In Homeland Security

Global Security Brief

2008-08-20T20:28:50Z

A daily, open source, around the world tour of international security-related news.

By Professor Joseph B. Varner

Global War on Terror

French President Nicolas Sarkozy visited a military chapel in Kabul on Wednesday where the bodies of 10 French soldiers killed in battle lay before they were to be flown home. Sarkozy spoke to French troops from units who lost some of the 10 soldiers killed in a fierce Taliban ambush and firefight in the mountains about 30 miles east of Kabul on Monday. He also visited some of the 21 soldiers wounded in the battle.He told a group of soldiers some 200 strong that France must learn lessons from the attack and change its procedures.

French Defense Minister Herve Morin said about 30 militants were killed and 30 wounded. Taliban fighters and militants allied to renegade warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar operate in Surobi. It was the deadliest attack on international troops in Afghanistan since June 2005, when 16 American soldiers were killed when their helicopter was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade. Meanwhile, some 19 Taliban fighters were killed in two separate clashes Wednesday in the eastern provinces of Khost and Paktia and a soldier from the U.S.-led coalition was killed by militants while on patrol in the west of the country. Ten militants were killed in Alisher district of Khost province early Wednesday after they attacked a construction company. Another nine militants were killed in clashes in Zormat district of Paktia province on Wednesday. The militants had gathered in an open area when Afghan and foreign troops attacked them. There were no casualties among Afghan and foreign troops. A coalition soldier was killed by small arms fire while on patrol in western Afghanistan, the coalition said in a statement Wednesday without identifying the soldier's nationality.

(Source: AP)

The beleaguered Philippine peace process was thrown into disarray Wednesday, with the government saying a proposed deal with Muslim rebels must be renegotiated after the guerrillas shot or hacked 37 people to death. The announcement came as the peace process with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front already appeared to be unraveling after Monday's rampage, which also led 44,000 people to flee their homes for evacuation centers in the troubled south. Jesus Dureza, the president's press secretary, said the government was concerned that the rebel leadership may not be able to control all their forces and such attacks could be repeated. (Source: AP)

Twin car bombings rocked a hotel and military headquarters in the Algerian town of Bouira on Wednesday, killing 11 people a day after a suicide bombing in a neighboring region killed 43. Wednesday's first bomb targeted Bouira's regional military command and injured four soldiers, the state-run APS news agency said. A minute later, 11 people died and 27 were wounded when a second bomb went off next to a hotel in downtown Bouira. It was not immediately clear whether the bombings, which occurred at about 6 a.m. local time, were suicide attacks or if the two cars blew up by remote control. There was no immediate official comment on the attacks. (Source: AP)

Iraq

The U.S. military says Iraqi troops have detained the son of a prominent Sunni leader during a raid in Baghdad. The arrest of Adnan al-Dulaimi's son Muthanna comes eight months after the detention of another son prompted an outcry among Sunni politicians. The military's statement on Wednesday says the detention took place the night before but that American troops were not involved. Al-Dulaimi is the head of the largest Sunni Arab police bloc the National Accordance Front. (Source: AP)

Also Tuesday, a car bomb killed three policemen in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, once a stronghold of the Sunni insurgency. (Source: Washington Post)

United States

The federal government has been using its system of border checkpoints to greatly expand a database on travelers entering the country by collecting information on all U.S. citizens crossing by land, compiling data that will be stored for 15 years and may be used in criminal and intelligence investigations. Officials say the Border Crossing Information system, disclosed last month by the Department of Homeland Security in a Federal Register notice, is part of a broader effort to guard against terrorist threats. It also reflects the growing number of government systems containing personal information on Americans that can be shared for a broad range of law enforcement and intelligence purposes, some of which are exempt from some Privacy Act protections. While international air passenger data has long been captured this way, Customs and Border Protection agents only this year began to log the arrivals of all U.S. citizens across land borders, through which about three-quarters of border entries occur. (Source: Washington Post)

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Polish counterpart signed a deal Wednesday to build a U.S. missile defense base in Poland, an agreement that prompted an infuriated Russia to warn of a possible attack against the former Soviet satellite. The deal to install 10 U.S. interceptor missiles just 115 miles from Russia's westernmost frontier also has strained relations between Moscow and the West, ties that already troubled by Russia's invasion of its former Soviet neighbor, U.S. ally Georgia, earlier this month. Rice and Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski signed the deal Wednesday morning. (Source: AP)

Africa

Sudan's indicted president denied Wednesday that his regime is orchestrating genocide in the troubled western region of Darfur, and offered hope for an end to the violence and the dawn of reconciliation by promising free and fair elections next year. President Omar al-Bashir was indicted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague last month on genocide and war crimes charges. Prosecutors say militias unleashed by his government have killed some 300,000 ethnic Africans since 2003. More than 2.5 million have been displaced. Al-Bashir, speaking in Turkey during his first trip abroad since the indictment, said the death toll was inflated. (Source: AP)

Americas

A Canadian man accused of involvement in a plot to bomb British targets wanted to fight alongside insurgents in Afghanistan but never intended to bomb civilians in Britain, his lawyer said Tuesday. Momin Khawaja, a Pakistani-born Canadian citizen, is accused of collaborating with a group of British Muslims, also of Pakistani descent, in a thwarted 2004 plan to bomb British buildings and natural gas grids. Attorney Lawrence Greenspon presented a motion Tuesday demanding that terrorism charges against his client be dropped, arguing the prosecution hasn't produced enough evidence to substantiate the British bomb-plot allegations. Greenspon told Ontario Superior Court there is evidence Khawaja trained to become a jihadi soldier so he could battle Western troops in Afghanistan. (Source: Washington Times)

The crew of a Canadian frigate got a glimpse of piracy as it sailed around the Horn of Africa en route to its mission escorting food shipments into Somalia. Within the past five days, HMCS Ville de Quebec came within about 25 kilometers of two small bulk carriers that had been seized by Somalian pirates. (Source: Chronicle Herald-CAN)

Canada will be keeping closer watch on Russian activities in the Arctic following the invasion of Georgia, Defence Minister Peter MacKay said yesterday, adding that the country appears to have entered a "new era" of relations with Moscow. "We're obviously very concerned about much of what Russia has been doing lately," Mr. MacKay said after launching Operation Nanook, an Arctic sovereignty exercise. "When we see a Russian bear approaching Canadian air space, we meet them with an F-18," said Mr. MacKay, referring to Arctic patrol flights by Russian bombers. "We remind them that this is Canadian air space that this is Canadian sovereign air space, and they turn back. And we are going to continue to do that, to demonstrate that we are watching closely their activities here." Mr. MacKay's comments came as NATO allies issued a joint statement saying relations with Russia could not remain "business as usual." Russian forces pushed into Georgia earlier this month after the Georgian army occupied the breakaway province of South Ossetia. Yesterday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Canada would review all aspects of its relations with Russia. Last week, the prime minister accused Russia of reverting to a "Soviet-era mentality" with the invasion.

