed the name of their organization to “Al-Qaida in the Islamic West” — another indication that bin Laden’s network is still viable. Steinberg believes that al-Qaida attacks on Europe could just as easily be planned in North Africa as they are in Pakistan.
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According to reports in the pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat, French intelligence agencies share the same concerns, and they are worried that jihadists in Algeria or Morocco could be planning to use the presidential election slated for May to stage a spectacular attack modeled after the 2004 Madrid train bombings, which also took place shortly before an election and, as predicted by al-Qaida strategists, led to a change in government and Spain’s withdrawal from Iraq. Like Germany, France has troops stationed in Afghanistan. Wednesday’s bomb attack in Algiers is further proof of al-Qaida’s resurgence in North Africa.
In a recent interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, American terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman, in light of developments that are becoming increasingly clear, said: “Al-Qaida is more dangerous than it was on 9/11.”
But Berlin expert Steinberg favors a more sober way of looking at the situation, although even that isn’t exactly reassuring. “Al-Qaida,” says Steinberg, “has demonstrated that it cannot simply be extinguished. That in itself is a triumph — because terrorists only need not to lose in order to win.”
© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2007
Related SPIEGEL ONLINE links:
Terrorism in Europe: Bin Laden’s Eurofighters (04/11/2007)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,476680,00.html
Interactive Map: Al- Qaida Reloaded
http://www.spiegel.de/flash/0,5532,15076,00.html
Photo Gallery: The Students of Jihad
http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/0,5538,20718,00.html
Violence in the Maghreb: Al- Qaida Claims Responsibility for Algeria Attacks (04/11/2007)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,476609,00.html
Terrorism in Germany: Failed Bomb Plot Seen As Al- Qaida Initiation Test (04/09/2007)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,476238,00.html
SPIEGEL Interview with the Head of Germany’s Foreign Intelligence Agency: ‘Guantanamo Sends the Wrong Signal to the Muslim World’ (04/04/2007)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,475676,00.html
Interview with Terrorism Expert Bruce Hoffman: “Al- Qaida is More Dangerous Than it Was on 9/11” (10/10/2006)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,441695,00.html
http://www.cfr.org/publication/13091/venezuelas_oil_gambit.html?breadcrumb=%2F
Venezuela’s Oil Gambit
Venezuela’s Oil Gambit
Clouds loom over the future of U.S.-Venezuelan oil trade. (AP)
April 13, 2007
Prepared by:
Lee Hudson Teslik
Years of threats and bluster over the operations of U.S. and European oil companies in Venezuela turned more serious this month as President Hugo Chavez set a May 1 deadline (NYT) for nationalizing several major foreign petroleum projects. Chavez’s announcement prompted fear from oil executives, but many analysts say the move could be even more disastrous for Venezuela itself.
Chavez says he intends to return control of Venezuela’s oil fields to the Venezuelan government, and their profits to the country’s people. He claims that by prioritizing local markets, Venezuela will be able to guarantee Latin America energy (Bloomberg) for at least the next hundred years. He is also courting a new wave of potential import markets. Most notable among these is China, which Chavez says will soon surpass the United States (MercoPress) as Venezuela’s largest crude oil customer.
Chavez plans to nationalize foreign-operated oil projects under Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). It’s unclear precisely what the effect will be on PDVSA. The company is already stretched thin, given Chavez’s habit of giving ideologically motivated oil handouts to peoples across the North and South American continents. Reports indicate PRVSA pays a considerable competitive price (AP) because of these handouts. Further consolidation under PDVSA’s umbrella could make things even worse for the company. The Economist’s Free Exchange blog predicts unhappy consequences: “The expropriation will almost certainly see a considerable outmigration of talent and capital from the fields, and PDVSA is already underinvesting in its current properties in order to divert money to social spending.”
Chavez’s desire to expand his regional influence looms behind his oil-market maneuverings. The broader question, then, is what effect an oil showdown might have on U.S.-Venezuelan discord. U.S. officials bristle at Chavez’s taunts, and many analysts, including CFR Senior Fellow Julia E. Sweig, say the purpose of President Bush’s five-country tour of Latin America in March was to counter Venezuela’s growing influence in the region. This CFR Special Report suggests the United States should temper its rhetoric toward Venezuela, but Chavez’s continued provocations could make that a tall order.
