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Tag: war on terror

  • Fall of Fallujah Spawns Debate Over Who Is To Blame

    Fallujah is one of multiple cities in Iraq that proved to be bloody, cruel battlegrounds for US soldiers looking to secure the area from militants back in 2004. The fighting that took place in Fallujah was some of the most intense since Vietnam, but barely ten years after US Marines were able to secure the city from militants, an unfortunate tragedy has befallen the city in the form of Al Qaeda militants overtaking the city once more.

    Al Qaeda militants seized various key cities in Iraq over the weekend, and Fallujah was among them. The return of civil conflict in Iraq, which this takeover is only the latest example of, has spawned a debate in the US government about who is to blame for the resurgence, which comes in the face of the US withdrawal from combat in the area. Republican senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain (of South Carolina and Arizona, respectfully) were quick to blame president Barack Obama, saying in a statement, “When President Obama withdrew all US forces [from Iraq] … many of us predicted that the vacuum would be filled by America’s enemies and would emerge as a threat to US national security interests. Sadly, that reality is now clearer than ever.”

    What these two senators were reluctant to mention, however, was the fact that the Obama administration has been in full support of the continuous multi-billion-dollar arms packages being purchased by Iraq. The Iraqi government, headed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, justifies these purchases by saying that the weapons are used to fight against militants like those that overtook Fallujah, and many conservative US representatives have agreed with this train of thought. However, the reluctance present in other parts of congress stem from fears that Prime Minister al-Maliki might use those weapons to subdue the Sunni community that is abundant in the area.

    Regardless of who is to blame for the fall of Fallujah, the effects of the fall are beginning to take a clear hold, both in Iraq and abroad. Violence coming from the militants is an immediate concern to civilians in the area, and the fall of a key city that was so heavily fought for comes as a heavy blow to many US veterans.

    Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

  • Benjamin Netanyahu: Iran Agreement Is A “Historic Mistake”

    As Secretary of State John Kerry and President Obama celebrated a series of resolutions on nuclear proliferation that they supposedly reached with Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the complete opposite tone.

    In a speech today before Israel’s cabinet, CNN and the Washington Post report Netanyahu reiterating Israel’s desire to completely dismantle Iranian uranium enrichment programs, and halt any nuclear developments by Iran.

    “What was achieved last night in Geneva is not a historic agreement, but a historic mistake… Today the world has become a much more dangerous place because the most dangerous regime in the world has taken a significant step toward attaining the most dangerous weapon in the world,” he told he cabinet.

    Iran, meanwhile, claims that the nuclear program is a peaceful one, that it is simply exercising a right to enrich uranium like other nations, and that only the medical research and energy industries will benefit. Not everyone in the international community agrees with Iran’s assessment, even though the country has yet to officially enrich weapons-grade uranium.

    If Iran makes the effort to start, then Israel appears prepared to preemptively strike. Israel’s intelligence minister Yuval Steinitz, compared Iran to North Korea: “The last-second amendments put into the agreement are far from satisfactory. The current deal, like the 2007 failed deal with North Korea, is more likely to bring Iran closer to having a bomb.”

    Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, believes the deal “brings us to a nuclear arms race… The world has to understand that this is the biggest diplomatic victory Iran has had in recent years. There’s no doubt the agreement recognizes Iran’s right to enrich uranium.”

    White House descriptions of the deal seem a bit tamer than Israel’s. A fact sheet from D.C. called the deal “the first meaningful limits that Iran has accepted on its nuclear program in close to a decade.” It went on to say that, “With respect to the comprehensive solution, nothing is agreed until everything is agreed…Put simply, this first step expires in six months, and does not represent an acceptable end state to the United States.”

    The White House acknowledged Iran’s official concessions in the agreement: all enrichment of uranium above 5 percent is to be halted; the stockpile of 3.5 percent enriched uranium is to be frozen; any uranium enriched to 20 percent is to be neutralized or diluted; and all activity at the Arak nuclear reactor (which has the potential to produce weapons-grade plutonium) is to be halted.

