By Jenni Hesterman

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) recently released its 2008 Opium Winter Rapid Assessment Survey, which shows that Afghanistan not only provides 90% of the world’s supply of opium, but is now also the top supplier of cannabis, the source of marijuana and hashish. Approximately 70,000 hectares (173 acres) of the crop were cultivated in 2007, as compared to 50,000 hectares in 2006. Estimates show yet another increase in production in 2008. The UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa summed up the challenge by stating: “Thus, today, Afghanistan has become the world's biggest supplier of two drugs: the most deadly one (heroin), and the one most commonly used (cannabis)”.

With unwanted Taliban (and world) attention on poppy production, farmers are increasing their cannabis plantings. According to the UN, nearly three quarters of the farmers in the southern Kandahar province will plant cannabis this spring. Despite the fact that cannabis crop is less lucrative than poppies, cannabis farmers make $30 per day, which is five times as much as harvesting wheat. Cannabis is easier and less expensive to grow, and there is increasing demand by users in neighboring countries. Although both drugs are banned by Islam, cannabis appears to be more acceptable than opium. It is converted into “cigarette-tees”, which are widely available for purchase in local markets throughout the region.

The escalating cannabis crop in Afghanistan has several implications. The overall U.S. commitment to counternarcotics in Afghanistan is about $500 million a year, and although a portion of the funds go toward hindering narco-trafficking, the bulk is spent on poppy eradication efforts. In fact, the 2007 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, released by the State Department, does discuss hashish seizures by officials, yet doesn’t mention cannabis crop production in Afghanistan as a focus area. Addressing this issue on the ground will likely require additional money and manpower, or the diversion of resources from the poppy suppression efforts.

At the tactical level, Taliban fighters have been known to hide in the marijuana fields. Plants can grow up to 10 feet and provide a thick, dense cover not easily penetrated by thermal devices. Cannabis foliage is hearty and moist; as discovered in other eradication efforts, it does not burn easily. Once ignited, the resulting smoke has an ill effect on humans and animals in the vicinity, thus impacting those beyond the area of operations.

Finally, the increased cannabis production could affect many innocent civilians. Established drug trading routes in the region are expected to burgeon, and villages along the routes have been warned by officials to expect increasing activity by traffickers, law enforcement, and possibly the Taliban.

About the Author
Jenni Hesterman is a retired Air Force colonel and counterterrorism specialist. She is a senior analyst for The MASY Group, a Global Intelligence and Risk Management firm that supports both the U.S. Government and leading corporations. She is also an adjunct professor at American Military University, teaching courses in homeland security and intelligence studies.

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By Jenni Hesterman

The State Department recently issued its latest International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, detailing activities of countries involved in the drug trade and outlining U.S. policy and activity in the fight against the manufacturing and distribution of illegal narcotics. Released by the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, the report includes a new section entitled "Mobile Payments--A Growing Threat", which outlines the ways technology may be exploited by nefarious groups to obscurely launder, move and store cash. Mobile payments, also known as “m-payments”, “proximity payments”, or “micropayments”, are point-of-sale cash transactions made through a mobile device such as cell phone or personal data assistant.

The sender takes the cash to a remittance center, which charges a modest service fee. The center then “sends” the amount to the recipient’s mobile account, also known as an e-wallet or e-purse. The recipient gets a text message on the mobile device indicating the sum has been placed in the account. The cash can then be collected at any participating remittance center, retail store, or, if business evolves as predicted, fast food outlet. The entire transaction takes mere minutes. Furthermore, use of a “throw-away” cell, phone purchased with cash, makes the transfer even more obscure and difficult to trace.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is an inter-governmental body that works internationally to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. FATF has also shown concern over emerging telecommunications technology as related to licit financial transactions made outside the regulated banking sector. FATF calls them “new payment methods” or NPMs. NPMs are also referred to in the industry as “e-money”, “digital cash” or “e-cash”. Examples of NPMs include the following: Internet payment services; prepaid calling, retail and credit cards; digital precious metals; and the aforementioned m-payments.

Through internet payment services, money can be moved between accounts, and the balance can then be liquidated into an untraceable card used to withdraw cash from ATMs worldwide. Phone cards, retail cards and credit cards may now be purchased with cash at many stores. The owner of the cards remains anonymous, an unlimited number of small value cards may be purchased and held, and any subsequent use is virtually untraceable. Finally, the emerging commodity of digital precious metals is a way to store and move large amounts of cash. Through this service, users create an account requiring little personal information and then secure cash deposits against gold, silver and platinum held in “off shores” via the Internet.

Traditional money laundering makes “dirty” money “clean” after the crime was committed, and the money trail is usually quite easy to follow. Terrorists launder "clean" money by moving and storing it for the purposes of financing training and future operations. The lack of physical evidence in mobile transactions, and the ability to easily move and store money through various NPMs, should be of great concern to the law enforcement community.

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About the Author
Jenni Hesterman is a retired Air Force colonel and counterterrorism specialist. She is a senior analyst for The MASY Group, a Global Intelligence and Risk Management firm that supports both the U.S. Government and leading corporations. She is also an adjunct professor at American Military University, teaching courses in homeland security and intelligence studies.

