Monday's Winds of War: 6 Mar 2006

Welcome! Our goal at Winds of Change.NET is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from the global War on Terror that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday. Monday's Winds of War briefings are given by Security Watchtower and Peace Like a River.

Top Topics

• Iran has threatened to press ahead with industrial-scale uranium enrichment if its nuclear work is referred to the UN Security Council. Nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said Iran would "pursue its own path" if the US and its allies "want to use force". The IAEA will meet today in Vienna over the issue. Can the West get Iran to back down short of military force being deployed?

• The Senate on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to renew the USA Patriot Act. The House is expected to add its blessing this week, sending the bill to Bush for signing before the extension runs out.

• Pakistani officials say at least 50 pro-Taliban militants and five Pakistani soldiers have been killed in one of the heaviest clashes near the border with Afghanistan. A military statement says the security forces retaliated after militants attacked army and paramilitary camps from three directions with rockets and small and heavy arms. The Counterterrorism Blog points out an analysis by Alexis Debat discussing why Al Qaeda is so at home in Pakistan.

• On Thursday, security forces in Bangladesh captured Shayek Abdur Rahman, the terrorist leader of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen during a raid in the city of Sylhet. Rahman led the outlawed Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, which along with another Islamic group, Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh, has been accused of waging a violent campaign for the introduction of Islamic sharia law in Bangladesh, a mainly Muslim democracy. The bombings in Bangladesh have killed at least 30 people, including two judges, and wounded 150 since August 2005.

Other topics today include: Olmert hints at West Bank withdrawal; Bombing in Iran; Israeli special forces; Iran's holocaust conference; al Qaeda in Gaza; Syria shuts down human rights center; Hamas defiant; Shi'ite in Yemen released; Palestinian rocket attacks; Counterterrorism in Yemen; US assessing Lebanese military; Congressional scrutiny of NSA program; More on Dubai port deal; Lodi trial; Able Danger; Clashes in Columbia; Firefight in Chechnya; Russia rolling back democracy; Bush's visit to Asia; Attacks in Afghanistan; Guantanamo detainee list; Heightened security in Australia; North Korea demands border be redrawn; Soviets ordered hit on Pope; Raids north of Belfast; Pardons in Algeria; Libya releases detainees; Violence in Darfur; Zawahiri tape; and more.

Iran & the Middle East

• Israel's acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert plans more unilateral West Bank withdrawals if his party wins the general election, a key aide has said. Former security chief Avi Dichter said settlers will be relocated to major settlement blocs and Israel will define its final borders within four years. Olmert also spoke about the Iranian threat, and declared they must take "all necessary measures" to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon.

• Just a few hours after the public execution of two Arab separatists in the south-western Iranian city of Ahwaz, a bomb attack was reported in the capital of the Khuzestan province late on Thursday.

• Israel’s special forces are said to be operating inside Iran in an urgent attempt to locate the country’s secret uranium enrichment sites, according to the Sunday Times.

• Iran will host a conference in Tehran on Tuesday, dubbed “The Holocaust: myth or reality?”, that has been organized by the Bassij, a branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Several “anti-Zionist Jewish rabbis are in Tehran to take part in the conference”.

• As Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warns that there is an al-Qaeda presence in the Palestinian Territories, acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has vowed to stop Palestinian terrorist attacks with an ‘iron fist’.

• Syrian authorities have shut down an EU-funded centre for human rights barely a week after it opened, the head of the centre said on Saturday. “A security force came and sealed the premises with red tape a few days ago. They have taken a decision not to tolerate anything,” human rights lawyer Anwar al-Bunni said.

• Hamas political chief Khaled Mashaal ruled out any softening of the Palestinian terror group's hostility to Israel after high-profile talks in Moscow. Syrian President Bashar Assad came out in support of the Hamas position.

• Hamas is setting up a standing army in Gaza based on its military wing, the Al-Kassam Brigades. A senior official in the Hamas military, Abu Huzaifa, told the PA news agency Duniya Alwatan that since the Disengagement from Gaza, Hamas has set up military bases in every city in Gaza.

• More than 600 rebels have been freed in Yemen under an amnesty agreed by the president. The 627 followers of Shia cleric Hussein al-Houthi were captured during and following the rebellion he led over several months in 2004. The rebels are from the Zaidi sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam.