So too could basic economics. Despite U.S. efforts to cut back on America’s appetite for Venezuelan crude, the United States still imports about 60 percent of the oil it uses, and Caracas is its fifth-largest supplier, sending just under one million barrels of oil to the United States every day. Bush has launched efforts to expand alternative energy sources, but a recent CFR Task Force report says oil will be a hard habit for America to break. As CFR’s Roger Kubarych put it in this Backgrounder on America’s energy sources: “The only way to cut near-term oil demand is to drive the economy into recession, put on a punishing tax, or ration gasoline. None of these things is going to be done.”
http://www.upi.com/Energy/Analysis/2007/04/13/analysis_uranium_price_surge_to_continue/
Analysis: Uranium price surge to continue
RSS Feed - Energy - Analysis
Published: April 13, 2007 at 2:54 PM
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By BEN LANDO
UPI Energy Correspondent
WASHINGTON, April 13, 2007 (UPI) — The price of uranium has jumped nearly 19 percent since April 2 in a rush led by supply instability, constant and planned increase in demand, and investors looking to gobble up supply before the price spikes again.
The nuclear industry isn’t worried its fuel stock will price them out of competition with other electricity generators, however, and the mining industry is reaping the new incentive to dig for more, which would loosen the belt in the current tight market.
But a significant amount of expected supply is being delayed from entering the market after flooding in the world’s largest mines, and experts say the price will continue to rise.
Water poured into Cameco Corp.’s Cigar Lake mine in Saskatchewan last April and October. Because of the flooding, the uranium mine will be closed for some time, and it’s going to keep an estimated 18 million tons of uranium from getting to the market for another three years, according to Nuclear Engineering International. Worldwide production of uranium is about 100 million pounds annually.
continued............
[Again today]
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/04/14/suicide_bombers_hit_casablanca/
Published: April 14, 2007 at 9:14 AM
Suicide bombers hit Casablanca
CASABLANCA, Morocco, April 14, 2007 (UPI) — Two suicide bombers blew themselves up at a cafe in Casablanca, Moroccan officials reported Saturday.
The two men died instantly and one woman was injured when the bombs exploded near an American cultural center, the BBC reported.
continued.......
http://www.aina.org/news/20070413154603.htm
Assyrian International News Agency
Iran, Syria Using Hezbollah to Step Up Tension in Lebanon
Posted GMT 4-13-2007 20:46:3
Beirut — Iranian threats to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty in response to the continued international pressures on it, its declaration that it has moved to an advanced stage in enriching uranium, and the escalatory stances announced by Hezbollah Secretary General with respect to the Lebanese dialogue, the international tribunal, and the four arrested officers, are two sides of the same coin notwithstanding Hezbollah’s denials that its stances were being shaped by potential regional developments.
The ongoing war of wills between Iran and the rest of the world are by all means affecting the threads tying together Tehran and its ally, Damascus, who are both fighting the ‘same battle’.
The strongest proof of this was Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s declaration that a US war on Iran would mean ‘another world, another nation, another set of balances, calculations and side-taking’ in Lebanon.
If indeed the stances assumed by Tehran stand to make any sense to Iran and the policies laid down by its hard line leaderships ever since it was secretly planning to join the nuclear club, while it sought cover in Muhammad Khatami’s moderate and open-to-dialogue character, then, what could explain the decision by its agent in Lebanon to embark on the sort of sharp escalation that revealed that Hezbollah no longer gives any weight to even the formalities it once resorted to in order to conceal its true convictions and be able to sell its demands?
The Riyadh Summit could be viewed as one more, and perhaps the last, test of the Syrian intentions, particularly in Lebanon. It is a test that is a part of a broader Arab assemblage, which opened a door for its return to the most rudimentary ideals of Arab solidarity.
Syria, however, chose to return to this solidarity only verbally, without providing any tangible proof to its acceptance of producing any shift in its policies starting, as a prerequisite, with Lebanon.
Damascus also failed to return to its old methods of exploiting regional and international inconsistencies to its advantage, and moving back and forth between the regional and international arenas whenever it felt the expediency, because the fundamental changes of policy demanded from it entails its acceptance of the international tribunal and dropping its opposition to it, whereas it views the same as a direct threat to its regime.
With the emergence of more voices in support of the eventuality of imposing this international legal body under the UN Security Council mechanism to circumvent the forcefully inactive Lebanese institutions; Damascus’ only remaining option seems to lie in attempting to attack the very concept at the core of the international investigation in the assassination of Hariri, namely, by not recognizing even the preliminary results of this investigation.
This is perhaps what Nasrallah intended to say when he criticized the aim of the court as attempting to lay down the framework for pre-decided verdicts, and his demands for the release of the four officers under arrest.