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

By Professor Joseph B. Varner

Global War on Terror

Canadian military officials are claiming a major victory after blowing up a Taliban command headquarters from which they say insurgents engineered the planting of explosives on the region's major highway. “The result of this operation, thus far, has been a huge blow to the enemy's ability to plant major IEDs (improvised explosive devices) along Highway 1 in Kandahar,” Lieutenant-Colonel Dave Corbould, the Shilo-based commander of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, told reporters on Monday.

More importantly, he said, it has hurt the Taliban's ability to plan for future operations. “It has thrown them off balance and we will continue to maintain the momentum to keep them off balance,” said Corbould. The three-day offensive, which began last Thursday, struck deep in the heart of the Zhari district, west of Kandahar, where Afghan national forces rarely venture. The first strike was by air. A massive plume that followed an aerial bombardment of the Taliban target could be seen many kilometers away. Then the ground forces moved in to finish the job. Coalition troops, members of the Afghan National Army, and the Afghan National Police converged on the command centre which Corbould described as a series of underground bunkers with some surface buildings attached. In the end, about 40 insurgents lay dead. Some military officials say the strike killed two mid-level commanders but Corbould said it will be some time before that can be confirmed. One suspected Taliban member was taken into custody. (Source: Globe and Mail-UK)

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The U.N.'s anti-drug office says opium poppy production in Afghanistan was down 19 percent this year compared to 2007 due to successful campaigns in the north and east though fields in the south remain awash in the heroin-producing crop. Efforts to eradicate opium poppy fields in the south failed miserably, and the Taliban stand to earn tens of millions of dollars from the trade. Still, the U.N. and other drug officials say they're cautiously optimistic. Last year farmers cultivated 476,903 acres; this year, they cultivated 388,000 acres. (Source: AP)

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Gunmen opened fire on the top U.S. diplomat in northwestern Pakistan early Tuesday as she left for work in her armored vehicle, police and embassy officials said. No one was killed in the attack. Lynne Tracy, principal officer for the consulate in the bustling city of Peshawar, was 100 yards from her house when two men with AK-47s jumped out of their dark blue Land Cruiser and sprayed her car with dozens of rounds of ammunition. Her driver reversed the vehicle and peeled back to her home, said Arshad Khan, the local police chief and senior investigator in the case. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. The brazen attack came hours after the breakup of Pakistan's ruling coalition government, a fracture that could concentrate more power into the hands of a party that says it is committed to supporting the U.S. war on terror. (Source: AP)

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A Whitehall counter-terrorism unit is targeting the BBC and other media organizations as part of a new global propaganda push designed to "taint the Al Qaeda brand", according to a secret Home Office paper seen by the Guardian. The document also shows that Whitehall counter-terrorism experts intend to exploit new media websites and outlets with a proposal to "channel messages through volunteers in internet forums" as part of their campaign. The strategy is being conducted by the research, information and communication unit, [RICU] which was set up last year by the then home secretary, John Reid, to counter al-Qaida propaganda at home and overseas. It is staffed by officials from several government departments. The report, headed, Challenging violent extremist ideology through communications, says: "We are pushing this material to UK media channels, for example, a BBC radio program exposing tensions between Al Qaeda leadership and supporters. And a restricted working group will communicate niche messages through media and non-media." (Source: Guardian-UK)

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Iraq

A teenage Iraqi girl wearing a vest packed with explosives turned herself in rather than go through with a suicide bombing in a violence-torn city north of Baghdad, police and the U.S. military said on Monday. A U.S. military statement said the girl surrendered to police on Sunday in Baquba, capital of Iraq's restive Diyala province, where Sunni Arab al Qaeda militants are waging war on U.S. and Iraqi forces. She was still wearing the vest, which police had to remove before detaining her. Iraqi police and U.S. sources differed on the girl's age, with estimates ranging from 13 to 17. (Source: Washington Post)

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A suicide bomber in a car laden with explosives sped toward a group of police recruits in an Iraqi provincial town on Tuesday, exploding and killing 25 people. Elsewhere in the volatile Diyala province, a roadside bomb killed five members of a family, bringing the day's casualty toll to 30. Diyala, a stronghold of Sunni insurgents and the Al Qaeda in Iraq terror network, has been the site of much of the recent violence, with an ebb in attacks elsewhere in the country. In the Diyala town of Jalula, the assailant drove a car Tuesday toward a building where recruits for a new police emergency response unit had assembled, said Col. Ahmed Mahmoud Khalifa, the local police chief. The U.S. military said five of the dead were police, the remainder civilians. Police guard Falah Hassan, 28, who stood at the gate of the compound, said a thunderous explosion went off about 100 yards (90 meters) away. Elsewhere in Diyala, a roadside bomb struck a van carrying a Sunni family near the town of Mandali along the Iranian border. Five members of the family were killed, including two women and two children. Also Tuesday, a bomb planted in a parked car blew up in the city of Tikrit, north of Baghdad. A police official initially said four people were killed. However, another police official later said he only received word of wounded, and security officials at a local hospital said they knew of 12 people injured in the blast. Tikrit is Saddam Hussein's hometown and has been a hotbed of the Sunni insurgency since the 2003 ouster of the late Iraqi leader. But it has enjoyed relative quiet since violence levels significantly dropped over the past year in much of Iraq. (Source: Washington Post)