• Palestinians fired five Kassam rockets on Saturday from Gaza to Israel - and one of them caused damage to what is called a "strategic installation" south of Ashkelon. Two people were hurt in the attack on the installation, and were treated for shock.

• Yemen's elite Counterterrorism Unit has successfully carried out several high-risk operations against suspected terrorists and kidnappers in the past. Kevin Whitelaw takes a look at a surprising ally in the war on terror in On A Dagger's Edge.

• U.S. military officials have been quietly assessing Lebanon's military capability, making a general inventory of its army, air and naval forces, and suggesting reforms after a request last year from top Lebanese government officials. Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, a top military planner, confirmed the review last week but would not elaborate on recommended reforms. The review was initiated after a request was made through the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, military and political sources said, and is part of a continuing process to help democratic forces in Lebanon.

America Domestic Security & the Americas

• The House Intelligence Committee announced plans Thursday to expand its scrutiny of a Bush administration spying program that has intercepted international e-mails and phone calls of U.S. residents in recent years without court warrants. Under the arrangement, one of the panel's subcommittees will seek detailed briefings on the National Security Agency program.

• One of the most prominent House Republicans on military issues said Thursday he would try to scuttle a Dubai-based company's effort to manage U.S. ports as lawmakers' complaints about the Bush administration's handling of the issue continued to spread. "Dubai cannot be trusted," said Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and normally one of the administration's most trusted allies.

• In addition to being a stinky nuisance and an environmental hazard, Canadian trash trucks coming to Michigan also could pose terrorist threats, a recently released Department of Homeland Security report shows. Fewer than 10 of the 415 trash trucks that come into Michigan each day from Ontario are physically inspected by Customs and Border Protection agents. That would make it easy for terrorists to smuggle chemical or biological materials into the state.

• A retrial of former college professor Sami Al-Arian on terrorism conspiracy charges has been postponed until at least August, a judge ruled Thursday. Federal prosecutors have not announced definitively whether they will try the 48-year-old Al-Arian again on charges that he raised money and supported the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

• Bowing to a court order, the Pentagon has released thousands of documents, identifying for the first time some but not all of the 490 detainees held at a war-on-terror prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Computer disks containing the documents were turned over to reporters after a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the Associated Press forced the disclosure of names kept secret since early 2002.

• An al-Qaeda member refused to appear before a Guantanamo war crimes tribunal Friday or to cooperate with a US military defence lawyer whom he considers an enemy. There was also a heated exchange between the trial's military judge and the defence over the defendant's refusal to take part. Ali Hamza al Bahlul, a Yemeni and acknowledged al-Qaeda member, is charged with conspiring with Osama bin Laden to commit crimes against civilians and property.

• Al-Qaida operative Zacarias Moussaoui may have fatally erred by asking his U.S. flight training school how to turn off oxygen in a jet. It was that question, and not his rusty English or considerable cash holdings, that alerted two managers at the Pan Am International Flight Academy in Miami.

• Closing his second week on the stand in a federal terrorism trial of a Lodi man, the government's star witness, 32-year-old Naseem Khan on Thursday gave jurors a glimpse into how he, as an undercover FBI informant, infiltrated a Muslim sect in this San Joaquin Valley farming town and exposed a possible plot by the son of an ice cream vendor to wage a holy war on American soil.

• The Able Danger Blog says "On February 15th, the DIA prevented Tony Shaffer and JD Smith from having any legal counsel if they testified on matters relating to classified information in the closed session, which I don't believe JD Smith attended. Their attorney Mark Zaid filed a complaint on February 27th alleging that this action violated both their First Amendment rights and internal Department of Defense regulations."

• A new paper from West Point's Combating Terrorism Center says a critical key to defeating terrorists hiding in plain view is their voluminous writings. "Jihadi leaders are surprisingly frank when discussing the vulnerabilities of their movement and their strategies for toppling local regimes and undermining the United States," argue the authors of "Stealing al-Qaida's Playbook," Jarret Brachman and William McCants, both scholars at the center.

• Michelle Malkin links to a story in Raleigh, N.C., about a Muslim man who drove an SUV into students on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus. "Sources say Taheriazar told police he was seeking retribution for the treatment of Muslims around the world, according to ABC News justice correspondent Pierre Thomas."