(Source: Canada.com)

Asia

North Korea stepped up criticism of ongoing U.S.-South Korea military exercises, warning Wednesday that it would boost its "war deterrent," a euphemism for its nuclear programs. North Korea "will increase its war deterrent in every way as long as the U.S. and its followers continue posing military threats to it," a spokesman for the North's Foreign Ministry said in comments carried by the country's official Korean Central News Agency. The remarks came two days after South Korea and the U.S. launched Ulchi Freedom Guardian, an annual computer-simulated war game and follow daily criticisms of the exercises in North Korean media. The exercises come amid a dispute between the U.S. and North Korea over ways to verify the North's declared nuclear programs under an aid-for disarmament deal. (Source: AP)

Cracks appeared in Pakistan's ruling coalition yesterday as the death toll from a bomb attack outside a hospital rose to 30, highlighting the daunting problems facing the country after Pervez Musharraf's resignation as President on Monday. Coalition leaders met for several hours in Islamabad to discuss whether to prosecute Musharraf, who should replace him and how to tackle the nation's dire economic and security problems. Negotiations stalled over the thorny question of whether to reinstate the judges whom Musharraf dismissed last year when he imposed emergency rule to ensure his re-election. Sherry Rehman, the Information Minister, said that no progress had been made in talks between the leaders of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), the Pakistan Muslim League (N) and two smaller coalition partners. (Source: The Times-UK)

Police using tear gas and batons clashed with Hindu protesters defying a fresh curfew in Indian Kashmir on Wednesday, injuring at least 25 people. Authorities re-imposed a curfew in Jammu, the region's only predominantly Hindu city, and several nearby towns after several incidents of violence were reported overnight. The clashes, which come after several days of relative calm, were small compared to the massive protests that have rocked the state over the last two months. At least 34 people have been killed in the violence. The crisis began in June with a dispute over land near a Hindu shrine. Muslims held protests complaining that a state government plan to transfer 99 acres (40 hectares) to a Hindu trust to build facilities for pilgrims near the shrine was actually a settlement plan meant to alter the religious balance in the region. (Source: AP)

Europe

Semtex explosive formerly belonging to the Provisional IRA was used in a terrorist attack on police officers in Northern Ireland at the weekend, marking a dangerous escalation in the capabilities of so-called ‘dissident’ republican groups intent on reigniting the province’s long and bloody conflict. Two police officers narrowly escaped death or serious injury on Saturday night in the border town of Lisnaskea, Co Fermanagh, according to Paul Leighton, the Deputy Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). The most alarming element of the rocket attack was the detection of Semtex, an explosive imported into Ireland in vast quantities in the mid to late 1980s by the Provisionals as a gift from Colonel Muammar Gadaffi of Libya. The Provisional IRA was meant to have decommissioned its stockpiles of weaponry in what had proved to be the most difficult part of the peace process to accomplish, with an independent group led by the retired Canadian General John de Chastelain overseeing the operation. The decommissioning process was formally concluded in 2005. (Source: The Times-UK)

Turkey's interior minister on Wednesday confirmed that 13 policemen were wounded in a suicide bombing this week. The minister, Besir Atalay, said that a man who was being pursued by police detonated the explosives at a checkpoint outside the southern city of Mersin on Tuesday, wounding the policemen, two of them seriously. Authorities were investigating who was behind the attack, but Mersin Gov. Huseyin Aksoy blamed Kurdish rebels. There has been no claim of responsibility. Kurdish guerrillas have been fighting for the country's Kurdish-dominated southeast since 1984. The guerrillas have carried out suicide bomb attacks in the past. (Source: AP)

A convoy of badly needed food aid for beleaguered Georgians rumbled through a Russian checkpoint Wednesday, waved through by soldiers who themselves showed no signs of fulfilling their president's promise of a pullback within two days. A top Russian general, meanwhile, said Russia plans to construct a series of checkpoints manned by hundreds of soldiers in the so-called "security zone" around Georgia's de-facto border with the breakaway territory of South Ossetia. Colonel General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy head of the Russian general staff, told a briefing Wednesday that Russia will build a double line of 18 checkpoints in the zone, with the posts in the front line to be manned by about 270 soldiers. The Russian-backed separatist region was the flashpoint of fighting this month that brought Russian troops deep into Georgia. A cease-fire that calls for both sides to pull back to their positions before the brief war allows Russia to maintain troops in a zone extending more than four miles into Georgia from South Ossetian line. The Russian forces in Georgia appear to be aiming to weaken Georgia's military through the detention of personnel and destruction of equipment before they withdraw as promised. On Tuesday, Russian forces drove out of the Black Sea port city of Poti with about 20 blindfolded and bound Georgian prisoners, identified by local officials as soldiers and police, and seized four U.S. Humvees. They reportedly were taken to a Russian-controlled military base nearby, and Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said Wednesday they still were being held. Nogovitsyn, the Russian general, indicated his forces may not return the U.S. vehicles, which had been waiting at Poti to be shipped home after being used in recent U.S.-Georgia military exercises. Asked about U.S. demands that Russia return seized weaponry to the Georgian military, he said "we don't intend to give up trophies." Nogovistsyn said that 64 Russian soldiers were killed in the fighting and 323 were wounded. Russia previously had said 74 soldiers were killed and 170 were wounded in the conflict. Georgian officials have said they lost 160 soldiers and that 300 are missing. Russia claims Georgian losses are much higher. Civilian casualties remain unclear. South Ossetian officials on Wednesday said 1,492 civilians in the breakaway province had been killed. The investigative committee of the Russian prosecutor general's office on Wednesday confirmed 133 civilian deaths in South Ossetia, but said it could not be sure of a complete figure because many victims had already been buried. However, the two nations exchanged 20 prisoners of war, 15 Georgians and five Russians, according to the head of Georgia's Security Council, in an effort to reduce tensions. On the diplomatic front, NATO foreign ministers suspended their formal contacts with Russia as punishment. Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said "there can be no business as usual with Russia under present circumstances." (Source: AP)

Middle East

Hamas has rejected a proposal to deploy Arab troops in Gaza to help the Palestinians "reconstruct" their police forces and pave the way for a Hamas-Fatah reconciliation. The proposal, presented to Hamas by Egypt and Jordan in recent days, has won the full backing of the PA leadership in Ramallah, as well as the Saudis. Ayman Taha, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza City, said that "Hamas is capable of imposing law and order in the Gaza Strip, and we don't need external forces here." Hamas legislator Ismail al-Ashkar expressed fear that the proposal was aimed at restoring the pre-1967 situation, in which Gaza was under Egyptian rule while the West Bank was ruled by Jordan. (Source: Jerusalem Post)

Palestinians in Gaza fired a Kassam rocket into Israel Tuesday, in violation of the two-month old truce. Defense Minister Barak ordered the border crossings with Gaza closed between Wednesday morning and Thursday afternoon in response to the rocket attack. (Source: Ha'aretz)

The Israel Air Force will receive a new refueling aircraft in 2009, a Boeing 707 containing a refueling system, from Israel Aerospace Industries. "We are talking about a very big project that will give the IAF another refueling system," said Major Shlomi Shefer, the Head of the IAF Aerial Refueling Department. "We took the airplane used by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and turned it into an aerial refueling plane. The fact that the IAF will have another of these aircraft means that more planes will be able to achieve their mission. We expect this aircraft to have the ability to refuel other planes in a short amount of time." (Source: Israel Defense Forces)

Four Jordanian prisoners handed over by Israel last year to complete their life sentences in the kingdom were released from jail on Wednesday. The four, who were convicted of killing two Israeli soldiers in November 1990, received a hero's welcome from relatives as they walked out of Qafqafa prison carrying Jordanian flags. Under Jordanian law, a life sentence is equivalent to 25 years in prison and a "year" of jail comprises just nine months. (Source: AFP)

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday that Israel had "massive capabilities and tools during the Second Lebanon War that it refrained from using, because it was fighting a terror organization, not a state." Should a Hizbullah-led Lebanon lead to a war in which Israel will be under a comprehensive attack, "There will no longer be a situation of distant fighting, where major cities continue with life as usual. The war will reach the cities and homes of Israeli citizens and our enemy's objective will be to target the homefront," he said. At that point, "we will be forced to bring an end to hostilities quickly, at the smallest possible cost, using our comparative advantage," Olmert said. Olmert emphasized that "there is no need to frighten ourselves more than is necessary regarding the threats." He stated that during the 33 days of fighting in Lebanon, no one who had been staying inside a bunker had been hurt. (Source: Ynet News)