    Netanyahu had been attempting to convince world leaders that Iran would be producing a “bad deal.” After making his case to French President François Hollande and Russian President Vladimir Putin, relations between the White House and Israel seemed strained.

    Isaac Herzog, the leader of Israel’s opposition Labor party, called out Netanyahu, saying “Netanyahu must do everything in order to fix the damage that was caused from the public clash with the U.S. and return to an intimate relationship with President Obama and other world leaders.”

    The most dramatic quotation came from Israel’s economic minister, Natfatli Bennett, who said “If a nuclear suitcase blows up in New York or Madrid five years from now, it will be because of the deal that was signed this morning… There is still a long campaign ahead of us [and] we will continue to act in every possible way.”

    [Image via Wikimedia Commons]

  • Haqqani Leader Killed in U.S. Drone Strike

    The AFP reported on a U.S. drone strike that took place in Pakistan last Thursday. This particular strike was a rare happenstance: it is only the second drone strike targeted outside of Pakistan’s tribal zones.

    Previous drone strikes had targeted the frontier Bannu region and a North Waziristan tribal district in an effort to reduce the influence of Taliban leaders. Accurate casualty counts are hard to come by because of the forbidden nature of the Pakistani tribal districts: no journalists, reporters, or foreign aid workers are allowed inside.

    The drone fired a missile at a religious seminary that fell under the umbrella of the Haqqani terror network, security officials acknowledged. At least six people were killed in the attack, including a high-level Haqqani spiritual leader by the name of Maulana Ahmad Jan.

    Local police sources, speaking to the AFP about Jan, said “He was the spiritual leader and head teacher of the Haqqani network… He was receiving people who were coming to [sic] condole the death of Nasiruddin Haqqani because followers of were not able to meet any other member of Haqqani family.”

    One Haqqani source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said “The seminary served as a base for the network where militants fighting across the border came to stay and rest, as the Haqqani seminaries in the tribal areas were targeted by drones.”

    Pakistani officials responded as expected: by condemning the drone strike as “a violation of sovereignty and counterproductive to efforts to end militancy.” Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, insisted last month in a meeting with President Obama that he stop the drone attacks.

    Despite Sharif’s protests, the drone attacks will most likely continue, as they are considered by the U.S. to be a necessary tool in eliminating militants.

    The Haqqani terror network has long been targeted by Washington, D.C. over their Afghan insurgent attacks, including a 2011 assault on the U.S. embassy in Kabul. Various estimates place the number of “drone war” casualties between 2500 and 3700, and Amnesty International thinks the U.S. may be guilty of war crimes over the attacks.

    [Image via Facebook]

  • New Taliban Leader: Same Boss Who Wanted Malala Dead

    CBS News and The Week have both reported that, following the drone bombing of Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud, a new leader for the Pakistani Taliban Movement has been chosen.

    The AP confirmed the ascendance of a new leader with a statement from the Taliban’s leadership council. Mehsud, in particular was a difficult target to hit, with several previous reports of his death proving false and a $5 million bounty placed on his head. But the official word from the Taliban indicates he is quite dead this time, and has been replaced by a man named Mullah Fazlullah.

    Fazlullah’s age isn’t accurately known, but he rose to fame in 2006 when he started broadcasting Islamist messages from a pirate radio station he called “Mullah Radio” in the Swat Valley region. Fazlullah’s broadcasts encouraged a return to Sharia criminal law, the closing of all girls’ schools and the complete cessation of female education.

    In 2009, Pakistani military forces attempted to wrest Swat Valley from Taliban influence. Many homes were looted in the fighting, but a tentative peace was established; Fazlullah dodged the Pakistanis in a game of cat-and-mouse, taking him through the mountains on the border with Afghanistan. He is suspected to be directing operations in both countries using that same mountain range.