• The Plan Columbia and Beyond blog writes that this year, the Bush administration wants to expand the military-aid mission in Columbia yet again. But, this time it appears to have more than just drugs and guerrillas on its mind. There may be a "unified campaign" to contain Venezuela.

• Colombian troops killed at least 10 left-wing rebels during armed clashes in several parts of the country, a military statement said. Most of those killed on Friday belonged to the main rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the military stated.

• Colombia's largest rebel group attacked a central village with mortar shells and assault rifles on Saturday, leaving three people dead and 15 others wounded, the police said.

• Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina need to address security concerns around their common border, and the United States next week will urge lawmakers there to advance legislation to combat terrorist financing and money laundering, a senior U.S. official said on Friday. Patrick O'Brien, assistant U.S. Treasury secretary for terrorist financing, said recent elections in Latin America have produced legislatures that may be more likely to pass anti-money laundering and terrorist financing laws.

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

• Three Russian Interior Ministry contract servicemen were killed in a clash with Chechen militants in the Kurchaloi district southeast of the republic's capital, a police source said Saturday. The source said up to 20 militants had escaped. An operation to pursue and kill them is underway, he said.

• Ramzan Kadyrov, son of the pro-Moscow president Akhmad Kadyrov, who was assassinated in May 2004, was appointed Chechnya's prime minister, continuing his political rise, which few doubt will see him advance to Chechnya's president when he reaches the requisite age of 30 in October.

• Four participants of illegal armed units suspected of fighting federal troops in the North Caucasus in 2000-2002 have been detained in Chechnya, the republic's law enforcement agencies said Saturday. An investigation is underway.

• According to a CFR report, Russia's emergence as an increasingly authoritarian state could impair US-Russian relations and cooperation on key international security issues.

• Police have found a cache with weapons and explosives in the forest near the village of Grebenskaya of Chechnya’s Shelkoskoi region, Itar-Tass learnt at the press service of the Interior Ministry of the republic on Saturday. “The cache contained three grenade launchers, a “Shmel” flame thrower, two homemade explosive devices weighing four and two kilograms, 4.8 kilograms of TNT, as well as some 700 cartridges,” a representative of the ministry said.

Afghanistan & Southern Asia

• Traveling under heavy security, President Bush arrived in Pakistan Friday as anti-American protests flared across this Islamic nation. A day before Bush's visit, an American diplomat was killed in a suicide car-bombing at a U.S. consulate in the southern city of Karachi.

• A suicide car bomb wounded five coalition soldiers in southern Afghanistan while eight Taliban fighters were killed and four police wounded in a separate incident. The suicide attacker rammed his explosives-laden vehicle into a Canadian convoy on a highway in insurgency-hit southern Kandahar province, a district chief said.

• Taliban rebels killed a French soldier in a clash in southern Afghanistan on Saturday and a roadside bomb killed an Afghan intelligence agent and four other Afghans. A Canadian soldier from the U.S.-led foreign force was also seriously wounded in a clash in the Shahwali Kot district of Kandahar.

• At lease 10 members of Taliban were killed and half a dozen were captured alive in a clash with Afghan law-enforcement agencies in southern Afghanistan on Friday. Police officials said five cops were also injured in the firefight that erupted in the volatile Helmand province and continued for more than three hours.

• Armed pro-Taliban tribesmen clashed with security forces Saturday in northwestern Pakistan in the aftermath of a military strike on a suspected militant hide-out. Hundreds of families fled the remote town. About 500 armed tribesmen traded fire with paramilitary forces in the bazaar of Miran Shah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal region.

• Inside the Research and Analysis Wing, India's shadowy but influential intelligence service, this week's sentencing of 21 people to death in Bangladesh in connection with last year's wave of 500 coordinated bombings was greeted with a mixture of relief and skepticism. The relief came because the sentences were an important sign that the ruling coalition government in Bangladesh was at last taking the threat of Islamic and jihadist extremism seriously. The skepticism came because the sentences were evidently timed to coincide with President Bush's visit to India, when India was preparing to present the visiting U.S. president with a large dossier of evidence suggesting that Bangladesh was about to become "the next Afghanistan."

• Here are the daily updates from the South Asia Terrorism Portal for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

• Security personnel on Friday arrested a Belgian national suspected of involvement in some terrorist plots in Pakistan. A senior intelligence official told Dawn that the foreigner was detained by FIA in a mosque in the premises of Lahore airport. He said arrest was made on leads given by an intelligence agency.