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United States

Law enforcement authorities are investigating a possible threat against Senator Barack Obama in connection with the arrests on Sunday of three men suspected of firearms and drugs violations in the Denver suburbs. One arrest followed a dawn raid on a hotel that involved a suspect leaping through the window of his sixth-floor room while trying to flee local police. The police chief in Glendale, Colorado, where the hotel is located, said information uncovered in the course of his department's investigation led to the case being turned over to the Secret Service, the FBI, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Ross declined to explain what led his department to call in the Secret Service, but he said a drug or weapons arrest would not usually result in involvement by the agency, which has protected Obama since the early days of his presidential campaign in 2007. Concern about his safety, he is the first African American to clinch a major-party presidential nomination, resulted in Secret Service protection far earlier than most candidates have received. Federal authorities declined to comment Monday. They said a news conference was planned Tuesday at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Denver to explain the nature of the case and its potential connection to Obama, who will accept the Democratic nomination for president at a large outdoor event on Thursday evening. The men were arrested on suspicion of possession of illegal drugs and weapons, and for outstanding warrants for crimes that include a carjacking. (Source: Washington Post)

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The Air Force has concluded that an F-15 fighter jet crash that killed a young officer over the Gulf of Mexico in February was the result of pilot error and was not related to the structural flaws that have been found in other aging F-15s, according to an investigation report released yesterday. The midair collision between two F-15C Eagle jets off the coast of Florida on Feb. 20 destroyed both airplanes and scattered their parts across the ocean, killing 1st Lieutenant Ali Jivanjee instantly and leaving another pilot with minor injuries. Investigators found that the aircraft were both functioning properly and had no structural or mechanical failures before the crash. Instead, Air Force officials deemed that the two pilots, both listed as "inexperienced" because they had fewer than 500 flight hours, failed to notice how close they were to each other while performing training exercises, lost sight of each other, and hit while performing a maneuver. (Source: Washington Post)

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The White House should postpone a Congressional vote on a landmark U.S.-Russia civilian nuclear pact to prevent it being held hostage to a row over the conflict with Georgia, a Russian nuclear official told Reuters. The pact between the world's two biggest nuclear powers is aimed at opening up the booming U.S. nuclear market and Russia's vast uranium fields to firms from both countries by removing Cold War-era restrictions. The deal was signed in May but needs approval from Congress. A Russian official told Reuters it would be better for the deal to be delayed until next year to prevent it being blocked. (Source: Reuters)

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Africa

Sudanese troops raided one of Darfur's biggest and most volatile camps early Monday, setting off a deadly clash that killed an unknown number of people and wounded dozens, according to U.N. and humanitarian officials. More than 20 people were believed to be dead, but that estimate could not be confirmed because access to the camp for 90,000 displaced people remains restricted. At least 48 gunshot victims, two-thirds of whom were women and children, were evacuated Monday evening to nearby hospitals. (Source: Los Angeles Times)

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Asia

Less than two months after it blew up the cooling tower of its main nuclear plant in a televised spectacle, North Korea announced that it has suspended the dismantling of its nuclear program. North Korea's foreign ministry said today it was responding to the United States' failure to live up to its promises of removing it from a blacklist of "terror-sponsoring" states. It said the suspension had taken place as of Aug. 14 and that it would next consider restoring some of what it had dismantled already at its main nuclear compound in Yongbyon. President Bush indeed asked Congress on June 27 to remove North Korea from the terror list, but the administration has also said that the measure wouldn't go through until it could verify a 60-page inventory that North Korea had submitted of its nuclear program. (Source: Los Angeles Times)

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Pakistan sank into a new political crisis yesterday with the collapse of the ruling coalition after Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N left the government in protest over the future of the nation's judiciary. The Muslim League-N will now join the opposition, blaming the coalition leader, the Pakistan Peoples Party, for failing to fulfill a pledge to reinstate the 60 judges fired by former president Pervez Musharraf last November. The fate of the short-lived coalition marks the failure of an attempt at national unity after democracy was restored in Pakistan with elections in February. The coalition was always fragile. The ousting of the parties' common enemy, Musharraf, as president just a week ago, was meant to end the infighting in the coalition; instead, it left them with little to hold them together. (Source: Globe and Mail-CAN)

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A series of gunbattles between government forces and the Tamil Tigers killed 15 rebels and seven soldiers in war-torn northern Sri Lanka, the military said Tuesday. Fighting broke out Monday along the front lines separating government-controlled territory and the rebels' de facto state in the north. The heaviest fighting was reported in Kilinochchi district, where two separate clashes killed six rebels and one soldier, it said. Eleven fighters were wounded. Other battles in Mullaitivu and Welioya regions killed four soldiers and one rebel. (Source: AP)

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Europe

British Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS), is understood to have told the Prime Minister that Browne should remain in his post while Britain attempts to withdraw from Iraq and expand its force in Afghanistan. Browne, who is also Scottish Secretary, has been the subject of persistent rumors that he will be removed from the Ministry of Defence in a Cabinet reshuffle next month. (Source: Telegraph-UK)