    2012 saw Fazlullah step up his campaign against women’s education, particularly when he ordered an inspirational 14-year-old named Malala Yousafzai shot for publicly condemning his desire to close girls’ schools. She survived the attempt, and became an international symbol of defiance against Islamist hardliners in a way that remains similar to her namesake, Malala of Maiwand, who became a symbol of defiance against British Imperialism in the 19th century.

    The Taliban’s previous leader had indicated a willingness to go to the negotiating table. Fazlullah is an extreme propagandist, who appears regularly on YouTube encouraging violence while carrying a U.S.-made M4 assault rifle, perhaps a wartime trophy. After Malala survived the assassination attempt, Fazlullah made additional threats against her and her family.

    Fazlullah and his fellow Taliban hardliners believe they are the sole inheritors of Mohammed’s vision of society in Medina, a mystical egalitarian community that the Islamic Prophet allegedly created in Saudi Arabia. But that vision sometimes clashes with the tribal rules and laws that the Taliban leaders must follow, as their insurgents need shelter, sustenance, and supplies — which they would not get if they operated outside their tribal structure.

    [Image of the old Taliban leader via YouTube]

  • Jeh Johnson: Controversial Lawyer To Be Nominated as Head of Homeland Security

    According to an unidentified White House official, President Barack Obama will nominate criminal trial lawyer Jeh Johnson on Friday 18, 2013, to be the next secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

    The official made the following remarks on Johnson,

    “He is one of the most highly qualified and respected national security leaders, having served as the senior lawyer for the largest government agency in the world…”By advising the president and two secretaries of defense, he was at the center of the development of some of the most sensitive and important national security policies and strategies during the first term.”

    During Obama’s first term, Johnson served as general counsel in the Department of Defense. If nominated and approved by the Congress, Johnson would succeed Janet Napolitano, who relinquished her post earlier this year. Johnson is currently a partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, LLP.

    Johnson helped repeal the “Don’t’ Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in 2010, by writing a report assailing it on the grounds that it prevented gays and lesbians from serving openly in US armed forces.

    This will be the second high profile nomination coming from the White House, after last week’s nomination of Janet Yellen as the new head of Federal Reserve to replace outgoing Chairman Ben Shalom Bernanke.

    Jeh Johnson strongly supports the Democratic Party and has been a key figure in fundraising and advising Democratic presidential campaigns. Johnson was active as a special counsel to John Kerry’s 2004 presidential bid, and was an early supporter of Obama’s presidential campaign, when he was fighting as an underdog against Hillary Clinton.

    He has been one of key advisers to Barack Obama in foreign policy and finance. Johnson has been assailed by author and investigator Jeremy Scahill, for his eagerness and “banality” to sign off on drone strikes without any due process, that has been called unconstitutional.

    In August 2012, Johnson sent a stern warning to decorated Navy seal Matt Bissonnette, who authored No Easy Day, a book covering the targeted strike by a team of Navy Seals to kill Osama Bin-Laden, regarding material breach of his non-disclosure agreements with DoD.

    If confirmed, Johnson will be overseeing the DHS, which boasts an almost $60 billion budget, larger than the gross national income of more than half the countries in the world.

    [image from wikipedia]

  • Islamists Continue Worldwide Offensive

    As the news spread of coordinated U.S. Navy SEAL strikes against Islamist leaders on either side of the African mainland, Islamists elsewhere were launching attacks of their own.

    Iraq was rocked by a series of suicide bombings this weekend, Reuters reports. One bombing involved a truck loaded with explosives that was driven into a primary school playground in the northern region; in that attack, 14 children and the school headmaster perished.

    An additional Saturday bombing targeted a group of Shi’ite pilgrims visiting a Baghdad religious site, killing 14 and wounding over 30 others.

    No public claims of responsibility have been made for any of the recent attacks, although the tactics utilized cause local police to suspect Sunni-affiliated terrorists tied to al-Qaeda. The primary school bombing occurred mere minutes after a reported attack on a Tel Afar police station just 45 miles northwest of Mosul city, a known Islamist stronghold. In the police station attack, no injuries were reported. A Tel Afar city official who spoke on the condition of anonymity commented that “The fingerprints of al Qaeda are clear on both attacks.”