A second source of concern for Damascus and Hezbollah lies in the progress being made in the Shebaa farms file and the possibility of a UN sanctioning of demands by the Fouad Siniora government to return these farms to Lebanon, following an Israeli withdrawal or its placement under an interim international mandate. This constitutes a source of embarrassment for Syria, which, to until this day, is refusing to recognize the Lebanese identity of these farms, and the demarcation of the borders with Lebanon in this particular area.
This was also the reason for Hassan Nasrallah’s declaration that his Party’s possession of arms is not subject to reclaiming the farms, nor to the issue of the prisoners, which is shrouded in silence, and is not likely to be revived by Israel in the foreseeable future.
This may have also been the reason for Nasrallah’s threats to wage a ‘long campaign’ against ‘those who are trying to transfer Lebanon completely to the US’ side’, which by extension means that the resistance’s arms are aimed against the US, not just against Israel, and that the standoff will be tied to the US’ standoff with Iran, which could drag on for decades.
Both Iran and Syria have come to realize that their wager on ‘reaping the fruits’ of the US predicament in Iraq was premature and unjustified, as international sanctions against Iran are being intensified are candidate for further intensification in the near future.
Both countries have also come to realize that the diplomatic visits to Damascus have not succeeded in easing neither in form, nor in content, the intensity of the international demands on Syria.
At the same time, the US and European declared policies with respect to the region’s files are not expected to change in the foreseeable future, which was perhaps the reasons that led Syria and Iran to step up the tension in Lebanon; the main arena of the negotiations.
Picture: Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah ( L ) , Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ( C) , Syrian president Bashar el Assad
By Hassan Haydar
Al-Hayat
http://www.aina.org/news/20070413103632.htm
Assyrian International News Agency
Assad’s Desperate Moves
Posted GMT 4-13-2007 15:36:32
Washington — The extreme swings that the Syrian foreign policy is subjected to by an Assad regime unable to have a grip on reality demonstrates to what extent the isolation policy of the US has succeeded. From waging a proxy war on Israel via Hezbollah in the summer of 2006 to sending an unofficial emissary to Jerusalem to seek peace, nine months later, is an indication of how desperate Assad has become in the face of adversity mostly of his own making.
But in the last two weeks, there is a critical momentum taking shape at the regional and international levels that must not be discounted now that Israel told Assad to take a hike. It started the day Assad had his meeting with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at the end of March in which Abdullah told Assad in no uncertain terms that he must cooperate with the international tribunal into the killings of one of their own sons Rafik Hariri. Assad reportedly told Abdullah that he needed two weeks to respond but no such response was forthcoming as is expected from an Assad bent on dictating his terms. April 10’s letter to the UN by the prime minister of Lebanon Fouad Siniora in which the Lebanese legitimate government is seeking a UN mandated international tribunal governed by Chapter Seven is the regional Arab response to Assad’s lack of cooperation.
On the surface, Assad is more under siege than ever before because he has just been told off by Israel, Pelosi’s trip caused such an uproar that Assad is realizing it makes Pelosi an unreliable partner in splitting the US government to dictate his terms, and the regional Arab mood, now led by a determined Abdullah, has just announced its verdict with Siniora’s letter to the UN.
But do not discount a violent man. Assad’s next desperate move is more of the same the region has experienced in the last seven years: more violence to pressure the Arab countries and the international community to accept his terms, which by the way includes governing Lebanon, an oil agreement with Iraq that would save the Syrian economy, and the Golan Heights to immortalize him.
We predict that Assad will mobilize three organizations in the next few weeks. One Hezbollah al-Magharbi that was confirmed by an Algerian member of parliament named Abdul Rahman al-Soueidi, which operates out of Germany. Germany, aware of Assad’s danger, is trying to cushion the damage by appeasing him with gifts and aid.
Next Assad will attack Lebanon by killing another rising politician and as a goodbye gift to president Chirac of France some French UNIFIL stationed under a UN mandate in Lebanon to insure the implementation of UN Resolution 1701 barring arms transfers to Hezbollah. Assad will use recently discovered assets in northern Lebanon trained for acts of terrorism.
In line with what we expect from one of the most violent dictators ever, Assad will also activate Hezbollah to re-ignite civil strife in the hopes that the expected visit to Damascus on April 24 by Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary General of the UN, will persuade the timid UN to back off from the implementation of the international tribunal as its UNIFIL forces and the Lebanese government get a taste of the Assad regime legacy. The violence in Lebanon will possibly start on that April 24 as is the habit of the Assad regime to send the clearest of signals.
