Monday's Winds of War: 26 June 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 & Friday. Monday's Winds of War briefings are given by Peace Like a River and Security Watchtower.

Top Topics

• NRO's MediaBlog says that "The duo of Eric Lichtblau and James Risen have published the details of yet another classified national-security program. This time, they exposed the workings of a database of financial records that the administration has used to track al Qaeda's banking transactions." Reactions and roundups from Hugh Hewitt, BizzyBlog, Patterico, All Things Beautiful and GroupIntel. VP Cheney vigorously defended the program.

• A fundamentalist Muslim who is listed by the U.S. State Department as a suspected al-Qaida collaborator was named Saturday as the new leader of an Islamic militia that has seized control of Somalia's capital. The militia, which changed its name Saturday from the Islamic Courts Union to the Conservative Council of Islamic Courts, said in a statement it had appointed Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys as its new leader. The Bush administration has said Aweys was an associate of Osama bin Laden in the early 1990s.

• Saudi Arabia announced the arrest of 42 terror suspects, some of them since a shootout in Riyadh between gunmen and Saudi security forces left six al Qaeda operatives dead. Minister of Interior Prince Naif said terror cells would continue to exist unless international action was taken to dry up their sources.

• Israel is threatening strong military action against Palestinian terrorists in Gaza after two Israeli soldiers were killed and another kidnapped by Hamas after members tunneled under the border 300 yards. Corporal Gilad Shalit is the first Israeli soldier kidnapped in over a decade, and in response Israel is vowing to secure his return. Britain sent condolences but is urging the Israelis to show restraint, while Mahmoud Abbas said Hamas is accountable for the soldier's well being. The Fatah party said Hamas leaders in Syria are responsible for the attack.

Other topics today include: Palestinian attack on Israeli army post; al Aqsa and WMD; Talks between Abbas and Hamas; Iran rejects deadlines; Hariri family targeted in Beirut; IDF captures 2 Hamas terrorists; Hezbollah-al Qaeda relations; Iran unhappy over Bushehr; Explosion in Turkey; Syrian-Iranian relations; Iranian role in Iraq; 10th anniversary Khobar bombing; Arrest in Miami; Homeland security updates; US votes to block Hamas aid; Suskind's new book; Video of Ontario cell; Chechen militants captured; Violence in Daghestan; Taliban suffers major defeats; Fierce fighting continues in Southern Afghanistan; Aid workers kidnapped in Afghanistan; Audiotape from Mullah Omar; Enduring Freedom lessons; Pakistani-Afghan relations; Attacks in Kashmir; Shootings in Bangladesh; Bombing in Philippines; Japan warns North Korea; Australian-Indonesian relations; Security scare in Australia; Anarchy in Sudan; Zawahiri tape praises Zarqawi; U.S. missile defense; and more.

Iran & the Middle East

• Palestinian gunmen attacked an Israeli army post near the Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing two Israelis before soldiers shot dead three terrorists.

• In a leaflet distributed in the Gaza strip, the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade announced they had developed more than 20 types of chemical and biological weapons, and threatened to deploy them against Israel.

• Negotiations between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas are ongoing, as the groups attempt to resolve differences and form a unified approach to dealing with Israel.

• Iran said it was seriously considering incentives to halt its nuclear program and that the United States and other nations should be patient, but on Saturday rejected a deadline for their response.

• In Beirut, a bomb was discovered near the building of Future television, owned by the family of assassinated former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. In 2003, two rockets were fired at the structure as well.

• Israeli forces captured two Hamas members in the Gaza strip on Saturday, reported to have been plotting imminent attacks against Israel. The pair was identified as Osama and Mustafa Abu Muamar, sons of Hamas member Ali Muamar.

• Donna Abu-Nasr reports on the alleged widening rift between Hezbollah and al Qaeda and says the verbal dispute "threatens to burst into confrontation."

• On Saturday, Jordan's King Abdullah called for increased efforts to root out terrorism and extremists threatening Islam and the world, saying that "we must move quickly to uproot terrorism, stop accusations in the name of religion, and harness all efforts to find comprehensive solutions for the problems and challenges facing the Islamic world."

• Kuwaiti women hope to make a historic leap into parliamentary representation in the national elections on Thursday, that for the first time in the history of the Persian Gulf nation will allow female citizens to vote.

• Iran criticized Russia on Sunday for not fulfilling its commitments on the Bushehr nuclear power plant.