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Wednesday he would use this week's visit to Russia to expand military ties with Moscow. Assad told Kommersant newspaper, "Of course military and technical cooperation is the main issue. Weapons purchases are very important. I think we should speed it up." A diplomatic source in Moscow said that Russia and Syria were preparing a number of deals involving anti-aircraft and anti-tank missile systems. Syria is interested in Russia's Pantsyr-S1 air defense missile systems, the BUK-M1 surface-to-air medium-range missile system, military aircraft and other hardware, the source said. (Source: Reuters)

Last year, Russian media reported that Moscow had delivered MiG-31 fighter planes and modern air defense systems to Syria, angering Israel. Damascus is a Soviet-era ally of Moscow, which maintained a naval base at the Syrian port of Tartus starting in the 1970s. The Russian media has speculated in recent years that Moscow is hoping to revive the base. (Source: AFP)

Ahmad Fayyazbakhsh, the head of a state-owned nuclear energy production company, said Tuesday that his company signed agreements with other Iranian firms to find locations to build new nuclear power plants. Iran has previously announced plans to build six more nuclear power plants by 2021. The U.S. suspects Iran's nuclear program is a cover for developing weapons. (Source: AP)

In an August 11 editorial titled "When Will the Hormuz Strait Be Closed?" in the Iranian weekly Sobh-e Sadeq, the mouthpiece of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei circulated among the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, IRGC political bureau chief Yadollah Javani wrote: "The Strait of Hormuz is one of 14 locations in the world with unique strategic importance. Over 60 percent of the world's energy reserves are located in the Persian Gulf, and 17 million barrels of oil are transported daily from the strait by oil tankers....Closing the Strait of Hormuz is part of Iran's defense policy in the face of the U.S. military threat." (Source: MEMRI)

Joe Varner is Assistant Professor and Program Manager for Homeland Security at American Military University

Global Security Brief

2008-08-18T13:52:11Z

A daily, open source, around the world tour of international security-related news.

By Professor Joseph B. Varner

Global War on Terror

The top U.S. general in Afghanistan issued a rare public warning that militants are planning attacks during the country's Independence Day on Monday. Just hours before the alert went out, a suicide bomber killed nine Afghans near a U.S. base.

The warning by Major General Jeffrey J. Schloesser said "credible intelligence" indicated that militants planned to attack civilian, military and government targets. A U.S. military statement said an increase in security and public awareness can "save Afghan lives, defeating the enemies' plan to discredit the Afghan government." Two hours before the warning was issued, a suicide bomber detonated explosives outside a U.S. base in the eastern province of Khost, killing nine Afghan laborers and wounding 13. Security forces stopped a second attacker from detonating his explosives. While Afghan, U.S. and NATO intelligence officials say they often hear of and disrupt plans by militants, rarely does the U.S. go to such lengths to publicize the threat. All United Nations staff were ordered to work from home Monday as a security precaution. The U.S. warning came one day after 7,000 police flooded the Afghan capital in advance of Afghanistan's 89th anniversary of independence from Britain. Even the location of the official celebration was kept secret and was to remain closed to the public to try to minimize the risk that insurgents could again disrupt a national commemoration. In other violence reported Monday, a bomb blast in the eastern province of Nangarhar killed two police on patrol late Sunday. Also, several militants were killed in two separate clashes with U.S.-led coalition troops in the eastern provinces of Kapisa and Paktika on Sunday. It did not provide an exact number of militants killed. (Source: Washington Times)

British troops accidentally killed four civilians and wounded three others with rockets during an operation against Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan, NATO and British officials said on Sunday. NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said women and children were among the casualties, but it did not give a detailed breakdown of the dead and injured. Britain's Ministry of Defence said British paratroopers were involved in the incident in the Sangin district of Helmand province on Saturday. ISAF and British forces would investigate. (Source: Reuters)

The Taliban issued a dire warning to Canada yesterday that if it does not withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, insurgents would continue to target all Canadians in the country, like they did earlier this week in an ambush attack on female aid workers outside Kabul. The Taliban urged Canadians in an open letter to press the government to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan or risk further attacks. "The Afghans did not go to Canada to kill the Canadians. Rather, it is the Canadians who came to Afghanistan to kill and torture the Afghan," the letter states, adding that they felt Canada was pandering to the United States in doing so. "Therefore, you have to convince your government to put an end to the occupation of Afghanistan, so that the Afghans are not killed with your hands and so that you are not killed with the hands of the Afghans." In a statement, Canadian Defence Minister Peter MacKay condemned the letter, saying that it will not deter Canadian soldiers currently in Afghanistan. (Source: Canada.com)

Canada's NATO partners are being asked to ride shotgun on rented Russian-built transport helicopters and newly purchased Chinooks once the air force takes possession of them in Afghanistan, says a senior Canadian military planner. Both the U.S. Army and Dutch forces have operated armed escort helicopters out of Kandahar Airfield since 2006.

And the allies will be asked to protect the Canadian transports. The decision potentially puts to rest rampant speculation that a flight of specially-modified CH-146 Griffon utility helicopters, which have been given weapons and extra sensors, will be deployed to the war zone. (Source: CTV)

Pakistan's mounting insurgency, centered in the north-western tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, has been exacerbated by a weak, four-month-old coalition government that lacks an effective antimili-tant strategy. Following the suicide bombing near a mosque in Lahore last Wednesday, just before the anniversary of Pakistan's independence, concern is growing that the insurgency is increasingly spilling into Pakistan's towns and cities. Lahore's blast occurred only days after 13 people were killed by a bus bombing in Peshawar, a frontier town near Afghanistan increasingly targeted by the Taliban and aligned militant groups. Exacerbating the problem is the government's preoccupation with its attempt to boot President Pervez Musharraf from power. Sunday, the coalition's leaders, Asif Ali Zardari of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of the PML-N Party, finished drawing up the charges they will launch against the former Army chief if he refuses to step down. It was a rare moment of unity between the former bitter enemies. (Source: CSM)

On a recent four-month trek through hundreds of Kashmiri villages, separatist leader Yasin Malik called on people to adopt his new Gandhian philosophy of nonviolence. Malik, a secular Muslim, soon became an icon of peace to many youths in this turbulent region that India and Pakistan have fought over for decades. But Malik's commitment to nonviolence is now being tested amid a wave of unrest in Indian-administered Kashmir. Over the past six weeks, tensions between Muslims and Hindus have left 34 people dead, most of them unarmed protesters shot by Indian security forces. Like many leaders here, Malik worries that Kashmir's separatist movement is once again on the verge of becoming an armed struggle. (Source: Washington Post)

Muslim rebels attacked several southern coastal townships Monday, killing a local official and burning houses in a sharp escalation of fighting amid uncertainty over a fragile peace process. Regional military spokesman Major Armand Rico said the towns of Kulambugan and Kauswagan in Lanao del Norte province came under attack early Monday from renegade forces of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. He said the rebels executed the leader of Libertad village in Kauswagan town. Government troops in armored vehicles fought the rebels in efforts to push them back into the hinterland, where they maintain camps. Local officials ordered the evacuation of residents from nearby communities to avoid casualties. (Source: AP)

Iraq

A suicide bomber killed 15 people Sunday night, including at least six U.S.-backed Sunni Arab fighters, near a crowded outdoor market in east Baghdad. At least 30 people were wounded in the attack near the historic Abu Hanifa Mosque in the Sunni district of Adhamiya. Women and children were among the dead, said Abu Abed, the head of the U.S.-funded Sons of Iraq neighborhood security group there. There were contradictory accounts of the incident. One police officer said the bomber was disguised as a woman and arrived on foot; another said the attacker was not disguised and arrived on a bike.The bomber struck about 7:30 p.m., when the shift of local Sunni guards normally changes over. The commander at the checkpoint, Farouq abu Omar, and four of his men were slain. At least 16 Sons of Iraq fighters have died in Adhamiya since the group was founded in winter. He warned that Al Qaeda in Iraq was regrouping in Baghdad. (Source: Los Angeles Times)

Masked gunmen ambushed a bus carrying electoral officials in southern Iraq on Monday, killing two and seriously wounding a third. The attackers opened fire from a passing car in the Abu al-Khasib area south of Basra, which saw bitter infighting among Shiite factions before a U.S.-backed Iraqi military operation curbed violence earlier this year.

