Twelfth Bough

i run my own damn think tank

Archive for January 27th, 2010

politics, terrorism and sports

Jan 27

Posted by A. Peasant in Africa, Central America, India, Pakistan, Terrorism, UK | No Comments

This story appeared recently (1/21/10) in what appears to be an Indian tabloid-style paper. It has several important details about Mohammed Abdul Khwaja, a purported terrorist.

According to the Indian police:

  • Khwaja, age 30, commands a militant group, Huji for South India
  • Khwaja was caught by the Hyderabad Special Task Force recently
  • Khwaja recruited local youth for training
  • Khwaja recruited and/or trained Raziuddin Nasir, who was arrested, to conduct suicide attacks on Western tourists in Goa
  • Khwaja is a close associate of Shahid Bilal, who masterminded the suicide attack on Hyderabad’s Special Task Force headquarters in 2005
  • Khwaja is also linked to the Hyderabad twin blasts of 2007
  • Khwaja worked in Saudi Arabia
  • Khwaja is Nasir’s handler

Click here to watch some television reports about this by an Indian program, Inside Story (a la Fox News). Some points made:

  • RAW nabs Khwaja, Huji commander and pointman for arranging terrorists locally (part 1)
  • ISI planning to strike oil refineries in India, RSS headquarters, and public events
  • with the aim of wrecking the Indian economy
  • senior ISI officer Mohd coordinates strikes against India
  • ISI coordinating activities of LeT, HuM, JeM and manages terror camps
  • RAW lured him into a trap in Colombo, Sri Lanka (part 2)
  • Khwaja has named names to RAW
  • terrorism, politics and sports are interlinked, since athletes are the “ambassadors” of a country (part 3)
  • the passions from a sports snub have taken on a life of their own (part 4)

^^^^^^^

“Terrible events produce outrage, and when people are outraged, they are all the more likely to seek causes that justify their emotional states, and also to attribute those events to intentional action.” — from Cass Sunstein’s conspiracy paper, download here and hang upside by your ankles while you read it — it’s basically their mind-fucking instruction manual

^^^^^^^

Attacks against India conflate with attacks against the UK. According to a report in the Sri Lanka Guardian, it was Khwaja who provided the intelligence that led to the UK terrorism alert last weekend. Worth a read, as he manages to mention every talking point plus the kitchen sink.

According to the “Sunday Times” of the UK as quoted by “The Hindu” of January 25,2010, the Indian intelligence agencies are reported to have alerted MI-5, the British security service,about the suspected plans of Pakistan-based pro-Al Qaeda elements to hijack an Indian aircraft originating from Delhi or Mumbai and crash it into a British city. The recent upgradation of threat level in the UK from “substantial” to “severe” but one below “imminent” has been attributed to this Indian warning. There is a possibility that the terrorist plans might be related to the January 28 London conference on Afghanistan. According to the “Sunday Times”, the Indian intelligence came to know of this plot during the interrogation of Amjad Khwaja of the HUJI, who was arrested recently in India.

Another source: The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) has asked all airlines to conduct a mandatory 100 percent secondary ladder point check until January 31 on all aircraft flying between Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Hmm. I wonder what happens after January 31st.

In any event, India’s response for public celebrations: With intelligence inputs warning of threats posed by LeT and other militant groups, security establishments in Delhi and the state capitals on Monday went on top alert putting in place a ground-to-air apparatus to thwart any attempt to disrupt the Republic Day celebrations. A heavy security blanket was thrown around the capital with snipers and mobile hit teams fanning across the city and nearly 15,000 police and paramilitary personnel being deployed to guard the 8-km-long route of the Republic Day parade and other key installations. Anti-aircraft guns have also been stationed in certain crucial areas.

Good timing huh?