• An explosion at a Turkish resort has killed four people and injured twenty-five others, and the cause has yet to be determined.

• Michael Slackman writes in the New York Times about the growing relationship between Syria and Iran in the face of perceived threats from the United States. Hezbollah is the direct beneficiary of this cooperation.

• Iran denies recent charges by U.S. General George Casey that Teheran was playing a role in the unrest and violence in Iraq by supporting radical Shi'ite elements. Wretchard at the Belmont Club offers additional commentary and links.

• On the 10th anniversary of the bombing of the Khobar Towers, Steve Schippert of ThreatsWatch cites former FBI Director Louis Freeh in questioning whether Iran will ever be held accountable for their involvement in the attacks.

America Domestic Security & the Americas

• Seven people were arrested in Miami after a sweep by law enforcement authorities in connection with an alleged plot against targets that may have included the Sears Tower, officials told CNN. Federal officials say there is no immediate threat against the landmark skyscraper. Reactions and roundups from Michelle Malkin, AllahPundit, and Blogs of War.

• The Transportation Security Administration’s intelligence office needs to improve its IT links with other intelligence units within the Homeland Security Department, a senior TSA official said at a congressional hearing Wednesday. Connectivity needs to expand between TSA and other agencies, including Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Coast Guard, said William Gaches, assistant administrator for intelligence at TSA.

• Almost five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security continue to clash over who is in charge of coordinating and vetting terrorism information. As a result, many state and local officials continue to get conflicting or incomplete information -- and sometimes none at all -- on threats inside the United States, state officials say.

• The United States Senate voted to block U.S. aid to the Hamas-led Palestinian government and ban contacts with Hamas until it renounces violence and recognizes Israel's right to exist.

• The FBI disputes allegations made in Ron Suskind's new book that claims that U.S. intelligence officials warned Britain that the alleged leader of the July 7 suicide bombings in London had been in touch with extremists plotting to blow up synagogues in the United States.

• Suspected Ottawa terrorist Mohamed Harkat was freed on bail Wednesday amid claims in a newly published book that Abu Zubaydah, a former "high-ranking" al-Qaida informant whose information triggered Harkat's arrest was, in fact, a relatively minor and "certifiably insane" man with multiple personalities.

• CBC News has obtained a copy of the video allegedly handed out by one of the Toronto bomb-plot suspects in the parking lot of a local mosque. The video offers a chilling glimpse inside the jihadist mind and is intended as a wake-up call to Muslim youth in Canada.

• A leader of the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) said on a television interview that the rebel group was willing to release some 60 hostages, including three Americans, in exchange for scores of jailed rebels.

• Canada's intelligence service says foreign spies from Russia and China are trying to infiltrate key federal departments in their quest for secrets according to the Canadian Post. In its latest annual report, the CSIS says scientific and technological developments in Canada's natural resource sector remain a prime target.

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

• The Azerbaijani media has accused Russia of cooperating with Iran, with the aim of fomenting religious confrontation in Azerbaijan between the Shi'ite majority and the Sunni minority.

• Officials in Russia are denying media reports and several eyewitness accounts that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il had entered the country, as reported on by RIAN a day earlier.

• A Ukrainian military official is saying that 3 proposed NATO radar systems in the Ukraine are intended to control Russian airspace.

• Russian authorities captured two Chechen militants in the Grozny region, accused of fighting against Russian forces in the 1990s.

• An explosion in the village of Tazen-Kale in Chechnya wounded two Russian soldiers on Sunday.

• On Friday a bomb exploded in the Republic of Daghestan, wounding two police officers. A separate bombing in Vladikavkaz caused damaged to a communications transmission tower. Jeff Kouba has more analysis and links regarding the violence in Daghestan at Peace Like a River.

• Russia's Air Force will receive seven new Mi-28N Night Hunter military helicopters by the end of 2006 according to Air Force Commander Vladimir Mikhailov.

• On Friday a Chechen militant was detained by Federal authorities after he was caught checking a weapons cache in the Urus-Martan District.

• Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev is calling on western countries to stop interfering in Russia's domestic affairs, saying "I have said myself that Putin has made mistakes. But the principles of democracy are realised in a specific context, and you have to bear in mind the Russian historical, economic and social situation."

• According to a report by the Foreign Policy Center, Russia does not meet democratic standards for membership of the Group of Eight and its leadership risks destroying the G8’s credibility.