Two top members of a local committee preparing for provincial elections were killed, according to police and the head of Basra's elections panel, Hazim al-Rubaie. Also Monday, mourners in Baghdad's Azamiyah district fired guns in the air to show their grief during the funeral of Farooq al-Obeidi, deputy head of a group of U.S.-allied Sunni fighters who was killed by a suicide bomber. (Source: AP)

United States

A growing array of American military leaders, Arctic experts and lawmakers say the United States is losing its ability to patrol and safeguard Arctic waters even as climate change and high energy prices have triggered a burst of shipping and oil and gas exploration in the thawing region. In the meantime, a resurgent Russia has been busy expanding its fleet of large ocean-going icebreakers to about 14, launching a large conventional icebreaker in May and, last year, the world's largest icebreaker, named 50 Years of Victory, the newest of its seven nuclear-powered, pole-hardy ships. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Coast Guard and others have warned over the last several years that the United States' two 30-year-old heavy icebreakers, the Polar Sea and Polar Star, and one smaller ice-breaking ship devoted mainly to science, the Healy, are grossly inadequate. Also, the Polar Star is out of service. And this spring, the leaders of the Pentagon's Pacific Command, Northern Command and Transportation Command strongly recommended in a letter that the Joint Chiefs of Staff endorse a fresh push by the Coast Guard to increase the United States' ability to gain access to and control its Arctic waters. (Source: IHT)

The Defense Intelligence Agency's newly created Defense Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence Center is going to have an office authorized for the first time to carry out "strategic offensive counterintelligence operations," according to Mike Pick, who will direct the program. Such covert offensive operations are carried out at home and abroad against people known or suspected to be foreign intelligence officers or connected to foreign intelligence or international terrorist activities -- but not against U.S. citizens, said Toby Sullivan, director of counterintelligence for James R. Clapper Jr., the undersecretary of defense for intelligence. Sullivan and Pick, who is chief of the agency's Counterintelligence Human Intelligence Enterprise Management Office, spoke to reporters during a Pentagon briefing this month. These sensitive, clandestine operations are "tightly controlled departmental activities run by a small group of specially selected people" within the Defense Department, said Sullivan, who exercises authority over all Pentagon counterintelligence activities. The investigative branches of the three services, the Army's Counterintelligence Corps, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, have done secret offensive counterintelligence operations for years, and now DIA has been given the authority. The purpose of an offensive counterintelligence operation is not criminal prosecution, which would be the goal if the target were an American recruited by a foreign power to be an agent in this country. In such an investigation, DIA officers would work with the FBI to gather evidence for use in an indictment and a trial. (Source: Washington Post)

A National Research Council blue-ribbon panel of defense experts is recommending development and testing of a conventional warhead for submarine-launched intercontinental Trident missiles to give the president an alternative to using nuclear weapons for a prompt strike anywhere in the world. In critical situations, such an immediate global strike weapon "would eliminate the dilemma of having to choose between responding to a sudden threat either by using nuclear weapons or by not responding at all," the panel said in a final report requested by Congress in early 2007 and released yesterday. Congress has delayed funding the conventional Trident program for two years while providing more than $200 million for research and development of additional, longer-term concepts for quick global strikes. One major congressional concern was that to other countries, such as Russia or China, the launch of a conventional Trident missile could not be distinguished from a nuclear one and could be mistaken for the start of a nuclear war. The panel recognized that problem and suggested several ways to mitigate it, but in the end it concluded that the benefits outweighed the risks. The panel said that before any deployment takes place, there should be diplomatic discussions, particularly with partner countries. It said these talks should include "the doctrine for its use, immediate notifying of launches against countries, and installing devices (such as monitoring systems) to increase confidence that conventional warheads had not been replaced by nuclear ones." The panel also said that few countries, other than Russia and perhaps China, would be able to detect a sub-launched missile "in the next five years," and that because of the few warheads that would be involved, "the risk of the observing nation's launching a nuclear retaliatory attack is very low." (Source: Washington Post)

The United States has called an emergency meeting of NATO foreign ministers to review the alliance's worsening relations with Russia following Moscow's military intervention in Georgia. The military alliance is expected to consider a range of upcoming activities planned with Russia, from military exercises to ministerial meetings, and decide case-by-case at the meeting Tuesday whether to go ahead with each activity. Allied ministers will also discuss support for a planned international monitoring mission in the region and a package of support to help Georgia rebuild infrastructure damaged in its devastating defeat at the hands of the Russian armed forces. Washington has denied claims by Russia's ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin that it is out to wreck the NATO-Russia Council, a consultative panel set up in 2002 to improve relations between the former Cold War foes. (Source: AP)

Africa

Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai would accept the prime minister's post and concede the presidency to President Robert Mugabe to settle a political crisis in his country. Tsvangirai outlined his proposal for resolving the contentious issue of who would lead any unity government in Zimbabwe in a speech Friday to regional cabinet ministers gathered for the Southern African Development Community summit. Tsvangirai said his Movement for Democratic Change presented the proposal during the deadlocked negotiations with Mugabe's ZANU-PF party. It would mean a major curbing of the powers Mugabe has wielded since the country gained independence in 1980. But it would also leave Tsvangirai working closely with a leader he has reviled as a brutal dictator. South African President Thabo Mbeki, who has been mediating Zimbabwe's power-sharing talks, spent much of the past week in Zimbabwe trying to push Mugabe and Tsvangirai to strike a deal. The question of Mugabe's role has been a major sticking point, with the longtime president reportedly refusing to yield any power and his administration publicly mocking Tsvangirai's claim to have the mandate to lead Zimbabwe. (Source: Washington Post)

A Sudanese anti-terrorist court has convicted and sentenced to death by hanging two senior members of a Darfur rebel group and six others for their role in an attack on the capital three months ago. Defence lawyer Kamal al-Jazouli says the eight convicted include Abdel Aziz Ushar, a senior commander in the Justice and Equality movement and half-brother of the group's leader. The charges include waging war against the state and the illicit use of weapons. Al-Jazouli said he will appeal within a week. Today's ruling brings to 38 the number of people sentenced to death for their role in the May 10 attack by Darfur rebels on Khartoum. Hundreds of Darfurians were arrested after the attack which left 200 people dead. (Source: TheSpec.com)

Americas

In a summer of record marine traffic in the Arctic, the Canadian military is about to begin a series of elaborate rehearsals on how to react in case of emergency on one of the cruise ships, pleasure craft, research or commercial vessels plying the northern waters. Beginning tomorrow, the army, navy and air force will begin Operation Nanook 08, the latest in a series of maneuvers designed to boost Canada's Arctic sovereignty and increase the military's ability to respond to emergencies. The exercise will involve 120 regular soldiers and about 70 Canadian Rangers, the largely aboriginal reserve force that acts as the army's eyes and ears in the North. Two warships will be deployed, including the frigate HMCS Toronto, as well as air force Twin Otters and Aurora surveillance planes. A record number of civilian agencies will also take part, including the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Canadian Border Services Agency. (Source: Globe and Mail)

Asia

North Korea accused the United States on Monday of using human rights to block progress in a six-nation agreement on eliminating nuclear weapons in the communist country. President Bush "blustered that he would handle the 'human rights issue' as 'an element for negotiations with North Korea,'" the official Korean Central News Agency said, referring to comments made by Bush during his recent visit to Asia. (Source: AP)

Pervez Musharraf, a key Muslim ally in the U.S.-led War on Terror, resigned as President of Pakistan today to avoid impeachment by a hostile parliament, nine years after he seized power in a bloodless coup. Musharraf, who stepped down as army chief last year, announced his resignation in a rambling and sometimes emotional one-hour address to the nation following a dramatic slump in his popularity over the last 18 months. The ruling coalition, which trounced his allies in a parliamentary election in February, had drawn up impeachment charges yesterday and warned him that it would present them to parliament this week if he did not resign. (Source: The Times-UK)

Sri Lankan troops captured a massive Tamil Tiger training base with underground bunkers, lecture halls and a cemetery as government forces pushed ahead with their offensive against the rebels, the military said Sunday. A series of raging battles across the northern war zone Saturday killed 27 Tamil Tiger fighters and seven government troops.