^^^^^^^

Some recent attacks on athletes — Sri Lanka, Angola, Mexico (they’re getting closer…):

3/4/09 - Sri Lankan cricket team: Pakistani police hunted on Wednesday for gunmen who mounted a bold attack on Sri Lanka’s cricket team in Lahore as officials tried to figure out who was behind it. The attack on Tuesday killed seven Pakistanis — six police and the driver of a bus carrying match officials. Six members of the Sri Lankan team and a British coach were among 16 wounded in the daylight attack as their bus approached the cricket stadium.

That attack was linked to Huji: The prosecution on Friday, told a Delhi court that a Pakistan-based Harkat-ul-jehadi Islami (HUJI) terrorist, who along with five others are accused of plotting to kidnap Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly, had confessed that he came to abduct the cricketers and then bargain the release of two members of the outfit….Besides three Pakistan-based accused, Tariq Mohammed, Ashfaq Ahmed and Arshad Khan, the others are - Mufti Israr, Ghulam Qadir Bhatt and Ghulam Mohd Dar.

1/3/10 - Attack on Togo’s football team in Angola: Manchester City striker Emmanuel Adebayor escaped unharmed after a bus carrying the Togo national team came under attack from gunfire in Angola. … According to reports, at least three Togo players and the bus driver suffered injuries during the attack. Some reports suggest the driver was killed.

South African response for the World Cup: South Africa’s police force has bought helicopters for air surveillance, acquired mobile police stations to be stationed at all key venues and will supply a 24-hour ground patrol using more than 40,000 specially trained officers and private security guards. The military has also been called in to provide additional security.

1/26/10 - Salvadore Cabanas shot in Mexico City nightclub: Two suspects were captured on a security camera walking out of the nightclub toilet where Cabañas was found. Another camera filmed them leaving the building less than a minute later and driving away in a car without number plates. Mexico City’s attorney general, Miguel Angel Mancera, said the suspects were José J Balderas Garza, nicknamed El Modelo, and his bodyguard. Balderas was a regular at the Bar Bar club, which was also popular with footballers and other celebrities. With robbery ruled out by the authorities, the motive remains a mystery. Balderas is reportedly from Sinaloa, a state in Mexico renowned for its drug traffickers, although no evidence has yet emerged of any link to organised crime.

Not yet.

^^^^^^^

Now, this is just me, but I can’t help but wonder if the evidence will lead in a certain direction, like, for instance, to Lebanon and Hizbollah, perhaps. Because we have lately heard about connections and drug smuggling between Venezuela, West Africa and over to Europe and then Lebanon. And corruption in Africa. And threats to Israel. And we’ve also seen the forward connections established in corporate media between Lebanon and West Africa, in light of the Ethiopian plane crash. So all this has been floating around in the herd attention space. All this stuff is part of the narrative. It’s part of preparing people, in baby steps, for what is going to happen next.

sabotage ruled back in and other news

Jan 27

Posted by A. Peasant in CIA, India, Lebanon, Nigeria, Pakistan, Southeast Asia, Terrorism | No Comments

1. CIA denies ever knowing David Headley, ever, at any point in time, ever. Period.

Washington, Dec 17: America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) today strongly refuted reports that Pakistani- origin US national David Coleman Headley, charged with criminal conspiring in the 26/11 terror attacks, was its agent at any point of time.“I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation, but any suggestion that this individual worked for the CIA is flat wrong,” CIA spokesperson Marie E Harf told PTI when specifically asked about Headley and his links with CIA. Headley now languishing in a Chicago-jail was arrested by the FBI on October 3 when he was planning to go to Pakistan via Philadelphia. He has been charged by the federal prosecutors for being involved in the planning of the Mumbai terrorist attack.

News reports from India, quoting unnamed officials from investigating agencies, and several news reports in the US in the past few days have said that Headley may well have been a “double agent” working for the CIA as well as Pakistani terror groups including Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which carried out the Mumbai terrorist attack.

source: zopag.com

many many sublinks re: headley if you click through to the source

2. Malaysia arrests 10, including 9 foreigners, for acts of terror — internationally linked, countries not identified

Malaysia said Wednesday it had arrested 10 people including nine foreigners for “acts of terrorism,” saying they were members of an international terror team and threatened national security. Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said the 10 were being held under the Internal Security Act (ISA) which allows for indefinite detention without trial.