All these are predictions of course. However, given the Syrian opposition intimate history of the Assad family whether the destruction of Hama in 1982 and the killing of 20,000 Hamayan citizens (The number will only be known once Syria comes to grip with its black history under the Assads) at the hands of Rifaat and Hafez al-Assad or the much younger Baschar whose hands are dripping with Syrian, American, Lebanese, Iraqi, Israeli and soon European blood, we expect nothing less from a desperate Assad now looking at the hangman’s rope.
By Farid Ghadry
Reform Party of Syria
http://www.rand.org/publications/randreview/issues/spring2007/pacific.html
Keeping the Pacific
An American Response to China’s Growing Military Might
By Roger Cliff, Evan Medeiros, and Keith Crane
Roger Cliff and Evan Medeiros are RAND political scientists. Cliff specializes in China’s military strategy, China’s science and technology, and U.S. defense policy in the Asia-Pacific region. Medeiros focuses on China’s national security policy, its military and defense industrial affairs, and U.S.-China relations. Keith Crane is a RAND economist who focuses on defense and international economics.
If the U.S. military does not continue to upgrade its technological capabilities, China could challenge the United States for military dominance in East Asia by 2020. As of today, China’s military and rapidly advancing defense industries are focused on finding ways to defeat the United States in the event of a conflict between the two countries, the most likely one being over Taiwan.
continued....
Rise and fall of navies
BY PAUL KENNEDY
14 April 2007
TO WORLD historians, there is nothing more fascinating than to notice a coincidence or a disjuncture across space but within roughly the same time.
Was it just a coincidence, for example, that the new but fast-growing states of Germany, Japan, Italy and the United States “came of age” at the same time, after 1870 or so? And wasn’t it an odd disjuncture that the political culture in Britain, France and America in the interwar years was so pacifist, whereas the mood in Germany, Italy and Japan was so aggressive and militarist, virtually making the Second World War inevitable?
Then go back in time and consider one of the oddest disjunctures in world history. In the very first decades of the 15th century, the great Chinese admiral Cheng Ho led a series of amazing maritime expeditions to the outer world, through the Straits of Malacca, into the Indian Ocean, across even to the eastern shores of Africa. Nothing at that time compared with China’s surface navy.
Yet, within another decade, the overseas ventures had been scrapped by high officials in Beijing, anxious not to divert resources away from meeting the Manchu landward threat in the north and about how a seaward-bound open-market society might undermine their authority.
Coincidentally, on the other side of the globe, explorers and fishermen from Portugal, Galicia, Brittany and southwest England were pushing out, across to Newfoundland, the Azores, the western shores of Africa.
While China’s great fleets were being dismantled by imperial order, Western Europe was beginning to move into “new” worlds, full of ancient and remarkable peoples and cultures, in the Americas, Africa, Asia and the Pacific. Any place vulnerable to Western naval and military power was at risk. Above all, as the American naval captain A T Mahan taught us over a century ago in his classic book, “The Influence of Sea Power Upon History” (1890), the West valued navies as the key to global influence.
So let us come forward to today’s complex, fragmented and hard-to-understand world. There is occurring, most interestingly — and not covered (so far as I can see) by any of the world’s main media outlets — another remarkable global disjuncture at work. And it involves, as it did six centuries ago, massive differences in the assumptions of European nations and Asian nations about the significance of sea power, today and into the future.
Let me make clear that I am not talking here about American (and especially current White House) attitudes regarding naval power. This country, with a relative maritime force-projection capacity that probably exceeds that of the Royal Navy in 1815, is not planning to do anything other than reinforce its naval muscle.
I am also not talking about Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The Russian Navy has suffered many hard blows, severe cutbacks in spending and personnel, and the obsolescence of rusting warships over the past 25 years. But there is no doubt that it is rebuilding. It may not be able to come to the relative strength of the Soviet Navy in its heyday, the 1970s and 1980s. Yet Russia truly believes that it has to be strong at sea, or fail as a player in world affairs.
So, too, do the governments of the fast-growing economies of East and South Asia. On two recent visits to South Korea, both times to give lectures about maritime-strategic affairs, I was intrigued to notice that its government had a 15-year plan for the expansion of its maritime power in all dimensions, including military capacities.
Right now, for example, South Korea is constructing three large and impressive destroyers that displace more than 7,000 tons and possess extremely powerful armaments — clearly, these are not designed to stop little North Korean submarines from sneaking down the coastline!