Troops have broken through the rebels' defenses in recent weeks and seized a series of key towns and bases. Government officials say they hope to rout the Tamil Tigers by the end of the year and end the Indian Ocean island nation's 25-year-old civil war. On Saturday evening, soldiers took control of a rebel training base in Andankulam in the Welioya region after Tamil Tiger fighters fled the area. (Source: The Times-UK)

Europe

Two small bombs blamed on Basque separatist group ETA exploded at tourist resorts in southern Spain on Sunday, authorities said. No injuries were reported, but more than 10,000 people were evacuated from a harbor area. It is the height of the summer tourist season in Spain, and ETA has previously carried out attacks in vacation areas at this time of year in an effort to disrupt tourism. The first blast occurred on a beach in Guadalmar at around 1 p.m. (7 a.m. EDT), and a second device exploded at a tourist marina parking lot in Benalmadena Costa two hours later. Both towns are around 340 miles south of Madrid in the Costa del Sol resort area on a stretch of coastline popular with foreign tourists, especially the British. A caller who said he spoke in the name of ETA warned the fire department in the beach resort of Benalmadena that three bombs would explode. The caller said bombs had been placed in Guadalmar, Benalmadena and on a highway linking Malaga to its international airport. (Source: AP)

Turkish warplanes hit a suspected Kurdish rebel target in northern Iraq, Turkey's military said Sunday. The cross-border air assault targeted a rebel shelter late Saturday where a group of PKK Kurdish rebels was believed to have gathered before a planned attack in Turkey, the military said on its Web site. The military provided no casualty figures. The reported air raid on the Avasin-Basyan region of Iraq could not independently be confirmed. Turkey's military has launched several air strikes and one ground incursion targeting the PKK rebel safe havens in northern Iraq since the parliament authorized cross-border military moves following a surge in PKK ambushes inside Turkey late last year. (Source: AP)

In the last week, two major pillars of President Bush's approach to foreign policy have crumbled, jeopardizing eight years of work and sending the administration scrambling for new strategies in the waning months of its term. From the earliest days of his presidency, Bush had said spreading democracy was a centerpiece of his foreign policy. At the same time, he sought to develop a more productive relationship with Russia, seeking Moscow's cooperation on issues such as terrorism, Iran's nuclear program and expansion of global energy supplies. And in pursuing both these major goals, Bush relied heavily on developing what he saw as strong personal relationships with foreign leaders. The recent setbacks to the president's approach were all the more unsettling because Georgia had appeared to be one of the few success stories in the administration's effort to nurture new democracies that could advance U.S. interests. (Source: Los Angeles Times)

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said two decades of work to bring Russia into the international community must be reassessed in the wake of its actions in Georgia, while Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned that Russia's actions "look like they do belong to the Soviet Union." The Bush administration's two senior defense and foreign affairs officials made the rounds of the Sunday talk shows with harsh words for Russia, citing consequences for Moscow but offering few specifics. "There's no doubt there will be further consequences," Rice said on "Fox News Sunday." "There have already been significant consequences for Russia." She said, for instance, that "any notion that Russia was the kind of responsible state, ready to integrate into international institutions" is now a nation "in tatters." (Source: Washington Post)

Russian troops remained in control of Gori in central Georgian and appeared to be bolstering some positions on Monday, even as military officials in Moscow said that a withdrawal from the country had begun. Russian forces continued to operate checkpoints on the roads leading into Gori, and earthmoving equipment was seen shoring up protective berms around Russian tanks. On the outskirts of town, meanwhile, groups of Georgian police in fresh uniforms stood idle, denied, so far, permission to reenter the city and resume their jobs. Troops also showed no signs of movement from the far western town of Zubdidi, where Russian forces took up positions last week after moving in through the disputed province of Abkhazia. Russian armor and soldiers remained stationed around the city, including tanks positioned at the local home of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvilli. It was not clear whether Moscow had begun repositioning its forces in other parts of the country. The Georgian government claimed that Russia had in fact expanded its presence, moving for the first time into the towns of Borjomi and Khashuri, west of Gori. Russian military officials in Moscow, however, said that a pull-out was underway, under the terms of a French-brokered ceasefire agreement. "According to the peace plan, the withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers and reinforcements has begun," Anatoly Nogovitsyn, a colonel-general on the Russian General Staff, said at a news briefing. President Dmitry Medvedev vowed to "begin the withdrawal of the military contingent" starting Monday. Russian leaders have made contradictory and at times clearly false statements about their troops' plans and positions ever since the Georgia operation began. On Saturday, a top Russian general told reporters that his country had no troops in Gori. (Source: Washington Post)

Middle East

The Italian government allowed Palestinian terror organizations to act freely within its territory in the 1970s and 80s in exchange for their commitment to refrain from targeting Italians. Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga told Corriere della Sera, "I always knew...about the existence of an agreement based on 'don't harm me and I won't harm you' between the Italian Republic and organizations such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the PLO." According to Cossiga, the agreement was approved and directed by former Italian Premier Aldo Moro. "According to the deal, the Palestinian organizations could establish bases in Italy, enjoyed freedom of movement when entering and exiting the country, and could move around without undergoing mandatory security checks because they were protected by the secret service," Cossiga explained. "During my time as interior minister I learned that PLO people were holding heavy artillery in their homes and protected by diplomatic immunity as representatives of the Arab League." The agreement did not always run smoothly. On August 2, 1980, an explosion shook Bologna's train station; 85 people were killed and 200 were injured. Cossiga believes the explosion may have been due to a Palestinian "work accident." (Source: Ynet News)

The Israeli cabinet on Sunday approved the release of some 200 Palestinian prisoners as a gesture to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. The Prime Minister's Office said, "This is a gesture and a trust-building move aimed at bolstering the moderates in the Palestinian Authority and the peace process." Among the prisoners who are slated to be released are two Palestinians "with blood on their hands." One murdered Israelis and the other sent murderers. (Source: Ynet News)

Senior Fatah and PA figures will meet the released prisoners near the entrance to Ramallah and lead them on a victory parade through the streets to the Muqata, where they will pay their respects at Yasser Arafat's grave before listening to speeches that will be broadcast by Al Jazeera. (Source: Ha'aretz)

The government's decision to release some 200 security prisoners, mainly from Fatah, was unlikely to help that group, Brigadier General (res.) Shalom Harari, a senior research scholar with the Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, said on Sunday. Harari, who was a senior adviser on Palestinian affairs to the Defense Ministry for 20 years, said Fatah was in an extremely vulnerable state, and that the proposed prisoner release would likely be "forgotten after two days." (Source: Jerusalem Post)

