Wednesday June 25, 2008
Dangerous Times in Colombia and Iraq
Among the most dangerous times in a counter-insurgency campaign, inherent in asymmetrical warfare, is when the insurgency is close to being defeated.
Desperate to remain relevant and to motivate its followers as the situation becomes more trying, the groups grasp for a spectacular action that will give it a new lease on life.
In both Iraq, where al Qaeda in Iraq
seems to be in deep trouble, and in Colombia, where the FARC is on the ropes, public statements by officials give hints of a premature sense of triumph.
This lesson is not lost on some, including a senior intelligence official who told the Washington Post:
"I think it would be premature at this point," a senior intelligence official said of a victory declaration over AQI, as the group is known. Despite recent U.S. gains, he said, AQI retains "the ability for surprise and for catastrophic attacks."
That is not to deny significant progress has been made. Clearly AQI has suffered sharp defeats. The FARC has much of its senior leadership through death and desertion, and is clearly in its deepest crisis in decades.
One needs only look at the history of past groups that have been on the edge of extinction, only to escape and come back stronger-and more vicious-than ever.
The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone, is a case in point. Reduced to a few dozen ill-equipped combatants in the bush in the mid 1990s, having been pushed out of the diamond fields and under assault, the group was tied down to a small piece land on the Liberian border. But they were allowed to regroup, rearm, and wreak havoc.
The sense of danger faded and attention wandered, and the price was terrible. The same is true for countless other groups, including the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, Laurent Kabila's forces in Zaire (DRC now), and the FARC in its earliest days.
The FARC still has access to millions of dollars in drug money. AQI is not at a loss for would-be martyrs and deep-pocket donors to keep the war going.
Giving these groups a respite in the confidence that they have been seriously wounded is a potentially-fatal mistake. They need to remain relevant, and will use their diminishing resources produce the most spectacular results. That is why it is imperative to continue the sometimes-boring but necessary systematic work of following up every lead and continuing the pressure as if our lives depend on it. Because they likely do.
Desperate to remain relevant and to motivate its followers as the situation becomes more trying, the groups grasp for a spectacular action that will give it a new lease on life.
In both Iraq, where al Qaeda in Iraq
seems to be in deep trouble, and in Colombia, where the FARC is on the ropes, public statements by officials give hints of a premature sense of triumph.
This lesson is not lost on some, including a senior intelligence official who told the Washington Post:
"I think it would be premature at this point," a senior intelligence official said of a victory declaration over AQI, as the group is known. Despite recent U.S. gains, he said, AQI retains "the ability for surprise and for catastrophic attacks."
That is not to deny significant progress has been made. Clearly AQI has suffered sharp defeats. The FARC has much of its senior leadership through death and desertion, and is clearly in its deepest crisis in decades.
One needs only look at the history of past groups that have been on the edge of extinction, only to escape and come back stronger-and more vicious-than ever.
The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone, is a case in point. Reduced to a few dozen ill-equipped combatants in the bush in the mid 1990s, having been pushed out of the diamond fields and under assault, the group was tied down to a small piece land on the Liberian border. But they were allowed to regroup, rearm, and wreak havoc.
The sense of danger faded and attention wandered, and the price was terrible. The same is true for countless other groups, including the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, Laurent Kabila's forces in Zaire (DRC now), and the FARC in its earliest days.
The FARC still has access to millions of dollars in drug money. AQI is not at a loss for would-be martyrs and deep-pocket donors to keep the war going.
Giving these groups a respite in the confidence that they have been seriously wounded is a potentially-fatal mistake. They need to remain relevant, and will use their diminishing resources produce the most spectacular results. That is why it is imperative to continue the sometimes-boring but necessary systematic work of following up every lead and continuing the pressure as if our lives depend on it. Because they likely do.
POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH
Monday June 23, 2008
Africa's Shame and Zimbabwe's Broader Danger
The recent assault by armed government gangs, leading to dozens of deaths and hundreds of encarcerations, has led the opposition in Zimbabwe to withdraw from the electoral process. The striking inability of Tabo Mbeki in South Africa and other sub-Saharan African nations and institutions (the Africa Union, for example) is a shameful episode that has set the continent back for decades.
But there are reasons other than human rights and the rule of law to be concerned about Zimbabwe and its meglomaniacal leader, Robert Mugabe. To discern that, one only has to look at other criminal states in the region, and their history.