But, as the Koreans will point out, their much more powerful neighbour Japan is in the midst of an even greater naval build-up. The authoritative 2006 publication “The Military Balance” (produced by The International Institute for Strategic Studies) records that the Japanese Navy includes 54 “principal surface combatants” - that is, destroyers and frigates, warships that possess guns, missiles, torpedoes and depth charges.
The Japanese, however, will point to the extremely rapid build-up of the Chinese Navy, which already deploys 71 destroyers and frigates, not to mention 58 submarines (compared with Japan’s 18 subs).
Yet the Chinese naval build-up is only in its early stages, like, say, the U.S. Navy was in the 1890s. Just last month the Congressional Research Service, a body not known for hyperbole or dramatic statement, issued a remarkable 95-page report entitled “China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities.” The details are extensive, and look impressive. Perhaps the most important facts are tucked into the first footnote: “By 2010, China’s submarine force will be nearly double the size of the US submarine fleet. The entire Chinese naval fleet is projected to surpass the size of the US fleet by 2015.”
We should note that this quotation actually comes from the American Shipbuilders Association, with its very distinct interests in this matter. And it is hard to believe that the US government would let such a dramatic shift in the naval balances ever come to pass. But one cannot gainsay the important fact that everyone in Asia, apparently, believes that it is vital to enhance maritime power. Even a smallish power like Vietnam is, according to “The Military Balance,” increasing “defence spending significantly during the current decade, with the navy receiving substantial infusions of new equipment.”
But now let us return to the European scene. Here the trend seems to be in the opposite direction, with naval budgets being held down and (give the inexorable rise in the cost of weapons systems and personnel) actual fleet sizes being reduced. The most publicised case here is the news that the Royal Navy may be planning to “mothball” many of its fleet of destroyers and frigates (which, being only 25 in number, is now less than half of Japan’s total).
Angry Conservative members of Parliament are demanding a parliamentary debate on the fact that UK defence expenditures represent a smaller percentage of GDP than at any time since the 1930s - and we all know what that implies. Those critics appear even more outraged that the French Navy nowadays possesses more major surface combatants than Britain for the first time in 250 years.
Still, France’s naval budget is not rising by very much, and the fellow navies of Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands are also being held in check. Yet nobody in Europe, so far as I can see, is paying any attention to the naval arms race going on in Asia. And nobody in Asia is paying any attention to the severe retrenchments of maritime power that are going on in Europe.
This leads to an obvious, final question: What do naval strategic planners in the one continent assume about the future of the world that the planners in the second continent do not? Why is Chinese public television showing programmes about the rise of Elizabeth the First’s navy at the same time that the British Ministry of Defence is mothballing or scrapping warships with names that go back over 400 years?
Armchair strategists will rush in with many answers to that question: for example, that Asia is more likely to see interstate conflicts in the future than Western Europe, China is determined to curb US strategic hegemony in the western Pacific and everyone else is scared of China’s military build-up, and in any case these faster-growing economies can afford both guns and butter. All of that may be true. But the plain fact remains that, in an age of great geopolitical uncertainties, the leading European nations are ignoring the ancient Elizabethan caution: “Look to thy Moat.” Can that really be wise?
Paul Kennedy is the J. Richardson Professor of History and the director of International Security Studies at Yale University. His most recent book is The Parliament of Man, about the United Nations.
US embassy warns of possible Algiers attacks
(AP)
14 April 2007
ALGIERS - Attackers may be planning to strike in Algiers on Saturday, three days after twin suicide bombs killed 33 people in the Algerian capital, the US embassy said citing what it called unconfirmed information.
In a warden notice issued to US expatriates in the early hours of Saturday, the embassy said:
”According to unconfirmed information, there may be attacks planned for April 14, 2007 in areas that may include the Algiers Central Post Office located in Rue Emir El Khettabi, and Algerian State Television Headquarters (ENTV), located on Boulevard des Martyrs, among others.”
The embassy added it would be open for business as usual on Saturday but would be restricting the movements of its staff in light of the information it had received.
Two suicide bomb attacks killed 33 people and wounded more than 200 in the port city on Wednesday, raising fears that the north African country might return to the intense political violence that gripped the country in the 1990s.
Algeria descended into bloodshed in 1992 after the then military-backed authorities scrapped a parliamentary election which an Islamist political party was set to win. Up to 200,000 people were killed in the ensuing years of bloodshed.
That violence subsided in recent years following amnesties for insurgents, but rumbles on in mountains east of Algiers.