Ambassador Dan Carmon, acting head of Israel's UN delegation, met on Friday with Claudio Graziano, head of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), and told him that Israel is concerned about Hizbullah's violations of UN Resolution 1701 and the group's increasing power. Carmon said Hizbullah's rearmament and the transferring of weapons from Iran and Syria to Lebanon should be mentioned in UNIFIL's reports to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Graziano claimed Thursday that Israel is the main culprit in violations of the UN resolution for its intelligence-gathering overflights of Lebanon. (Source: Ynet News)

Palestinians in Gaza fired a Kassam rocket Sunday afternoon that landed in Israel. Another rocket had landed on Friday afternoon. (Source: Ynet News)

Iran test-fired a new rocket capable of carrying a satellite into orbit, the Iranian state news media reported Sunday. Western experts said the launching represented a potentially significant if much-delayed step in Iran's efforts to join the international space club. The report comes amid growing Western nervousness about Iran's nuclear program and concerns that it could one day use its missile expertise to threaten enemies with annihilation by means of atomic warheads. "The Iranian development and testing of rockets is troubling and raises further questions about their intentions," a White House spokesman, Gordon D. Johndroe, said Sunday. Rocket scientists agree that the same technology that puts satellites into orbit can deliver warheads. Iranian officials also point to the use of satellites by the U.S. to monitor Afghanistan and Iraq and say they need similar abilities for their security. (Source: New York Times)

Iran's claim of having increased the range of its fighter jets, allowing them to fly as far as Israel and back without refueling, did not signify any new operational abilities, an arms expert said on Sunday. Yiftah Shapir, head of the Middle East Military Balance project at Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies, said, "You may be able to technically fly the distance at high altitude without arms on the jet, but there's a big difference between that and flying low as you would on a mission to avoid radar, laden with arms, which takes up more fuel. I'm certain the Iranians are far from having that capability," he added. (Source: Jerusalem Post)

Joe Varner is Assistant Professor and Program Manager for Homeland Security at American Military University

Global Security Brief

2008-08-14T13:33:40Z

A daily, open source, around the world tour of international security-related news.

By Professor Joseph B. Varner

Global War on Terror

An explosion targeting international troops on a foot patrol in southern Afghanistan killed three members of the U.S.-led coalition Thursday. The coalition did not release any details about the attack, including the troops' nationalities or the location of the blast. American forces make up the vast majority of the coalition, which includes special forces units and soldiers who train Afghan army and police forces.

The 40-nation NATO-led force operates under a separate command. Southern Afghanistan is the center of the Taliban-led insurgency. The last three months have been the deadliest for international troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S. led invasion. (Source: AP)

A 40-year-old Briton was among three women aid workers killed yesterday in an ambush by Taleban gunmen in one of the worst attacks on foreign civilians in Afghanistan in recent years. The body of Jacqueline Kirk and the two other women, as well as their Afghan driver, were found riddled with bullets in the province of Logar, about 50kilometers (30 miles) south of the capital, Kabul. The women were travelling from the eastern city of Gardez to Kabul in two vehicles when they were attacked by five gunmen on a road near the town of Pul-i-Alam. A second driver was critically wounded but survived. Agencies say that there has been a sharp rise in attacks on aid workers in Afghanistan; 84 incidents have been reported already this year. Zabihullah Mujahed, a Taleban spokesman, admitted responsibility for yesterday’s attack but claimed that the vehicle was carrying military personnel, “most of them female”. (Source: The Times-UK)

A homemade bomb hurt a would-be attacker in the Philippines on Thursday while another device was defused at a southern bus terminal in what the military suggested was retaliation from Muslim rebels for a recent government offensive. The mayor of M'lang town said an explosive device, concealed in a milk carton, went off prematurely at a public market, slightly wounding the man carrying it. The man was arrested and allegedly admitted to being a member of the rebel Moro Islamic Liberation Front who wanted to "sow terror." (Source: AP)

Iraq

Iraqi police say at least 15 people have been killed and 40 wounded when a female suicide bomber blew herself up among Shiite pilgrims south of Baghdad. Police spokesman Captain Muthanna Khalid says the woman detonated her explosives belt in Iskandariyah. The city is a former Sunni insurgent stronghold that has seen a sharp decline in violence after local tribal leaders joined forces with the Americans against Al Qaeda in Iraq. Shiite pilgrims have faced a series of attacks Thursday as they headed on foot to the holy city of Karbala for a major religious festival. Two roadside bombs went off Thursday in separate Baghdad locations, killing a Shiite pilgrim and a policeman and wounding 16 people, most of them Shiite pilgrims headed on foot to the holy city of Karbala for a major religious festival. The first bomb, in the southeastern district of Zafaraniyah, killed the policeman and wounded nine others, six pilgrims and three policemen. The second, in the central Alwiya district, killed one pilgrim and wounded seven, all males in their late teens and early 20s. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. The Shabaniyah festival, which climaxes over the weekend, marks the birth of Mohammed al-Mahdi, the 12th Shiite imam, who disappeared in the 9th century. Devout Shiites believe he will return to Earth to restore peace and harmony. Shiite religious festivals have often been targeted by militants from Al Qaeda in Iraq, the country's deadliest Sunni terror group. In other incidents Thursday, three policemen were killed and six others wounded when a roadside bomb hit their patrol near Buhriz, a town about 35 miles north of Baghdad in the turbulent Diyala province, according to the provincial joint operations center. Farther north, in the city of Mosul, gunmen shot dead an off-duty policeman and army soldier in separate incidents. (Source: AP)

United States

The Polish prime minister says that Poland and the U.S. have reached an agreement that will see a battery of American missiles established inside Poland, a plan that has infuriated Russia and raised the specter of an escalation of tension with the country. Donald Tusk, speaking in a televised interview from the capital, said Thursday that the U.S. agreed to Polish proposals that it help augment its defenses in exchange for placing 10 missile defense interceptors. The deal has been reached after more than 18 months of back-and-forth, often terse, negotiations between the two countries. Its conclusion carries an especially symbolic weight in the aftermath of Russia's incursion into Georgia in recent days. (Source: AP)

Libya and the U.S. settled all outstanding lawsuits by American victims of terrorism on Thursday, clearing the way for the full restoration of diplomatic relations. There were 26 pending lawsuits filed by American citizens against Libya for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and other attacks, said a senior Libyan government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the details of the deal had not been publicly announced. He said there were also three outstanding lawsuits filed by Libyan citizens for U.S. airstrikes on Tripoli and Benghazi in 1986 that Libyans say killed 41 people, including leader Moammar Gadhafi's adopted daughter.

(Source: AP)

Africa

Officials briefly confiscated the passports of Zimbabwe's top opposition leader and two aides as they tried to fly to South Africa Thursday to attend a regional summit. The seizure kept the three from flying Thursday, but opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, his secretary general Tendai Biti and a third Movement for Democratic Change official still have time to get to the weekend summit of the Southern African Development Community. "They have confiscated my passport," Tsvangirai told The Associated Press as he left the airport. Shortly afterward, party official Nqobizitha Mlilo said the passports had been returned. Attempts to reach Zimbabwean government officials for comment were not immediately successful. In South Africa, presidential spokesman Mukoni Ratshitanga said South African officials appealed to Zimbabwean officials to allow the opposition team attend the summit. (Source: AP)

Americas

The switch by Taliban insurgents to spectacular attacks, including the daylight murders of international aid workers that left two Canadians among the dead, has shattered Afghans' confidence in the international community and the Afghan government's ability to provide basic security, says a top Canadian adviser to President Hamid Karzai. Retired colonel Mike Capstick returned 10 days ago from Kabul, where he worked on a British-led counter-narcotics project with Karzai's government. In an interview, Capstick gave a grim assessment of the latest developments in Afghanistan, saying there is a sense of growing insecurity in the country. (Source: The Star)

Omar Khadr's defence team pushed the U.S. military commission here yesterday to allow expert testimony that could throw into doubt confessions made by juvenile defendants. The lawyers also want to use the request as a wedge to allow independent psychologists to interview Khadr, who so far has been assessed only by government psychologists who, the defence contends, wanted to manipulate Khadr in order to extract information from him. The tactic will probe the extent to which the military commission is prepared to grant certain requests to Khadr's legal team based on his age, 15, at the time he was captured. Lieutenant-Commander Bill Kuebler, Khadr's U.S. military defence lawyer, asked the court to allow the defence to introduce testimony from an expert on false confessions made by juveniles, a request the government doesn't appear to oppose. (Source: Globe and Mail)

Asia

A wave of battles across the front lines in Sri Lanka's 25-year-old civil war killed 14 ethnic Tamil rebels and two government soldiers, the military said Thursday. Government jets hit a series of Tamil Tiger targets in the Mullaittivu region early Thursday in support of troops fighting on the ground, the military said in a statement.