    Meanwhile, deep in the Nigeria’s Borno state, the Islamists of the Boko Haram rebel group killed at least 20 when they assaulted the town of Damboa early Saturday morning. Five were executed at a mosque as they said their morning prayers.

    In a statement given to Reuters, Nigerian military spokesman Captain Aliyu Danja said, “While they [the Islamists] were unleashing their mayhem, troops [with the Nigerian military] engaged the terrorists, killing 15 in the process while others fled.”

    The military’s casualty counts for engagements with militant Islamists are frequently exaggerated and often unverifiable. Nigerian military forces have been waging an offensive against the Boko Haram rebels since May, but it remains the biggest security threat to the country. Traditionally known for targeting security forces as well as Christian and Muslim opponents, Boko Haram has recently conducted roadside massacres, and threatened Western schools considered sacrilegious.

    [Image via an AFP news report on YouTube about the Boko Haram Islamist faction]

  • Navy SEALs Somalia Assault Raises Strategic Questions

    Yesterday, Navy SEAL Team Six raided an al-Shabaab HQ in Barawe, Somalia. Although none of the SEALs were killed in the assault, a series of conflicting reports about the raid’s target were released, some of which claiming the individual was captured while others were claiming he died in the firefight. The raid was aborted as a failure.

    Despite conflicting reports, the SEAL team leader decided that the fighting was too hot, and after 20 minutes of gunfire, the SEAL team swam away. Somali intelligence officials have claimed, according to CBS News, that the SEAL team was targeting the leader of the al-Shabaab Islamist faction in Somalia, Mukhtar Abu Zubeyr AKA Ahmed Godane; however, an al-Shabaab official by the name of Sheikh Abdiaziz Abu Musab said via audio message that the raid had failed in its goal.

    The strike in Somalia by Navy SEAL Team Six was a part of a coordinated response to the Nairobi Westgate Mall attacks. The failed raid was part of a two-pronged response, with the second staged in Libya just hours after SEAL Team Six pulled out. The Libyan strike was targeting an al Qaeda leader associated with the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

    The Libyan raid, unlike the Somali one, was considered a huge success. Navy SEAL teams surrounded a house in Tripoli containing Anu Abas al-Liby, the al-Qaeda leader who claimed responsibility for the Embassy bombings. Liby had previously been indicted for his role in the bombings.

    The CS Monitor noted an interesting dichotomy: until recently, the Obama administration’s primary method of fighting terror abroad was authorized drone strikes. Having conducted hundreds of drone strikes during his presidency, Obama sought to decrease their frequency. Whereas 2010 saw 117 drone strikes in Pakistan alone, this year has seen only 46 Pakistani strikes while Yemen only endured 10 strikes this year. With these recent Navy SEAL raids, is the Obama administration changing tactics in the War on Terror?

    Obama recently acknowledged the deep resentment felt by the international community with regard to U.S. drone policy: “To say a military tactic is legal, or even effective, is not to say it is wise or moral in every instance,” Obama said in a speech at the National Defense University. “For the same human progress that gives us the technology to strike half a world away also demands the discipline to constrain that power – or risk abusing it.”

    [Image via a KTN YouTube news report of the raids]

  • Nairobi Westgate Mall: Islamists Kill 25

    Islamists around the world are staging coordinated attacks with increasing regularity. Yesterday saw a series of coordinated attacks on the Arabian peninsula, and today sees al-Qaeda affiliated militants seizing a shopping mall, killing dozens and injuring 40.

    Witnesses say that terrorists were responsible for the attack, which happened earlier this morning. Gunmen burst into the mall and indiscriminately killed some while taking others hostage. The police took those escaping civilians to a secured location to verify they were not gunmen trying to sneak away; reports indicate they were streaming away from the mall, arms raised as a police escort accompanied them.

    The Kenyan Interior Ministry released a press statement urging “Kenyans to keep off Westgate mall, adjacent roads and its environs until further notice… We’re doing our job to ensure that everyone is evacuated to safety. This is a scene of crime, let police do their job.”