Afghanistan & Southern Asia

• U.S.-led forces have killed more than 30 Taliban fighters in clashes during a major operation against rebels in volatile southern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said on Friday. Eight insurgents were killed in a raid on Thursday on a cave complex used as a "meeting place and sanctuary" for Taliban bomb-makers in Uruzgan province.

• Four US soldiers were killed and one was wounded in clashes with militants in north-eastern Afghanistan, the coalition said Thursday. The four were killed yesterday during "combat operations and combat rescue operations" in Nuristan province near the border with Pakistan, they said.

• British paratroopers told on Wednesday how they knocked out a Taliban mortar team in a deadly fire fight during a five-day covert search and destroy mission.

• Around 45 Taliban insurgents and two U.S.-led coalition soldiers have been killed in a clash in southern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said on Sunday. The clash erupted after coalition forces engaged a group of eight to 10 Taliban in Panjwai district of Kandahar province on Saturday.

• C.S. Scott details the heavy losses suffered by the Taliban since April. Afghan and Coalition forces have not gone unscathed, though.

• Five Afghan aid workers, including three employed by a Swedish aid agency, were abducted in eastern Afghanistan, a police official said Sunday. The five — two doctors and an employee of the aid agency Swedish Committee for Afghanistan and two local government workers — were kidnapped on Thursday while driving in the province of Nuristan, said Ghalamullah Nuristani, the provincial deputy police chief.

• After Al Qaeda's top deputy urged Afghans in a videotape to rise up against U.S.-led forces, President Hamid Karzai called Ayman al-Zawahiri the enemy of the people and said the Egyptian-born fugitive had killed thousands of Afghans. The video, al-Zawahiri's sixth this year, was posted Thursday on an Islamic Web site and called "American Crimes in Kabul."

• Afghan President Hamid Karzai says Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar should emerge from hiding if he is "really in charge" and "face the danger that he is causing to hundreds of young people in Afghanistan and Pakistan." In an audiotape purportedly made by Omar aired by a Pakistani television station on Sunday, the reclusive spiritual leader claims Taliban militants control large areas of Afghanistan, including mountainous regions.

• A Taliban commander Maulvi Jalal Al Din Haqani has asked his supporters not to wage war against Pakistan, while renewing his pledge to continue the jihad against the United States and the government of Afghan president Hamid Karzai.

• Taliban militants beheaded four Afghans they accused of spying for the US military in southern Afghanistan, a local government official and the insurgent group said. The beheaded corpses of the men were found Thursday in Shajoy district of insurgency-hit Zabul province where the rebels launch almost daily attacks on US troops and government targets, the official said on Friday.

• A major anti-Taliban operation by Afghan and coalition forces has killed 149 insurgents in the past two weeks, with three Afghan soldiers also losing their lives, the defence ministry said. Another 32 insurgents have been wounded and 61 arrested as part of Operation Mountain Thrust in the past fortnight, ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi said on Saturday.

• Eccentric Star links to a Washington Post story which says "An unofficial attempt by Afghanistan's national intelligence service to quash sensational and negative coverage by the Afghan news media appears to have backfired badly this week, provoking both outrage and ridicule among journalists and opinion makers, and swift repudiation by the office of President Hamid Karzai."

• An article in the July 1 issue of Joint Force Quarterly looks at lessons learned (PDF) in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.

• Pakistan and Afghanistan agreed to step up their cooperation in the fight against terrorism, an official statement said after a meeting between Kabul's foreign minister and Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf.

• A tide of Islamic militancy is spreading across and beyond the semiautonomous tribal areas of northwest Pakistan that hug the Afghan border, despite the deployment of some 70,000 Pakistani army troops there, according to a variety of people with close family, professional or political ties to the tribal regions. There may be talks of truce underway, however.

• Security forces arrested 11 Afghan nationals in southwest Pakistan, a day after rounding up five foreigners suspected of links with the Al-Qaeda terror network, an intelligence official said. The 11 were arrested during a raid in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, on information gleaned from four Turkish nationals and one Afghan arrested on Thursday in the same province, the official said on Friday.

• The Government of Balochistan in Exile blog reports that "President Hamid Karzai voiced his concern on Thursday over growing attacks by Islamist insurgents in Afghanistan and urged the world to extend the war against the militants beyond his country’s borders into Pakistan." Also, "Karzai did not elaborate on 'foreign factors' but Afghan officials have repeatedly accused neighboring Pakistan of offering full military support to Taliban and al Qaeda militants who they say launch attacks from the Pakistani side of the border."