“I can confirm that 10 people have been arrested under the ISA for acts of terrorism,” he told a press conference. “They are internationally linked and will affect the security of our country if we do not take action,” he said. “We have worked with international intelligence organizations in this operation.”

Hishammuddin said that “all 10 are involved in international terrorism” but would not reveal whether they had planned or carried out attacks. He also declined to say when and where they were arrested. Neither would he say which intelligence organizations had helped in the arrests, but said that “if they are with an international terror organization and if they are caught in Malaysia, then we will take action on them.”

Malaysia’s controversial ISA has been used in the past against alleged militants, including members of regional terrorist organization Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) which is linked to al-Qaida. Government officials said there were now 25 people, including the 10 new detainees, being held under the ISA. Detainees are typically held at the Kamunting detention centre in the northern state of Perak.

more @ naharnet, including a little “rule of law rule of law” whining…that might be a clue re: who is involved

3. Nigeria: four killed in naval helicopter crash, chopper left from Liquified Natural Gas plant, 4 dead, important documents retrieved

A helicopter flying from Bonny to Port Harcourt crashed on Tuesday afternoon at Isiokpo, near Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, killing all four persons aboard. The naval helicopter crashed into a swamp at about 2pm on Tuesday, at Isiokpo, headquarters of the Ikwerre local government area of Rivers State. The zonal coordinator of the Nigerian Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Emenike Umesi, said the four occupants comprised two pilots and two engineers, said to be of Lieutenant Commander Rank. The NEMA chief, in charge of the south-south zone, said the aircraft took off from Bonny, which is home to the Liquefied Natural Gas plant.

A search and rescue operation commenced immediately after the crash, with massive a crowd gathering around the crash site. Just one body had been recovered at the time of this report. The Joint Task Force (JTF) spokesperson, Timothy Antigha, also confirmed the crash, saying “a search party has been dispatched to the crash site which is in a swamp.” He offered no other details. Security agents at the accident scene however said naval personnel recovered “some vital documents” at the scene. Officials of the Accident Investigation Bureau of the ministry of aviation were yet to arrive at the scene to unravel the reason for the air crash at press time. The last time such a fatal crash happened in Nigeria was just a few months ago, when a Wings aircraft went down in Cross River State in May 2009.

source: next

4. Lebanon: Imam kidnapped

Imam of the eastern Lebanese town of Majdal Anjar, Sheikh Mohammed Abdel Fatah al-Majzoub, was kidnapped Tuesday night, the National News Agency reported. NNA said al-Majzoub was kidnapped by unknown assailants from outside the mosque at 11:30 pm Tuesday. The agency said his white Mercedes was still parked on the side of the road when Lebanese security forces arrived to the area. His white turban was also found on the floor. The army immediately threw a tight security dragnet around the town and internal security forces launched an investigation into the alleged kidnapping.

naharnet

5. SABOTAGE ruled back in in Ethiopian plane crash in Lebanon

Hypotheses and speculations mounted about a “sabotage” action in the Ethiopian plane crash which plunged into the Mediterranean sea in stormy weather earlier this week with 90 passengers and crew on board feared dead. the Ethiopian plane crash which plunged into the Mediterranean sea in stormy weather earlier this week with 90 passengers and crew on board is likely a “deliberate” attack, some media reports said Wednesday.

While the daily al-Liwaa said the crash is likely a “deliberate” attack, pan-Arab Asharq al-Awsat did not rule out “sabotage” after the disaster presumably killed all 90 passengers and crew.

OTV, meanwhile, which is close to Hizbullah and is reputed to have strong ties with Hizbullah circles, cited official circles as saying that the Ethiopian plane was likely hit by a rocket.