    CNN reports Joseph Ole Lenku, a Kenyan government official, confirming 11 dead while Reuters has the number solidly at 25. Lenku said of their conservative estimate that the number “may go up, but for now, that’s the number we have.”

    Reuters notes this latest attack is the largest instance of terrorism to occur in Nairobi since the 1998 al-Qaeda bombing of the U.S. embassy. Although at first hesitant to report any one group as responsible for the attack, (Kenya’s president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud believes they “don’t have any proof that the people who did this are Somali”) Kenyan officials are blaming Somali militant group al Shabaab, which is affiliated with al Qaeda.

    The attack is believed to be an al-Qaeda response to coordinated efforts by Kenyan military forces that target al Shabaab. No public claim of responsibility has been made, but one witness did report that the attackers told all Muslims to clear the area.

    If you want to read the Reuters version, you can find it here, but be warned that the details are graphic and it should be viewed with discretion.

    [Image via a brief YouTube report of the shooting]

  • AQAP Stages Suicide Car Bombing, Kills 38 Yemenis

    The AP via USA Today reported earlier today that al-Qaeda militants in Yemen launched a coordinated attack on a military barracks in the southern part of the country called Shabwa province. 38 soldiers were killed in the attacks and dozens of others were wounded.

    Yemeni defense official Maj. Mohammed Nasser, speaking about the attacks, said that the soldiers were caught unprepared, and that Shabwa Province is widely known to be an al-Qaeda stronghold. The attacks began as militants tried to storm three military encampments in Maysaa, Kamp, and al-Ain. At Kamp, the guards outside the barracks were overpowered and a suicide car bomb was driven inside; most of the casualties occurred when this first bomb detonated.

    At al-Ain, ground-based infantry fighting was continuing to occur throughout the morning, and a second car bomb was detonated outside the barracks.

    The attack seems to have had a dual purpose: Nasser reported that although the militants lost eight jihadists in the assault, they gained six hostages in the form of seized soldiers and five unspecified military vehicles.

    Yemeni authorities have been waging war against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, because officials in Washington consider it to be the deadliest and most dangerous offshoot of the al-Qaeda brand. AQAP has recently been orchestrating a series of attacks on the military and has claimed responsibility for the assassinations of a variety of officials.

    These latest attacks are the largest yet made against the Yemeni military, and they come in the wake of warnings from Sanaa that more al-Qaeda attacks are on the way. In response to the continued attacks on Yemeni security forces, the United States stepped up the drone war efforts.

    The AP also reported that the AQAP franchise had claimed responsibility for several foiled bomb plots against US citizens, including one involving an underwear bomb on an airline and another plot to hide mail bombs in toner printer cartridges.

    [Image via a brief YouTube video of an Al-Jazeera report on AQAP]

  • Star Trek Command Center Built by NSA Chief

    About a week ago, ForeignPolicy posted an expose by writer Shane Harris about Lt. General Keith Alexander, the current chief of the National Security Agency. That article painted Alexander as a “cowboy” who was less interested in his obligation to the law and more interested in getting the job done.

    “Alexander wants as much data as he can get. And he wants to hang on to it for as long as he can,” Harris wrote. “To prevent the next terrorist attack, he thinks he needs to be able to see entire networks of communications… To find the needle in the haystack, he needs the entire haystack.”

    Harris’ descriptions of the general imply Alexander is, in some ways, to blame for the bloated intelligence gathering of the NSA used today. But Alexander’s informational analysis was just as bloated when he ran the U.S. Army’s Intelligence and Security Command and commissioned an architectural firm called DBI Architects build a Star Trek-inspired war room called the Information Dominance Center.

    The PBS story on the war room says that Alexander regularly brought his “future allies” down to the IDC, located at Fort Belvoir, VA. PBS quoted a retired officer, formerly in charge of VIP visits to Belvoir, as saying that “Everybody wanted to sit in the chair at least once to pretend he was Jean-Luc Picard.”