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

• The Indian government is experimenting with new ways of fighting back against Maoist fighters, who now operate in almost half of the country's 28 states. In the past year, the Chhattisgarh state government has introduced new anti-terrorism training for the police - and is backing a civil militia called Salwa Judum.

• Nine policemen and eight civilians were wounded in two separate grenade blasts in Indian Kashmir, while the army shot dead two Muslim rebels in the restive region, police said.

• Two Islamic militants and an Indian army officer were killed and 15 people hurt in fresh shootouts and a grenade blast in revolt-hit Indian Kashmir, police said. The deaths took place in the district of Pulwama early Saturday when the Indian army raided a rebel hide-out, a police spokesman said on Saturday.

• Police in India's northeastern state of Tripura arrested 10 guerrillas after they entered the country from bases inside Bangladesh, police said. A police spokesman said the rebels were members of the outlawed Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC) and were arrested late Thursday near Hirachara village close to the border with Bangladesh.

• Four Bangladeshis, including a woman, were shot dead by Indian border guards along the southwestern frontier, local officials said on Saturday. In a separate shootout, four Bangladeshi youths were in critical condition after being shot by the BSF in Bagachhara area in Jessore district, also on Friday.

• Police in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka baton charged a group of hardline Islamic protestors as they tried to march on a mosque belonging to the Ahmadiya Muslim minority.

• It's thanks to Sri Lanka's overseas Tamils -- people like engineer S. Vijayadeva or accountant Kana Naheerathan -- that the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) can afford to keep up its insurgency. The Tigers say the Tamil diaspora of an estimated 600,000 to 800,000 people -- many of them professionals living in Canada, Scandinavia and Northern Europe -- only give money for development in rebel areas, funding the Tigers' police force, courts, banking system and political offices, not its weapons.

• Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers on Saturday extended a deadline for European Union truce monitors to withdraw from the island, while the army accused the rebels of shooting dead two soldiers in the northwest.

• For 10 years, Nepal's Maoist rebels were beyond the pale — hunted, shunned and feared as they waged a brutal war against the government. Now they have been welcomed into the establishment. A quiet euphoria swept the nation when the government signed a deal with the rebels to give them a share of power for the first time and end the conflict. But as the elation ebbs, stark questions arise: What is the rebels' agenda? Can they adapt to mainstream politics? Will they disarm?

Far East & Southeast Asia

• An explosion at a market on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao on Sunday has killed 5 people and wounded 10 others. According to authorities, Andal Ampatuan, the governor of Maguindanao province, was the target of the attack.

• Japan warned on Sunday that it would consider "all options" against North Korea, including sanctions on oil and food sales, if Pyongyang goes ahead with a test launch of a long-range missile.

• Australian Prime Minister John Howard and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will meet on Monday to discuss relations that includes talks about terrorism.

• Leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said the Bush administration should hold direct talks with North Korea as concerns grow over a possible test launch of a missile that could reach the U.S.

• On Saturday, thousands of protesters demanded the ouster of Mari Alkatiri, East Timor's prime minister, blaming him for provoking violence and political chaos. New Zealand has announced the deployment of 25 police officers to the island in an effort to help restore security.

• Joshua Eisenman & Josh Rogin write in the Weekly Standard about the necessity of Japan and the United States to form a unified policy with respects to Taiwan.

• An estimated 200 Singapore Airlines passengers and staff were quarantined at an airport in southern Australia on Sunday after white powder was found on luggage, airport and emergency officials said. Authorities said 80 of the passengers were required to take showers at Adelaide airport in a "wet decontamination process," although tests showed the substance was not dangerous.

• Abu Sayyaf and Rajah Solaiman Movement cells in the Philippines are reported to be targeting malls, mass transit, and oil depots.

• William Perry and Ashton B. Carter, two Clinton-era defense officials have called on President Bush to strike the North Korean missile on its launch pad should Pyongyang persist in its determination to fire the device.

Europe

• Christopher Caldwell has an article in the New York Times Magazine titled "After Londonistan" that discusses how London became a bastion of Islamic fanatics. Joe Katzman also offered his analysis and some good additional links yesterday.

• German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier met with Iranian officials in Berlin and called on Teheran to cease enrichment of uranium if it wants to resume negotiations with the international community.