The Al Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s bombings, believed to have been the country’s first suicide car bomb attacks.
The claim could not immediately be verified but the group has taken responsibility for several deadly attacks on police, troops and foreigners in recent months.
The organisation is made up of guerrillas based mostly in the Kabylie region east of the capital where the government is still trying to assert its grip. A section of the organisation is active in the country’s Saharan south.
Formerly known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) until it changed its name in January, it has shifted its strategy in recent months towards spectacular bombings in public places in towns and away from hit and run attacks on police in rural areas.
Interior Minister Nourredine Yazid Zerhouni has said the aim of the suicide blasts may have been to disrupt parliamentary polls due on May 17 and torpedo efforts to put a definite end to years of conflict between the army and Islamist rebels.
Iran seeks talks with US House speaker Pelosi
(AFP)
13 April 2007
TEHERAN - A top MP said on Friday the Teheran parliament would favour talks with US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after her controversial visit to Iran’s ally Syria, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.
“We are ready for talks with US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi,” said Mohammad Nabi Rudaki, deputy head of the influential national security commission in Iran’s conservative-dominated parliament.
“Parliamentary talks can discuss bilateral problems and bring US, European and Iranian nations closer. They could also consider Iran’s peaceful nuclear issues,” he said.
But Rudaki added that “this willingness does not mean a resumption of political ties with the occupying and bullying US government.”
Pelosi’s office said on Wednesday she had no intention of visiting Iran after a top US lawmaker signalled she might be interested in doing so.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos said after accompanying Pelosi to Damascus to meet Syrian President Bashar al-Assad amid stiff White House opposition that he had tried for more than 10 years to get a visa for Iran.
Teheran and Washington have had no diplomatic ties since Islamist revolutionaries raided the US embassy in Iran in 1979 and held staff hostage for 444 days.
The US is spearheading an international campaign to thwart Iran enriching uranium, which it alleges to be a cover for weapons development. Teheran denies the charges, saying its nuclear programme is for purely peaceful purposes.
PLO acts to contain Islamists in Lebanon camp
(AFP)
14 April 2007
BEIRUT - The Palestine Liberation Organisation has adopted measures to “isolate” Fatah Al Islam, an Islamist grouping blamed for deadly bombings in Lebanon, the PLO representative in Beirut said.
“We are attempting to isolate Fatah Al Islam because we do not want the Palestinians to be perceived as an element of instability in Lebanon,” Abbas Ziki told AFP in an interview on Friday.
Last month, Lebanese Interior Minister Hassan Sabeh said detained members of Fatah Al Islam had admitted carrying out bus bombings in a mountain village on February 13 that killed three people.
But Fatah Al Islam, a small grouping which first came to be known last November and which is based in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr Al Bared in northern Lebanon, has denied any involvement in the attacks,
Ziki said Lebanese authorities were holding 15 members of the Islamist grouping over the bus attacks.
Outlining the steps being taken, Ziki said the PLO military and political factions were determined to contain Fatah Al Islam, although without resorting to violence.
“We have named a new military command, created a joint intervention force and released funds,” said Ziki.
He said the measures involve close PLO cooperation with the Lebanese armed forces which do not have access to the camps that are controlled by Palestinian armed factions.
Ziki said the funds are “a financial assistance for the people of Nahr Al Bared and the reactivation of medical and social services” in a bid to counter the growing Islamist wave in the camp.
“They (Islamists) are attracting young people by using enormous financial means, they are teaching them how to handle arms at a time when the Palestinian Authority is facing a financial blockade,” he said.
“We want to cut the grass under the feet of the Islamists,” he said.
“Poverty has spread in the camps... and the refugees are deprived of their most elementary civic and human rights,” said Ziki.
Lebanon has been shaken by a spate of political violence over the past three years, notably a series of assassinations targeting figures opposed to the country’s once-dominant neighbour Syria. Lebanese authorities say Fatah Al Islam is manipulated by Syrian intelligence services.
The Islamist grouping denies links with the Al Qaeda international terror network, although its leaders have said that the two groups “follow the same (religious) line and methodology.”
The bus bombings “have stirred bad memories and we have all understood that Fatah Al Islam wants to harm civil peace in Lebanon and disturb the new-found harmony between the Palestinians and the Lebanese,” Ziki said.
Ziki reopened the PLO office in Beirut in 2006 after it had been closed since the 1982 Israeli invasion.
The PLO had established a “state within a state” in Lebanon from 1969 until the Israeli invasion of the country in 1982, at the height of the Lebanese civil war.
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