As regimes such as that of Mugabe, Charles Taylor or Mobutu in Zaire (DRC) become more isolated and more desperate, the leadership turns increasingly to organized criminal activity to finance itself and stay in power. With the organized crime, one almost always gets the shadow facilitators that connect the transnational criminals to their desired source of wealth or activity.
And the shadow facilitators almost always bring in the terrorist connections, because the two groups operate through the same pipelines. A merger is almost impossible to avoid.
These shadow facilitators, like Viktor Bout, who dealt with Charles Taylor, a host of other African governments, the FARC and the Taliban, don't distinguish among their clientele. Others, like Sanjivan Ruprah, facilitate the deals across the continent.
By 1998, Taylor was hosting Russian organized crime, Ukrainian organized crime, Hezbollah, al Qaeda, Israeli crime and South African organized crime. Why? Because he was able to give them things they needed-passports, aircraft registrations, safe entry and exit points etc.-in exchange for what he wanted-money to run his regime.
Zimbabwe is already a criminal state, although not a failed state. The regime has control of the main levers of power, and is willing to use them to retain power, showing it can be ruthlessly efficient in areas where it chooses to operate.
Already with a long involvement in the rape of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and hosting large groups of criminal organizations, Zimbabwe is already a threat to its neighbors because of its tolerance and participation with these groups.
The Venezuela-Iran alliance shows that, if there is a common perceived enemy, unlikely actors form alliances. In that case, the sole unifying factor is hatred for the United States.
In Zimbabwe, Mugabe's desperation to hold on to power, his hatred of Britain (in particular) and the West, and his willingness to tolerate high levels of criminality that benefit him and his party, all mean he is likely to look for ways to strike back at his enemies. This could easily include Islamist radicals, who already have an infrastructure in South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya and elsewhere in the neighborhood.
Stepping up to Mugabe's thuggish activities is not something that can be viewed as solely benefiting the West.
Africa, including South Africa, will suffer not just in terms of democratic development and stability, but in terms of allowing organized crime and terrorist groups to entrench themselves in a way that will be a threat to every government. The sooner the leadership gets its head out of the sand, the better chance Africa will have of moving modestly forward.
But there are reasons other than human rights and the rule of law to be concerned about Zimbabwe and its meglomaniacal leader, Robert Mugabe. To discern that, one only has to look at other criminal states in the region, and their history.
As regimes such as that of Mugabe, Charles Taylor or Mobutu in Zaire (DRC) become more isolated and more desperate, the leadership turns increasingly to organized criminal activity to finance itself and stay in power. With the organized crime, one almost always gets the shadow facilitators that connect the transnational criminals to their desired source of wealth or activity.
And the shadow facilitators almost always bring in the terrorist connections, because the two groups operate through the same pipelines. A merger is almost impossible to avoid.
These shadow facilitators, like Viktor Bout, who dealt with Charles Taylor, a host of other African governments, the FARC and the Taliban, don't distinguish among their clientele. Others, like Sanjivan Ruprah, facilitate the deals across the continent.
By 1998, Taylor was hosting Russian organized crime, Ukrainian organized crime, Hezbollah, al Qaeda, Israeli crime and South African organized crime. Why? Because he was able to give them things they needed-passports, aircraft registrations, safe entry and exit points etc.-in exchange for what he wanted-money to run his regime.
Zimbabwe is already a criminal state, although not a failed state. The regime has control of the main levers of power, and is willing to use them to retain power, showing it can be ruthlessly efficient in areas where it chooses to operate.
Already with a long involvement in the rape of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and hosting large groups of criminal organizations, Zimbabwe is already a threat to its neighbors because of its tolerance and participation with these groups.
The Venezuela-Iran alliance shows that, if there is a common perceived enemy, unlikely actors form alliances. In that case, the sole unifying factor is hatred for the United States.
In Zimbabwe, Mugabe's desperation to hold on to power, his hatred of Britain (in particular) and the West, and his willingness to tolerate high levels of criminality that benefit him and his party, all mean he is likely to look for ways to strike back at his enemies. This could easily include Islamist radicals, who already have an infrastructure in South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya and elsewhere in the neighborhood.
Stepping up to Mugabe's thuggish activities is not something that can be viewed as solely benefiting the West.
Africa, including South Africa, will suffer not just in terms of democratic development and stability, but in terms of allowing organized crime and terrorist groups to entrench themselves in a way that will be a threat to every government. The sooner the leadership gets its head out of the sand, the better chance Africa will have of moving modestly forward.
POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH
Thursday June 19, 2008
Treasury Moves on Hezbollah Ties in Venezuela
The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) today designated several entities tied to Hezbollah and operating in Venezuela. This is the first time I can find of the U.S. government directly and publicly linking Hezbollah funding activities to Venezuela.
This is part of a larger pattern, including, as I wrote earlier, the penetration of Hezbollah and Iran in Venezuela, with the blessing of the Chavez government.
Not long ago Iran began banking operations in Venezuela as well, in an effort to bypass the international sanctions in place and those that may follow in coming days.
According to the OFAC statement, one of the men designated, Ghazi Nasr al Din, is a Hezbollah fund raiser who has facilitated the travel of senior Hezbollah operatives to Venezuela to raise funds and open Hezbollah-funded social centers.
This, of course, is greatly facilitated by the direct flights now operating between Caracas and Tehran, with return stops in Damacus, Syria. The added beauty of these flights is that those who board them don't need visas, so there is no record available as to who has come or gone. And, despite being commercial flights, it if virtually impossible for a normal person to book and fly on the flights.
The second individual designated, Fawzi Kan'an, is also alleged to be a facilitator for Hezbollah who met with senior Hezbollah officials to "discuss operational issues, including possible kidnappings and terrorist attacks."
The OFAC order also designated Biblos Travel Agency, owned by Fawzi, because he used the busines to courier money to Lebanon. A second agency, Hilal Travel, was also shut down.
Each of these events, taken in isolation, is not that alarming. But when looking at the neighborhood, as I did in this paper for the NEFA Foundation it becomes clear that this is a part of a much larger and more threatening pattern of behavior by Iran in the northern tier of South America.
I hope the OFAC action speaks to a growing awareness of the Iran-Venezuela-Hezbollah-FARC pipeline on the part of the intelligence and law enforcement communities. It is an awareness that has been sorely lacking to this point.
This is part of a larger pattern, including, as I wrote earlier, the penetration of Hezbollah and Iran in Venezuela, with the blessing of the Chavez government.
Not long ago Iran began banking operations in Venezuela as well, in an effort to bypass the international sanctions in place and those that may follow in coming days.
According to the OFAC statement, one of the men designated, Ghazi Nasr al Din, is a Hezbollah fund raiser who has facilitated the travel of senior Hezbollah operatives to Venezuela to raise funds and open Hezbollah-funded social centers.
This, of course, is greatly facilitated by the direct flights now operating between Caracas and Tehran, with return stops in Damacus, Syria. The added beauty of these flights is that those who board them don't need visas, so there is no record available as to who has come or gone. And, despite being commercial flights, it if virtually impossible for a normal person to book and fly on the flights.
The second individual designated, Fawzi Kan'an, is also alleged to be a facilitator for Hezbollah who met with senior Hezbollah officials to "discuss operational issues, including possible kidnappings and terrorist attacks."
The OFAC order also designated Biblos Travel Agency, owned by Fawzi, because he used the busines to courier money to Lebanon. A second agency, Hilal Travel, was also shut down.
Each of these events, taken in isolation, is not that alarming. But when looking at the neighborhood, as I did in this paper for the NEFA Foundation it becomes clear that this is a part of a much larger and more threatening pattern of behavior by Iran in the northern tier of South America.
I hope the OFAC action speaks to a growing awareness of the Iran-Venezuela-Hezbollah-FARC pipeline on the part of the intelligence and law enforcement communities. It is an awareness that has been sorely lacking to this point.
POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH
Monday June 16, 2008
The Nuclear Network
There were several reports, led by the Washington Post, on the rogue international smuggling network that managed to acquire blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon.
No one knows where those blueprints were sold, or to whom. My sources in the intelligence community have suspected for several years that the network of senior Russian officials operating the criminal enterprise that Viktor Bout was a part of, had gotten ahold of at least two copies of the plans.
Given Bout's extensive contact lists with radical and criminal groups, and those of the Russian organized crime that are creeping in to many new places, including the Caribbean and Mexico, it is hard to overstate how dangerous this is.
"These advanced nuclear weapons designs may have long ago been sold off to some of the most treacherous regimes in the world," David Albright wrote in a draft report about the blueprint's discovery.
The important lesson here is that we know that the network of A.Q. Khan provided Libya and North Korea with design information for a nuclear bomb.
But the same network, likely even without Khan in place, also offered a second set of blueprints that would allow a criminal or terrorist organization to build a more compact device that could be delivered by ballistic missile-the type of missile that North Korea, Iran, North Korea and others already possess.