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Four masked men pulled up alongside the £20 million sailing vessel in a speedboat, then forced their way aboard brandishing handguns and rifles. They ordered the captain to empty the boat's safe, then demanded cash and valuables from passengers before fleeing in less than 10 minutes. The 160ft long yacht was anchored several miles off southern Corsica when the raid happened on Sunday night. The nine guests had paid a total of £130,000 to charter the boat for a week. Police said the raiders escaped with cash, gold watches, jewellery and several artworks. The yacht, named 'Tiara' was commissioned by Israeli millionaire Jonathan Lietersdorf in 2002 and is said to be the largest sailing boat able to pass through the Panama Canal. (Source: Telegraph-UK)

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Russia's parliament voted unanimously to recognize the independence of Georgia's two breakaway regions today in a direct challenge to the West. The Federation Council voted 130-0 to ask President Dmitri Medvedev to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states. Russia's lower house of parliament, the Duma, followed shortly after with a 447-0 vote in favor of recognition. The votes throw down the gauntlet to the West over its support for the democratic regime of President Mikheil Saakashvili in Georgia. The final decision will rest with Medvedev, who has already declared his readiness to "make the decision which unambiguously supports the will of these two Caucasus peoples". It remains to be seen if he will defy intense international pressure by recognizing the two regions. The United States, European Union and NATO have all backed Georgia's territorial integrity, including South Ossetia and Abkhazia. (Source: Times-UK)

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The Russian soldiers peered nervously from a freshly dug trench at hundreds of Georgian protesters who were waving placards and yelling that they should leave. Positioned by a bridge at the entrance to the strategic port city of Poti in western Georgia, these troops represent the new face of Russian occupation. Five armored vehicles stood behind them as a Russian flag flew overhead next to one declaring the area a peacekeeping post. The Kremlin insists that the Russian Army has left Georgian soil and only such “peacekeepers” remain. But Russia’s checkpoints occupy key positions along the main highway from Poti to Tbilisi, the capital, giving Moscow a potential stranglehold on Georgia’s economy and an excuse for future military intervention. Two soldiers with blue “peacekeeper” arm-bands stood before the demonstrators, one filming with a small video camera as the crowd chanted “Georgia, Georgia” and “Russians go home”. They refused to allow The Times to approach to ask what their orders were. The Times had travelled to Poti in a Defence Ministry helicopter organized by Georgian officials keen to show journalists the continued Russian presence in the Black Sea port, far from the conflict zone in South Ossetia where the crisis began. The flight also exposed Georgian nervousness over the possibility of an incident sparking renewed hostilities. Instead of taking the most direct route from Tbilisi, which would have followed the highway where Russian peacekeepers were dug in, the helicopter made for Batumi 50 miles to the south, then dog-legged up over the sea to Poti. It flew low on the 90-minute journey, hugging the mountainous landscape and skimming over forests as if anxious to avoid radar detection. (Source: Times)

Russia's flagship cruiser re-entered the Black Sea on Monday for weapons tests hours after the Russian military complained about the presence of U.S. and other NATO naval ships near the Georgian coast. The "Moskva" had led a battle group of Russian naval vessels stationed off the coastline of Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia during Russia's recent conflict with Georgia and sank smaller Georgian craft. The assistant to the Russian Navy's commander-in-chief told Russian news agencies the cruiser had put to sea again two days after returning to its base at the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol. (Source: Washington Post)

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Ukraine's President declared yesterday that membership of NATO was vital to the security of his country. Alarmed by Russia's invasion of Georgia, President Yushchenko marked the anniversary of Ukrainian independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union by calling for a steep increase in defence spending and a speedy entry into NATO. His speech to thousands of people in Kiev's Independence Square scene of the 2004 Orange revolution that swept the pro-Western president to power took place during Ukraine's first military parade since 2001. (Source: Times-UK)

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Middle East

Israel has ordered the Gaza Strip's border crossings closed after militants violated a cease-fire by launching two rockets. The Israeli military says Gaza gunmen launched two rockets Monday evening, causing no damage or casualties. The military says Monday's fire brought to 46 the number of rockets launched by militants since the truce began. (Source: AP/Washington Post)

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Islamic Jihad is using the Gaza ceasefire to concentrate on training to kidnap IDF soldiers, in a similar manner to Hizbullah's 2006 attack. "Thousands of Palestinian fighters recently trained in how to kidnap Zionist soldiers," reported the London-based Arabic-language al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper on Monday, quoting the conservative Iranian Kayhan newspaper and Quds news agency. (Source: Ynet News)

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French soldiers take off their body armor but keep their FAMAS rifles slung over their backs before moving off on a leisurely foot patrol through this pro-Hezbollah Shi'ite Muslim village in south Lebanon. The troops, wearing the blue berets of U.N. peacekeepers, chat with shopkeepers in Shaqra, trying to win local friends without abandoning military muscle to deter would-be assailants. "What I hope to do here is instill confidence," Lieutenant Colonel Marc Ollier, commander of the French contingent in the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). Without firing a shot in anger, U.N. troops have imparted a degree of stability that has enabled rebuilding and revival in a region wrecked by Israel's war with Hezbollah two years ago. (Source: Reuters)

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

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

By Professor Joseph B. Varner

Global War on Terror

One Canadian soldier was seriously injured and two embedded reporters were shaken up when the military vehicle they were riding in early Sunday hit a roadside bomb near the town of Salawat, southwest of Kandahar City.