Al-Liwaa based its hypothesis on Hizbullah’s heightened concern about the catastrophe and the fact that a Hizbullah delegation, including Hashem Safieddine and MP Nawar al-Sahili, was supposed to be on the plane. It said the trip was cancelled at the last minute upon instructions by Speaker Nabih Berri to allow Sahili to attend a parliamentary session scheduled for Monday. Berri, however, called off the meeting after the plane crash disaster.

Al-Liwaa also pointed to Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s keenness to “personally” attend the funeral of one of the plane victims identified as Hasan Tajeddine in the southern town of Hanaway. It said Tajeddine has close ties with Hizbullah.

Navigation sources, meanwhile, told Asharq al-Awsat that “all possibilities are open.” They said an “explosion” likely took place on the plane, pointing out that lightning by itself cannot bring down an aircraft.

The sources also raised the possibility that the lightning hit the plane in a “sensitive area” that, together with human and technical errors, led to the crash.

Witnesses said the aircraft was in flames as it dropped into the sea.

Lebanese leaders, including President Michel Suleiman, Defense Minister Elias Murr and Transportation Minister Ghazi Aridi, have ruled out sabotage in the plane crash. (AP photo inside shows Sheik Nabil Kaouk, right, Hizbullah’s commander in south Lebanon, and Hizbullah MP Hasan Fadlallah, left, attending Tajeddine’s funeral on Tuesday.)

naharnet

North Korea, multi-purpose tool, links into all the hotspots

Jan 27

Posted by A. Peasant in Africa, Clinton, Iran, Kazakhstan, Military, North Korea, Nuclear Weapons, Palestinians, Sri Lanka, Syria, Thailand, Ukraine | No Comments

1. firms in 5 countries linked to N. Korean arms smuggling: Kazakhstan, Ukraine, New Zealand, UAE, Sri Lanka, Iran (natch)

Five companies in five countries were involved in a complex process of cargo laundering for a shipment of North Korean arms that was confiscated at Bangkok’s Don Mueang Airport last month, according to media reports.

Efforts to track the cargo were complicated by the involvement of a Kazakh arms dealer and his wife who handled the arms through a ghost company, AP said Tuesday. Thai police discovered 40 tons of North Korean arms including multiple rocket launchers, 40 surface-to-air missiles, and hundreds of rocket-propelled grenades worth an estimated US$18 million on an Ilyushin cargo plane operated by Air West of Georgia, which landed in Bangkok on Dec. 12.

All five crew were arrested, but it was not easy to trace the route the arms had taken. Alexander Zykov, a Kazakh dealer in illegal arms, is allegedly behind the transport. He hired five crew for an air freight company he owned named East Wing in Kiev, Ukraine, in July last year. Three days later, a friend of Zykov’s established a ghost company named SP Trading in New Zealand.

SP Trading then leased the cargo plane from Air West, which is also effectively run by Zykov and had earlier leased it to Overseas Trading FZE, a company in the United Arab Emirates owned by Zykov’s wife. Once SP Trading had leased the plane, it received an order from a Hong Kong-registered firm, Union Top Management, to transport “petroleum industry components” from the [North] Korean General Trading Corporation.

The plane took off from Kiev and flew via Azerbaijan and the UAE to North Korea. Once the freight had been loaded, it was scheduled to stop for refueling in Thailand and fly west to Ukraine by way of Sri Lanka and the UAE. From there, some reports say it was leapfrogged via Iran to Montenegro, but the tiny peaceful principality seems an unlikely final destination for the cargo.

source: chosun ilbo

2. North Korea also supplying ‘Congolese insurgents’

North Korea smuggled about 3,400 tons of weapons into the Democratic Republic of Congo in the midst of a civil war there in January, with some of them going to Congolese insurgents or nearby countries, VOA quoted a UN official as saying Wednesday.