Far East & Southeast Asia

• Nasir bin Abbas, a former top Jemaah Islamiyah leader, weapons trainer and Afghanistan veteran of six years is now a full-time consultant to Indonesia's crack anti-terror squad, Detachment 88. In an exclusive interview, Abbas revealed he had helped authorities arrest 12 JI suspects in the past year.

• An anti-terror operation has been launched in Melbourne just 10 days before the Commonwealth Games begin. Senior intelligence sources said agents were watching known associates of suspects identified during the anti-terrorist sting, Operation Pendennis, which culminated in the arrest of 19 men in Melbourne and Sydney in December. They have also targeted radical Islamic convert Gregory Middap, also known as Helmut Kirsch. Security services are also monitoring Melbourne-based fundamentalist group Hizbut-Tahrir. At the same time suspected terror cells are being investigated in Canberra and Perth.

• Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing urged Iran on Sunday to resume negotiations with the European Union on its nuclear crisis. "The important thing is to peacefully and properly resolve the problem through diplomatic means," he said on the sidelines of China's annual parliament session.

• An estimated five-thousand Muslims chanted "U-S-A out of Iraq" as they demonstrated Sunday in front of the American Embassy. The group is upset with the U-S-led invasions of both Iraq and Afghanistan. About 2,000 police officers kept them away from the embassy compound, which is surrounded by two concrete walls and barbed wire.

• Military officials from North and South Korea were at odds Friday over North Korea's demand that they redraw their western sea border, as they met for a second day of high-level talks the first such dialogue in nearly two years. During the talks that opened Thursday, South Korea proposed ways to prevent skirmishes between naval and fishing boats along the poorly marked maritime border.

• Bali bombing mastermind Noordin Mohammed Top has been using couriers to deliver messages to members of his terror organisation and avoid detection while he hides out in Indonesia. Top, who is one of Asia's most wanted terrorists, has been lying low trying to avoid alerting the police dragnet that has been closing in around him, according to Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty.

• Denmark reopened its embassy in Indonesia on Monday, more than three weeks after hard-line Muslims stormed the building and it closed amid widespread protests over the caricatures, which were first published in a Danish newspaper.

• North Korea is trying to use the US' proposals for UN reform as a means to end more than five decades of a US-led military presence protecting South Korea from attack. In a letter circulated on Thursday that was addressed to Secretary-General Kofi Annan, North Korean Ambassador Pak Gil-yon called the US-led UN Command "illegal" and said it should be dismantled. The UN Command in South Korea was created shortly after North Korea invaded on June 25, 1950, when the UN Security Council passed a resolution calling for nations to militarily assist South Korea.

Europe

• Italy's justice minister accused magistrates of trying to force his hand in a case against 22 CIA agents who are accused of kidnapping a Muslim imam off the streets of Milan and flying him to Egypt for torture. Justice Minister Roberto Castelli is under pressure to approve a request by magistrates to seek the extradition of the American suspects, a move which political analysts believe is unlikely given the government's close ties with Washington.

• Eight former Croatian soldiers were convicted Thursday of torturing ethnic Serbs in a wartime prison, four years after they were cleared of the same charges in a trial later annulled as being flawed. The district court in Split sentenced the soldiers to six to eight years on charges they participated in the torture and killings of ethnic Serbs and Yugoslav army officers at Split's Lora military prison during the Serbo-Croat war in 1991.

• A high-ranking Spanish prosecutor has called for five men charged with roles in the Madrid bombings be held without bail for up to two more years pending their trial. The recommendation was made by Olga Sanchez, the top prosecutor acting before the National Court, a tribunal that handles high-profile terrorism and corruption cases, among others.

• A committee of Italy's Parliament investigating the 1981 attempt to assassinate John Paul II released its conclusion Thursday that "beyond any reasonable doubt" the Soviet Union ordered the attack that seriously wounded the pope as he greeted crowds in St. Peter's Square.

• Eleven men are expected in court charged in connection with a police raid at a bar in the Tiger's Bay area of north Belfast last Thursday. The men are charged with helping to set up a meeting supporting a banned group. Seven are charged with wearing clothes associated with a terrorist group.