Scott Deveau, who is covering the Afghanistan mission for Canwest News Service and the National Post, was sitting in the back of an armored vehicle with a Canadian Press reporter and a group of soldiers when their vehicle struck an improvised explosive device (IED) around 11:30 a.m. local time.

One of the two soldiers in the front of the armored personnel vehicle, usually used to transport troops, was seriously injured during the blast. (Source: National Post-CAN)

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President Karzai accused Afghan and U.S. led coalition forces yesterday of killing at least 89 civilians in an attack in the western province of Herat in what could be one of the worst cases of “collateral damage” in Afghanistan since 2001. The US military said that 25 militants and five civilians, including two children, were killed in the ground attack and airstrike on Friday, and added that it was investigating reports of further noncombatant casualties. An Afghan minister who visited the area put the civilian death toll at 90, a human rights group at the scene estimated it at 78 and the Interior Ministry reported 76 non-combatants dead, including 50 children. (Source: The Times-UK)

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President Hamid Karzai dismissed an Afghan Army general and another officer on Sunday for their part in a commando operation in western Afghanistan that Afghan officials said killed about 90 civilians on Friday. Afghan officials say that mostly women and children died and that they were killed when a joint patrol of Afghan Army commandos and American Special Forces trainers called in airstrikes on a compound in the village of Azizabad. Major General Jalandar Shah Behnam, commander of the 207th Corps, based in Herat, and Major Abdul Jabar, commander of an Afghan Special Forces battalion, were removed from their posts for negligence and for concealing the truth, the president’s office said in a statement. Both men have been summoned to Kabul for further investigation. (Source: NY Times)

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Militants used rockets and a bomb to attack the family home of a lawmaker in Pakistan's volatile northwest early Monday, killing eight people including the politician's brother.

Meanwhile, Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik announced a ban on the country's umbrella Taliban group, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. The militants targeted the Swat Valley residence of provincial lawmaker Waqar Ahmed Khan of the ruling Awami National Party. Khan said his brother, two nephews and several guards died in the attack on the compound, which belongs to him and his extended family. Pakistan's Taliban movement has claimed responsibility for a handful of devastating suicide bombings in recent days, calling them revenge for military offensives in Swat, once a tourist destination, and the northwest Bajur tribal region. A peace deal struck between provincial lawmakers and militants in Swat appears to be in tatters amid ongoing fighting. (Source: AP)

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Soldiers and police fired at Muslim protesters demanding an end to Indian rule in Kashmir as authorities arrested top separatist leaders Monday in a bid to quash unrest that has left at least 37 people dead since June. The three latest deaths came late Sunday in Srinagar, Kashmir's main city, and Monday in a village on the city's outskirts and a nearby town, when security forces confronted angry protesters defying a curfew in the Muslim heart of India's Jammu and Kashmir state. The state government said in a statement that soldiers opened fire Monday after they were shot at by protesters, who wounded two soldiers and two police. At least 15 protesters were believed to have been wounded. (Source: Washington Times)

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There was no immediate reaction from the separatist groups that are organizing protests.

Algerian security forces killed 10 Islamist rebels in a security operation southwest of the capital on Sunday, state news agency APS cited the Interior Ministry as saying. The ministry said in a short statement carried by APS that troops also seized five Kalashnikov automatic rifles, a grenade launcher and four FSA semi-automatic guns in the operation in Ain Defla province, 110 km (70 miles) from Algiers. The security operation followed two car bombings in Bouira town southeast of Algiers on Wednesday that killed 12 people and wounded 42. A bombing on Tuesday killed 48 people and guerrilla ambushes on Sunday killed 11 in areas east of Algiers. Al Qaeda's Maghreb wing claimed responsibility for Wednesday's attacks, Al Jazeera television network reported. (Source: Washington Post)

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Conventional wisdom long held that Somalia was so inhospitable that even Al Qaeda gave up trying to gain a foothold amid feuding clans, erratic warlords and a wily population hardened by years of anarchy. Now, in the wake of an aggressive U.S. counter-terrorism program that has alienated many Somalis, there are signs that Al Qaeda may have its best chance in years to win over Islamic hard-liners in the Horn of Africa nation. After once denying or downplaying links to the terrorist network, a senior leader of Somalia's most notorious Islamic militia now acknowledges that his group has long-standing ties to Al Qaeda and says he is seeking to forge a closer relationship. (Source:LA Times)

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Three men arrested on suspicion of terrorism offences have been linked to an investigation into threats to kill Gordon Brown, it emerged last night. The suspects were detained on August 14 in a joint operation between Lancashire Police and the Greater Manchester police counter-terrorism unit. Police confirmed that the arrests are linked to a posting on the al-Ekhlaas website in January calling for the deaths of Brown and his predecessor Tony Blair. The group making the threats called itself "al-Qaeda in Britain" and demanded the withdrawal of British forces from Iraq and Afghanistan. It also demanded the release of Muslim inmates from the high-security Belmarsh prison. Two of the suspects were arrested at Manchester airport as they were about to board a flight to Finland. The third was arrested in Accrington, Lancashire. (Source: Guardian)