Christian Dietrich, a member of the UN Security Council committee investigating Congo, told VOA that the North Korean ship Birobong arrived in the port of Boma, Congo on Jan. 21, where it unloaded some 3,400 tons of weapons, 100 times the amount seized in Thailand earlier this month.

more @ chosun ilbo

3. US congressional report says NK also passing WMD tech to Syria, through Iran of course — sorry no details classified into, you understand

A new U.S. congressional report claims North Korea is transferring weapons technology to Syria through Iran. In the report, the Congressional Research Service, an entity that works exclusively for the U.S. Congress, revealed that Iran was assisting in the procurement of weapons of mass destruction-related technology by providing North Korea with a platform for such trade with Syria. The report however does not offer further details on the alleged interaction.

source: chosun ilbo

4. Hillary Clinton — very worried about NK and Burma

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says military cooperation between North Korea and Burma would be very destabilizing for the region, and would pose a direct threat to Burma’s neighbors. She says Washington is taking regional concerns about this connection “very seriously.” Clinton addressed the concerns on Tuesday in Bangkok after meeting Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. She will join a regional security conference in Phuket on Wednesday.North Korea’s possible cooperation with Burma made headlines in June, when the U.S. Navy began tracking a North Korean ship believed to be traveling to Burma with suspicious cargo. The ship returned to North Korea without ever docking in Burma.

more @ chosun ilbo

5. Iran buys masses of arms from North Korea, ships them all over the world, including to Hamas and Hezbollah, according to WaPo, citing US and UN officials. yup they know all about it.

Iran has imported piles of North Korean-made conventional weapons, the Washington Post reported Thursday, even though both countries are under UN sanctions over their nuclear programs. Weapons also went to two Palestinian militant organizations, the Iran-backed Hezbollah and the Islamist Hamas, the paper said.

To avoid international pursuit, the North Korean weapons were “shipped halfway around the globe in sealed containers, labeled as oil-drilling supplies, that passed through a succession of freighters and ports,” including China, Southeast Asia and the Dubai free trade zone, before reaching Iran, it said.

One example was a shipment of North Korean weapons aboard the ANL Australia which was confiscated by United Arab Emirates authorities on July 22. According to U.S. and UN officials, the ship carried 2,030 detonators for 122 mm multiple rocket launchers, as well as electric circuitry and solid-fuel propellant for rockets, which Hamas and Hezbollah use when attacking Israel.

The UAE made no official announcement, but the paper said the shipment of North Korean weapons consisted of 10 cargo containers. They left the North Korean port of Nampo on May 30, five days after the North’s second nuclear test on May 25 and before the UN Security Council adopted a fresh resolution sanctioning the North.

The UNSC adopted Resolution 1874 on June 12, extending the arms embargo on North Korea and authorizing member states to inspect its cargo on land, sea, and air. By that time, the vessel carrying the arms had already arrived in China. The containers were transferred to a Chinese ship in the northern port of Dalian on June 13.

From there, they were ferried to Shanghai, where they were moved to a third ship, the ANL Australia, a 47,326 ton freighter. They were finally discovered at the port of Khor Fakkan in the UAE. The officials claimed that there were as many as five such smuggling attempts since early this year.

source: chosun ilbo

6. on top of all that, the North Koreans are firing away past an imaginary line in the ocean

North Korea vowed to continue artillery drills Wednesday along the West Sea border after firing dozens of shells on two separate occasions there, reiterating that the de-facto inter-Korean border should be redrawn. After the first batch of about 30 artillery shells in the morning, South Korea responded by firing warning shots, but no casualties or damage occurred.

The North began firing again at 3:25 p.m., with a dozen more shells landing north of the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the de facto western sea border. But the South did not respond.  This is the first time that the North has fired artillery into the NLL in the West Sea, though the navies from both Koreas have exchanged gunfire near the border before.  No casualties or injuries were reported as both sides fired in the air and no fishing boats were present, a spokesman for the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

more @ korea times