• It's been more than two years since Spain angered the Bush administration by pulling its troops out of Iraq, but Spanish officials said Saturday in San Antonio that it's time to move on and continue the friendly relationship the two countries have had for years. Putting that matter behind, learning from each other and sharing information is key in addressing issues the two countries have in common, Spain's minister of justice, Juan López Aguilar, said during his first visit to San Antonio.

Africa

• Algeria will pardon or reduce the sentences of more than 2,000 convicted or suspected Islamic militants, the Justice Ministry said Thursday, forging ahead with a government effort to turn the page on a brutal insurgency. Some 2,100 suspects will benefit from pardons or an end to legal proceedings they faced, Abdelkader Sahraoui, the ministry's chief of staff, said on state radio. Another 100 militants, convicted for severe crimes, will have their sentences reduced, he said.

• On Friday Libya released all 84 jailed members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood movement who had been held since the late 1990s. “All the 84 members of the Muslim Brotherhood were released today...amid celebrations in front of the prison in Tripoli in the presence of their families,” an official source said.

• In Nigeria, the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND), which freed, Wednesday night, six of the nine foreign oil workers it took hostage February 18, has handed out 16 conditions to the Federal Government for the release of the remaining three hostages in its custody and proper negotiation between the Ijaw and the Federal Government on the way out of the emergency in the region.

• The African Union Special Envoy for Darfur and Chief Mediator Salim Ahmed Salim discussed the progress of the peace talks with Jan Pronk, the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary General in the Sudan, currently on a visit to Abuja. They also discussed the deteriorating security situation in Darfur, characterized by continued acts of senseless violence and flagrant violation of the ceasefire. Both emphasized the urgent need for the Sudanese belligerents to immediately stop the ceasefire violations and other acts of violence.

The Global War

• The Army will get $111.8 billion of the requested 2007 Department of Defense budget, including a nearly $4 billion boost to future combat systems such as unmanned aerial vehicles. Close to 50 percent the Army’s requested budget for Fiscal Year 2007 will go toward personnel-related areas of military and civilian manpower and retiree pay.

• The new U.S.-India nuclear cooperation pact is complicating the Bush administration's efforts to rally international pressure against Iran's suspected nuclear-weapons programs. Critics of the India deal in Congress and among arms-control activists say the concessions President Bush granted to India in the nuclear deal signed Thursday in New Delhi make it harder to preserve a united front against Tehran's efforts to build atomic bombs.

• Japan and the United States will hold talks on Tuesday in Honolulu on a plan to downsize the U.S. military presence in Japan and to give Tokyo greater responsibility for security in the Asia-Pacific, Japanese Foreign Ministry said Friday.

• On Wednesday Texas A&M University will host a conference on The Future of Transatlantic Security Relations. The conference will examine critical U.S. and European foreign and defense policies, and military strategies. It will include public forums for contrasting U.S. and European perspectives on: grand strategy; U.S. basing realignments; complementary U.S. and European initiatives for expanding regional and out-of-region security, stability, peacekeeping and power projection roles and missions; and homeland security and terrorism.

• Vital Perspective is introducing a "Reading Room", which will offer on a weekly basis all of the major articles and analysis on the Middle East from the most influential periodicals in America.

• The U.S. military in Iraq said on Sunday media reports that America and Britain planned to pull all troops out of Iraq by spring 2007 were "completely false," reiterating that there was no timetable for withdrawal. Two British newspapers reported on Sunday that the pull-out plan followed an acceptance by the two governments that the presence of foreign troops in Iraq was now an obstacle to securing peace.

• Ankara and Moscow joined forces to reject the U.S. administration's proposal to expand a NATO-led Mediterranean counterterrorism effort into the Black Sea. Turkey and Russia's joint opposition to the U.S. request underscores the two countries' growing wariness of U.S. strategic designs in the wider Black Sea region.

• Al Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri called on Muslims to attack the West in an audio tape posted on the Internet on Saturday, urging similar strikes as those against New York, London and Madrid in recent years.

• "Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West” - Review and Discussion from Israpundit

• Be sure to check out The Bloody Borders project at Gates of Vienna that documents Islamic terrorism since 9/11.

Thanks for reading! If you found something here you want to blog about yourself (and we hope you do), all we ask is that you do as we do and offer a Hat Tip hyperlink to today's "Winds of War". If you think we missed something important, use the Comments section to let us know. For ongoing tips, email "MondayWindsOfWar", over here @windsofchange.net.