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Iraq

U.S. forces said on Sunday they had caught two prominent Al Qaeda leaders, including one they blamed for the kidnapping of an American journalist. They said they had captured Ali Rash Nasir Jiyad al-Shammari, known as Abu Tiba, on August 17 and Salim Abdallah Ashur al-Shujayri, known as Abu Uthman, on August 11. Abu Tiba was the Sunni militant group's senior advisor in the Iraqi capital, while Abu Uthman was its "emir," or leader, for the capital's eastern Rusafa district. Abu Tiba was in charge of al Qaeda during its most active period in early 2007, they said in a statement. Abu Uthman was believed to be the planner directly behind the kidnapping of U.S. journalist Jill Carroll, a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor who was held for nearly three months after being abducted in 2006. His associates were also involved in the kidnappings of British/Iraqi aid worker Margaret Hassan, who was slain by her captors in 2004, and of a group of Christian peace activists. (Source: Reuters)

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A suicide bomber killed at least 25 people celebrating the return of an Iraqi detainee from U.S. custody, Iraqi officials said Sunday night. The blast at a tribal feast in suburban Baghdad's Abu Ghraib area was one of the deadliest attacks in recent months. It served as a grisly reminder of the carnage that insurgents can still inflict in Iraq even as violence reaches its lowest level since the war began. The attack occurred at 8 p.m. as members of the Awakening Movement, a group mainly made up of former Sunni insurgents who have now joined with U.S. forces, gathered for a party in the city of al-Nasr Wal Salam, west of the capital. The men were celebrating the release of a son of Adnan Hanoush, head of the Awakening Movement in the city, witnesses said. They said the son, Sami Hanoush, was freed from Camp Bucca, a U.S.-run detention facility, three days ago. The bombing also exacerbated tensions among the Awakening Movement toward the Shiite-led Iraqi government. Government leaders have criticized the arming of former Sunni insurgents and recently stepped up their rhetoric and actions against the program. Also on Sunday, the U.S. military said it had captured a Sunni insurgent who planned the kidnapping of Jill Carroll, a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor who was held captive for 82 days in 2006. The military said it captured Salim Abdallah Ashur al-Shujayri, a senior leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, on August 11. (Source: Washington Post)

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United States

The Defense Department is looking for an "energetic and imaginative executive" to run its newly formed Defense Media Activity, according to an advertisement on the agency's Web site. The executive would earn as much as $172,200 a year overseeing DMA, which since its establishment in January combines formerly separate Pentagon media organizations, such as the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service, the Stars and Stripes newspaper, and the Pentagon Channel on television. It also includes the DefenseLink Web site and the military services' Web sites, the Bloggers Roundtable, and the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine magazines. All told, the new chief would oversee 2,400 military, government and contract employees around the world, and a budget of more than $225 million. (Source: Washington Post)

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Africa

Zimbabwe's opposition won the vote for speaker of the first parliament since disputed elections in March, claiming votes even from the ruling party of autocratic President Robert Mugabe on Monday amid stalled talks over sharing power. Shortly before the vote, police seized two opposition politicians as they entered parliament to be sworn in.

Despite the arrests, Lovemore Moyo won the key position by 110 votes to 98 votes, a distribution that indicated he got votes from both the parties of Mugabe and a splinter opposition faction. Mugabe's party had been expected to win because of divisions in the opposition amid reports from legislators that Mugabe's party had been trying to buy their votes. (Source: AP)

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Americas

The full extent of a nationwide health crisis linked to tainted deli meats will not be known for weeks, the federal Health Minister advised yesterday, as the number of confirmed cases and deaths continues to rise and Maple Leaf Foods, the company at the centre of the outbreak, extended its product recall. "We expect that both the numbers of suspected cases and confirmed cases will increase as this investigation continues and samples continue to be received from provincial, territorial and federal partners," Health Minister Tony Clement said in Ottawa. The Health Minister added that because symptoms of listeriosis can occur for months after food is consumed, it may be several weeks before this outbreak completes its course. First made public more than a week ago, the outbreak has already been linked to four deaths out of 21 confirmed cases, with 30 more under investigation. On the weekend, public health officials definitively linked Maple Leaf products to the illness, finding a match in two cases between the listeria strain found in the company's meat and the strain involved in the outbreak. Maple Leaf Foods, which had previously closed for cleaning the Toronto plant linked to the cases, has extended its product recall to all meat produced at that facility, urging Canadians to check their kitchens for affected products. (Source: Globe and Mail)

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Toronto's senior spy has told a group of Muslims he is frightened of potential terrorist attacks on Canadians and wants their help to "de-demonize" Canada's national-security agencies."I want you to help. . . . Us doing it alone is like one hand clapping," Andy Ellis implored a group of Muslims he had invited to the Meadowvale Community Centre in Mississauga. The regional director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service said he is increasingly worried about young extremists. Federal agents appear frightened by what they are learning about radicalization and even more frightened by what they don't know. While more dialogue with ordinary Muslims could help pinpoint problems, it can be hard get the discussion going - especially when what the agents regard as their success stories are often shielded by court-ordered publication bans, and the details of their mistakes are publicly picked apart by federal judges. "The RCMP, CSIS and other agencies have lost credibility," one of more than 20 Muslims who came out for the meeting stood up to tell Mr. Ellis. Citing the charges dropped against several suspects rounded up in Toronto two years ago, and raising the 2002 case of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen sent to a brutal Syrian interrogation prison aboard a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency jet, he asked a pointed question: "Is there a campaign to pick on Muslims?" (Source: Globe and Mail-CAN)