Fighting has escalated in recent weeks, with the military capturing a series of rebel bases and large chunks of territory, and government officials reiterating their pledge to crush the rebel group by the end of the year. The International Committee of the Red Cross said Thursday that tens of thousands of people were displaced by recent fighting, most of them heading deeper into rebel-held territory. Some were forced to abandon their homes repeatedly in recent months. (Source: AP)

Europe

A fire that killed two sailors aboard a nuclear-powered submarine as it patrolled beneath the Arctic ice was caused by a catalogue of errors that could have been avoided, the Ministry of Defence admitted yesterday. Paul McCann, 32, and Anthony Huntrod, 20, died when a unit used to provide extra oxygen exploded aboard HMS Tireless in March last year. Yesterday, a board of inquiry report detailed failures in the "acquisition, manufacture, transport, storage, stowage and logistics management" of the units. The armed forces minister, Bob Ainsworth, apologized "unreservedly" to the men's families. (Source: Globe and Mail)

Rapid advances in neuroscience could have a dramatic impact on national security and the way in which future wars are fought, U.S. intelligence officials have been told. In a report commissioned by the Defense Intelligence Agency, leading scientists were asked to examine how a greater understanding of the brain over the next 20 years is likely to drive the development of new medicines and technologies. They found several areas in which progress could have a profound impact, including behaviour-altering drugs, scanners that can interpret a person's state of mind and devices capable of boosting senses such as hearing and vision. On the battlefield, bullets may be replaced with "pharmacological land mines" that release drugs to incapacitate soldiers on contact, while scanners and other electronic devices could be developed to identify suspects from their brain activity and even disrupt their ability to tell lies when questioned. (Source: Guardian)

Russia has thrown down a gauntlet to the United States, challenging President George W Bush to "choose" between Washington's relationship with Georgia and its future ties with Moscow. In what appeared to be calculated defiance of the U.S. and the European Union, which mediated a ceasefire deal struck less than 24 hours earlier, Moscow earlier sent its forces to occupy the Georgian town of Gori, just 50 miles from the capital Tbilisi. Commanders say they will remain there until Saturday. After an E.U. foreign ministers meeting in Brussels, Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband said: "Russian incursions into Georgia from South Ossetia or from Abkhazia are contrary to international law. But following Bush's offer of humanitarian aid, he claimed that Georgia's ports and airports would be placed under US military protection, a suggestion quickly denied by the Pentagon. Russian forces on Wednesday entered the main port at Poti and detonated explosives on three Georgian patrol vessels. In and around Gori, several reports suggested Russian forces backed by South Ossetian militias were engaged in looting and violence, but Moscow denied the claims. As Russia extended its grip in the north of the country, about 70 military vehicles left Gori, heading towards Tbilisi, but the column later halted its advance. Russia's foreign ministry said its forces were securing weapons and army bases abandoned by the US-equipped and trained Georgian army. The ceasefire brokered by the EU on Tuesday called for Russian and Georgian forces to return to positions they occupied before hostilities began, obliging Russian troops to withdraw to from Georgian territory beyond the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. But though President Dmitri Medvedev officially signed up to the deal in Moscow, Russian forces on the ground appeared bent on crippling Georgia's military capabilities for years to come. Apart from taking control of Georgian bases and securing weapons around Gori, Russian forces also struck at Georgian navy vessels, surveillance drones and radar stations. Georgian forces also appeared to have been routed from Abkhazia, the country's other breakaway zone, which lies on the Black Sea coast. There, separatist forces took full control as Georgian forces pulled out of the strategic Kodori Gorge, their last remaining foothold in the region. They reportedly hoisted their colours within Georgian territory beyond Abkhazia, taunting Tblisi by saying that retreating Georgian soldiers had received "American training in running away". Lightly armed Georgian forces have apparently drawn a new front line about 40 miles north of Tbilisi, promising to defend the capital from any further southwards Russian advance. But Medvedev insisted that Russian offensive operations were over, with Lavrov and his Georgian counterpart Eka Tkeshelashvili working on "the practical implementation" of the ceasefire. (The Telegraph-UK)

Middle East

The Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) in Gaza last week showed off what they said was a new rocket, called the Nasser-4, which can travel 25 km. (16 miles) double the range of the existing Nasser-3. If true, larger Israeli cities like Ashkelon and Ashdod would be under threat of attack. Israel says the rockets would represent a violation of the six-month Egyptian-brokered truce reached in June. "If the cease-fire is just a front for extremists in Gaza to rearm and regroup, of course we have the right to act," Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev told CNN. "Any arms buildup is a direct violation of the calm that was achieved." CNN was the only Western news organization to take part in the tour of the PRC rocket factory. Inside the "factory" a tiny room with rockets lining the walls, masked men tried to light a fire from a gas canister in order to heat the explosives to liquefy them so that they could be poured into the shells. But first, the lighter didn't work. Then, a leak in a canister filled the room with suffocating gas. Explosions, euphemistically called "workplace accidents," occur in Gaza from time to time. (Source: CNN)

Israeli Defense Force (IDF) soldiers on Wednesday detained a Palestinian at the Hawara checkpoint south of Nablus in the West Bank, after he was found to be carrying two pipe bombs. The bombs were detonated by military sappers. Over the past few years the IDF has thwarted numerous attempts to smuggle explosives and weapons through the Hawara checkpoint. (Source: Ynet News)

Lebanon's fragile status quo suffered a new blow yesterday when a bomb killed 18 people in the northern city of Tripoli, the scene of recent sectarian clashes. The blast came just before President Michel Suleiman left for a landmark visit to Syria, where the two neighbors finally agreed to establish formal diplomatic relations, and a day after Beirut's new national unity government won a parliamentary vote of confidence after weeks of stormy debates. Ten of the dead were soldiers and 30 other people were wounded by the remote-controlled bomb at a bus stop in a busy shopping street. A baby and an eight-year-old shoeshine boy were among the dead. No claim of responsibility was made, but suspicion fell on Fatah al-Islam, an extremist Sunni group with links to al-Qaida that fought the Lebanese army for three months last year they had vowed revenge against the army's then commander, who is now the president. Suleiman condemned the "terrorist crime" before leaving for Damascus, where his talks with President Bashar al-Assad were billed as the start of a new era, following the withdrawal of Syrian troops in 2005 after nearly three decades of military domination of its "sister" nation. That withdrawal was triggered by outrage over the assassination of the former prime minister, Rafiq Hariri, in a Beirut bomb blast in which Syria has consistently denied charges of involvement. Yesterday's Tripoli attack was a bloody beginning for the new 30-member cabinet, led by the prime minister, Fuad Siniora, which was formed last month with the participation of the Iranian-backed Shia movement Hizbullah, after a long crisis that descended into street violence that killed 65 people in May. (The Guardian-UK)

IDF forces shot and wounded an armed man who crossed from Syria into the Golan Heights on Wednesday. The infiltrator was taken to an Israeli hospital for treatment. (Source: Ynet News)

Joe Varner is Assistant Professor and Program Manager for Homeland Security at American Military University

A Total and Unmitigated Defeat? NATO, Russia and the Georgian Crisis

2008-08-14T13:21:35Z

Written by Joseph B. Varner and Joseph C. Ben-Ami
Originally Published in Canadian Centre for Policy Studies

In the debate over the Munich Accord in 1938, Winston Churchill pointed out what he called “the most unpopular and most unwelcome thing,” that what was being represented as a victory for peace and diplomacy was in fact “a total and unmitigated defeat”. The same thing might be said of NATO diplomacy over the past 12 months.