    For Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald, already embroiled in his own information war with the NSA, this latest revelation was an invitation to do some digging. In his own version of the story for the Guardian, Greenwald appropriately wrote that “any casual review of human history proves how deeply irrational it is to believe that powerful factions can be trusted to exercise vast surveillance power with little accountability or transparency. But the more they proudly flaunt their warped imperial hubris, the more irrational it becomes.”

    The following images were obtained by Greenwald from the architectural firm’s website.

    [Images via Glenn Greenwald/ZeroHedge.com]

  • U.S. Strike Syria: What to Expect in Coming Hours

    With official confirmation coming from Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel on the United States’ readiness to strike, at the time of posting, it’s surely a mere matter of hours before the United States launches missiles in retaliation for chemical weapons usage by the Assad regime in Syria.

    Regardless of whether an attack takes place, this article will attempt to focus the media frenzy surrounding the possibility of a U.S. strike against Syria from a variety of sources, and assure readers that it is unlikely that World War III will start in the next day.

    As of this posting, President Obama is continually refusing the suggestion that he has already authorized an attack, although he has concluded along with Vice President Biden that “[Syria] in fact carried these [chemical weapon attacks] out. And if that’s so, there needs to be international consequences… We do not believe given the delivery system using rockets, that the opposition could have carried out these attacks.” Obama has also been working closely with the UK’s prime minister, David Cameron, in coordinating the response along with the French and German governments.

    An LA Times article from last evening involved discussions with both current and former U.S. officials, who confirm that a U.S. attack on Syria would take place at night and involve fiery explosions at military bases, targeted artillery pieces, and a variety of regime strongholds. Assad’s defenses would likely involve a bunch of flak anti-air guns trying to shoot down the Tomahawk missiles. Analysts speaking with the Times said that if President Obama wants more targets destroyed, the Pentagon may use warplanes in concert with the guided cruise missiles.

    Because of Syria’s recent chemical weapons activity, Obama has indicated that the halting of chemical weapon proliferation would be a priority for a strike. That does not mean that they will drop cruise missiles on chemical weapons sites; planners are far too worried that such tactics would unleash truckloads of toxins.

    Strike planners don’t intend to destroy Assad’s conventional war forces, instead choosing to target Assad’s most loyal units that assisted in the carrying out of the August 21 chemical attack: “They want to send a signal that those units are being targeted as much as possible because of their specific involvement” in the deployment of chemical weapons, one official told the LA Times.

    Syria attempted to step up its own rhetoric when a senior official said earlier this week that any international attack would be met by Syrian defenses, and that such an attack would create a “chaos” that could threaten global stability.

    Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mikdad, speaking to the AP, said on Monday that “there will be no international military intervention… If individual countries want to pursue aggressive and adventurous policies, the natural answer … would be that Syria, which has been fighting against terrorism for almost three years, will also defend itself against any international attack.”

    Mikdad went on to say that each country will bear responsibility for the thousands of innocents who will die because of the “criminal actions against a sovereign country…Syria will not be an easy target.” Mikdad refused to go into detail about what Syria’s actual tactics might be, giving as much credibility to his country’s chest-thumping as the Syrian Presidency’s Instagram account gives to the regime.

    Some news outlets have speculated about a variety of Islamist groups’ response to a U.S. assault on Syria. However, since the Iranian scientists were killed, Iran’s ability to orchestrate terror attacks has all but faded away, and Michael Leiter, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center between 2007 and 2011, was quoted by the Daily Beast as saying “it is more likely Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah operatives would target U.S., Israeli, and Western assets in Lebanon, Iraq, and elsewhere in the region.” Take a deep breath, reader: extremist attacks on U.S. soil itself or on U.S. forces in the Mediterranean in retaliation for the bombing of Syria would be highly unlikely.

    If you want to read possible repercussions, an ABC News story via Yahoo has five interesting hypotheticals, but they are just hypotheticals.

    [Image via a Youtube video of the USS Stout launching a cruise missile]