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The Conservative government is shelving a $2.1-billion project to replace Canada’s aging naval supply ships because bids from the shipbuilding industry were "significantly" higher than the money set aside for the program. The government also cancelled a tender call for the purchase of 12 mid-shore patrol ships for the Canadian Coast Guard. Public Works Minister Christian Paradis announced the decisions in a statement released at 8:30 p.m. Friday. (Source: Chronicle Herald-CAN)

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Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister David Emerson says the government views the recent actions of Russia in Georgia and in the Far North "with great concern," and this is helping drive the Conservatives' Arctic strategy. (Source: CTV.ca)

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Asia

North Korea claimed Sunday that joint military exercises by South Korea and the United States were a rehearsal for an attack against it and warned it would repel any aggression.

"The army and people of (North Korea) will never remain an onlooker to the U.S. military and the South Korean bellicose forces staging frantic anti-(North Korea) war moves," the North's official Korean Central News Agency quoted Gen. Kim Jong Gak as saying at a meeting in its capital. Soldiers killed 12 Tamil separatists in fighting along the front lines dividing government territory from the rebels de facto state in northern Sri Lanka, the military said Monday. (Source: AP)

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Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif says he is withdrawing his party from Pakistan's ruling coalition. The move will likely concentrate power in the hands of the main ruling Pakistan People's Party, which wants to maintain the country's close ties with the United States. Sharif said Monday that he is pulling out of the five-month-old alliance because it has failed to restore judges ousted by ex-President Pervez Musharraf. Lawmakers are expected to choose People's Party leader Asif Ali Zardari as Musharraf's successor on September 6. (Source: AP)

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At least four rebels died in clashes Sunday in the Kilinochchi region, military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said. Thirteen soldiers were wounded in the same battles. Also Sunday, clashes in Vavuniya, Welioya and Mullaitivu regions killed eight rebels and wounded three soldiers. Rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan could not be reached for comment on the military's claims. Both sides routinely exaggerate enemy casualties and underreport their own. Independent verification of the fighting was not possible because most journalists are barred from the war zone in the north. (Source: Los Angeles Times)

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-sri-lanka-civil-war,1,4551107.story

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Europe

This ancient hilltop town, ripe with Roman, Greek, Norman and other influences, has hosted a very modern gathering: a conference on global risks like cyberterrorism, climate change, nuclear weapons and the world's lagging energy supply. More than 120 scientists, engineers, analysts and economists from 30 countries were hunkered down here for the 40th annual conference on "planetary emergencies." The term was coined by Antonino Zichichi, a native son and a theoretical physicist who has made Erice a hub for experts to discuss persistent, and potentially catastrophic, global challenges. (Source: IHT)

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The U.S. and other Western nations may not like what Russia is doing, but officials in Moscow believe those countries lack the leverage, strength or unity to intervene. In this historic hub of expansion and empire, Russia's military victory over U.S.-backed Georgia was cheered as evidence that Moscow has regained its global dominance, and proof that the rest of the world can't risk standing in its way. As Russian soldiers poured into neighboring Georgia this month and Russian warplanes bombed fleeing, ill-equipped Georgian troops, U.S. and European officials condemned Moscow. But the image of Russia that appeared over and over in media here was that of a country rising from its knees. The United States and the nations of Europe may not like what Russia is doing, but officials in Moscow now believe those countries lack the leverage, strength or unity to intervene, analysts here say. Several of them repeated the same idea: that the West no longer exists as a unified force. (Source: IHT)

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President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia said Sunday that he planned to rebuild the shattered Georgian Army, and that even after its decisive defeat in the war for control of one of Georgia's two separatist enclaves he would continue to pursue a policy of uniting both enclaves under the Georgian flag. Also Sunday, France called an emergency summit meeting of the European Union for September 1 to discuss "the future of relations with Russia" and aid to Georgia, according to a statement from the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy. The meeting was framed as a response to Russia's failure to meet the terms of the cease-fire agreement that Sarkozy negotiated between Moscow and Tbilisi. Sarkozy said he was responding to the demands of "several states" for the meeting, which will take place in Brussels. According to senior French officials who helped negotiate the cease-fire agreement, the Russians must pull all their troops back to positions before the crisis began on August 7. The Russian peacekeepers stationed in South Ossetia and Abkhazia before that date may stay, and may continue to send out patrols into a "security zone," a thin buffer zone about eight kilometers, or five miles, beyond the borders of the ethnic enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Russia said Saturday that its military pullback from Georgia had been completed. But Russian forces remained entrenched deep inside Georgia, maintaining checkpoints several kilometers from Gori close to the South Ossetian border and two observation posts near the Georgian Black Sea port city of Poti. Separately, in the Georgian port of Batumi, the first American naval vessel arrived Sunday to distribute American humanitarian aid. A train carrying oil cars exploded while traveling near Gori, the city in central Georgia that Russia had occupied for about 10 days. Georgian officials said the train had struck a mine left behind by Russian troops. No one was reported killed in the blast and the raging fire that followed, which sent thick plumes of black smoke across the countryside. (Source: IHT)