With their blitzkrieg-style invasion of neighbouring Georgia now winding down, Russia is on the threshold of turning what was a strategic mistake by NATO at last spring’s summit in Bucharest into a massive strategic defeat for the alliance; one that threatens to drive a wedge between its original members and its newest, all of which – significantly – are located in Eastern Europe.

One of the key items on the agenda of that meeting was separate requests by Ukraine and Georgia that they be permitted to join NATO, something the Russians adamantly opposed in both cases.

In the weeks and months preceding the conference the Russians waged a surprisingly aggressive campaign to discourage approval of these requests. For the first time in many years Russia conducted military maneuvers in both the Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea. Russian naval and air forces test fired cruise missiles in the Bay of Biscay, their combat aircraft 'buzzed' a US aircraft carrier in international waters, and their strategic bomber command – resuming combat air patrols on a level not seen since the end of the Cold war – tested NATO air defenses by staging mock air raids.

In addition to these tangible acts of reckless behaviour, the Russian government threatened to target Poland and the Czech Republic with missiles if either participated in the United States’ missile defense plan. It claimed sovereignty over much of the arctic, including areas of Canada’s north and, in the middle of the winter, it threatened to cut Ukraine off of its fuel supplies.

All the while, the Russians continued to stoke independence movements in Georgia’s provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, as it had been doing since the early 90s.

Of course, not all of these provocations were calculated to prevent Ukraine and Georgia from joining NATO, but to the extent that they were, they had the desired effect. When the time came for a decision, although as many as 10 countries – including Canada and the United States – were in favour of welcoming Ukraine and Georgia into the alliance, a faction led by France and Germany said no, and so the applications were turned down.

It is difficult to exaggerate the significance of this outcome. In the first place, it confirmed that the Russians now possess a de facto veto over NATO’s most fundamental strategic decisions, something no rational government would ever consider surrendering to a potential enemy. But what’s worse – far worse – is the fact that Russia was able to gain a concession of this magnitude through the use of nakedly coercive tactics and without having to offer up anything in return. In each of the world’s trouble spots – Iran and the Middle East, the Balkans, the Korean Peninsula, Darfur – the Russians have been singularly unhelpful in solving problems. Indeed like the old Soviet leaders who came before them, the Putin gang seems to believe that what’s bad for the West must be, by default, good for Russia.

It may be that the Georgian government led by President Mikheil Saakashvili grossly miscalculated in deciding to use the military to enforce its sovereignty in South Ossetia, but the Russian response has been anything but justified. South Ossetia is, after all, a part of the democratic Republic of Georgia. For that reason, the international community as a whole is obliged to take strong punitive action against Russia, even if it does not intervene militarily in the conflict. Anything less would be a signal to other potential aggressors that they too can use armed force to impose their will on their neighbours and beyond.

For NATO, however, the challenges posed by the Georgian crisis are especially acute. It may be politically incorrect to say it, but NATO’s whole reason for existence is to keep the peace by deterring Russian expansion in Europe. As such, the rejection of Georgia’s request to join the alliance last spring was bound to be interpreted by Putin and his entourage as a sign that they could do as they pleased in the Caucasus. And that is what the world is now witnessing.

In his Munich speech, Churchill described the diplomacy that led to the accord as a “disaster of the first magnitude” and concluded that as a result, “all the countries of Central and Eastern Europe will (now) make the best terms they can with the triumphant Nazi power.” Substitute Russian for Nazi and it’s hard to see the difference between then and now.

Consider the Baltic states. Putin has made no secret of his ambition to reconstitute the old Russian empire, nor has his government (Putin remains the centre of power in Russia despite the fact that he is now “only” the Prime Minister) been reluctant to use any means at its disposal to advance this goal, as evidenced by the events of the past week in Georgia. Once Georgia has been restored to its “rightful” place as a vassal of the Russian bear, will these countries be next? Certainly they will now be so fearful of provoking their restless neighbour that, henceforth, they will be less likely to promote freedom for their citizens internally, and more likely to support Russian diplomacy externally.

What about Ukraine? Unlike the small countries that lie on the Baltic coast, Ukraine is large, powerful and fiercely determined to defend its independence. Will Putin interpret NATO’s rejection of democratic Ukraine’s request to join the alliance as a sign that he can do as he pleases on his western border as well? Only time will tell, but this much is certain: given the example of Georgia, and the ongoing feeble response of NATO to other acts of Russian intransigence, the Ukrainian government is likely to be more bellicose, not less, in defending its own interests. As a consequence, the chance of a major armed conflict in Europe has been increased immeasurably by recent events.

Can anything be done to salvage the situation? The answer to that question is yes, but it will take determination on the part of Western governments and their willingness to assume some degree of risk to succeed.

NATO must convene an emergency summit to discuss the crisis and resolve on a course of action. It is pointless to wait for the United Nations to take the lead on this. If the UN cannot get its act together on Darfur or Iran, it will never be an effective instrument of deterrence against the Russians – especially since Russia has a veto in the Security Council.

What measures should NATO countries take?

First, they should impose meaningful economic sanctions against Russia. The risk in this is that the Russians may retaliate by reducing – or even cutting off – oil and natural gas supplies to Western Europe, but this is a double edged sword for them. Energy is the principle source of foreign currency for the Russian economy, so any long term interruption of supplies to the West will hurt them as much as it hurts NATO countries.

Second, they should announce that they are reassessing Ukraine’s application to join the alliance. The Russians will howl at this, but with the exception of cutting off energy supplies to the West – an act that would, as explained above, be devastating for their own economy – there is little more that they can do in response short of actually going to war. By reopening the question of Ukraine becoming a full-fledged member of the alliance, NATO will accomplish two things: a) it will dispel the misconception that the alliance has, by default, no interest in defending the independence of non-member states, and b) it will leave the door open to Russian concessions.

Third, they must agree to the deployment of the missile defence system in Europe. Like the Pershing II missile deployment of the early 1980s, this will demonstrate more than anything else that NATO is serious about European security. Not only will missile defence guard against Russian missiles, it will also counter the growing threat posed by Iran’s long-range missile development program.

Finally, they must agree on what concessions the Russians must make in order to end economic sanctions or avert other NATO actions, they must establish a timetable for compliance, and once these decisions have been made, they must stick to them. This latter point is crucial, and not just because the Russians respect strength. A policy of deterrence can only work if those against whom it is directed are reasonably certain that the threatened response will be implemented. If Russia (or Iran for that matter) calculates that there will never be real consequences to their actions because NATO is too timid or too divided to react effectively, they will continue to indulge the behaviour that led to the crisis in the first place.

After elaborating on the nature and depth of the calamity at Munich, and the string of diplomatic blunders that led to the conference, Churchill predicted that the appeasement embodied in the deal would not be the last of the moral or material demands made on the free world under threat of war.

“(D)o not suppose that this is the end,” he warned, “this is only the beginning of the reckoning…the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless, by a supreme recovery of our moral health and martial vigour, we arise again and take our stand for freedom.”

Stirring words indeed, and words that today’s diplomats should heed.

Joseph C. Ben-Ami is President of the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies.
Joseph B. Varner is the Centre's Director of National Security and Intelligence Studies.