• According to Martin Gilbertson, a former associate of several of the men that carried out the 7 July 2005 London subway attacks, he tried to warn British authorities about the pair before the attacks.

• Wives and family members of British soldiers fighting in Iraq have received telephone calls believe to be from insurgents, issuing death threats after phone calls home from the soldiers using cell phones were apparently intercepted.

• The Serbian government is planning to request help from Germany to catch war crimes suspects Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, according to German media. Serbian foreign minister Vuk Daskovic told the Freie Presse newspaper that Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica would like to hold a meeting with German chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss the issue.

• British-Muslim leaders have condemned the killing of innocent people as against Islam in a religious edict as the one year anniversary of the London subway attacks approach. Robert Spencer notes the ambiguous nature of the condemnation though.

• The UK Telegraph reports that British MI5 operatives think it's only a matter of time before Islamists set off a dirty bomb attack against London or another western capital.

• Scheherezade Faramarzi looks at the lack of public condemnation of terrorism by European Muslims and says they must engage on an issue many have plenty to say about in private.

Africa

• Anarchy in Sudan's Darfur is spilling over into Chad, where rival armed groups supported by the governments of Chad and Sudan are committing serious crimes against civilians, a human rights group said Thursday. Hundreds of Chadian civilians have been killed in recent weeks in cross-border attacks by Sudanese militias known as janjaweed and allied Chadian fighters, and more than 50,000 have been displaced.

• Marvin Hutchens at ThreatsWatch looks at the situation in the Horn of Africa, where Islamists are denying terror ties and an Ethiopian incursion.

• Sudan has suspended the work of a U.N. mission in its violent Darfur region after accusing the world body of transporting a rebel leader who opposes a recent peace deal, a Sudanese official said on Sunday.

• In a rebel camp along the barren, windswept border between Sudan and Chad, dozens of trucks packed with dreadlocked fighters manning heavy machine guns are lined up. Piled up behind them are ammunition boxes, covered in Chinese symbols -- it's impossible to know exactly where the bullets in the boxes came from but they offer a glimpse of the complex and circuitous routes of the global arms trade.

• An award-winning Swedish journalist was fatally shot in the back as he filmed a demonstration Friday in the restive capital of Somalia, where lawlessness and anger at foreigners run high despite peace efforts.

• Britain agreed Friday to provide $9 million in aid to improve the living conditions of three brigades in the army of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The Global War

• Rape and sexual violence in conflict appear to be worsening and very little is being done to tackle the problem, a major UN conference has heard.

• The US military is relying ever more on space satellites to help wage combat in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, though analysts say that Washington's space supremacy could be threatened by rivals in the future. The Pentagon is using sophisticated satellites that orbit Earth in a bid to track down its enemies and keep a round-the-clock watch on unfriendly foes.

• In a new video tape, al Qaeda deputy commander Ayman al-Zawahiri praises the recently liquidated Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and vows revenge on his behalf.

• Here is the Reading Room from Vital Perspective for May 9 through June 12. It collects material on Iran and Iraq, as well as coverage of Israel, Hezbollah, Syria, Egypt, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the War on Terrorism, United Nations, U.S. politics and policy on the region, commentary on the infamous Harvard paper and energy concerns.

• Since 9/11, hundreds of U.S. bomb technicians, police chiefs, police officers, and FBI, Secret Service, and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) agents have made repeated trips to Israel to learn from their counterparts and their extensive experience in detecting and deterring Palestinian suicide bombers.

• A RAND monograph entitled War and Escalation in South Asia examines how the advent of two nuclear powers in South Asia, discoveries of nuclear trafficking, and insurgencies and terrorism that threaten important U.S. interests and objectives directly have transformed the region from a strategic backwater into a primary theater of concern for the United States.

• Rich Lowry writes an article at the National Review that looks at the U.S. missile defense program in the context of the recent preparations of a missile launch being made by North Korea.

• According to a report from the United Nations, the AK-47 Kalashnikov assault rifle will remain the world’s favorite killing machine in conflict zones for at least the next 20 years because its production is poorly regulated.

• 1,200 people gathered at a Los Angeles hotel on the weekend for what organisers billed as the largest conference on the numerous conspiracy theories surrounding the 9/11 attacks.

• John Rosenthal reports on some background information on Khaled Al-Masri that has not received coverage in English.

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