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Russia's parliament voted unanimously Monday to urge the president to recognize the independence of Georgia's two breakaway regions, a move likely to stoke further tensions between Moscow and the small Caucasus nation's Western allies. The votes by both chambers of Russia's parliament, which were not legally binding, come as the White House announced Vice President Dick Cheney would travel to three former Soviet republics next week, Georgia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan. (Source: AP)

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Russian general suggested that U.S. ships in the Black Sea loaded with humanitarian aid would worsen tensions already driven to a post-Cold War high by a short but intense war between Russia and Georgia. The U.S. Navy destroyer U.S.S. McFaul reached Georgia's Black Sea port of Batumi on Sunday, bringing baby food, bottled water and a message of support for an embattled ally. The deputy chief of Russia's general staff suggested the arrival of the McFaul and other U.S. and NATO ships would increase tensions: Russia shares the sea with NATO members Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria as well as Georgia and Ukraine, whose pro-Western presidents are leading drives for NATO membership. (Source: AP)

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Middle East

Two boats carrying dozens of international activists sailed into the Gaza Strip Saturday in defiance of an Israeli blockade, receiving a jubilant welcome from thousands of Palestinians. Since setting sail from Cyprus early Friday, the mission by the U.S.-based Free Gaza Movement had been in question. Israel initially hinted it would prevent the vessels from reaching Gaza. But late Saturday, Israel said it would permit the boats to dock in Gaza after determining the activists did not pose a security threat. Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel said Israel wanted "to avoid the media provocation" that the group was seeking. (Source: AP/San Francisco Gate)

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Israel began releasing 199 Palestinian prisoners in the West Bank on Monday, as a gesture of good will to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The Israel Prison Service was to take the prisoners from Ofer Prison, close to Jerusalem, to the Beituniya checkpoint near Ramallah, Israel Radio reported. Upon their arrival, Abbas was to welcome them at a formal ceremony in his Muqata headquarters in the West Bank city. (Source: Ha'aretz)

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Earlier this month the U.S. and Israel agreed on the deployment of a high-powered early-warning missile radar system in the Negev, to be staffed by U.S. military personnel. The station will receive information from the U.S. team in Europe that will aid it in its work. The deployment of the Joint Tactical Ground Station (JTAGS) system, is widely seen as a kind of parting gift from Washington to Jerusalem as President George W. Bush prepares to leave office. The new system is significantly more accurate than Israel's "Green Pine" radar system, which supports the Arrow anti-missile system. The system will protect Israel's skies from missile attacks, but the flip side of the deal is that Israel's freedom of action against Iran or Syria will be significantly curtailed.

Senior Israeli defense officials view the radar system deployment as a signal of Washington's opposition to an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear program. (Source: Ha'aretz)

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Israeli police and Shin Bet forces raided the Islamic Movement's al-Aqsa institution offices in the northern city of Umm al-Fahm on Saturday night and shut down the place. The operation was carried out in accordance with an "unlawful organization" order issued by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, following information that the institution had ties with the Hamas headquarters in Jerusalem. Simultaneously, some of the movement's bank accounts were frozen. (Source: Ynet News)

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U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is heading back to the Middle East for a new peace mission, but there are few expectations for a major breakthrough. She is still pushing for a peace agreement by the end of the year. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert plans to resign next month over a corruption scandal, but under Israel's complicated system of government, Mr. Olmert could remain in office for many months as caretaker prime minister, even after his Kadima party chooses a new leader in September. Mr. Olmert's spokesman, Mark Regev, says Israel will do all it can to reach a peace deal before U.S. President George Bush leaves office in January. As a goodwill gesture to Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Israel free Palestinian prisoners on Monday to coincide with Rice's arrival. While Palestinian officials have welcomed the prisoner release as an important step, they are pessimistic about the chances of a broader peace deal. (Source: Voice of America)

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Iranian state media say the country's supreme leader has urged President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to plan for a second four-year term in office. It is the first time that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has made such a strong public endorsement of Ahmadinejad, who faces re-election next year. The ayatollah has the final say on all the country's affairs. Ayatollah Khamenei met Mr. Ahmadinejad and the Cabinet Saturday and praised them for defying international pressure to stop Iran's nuclear program. (Source: Voice of America)

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Iran's official news agency says the country has begun designing its second light-water nuclear power plant, a 360-megawatt facility in the southwest. Mohammad Saeedi, deputy head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, says experts have chosen the site where the light-water nuclear reactor will be built using local technology. Iran is still finishing building its first nuclear power plant, a 1,000-megawatt reactor in the southern city of Bushehr being constructed with Russian help. It is to begin operations early next year. Iran has said for years that it was planning to build a 360-megawatt nuclear power plant in Darkhovin, in the southwestern Khuzestan province. (Source: AP)

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

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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.

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