That is both the beauty and lethal danger of networks. They can grow, shift products around within the network, and carry out transactions that take years to trace.
The concept of leaderless networks (although I think that ultimately there is almost always a leader providing direction in important ways) explains a great deal about how these groups can carry on even if their heads are cut off.
The plans were found in the computer of a family of Swiss businessmen, and now destroyed by the IAEA to keep them from falling into terrorist hands. But there is no way to tell how many times the plans may have been copied and distributed.
My IC sources told me last year they suspected 10 copies of the plans-two in the hands of Bout and 8 in the hands of other parties unknown-had disappeared. And, of course, once another copy is made, there is no telling how many more times it is copied.
We rightly focus on the threat of atomic weapons in the hands of radical Islamist groups, and rightly so.
But there are many other criminal groups that would love to have the weapon, either to sell or use in the time and place of its choosing. Separatist movements, ideological splinter groups and religious zealots other than Islamists would all be prime candidates.
So the news is not good. In fact, it should terrify all of us. The IC community, while paying lip service to the reality of the problem, has not yet gotten a grip on what the network was (is?) and the havoc it has wrought. If we can't wait until the next attack to figure out how to deal with this problem.
No one knows where those blueprints were sold, or to whom. My sources in the intelligence community have suspected for several years that the network of senior Russian officials operating the criminal enterprise that Viktor Bout was a part of, had gotten ahold of at least two copies of the plans.
Given Bout's extensive contact lists with radical and criminal groups, and those of the Russian organized crime that are creeping in to many new places, including the Caribbean and Mexico, it is hard to overstate how dangerous this is.
"These advanced nuclear weapons designs may have long ago been sold off to some of the most treacherous regimes in the world," David Albright wrote in a draft report about the blueprint's discovery.
The important lesson here is that we know that the network of A.Q. Khan provided Libya and North Korea with design information for a nuclear bomb.
But the same network, likely even without Khan in place, also offered a second set of blueprints that would allow a criminal or terrorist organization to build a more compact device that could be delivered by ballistic missile-the type of missile that North Korea, Iran, North Korea and others already possess.
That is both the beauty and lethal danger of networks. They can grow, shift products around within the network, and carry out transactions that take years to trace.
The concept of leaderless networks (although I think that ultimately there is almost always a leader providing direction in important ways) explains a great deal about how these groups can carry on even if their heads are cut off.
The plans were found in the computer of a family of Swiss businessmen, and now destroyed by the IAEA to keep them from falling into terrorist hands. But there is no way to tell how many times the plans may have been copied and distributed.
My IC sources told me last year they suspected 10 copies of the plans-two in the hands of Bout and 8 in the hands of other parties unknown-had disappeared. And, of course, once another copy is made, there is no telling how many more times it is copied.
We rightly focus on the threat of atomic weapons in the hands of radical Islamist groups, and rightly so.
But there are many other criminal groups that would love to have the weapon, either to sell or use in the time and place of its choosing. Separatist movements, ideological splinter groups and religious zealots other than Islamists would all be prime candidates.
So the news is not good. In fact, it should terrify all of us. The IC community, while paying lip service to the reality of the problem, has not yet gotten a grip on what the network was (is?) and the havoc it has wrought. If we can't wait until the next attack to figure out how to deal with this problem.
POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH
Friday June 13, 2008
Monzar al Kassar, The Prince of Marbella, Extradited to the United States
Well, time finally ran out for Monzar al-Kassar, a weapons merchant and friend of various terrorist organizations. Today, after months of legal wrangling, he was extradited to the United States to stand trial.
Al-Kassar was arrested in a DEA operation in June 2007 The operation was then largely replicated for the arrest of Viktor Bout earlier this year.
Al-Kassar, like Bout, had many friends in high places, and had worked for different governments, including that of the United States, when he was involved in the Iran-Contra affair. His most notorious terrorist connections were with Abu Abbas, the notorious leader of the Palestine Liberation Front; Farah Aideed in Somalia; and Baathist insurgents in Iraq until last year.
As the London Observer noted:
The litany of allegations against him, even aside from his links to Abu Abbas, is jaw-dropping. Government files in various countries indicate that he was jailed in the UK on hashish charges in the 1970s, although he denies it. The official US Iran Contra report says he sold weapons to the 'Enterprise' arming the Contras. A UN report says he violated arms embargoes to Croatia and Somalia in 1992. A Swiss court froze and later released millions related to a multi-million-pound arms sale to Croatia. Documents in US court related to a Spanish inquiry indicate he has been investigated, but not prosecuted, on allegations of providing a silenced 9mm pistol used to shoot a suspected Israeli agent in 1984. He may have been involved in procuring components of a Chinese anti-ship missile for Iran, according to records cited by the Washington Post. He has been investigated in Argentina on charges of passport fraud. A report in the Library of Congress relays charges that he delivered explosives to a group headed by a known terrorist in Brazil, and that he had earlier sold arms to Iranian militias in Cyprus.
In both cases, the DEA targeted what they call "shadow facilitators," a concept and strategy that acknowledges the growing relationship between terrorist and criminal organizations.
Both of these groups need to rely on the same cadre of document forgerers, money launderers and movers, weapons traffickers etc. to stay in business. They overlap in the world of the facilitators like al-Kassar and Bout, which is why taking out those pieces of the enterprise hurts more than one organization in a significant way.
Like the Bout operation, the DEA set up a sting operation that led al-Kassar to believe he was selling weapons to the FARC in Colombia. According to the indictment in New York, al-Kassar not only agreed to sell assault rifles, RPGs and sniper rifles to the FARC with the express aim of killing Americans, he also volunteered to provide surface-to-air missles, which the sting operators had not even put on the list.
In addition, al-Kassar offered to send 1,000 men to the CSs to fight with the FARC against United States military officers in Colombia, and also offered to supply the CSs with C4 explosives, detonators, and experts to train the FARC to use them against these United States armed forces.
Al-Kassar will have his day in court, which is more than his most famous victim, Leon Klinghoffer, a retired, disabled Jewish American in a wheelchair, was killed and tossed overboard by the terrorists in the 1985 Achille Lauro ship jacking.
Now, let's see if Mr. Bout will also get his day in court here, rather than being allowed to flee back to Russia.
Al-Kassar was arrested in a DEA operation in June 2007 The operation was then largely replicated for the arrest of Viktor Bout earlier this year.
Al-Kassar, like Bout, had many friends in high places, and had worked for different governments, including that of the United States, when he was involved in the Iran-Contra affair. His most notorious terrorist connections were with Abu Abbas, the notorious leader of the Palestine Liberation Front; Farah Aideed in Somalia; and Baathist insurgents in Iraq until last year.
As the London Observer noted:
The litany of allegations against him, even aside from his links to Abu Abbas, is jaw-dropping. Government files in various countries indicate that he was jailed in the UK on hashish charges in the 1970s, although he denies it. The official US Iran Contra report says he sold weapons to the 'Enterprise' arming the Contras. A UN report says he violated arms embargoes to Croatia and Somalia in 1992. A Swiss court froze and later released millions related to a multi-million-pound arms sale to Croatia. Documents in US court related to a Spanish inquiry indicate he has been investigated, but not prosecuted, on allegations of providing a silenced 9mm pistol used to shoot a suspected Israeli agent in 1984. He may have been involved in procuring components of a Chinese anti-ship missile for Iran, according to records cited by the Washington Post. He has been investigated in Argentina on charges of passport fraud. A report in the Library of Congress relays charges that he delivered explosives to a group headed by a known terrorist in Brazil, and that he had earlier sold arms to Iranian militias in Cyprus.
In both cases, the DEA targeted what they call "shadow facilitators," a concept and strategy that acknowledges the growing relationship between terrorist and criminal organizations.
Both of these groups need to rely on the same cadre of document forgerers, money launderers and movers, weapons traffickers etc. to stay in business. They overlap in the world of the facilitators like al-Kassar and Bout, which is why taking out those pieces of the enterprise hurts more than one organization in a significant way.
Like the Bout operation, the DEA set up a sting operation that led al-Kassar to believe he was selling weapons to the FARC in Colombia. According to the indictment in New York, al-Kassar not only agreed to sell assault rifles, RPGs and sniper rifles to the FARC with the express aim of killing Americans, he also volunteered to provide surface-to-air missles, which the sting operators had not even put on the list.
In addition, al-Kassar offered to send 1,000 men to the CSs to fight with the FARC against United States military officers in Colombia, and also offered to supply the CSs with C4 explosives, detonators, and experts to train the FARC to use them against these United States armed forces.
Al-Kassar will have his day in court, which is more than his most famous victim, Leon Klinghoffer, a retired, disabled Jewish American in a wheelchair, was killed and tossed overboard by the terrorists in the 1985 Achille Lauro ship jacking.
Now, let's see if Mr. Bout will also get his day in court here, rather than being allowed to flee back to Russia.
POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH