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Archive for February 1st, 2010

Khwaja speaks

Feb 1

Posted by A. Peasant in India, Pakistan, Terrorism, The West, UK | No Comments

As we learned last week, Mohammed Abdul Khwaja, the terrorist arrested recently in India, gave authorities intelligence that lead to the recent UK terrorism alerts. He was allegedly plotting terrorist attacks on Western tourists in Goa, India, and recruiting locals for training. I did a run-down on Khwaja here.

According to the Indian police, Kwaja has been involved in other terrorist plots.

According to the police, Khwaja, who is a close associate of Shahid Bilal, a Huji commander, masterminded the suicide attack on Hyderabad’s Special Task Force (STF) headquarters in October 2005. Khwaja told the police that he and his accomplices attacked the STF office to avenge the killing of Hyderabad youth Mujahid Saleem by a team of the Gujarat police in the Andhra capital in 2004.

Khwaja rose through the ranks to become a commander of the Harkat-ul-Jihadi, better known as Huji, following the death of his classmate Shahid Bilal, the mastermind of the Hyderabad twin blasts. Educated in a convent school in Hyderabad, he is one among the many youth who took to jihad following the Gujarat riots.

The Gujarat Riots took place in 2002. Apparently, the numbers involved have been the topic of considerable dispute.

“The Gujarat riots was a reaction to the Godhra train burning. An entire coach was burnt down by a mob of 2,000 local Muslims in which 58 Hindus were killed. The victims included 25 women, 14 children that were returning from Ayodhya. Hindu mobs rioted after this incident. Gujarat administration completely failed to control the riots effectively in time. More than 700 people from both the communities were killed in this and the following riots.”

What is the actual toll of Gujarat Riots?
NOT 2000, 5000 or 10000 as may be claimed by the Jihadis and anti-nationals.
The death toll is about 700+ (including 58 killed by the strong mob of 2000)
Hindus 250+ Muslims 400+ Policemen 100+ …….facts and figures

The Gujarat riots might be the topic for another day. But until then, one might consider them a triggering event, as described by this expose in Frontline (India’s National Magazine) from January 2004:

Memories of the demolition of the Babri Masjid had begun to fade, and even the war in Jammu and Kashmir attracted little attention among South Asian Muslims. Then, in 2002, came the communal massacres in Gujarat: and the voice of the Lashkar’s spiritual head began to resonate in many young minds. Along with hard currency, terror has now become a major remittance to India: a source of growing concern to the intelligence community. Lashkar cells based in Kuwait and Dubai have emerged as central to several major terrorist actions in India over the last two years.

Gujarat made Lashkar relevant. The strategy of tension.

Today The Hindu reports new connections made since the arrest of Khwaja:

Mumbai police investigators say they may have succeeded in putting a face to an until-now-unidentified Indian Lashkar-e-Taiba operative who played a key role in guiding the operations of the team that attacked Mumbai in November 2008.
Based on information provided by India’s intelligence services, as well as interviews with arrested jihadists, the police believe the Indian national in the Lashkar’s control room could be Syed Zabiuddin Syed Zakiuddin Ansari, a Lashkar-linked Maharashtra resident who has been a fugitive since 2005.
The unidentified Indian operative was one of several Lashkar personnel who used voice-over-internet links to provide orders to the assault team. Last month, The Hindu had broken the news that one of the operatives in the Lashkar control station spoke Mumbai-inflected Hindi, in stark contrast to the Punjabi used by the others.
Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab, the Lashkar terrorist arrested in the course of the assault, said his team had been trained by an Indian national identified as Abu Jindal — the alias also used by the unidentified controller, and a nom de guerre known to have been adopted by Ansari in the past.
The police say Ansari played a key role in a plot to assassinate Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, an operation meant to avenge the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat. Ansari is alleged to have been the key leader of an Aurangabad-based Lashkar cell, which received assault rifles and military-grade explosives from Pakistan to stage an attack which would have closely resembled the Mumbai operation in tactics and execution.
Eleven men linked to the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Students Islamic Movement of India were held for their alleged role in the 2005 Aurangabad-based plot. However, Ansari eluded the police after a high-speed car chase and has been sought by Interpol since then. He was last sighted at a Lashkar safe house in Karachi by Hyderabad-based jihadist Mohammad Amjad Khwaja, who was arrested earlier this year.
Imran Babar, one of the two terrorists who took hostages at the Chabad House Jewish prayer centre, was told by the Hindi-speaking controller [Ansari] to call the media with a manifesto to condemn what he described as the Indian government’s “two-faced policy” towards Muslims.
The Lashkar manifesto demanded that Muslims held in jails be released; the Indian Army be pulled out of Jammu and Kashmir; the land on which the Babri Masjid stood be returned to Muslims and a new mosque constructed; India break off its alliance with Israel; and what the organisation called “Muslim states be handed back to the Muslims.”

To recap: Khwaja was planning and recruiting for attacks on Western tourists in Goa. But he was captured. (Phew!) After capture, he gave Indian investigators intelligence that led to the UK raising it’s terror alert. So very helpful. Now he has also given up the intelligence that Ansari, who last got away after a high-speed car chase (eyeroll), was the very same guy with the Mumbai Hindi accent, who directed one of the two terrorists who held the Chabad House, to contact the media with a Muslim “manifesto.”

So you can see what a good thing it was they they captured Khwaja, hmm? He’s providing some “new” information that will allow the investigations to take some twists and turns and swerves, to avoid all the giant holes in the Mumbai narrative.

As an afterthought, it’s interesting to note that Kasab flip flops — until he says something useful. Then he’s a good witness.

continuing chaos in West Africa

Feb 1

Posted by A. Peasant in Africa, Corruption & Crime, Guinea, Nigeria, Oil, Terrorism | No Comments

1. North Africa al qaeda offers to help Nigerian Muslims fight the Nigerian Christians in Jos

An al Qaeda group in North Africa has offered to give Nigerian Muslims training and weapons to fight Christians in the West African country, where more than 460 people were killed in sectarian clashes last month.

Vice President Goodluck Jonathan sent in the military to halt the violence after four days of clashes between Christian and Muslim mobs armed with guns, knives and machetes in the area round the city of Jos in central Nigeria. “We are ready to train your people in weapons, and give you whatever support we can in men, arms and munitions to enable you to defend our people in Nigeria,” the statement by al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) said.

more @ next

2. Niger Delta: MEND claims it is “not directly” responsible for the sabotage of Royal Dutch Shell oil pipeline

The sabotage on Saturday came hours after the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) ended a three-month old cease-fire and threatened to unleash “an all-out assault” on Africa’s biggest oil and gas industry. While MEND said the attack was the work of a militant group it backed, one security source, who declined to be identified, said the sabotage on Shell’s pipeline, in Bayelsa state in the Niger Delta, might have been carried out by oil thieves trying to tap into it. “MEND was not directly responsible,” the group said in an email to Reuters.  “It was certainly a response to our order to resume hostilities by one of the various freelance groups we endorse.”

more @ yahoo news

3. Nigerian senate totally in the weeds over Yar’Adua’s absence, debating the wording of the Nigerian constitution and how to resolve the crisis

4. expressions of outrage in Sierra Leone — EU, AU called out for supporting corrupt former president

It has come to the attention of this press, that civil servants appointed to key positions of authority and influence by the previous SLPP government in Sierra Leone, are alleged to have gone on the rampage to sabotage, destroy and ruin the economic framework that the President and government of Sierra Leone are instituting to return the country to a sound economic footing. If the allegations are true, then this is an economic crime against humanity. It is reported that these civil servants may have been directed by the opposition party’s machinery to unleash an agenda of sabotage to bring the economy of the country to a halt by failing to institute fiscal policies that will stimulate growth in the economy. And by diverting necessary funds meant for infrastructural development to their pocket, these civil servants are ill-bent on causing chaos and  tarnish the important work the present government led by Dr Ernest Bai Koroma is doing to salvage the opposition-battered economy presided over by former President Ahmed Tejan-Kabbah.

…Some of Sierra Leone’s finest military officers were executed in cold blood by President Ahmed Tejan-Kabbah in the previous SLPP government. Their only crime? They did not accompany him to Guinea when soldiers overthrew his government in a coup d’état. On returning from Guinea after ECOMOG helped restore his government, Tejan-Kabbah ordered the arrest and detention of all whom he thought were not loyal to him and without a single evidence of complicity in the coup, he ordered the execution and continued detention of some of the most gallant men and women of the country’s military. In fact for him to be restored back into power, he ordered ECOMOG fighter jets to bomb Freetown, the capital, at random, without any regard for human life, in his quest to get the rid of rebels in the city and regain power. Thousands of innocent civilians were killed and homes destroyed. This is indeed a crime against humanity. And for this reason alone, I detest any attempt by international organisations like the U.N. or A.U.  to employ the services of this brutal dictator in any mediation efforts across the continent. Tejan Kabbah is not worthy of holding any public office anywhere in the world. Even prior to his election victory there were reports of him being convicted of corruption when he worked as a civil servant in the Siaka Stevens administration.

more @ newstime africa

5. threat of another military intervention in Guinea as top junta official is arrested

Dadis Camara’s closest confidante in Guinea’s military junta, Colonel Moussa Keita,  has been arrested and taken into custody. There is clear indication from reports coming out of Guinea, that officers loyal to exiled Junta leader Dadis Camara, are determined to sabotage the peace agreement signed in Burkina Faso as long as their leader is kept in isolation….The acceptance of Guinea’s Interim Leader Sekouba Konate, to sign up to the Ouagadougou agreement had raised suspicion of a sell-out in Dadis Camara’s mind as reports late last year from Morocco, indicated that Western Diplomats made a lucrative offer to Konate to sign up to a plan hatched by the U.S. to remove Dadis Camara from Guinea’s political life.

more @ newstime africa

trafficking news

Feb 1

Posted by A. Peasant in Children, Corruption & Crime, Drug Trafficking, Human Trafficking, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Philippines, Southeast Asia, Terrorism, UK | No Comments

1. Haiti holds 10 Americans suspected of trafficking children, as you’ve no doubt heard, since this one has made it to teevee. this might go one of two ways. it might be an attempt at damage control / limited hangout, to draw attention away from the larger problem and hold some people accountable while managing the narrative that it is merely an “adoption” ring, ie: not *that* bad. OR, if they are cleared and it turns out to all be a “misunderstanding” over “paperwork”, it might serve to debunk the concerns over child trafficking, and discredit the people who are claiming it’s a very huge problem, making them out to be hysterics. we’ll have to see if they expand the conversation to illegal organ trafficking, child sex trafficking, etc. i doubt it. instead i think we will see (continued) major gate keeping around this topic, as it vectors directly into The Pedophocracy.

Haitian police were holding 10 US citizens Saturday evening on suspicion they tried to slip out of the country with 31 Haitian children in a trafficking scheme, a government minister said.

Haitian Social Affairs Minister Yves Christallin said the police arrested five men and five women with US passports, and two Haitians, as they tried to cross into the Dominican Republic with the children Friday night. He said two pastors were also involved, one in Haiti and one in Atlanta, Georgia.

more @ inquirer

2. children in question very fearful of adults, most have families, people express shock. the picture shows clean, well kept children.  why would people take these children when there were 300,000+ restavek (ie: slave) children in Haiti BEFORE the earthquake to choose from? if people want to traffic children, they have an ample supply of uncared for children to pick from. so looks like this might  be building up for a combo misunderstanding /wrist-slapping resolution, and everyone will breathe a sigh of relief. Be More Careful Next Time! sure.

“The majority of these children have families. Some of the older ones said their parents are alive, and some gave an address and phone numbers,” said Vargas, a Costa Rican who is in charge of SOS Children’s operations in Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean.

…Inside the SOS Village scores of volunteers from countries including Chile, Guatemala and Costa Rica do not hide the shock of the news.

“Even if we had … [suspected] that this was happening in Haiti after the earthquake, it is a shock,” said SOS spokesman Georg Willeit, an Austrian.

more @ telegraph

3. teacher to plead not guilty to abuse charges

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A Colorado man is expected to plead not guilty to new charges that he sexually abused boys at a school he founded in Haiti.

A Colorado man is expected to plead not guilty to new charges that he sexually abused boys at a school he founded in Haiti. Douglas Perlitz is scheduled to appear Tuesday in federal court in New Haven. Perlitz was charged last year with sexually abusing nine boys. Prosecutors doubled the number of alleged victims to 18 with a new indictment announced Thursday. Perlitz pleaded not guilty last year to the original charges. His lawyer, William Dow III, said Thursday that he would also plead not guilty to the new counts.

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local&id=7249350

4. 9.5 MILLION people trafficked in Asia-Pacific since 2005.

MANILA, Philippines—An estimated 9.49 million people were in forced labor in the Asia-Pacific region as of 2005, with a significant number believed to be in the Mekong region, according to United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO).

Thus, officials from the six countries of South-East Asia’s Mekong region and observers from the United Nations and other stakeholders opened a two-day meeting in Myanmar Thursday to step up the war on human trafficking, including sexual slavery and labor exploitation.

The meeting brings together ministers from China, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam, along with observers from the UN, including the UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking of Persons Joy Ngozi Ezeilo, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and donors.

more @ global nation

5. in other trafficking news, Israel says that Hamas guy who got whacked? yeah, he was smuggling weapons to Hezbollah. other than that, we don’t know anything about it.

Hamas military commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was slain in a Dubai hotel room, played a key role in smuggling weapons into the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, an Israeli army official said. “This guy was a middleman for smuggling weapons from Iran, not only to Gaza but to Hizbullah” in Lebanon, the official told The Los Angeles Times.Among other things, Mabhouh, believed to be about 50, was suspected of helping to route smuggled arms through Sudan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. One of the arms convoys was bombed in Sudan last year, reportedly by Israeli aircraft.

“Of course, the moment a guy like this is dead, there is always someone to replace him,” the military official said. “But information (about arms-smuggling routes) is usually kept very secret. You have to renew the connections, rebuild the trust. It takes some time to grow into his shoes. It shakes the whole system.”

Though Israel has not acknowledged any role in the killing of al-Mabhouh on Jan. 20, it was one of several mysterious deaths of Arab militants attributed to Israel’s Mossad spy agency over the years.

Relatives and Hamas officials said al-Mabhouh was electrocuted and poisoned, perhaps by having his face smothered with a poison-soaked cloth. Despite surviving what his family says were several earlier attempts on his life, he had traveled without bodyguards to avoid drawing attention.

source: naharnet

6. aq, jumping the shark: watch out for the latest new thing in the war on terror, terrorists who have their bombs surgically inserted in their bodies. so they inject themselves when they want to explode. yeah. that’s pretty normal. do you think they’d have to be under mind control? but nevermind that. do you see that you can NEVER EVER in a million years EVER be safe from these diabolical people, these al qaeda terrorists? that’s the point. you are powerless.

Britain is facing a new Al Qaeda terror threat from suicide ‘body bombers’ with explosives surgically inserted inside them.

Until now, terrorists have attacked airlines, Underground trains and buses by secreting bombs in bags, shoes or underwear to avoid detection. But an operation by MI5 has uncovered evidence that Al Qaeda is planning a new stage in its terror campaign by inserting ‘surgical bombs’ inside people for the first time. Security services believe the move has been prompted by the recent introduction at airports of body scanners, which are designed to catch terrorists before they board flights. It is understood MI5 became aware of the threat after observing increasingly vocal internet ‘chatter’ on Arab websites this year. [i love that... "it is understood"]

more @ daily mail

7. more terrorist creativity: Philippine  senate to probe rice shipment from Vietnam

Senator Richard Gordon said Saturday the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee will look into the discovery of sacks of a white substance which can be turned into either shabu or explosives that were found in a shipment of rice imported by the National Food Authority from Vietnam.

Gordon, who chairs the committee, said there was something highly suspicious in the discovery of N-methylephedrine, which was later said to be ammonium sulfate, in a shipment of 77,000 bags of NFA rice from Vietnam to Bacolod City as it could be a move to raise funds for the elections.

…The following day, the Bureau of Customs in Bacolod City issued a hold order on a Vietnam-registered vessel, MW Trai Thien 66, its crew and its cargo of 77,000 bags of rice consigned to the NFA in the wake of the discovery of the bags of white crystalline substance.

…Negros media were baffled by the fact that while PDEA officials on Thursday evening and Friday morning confirmed the seized substance to be N-methylephedrine, later in the day they were saying it was ammonium sulfate.

Paul Ledesma, head of the PDEA in Western Visayas, said the earlier findings of N-methylephedrine were based on a Philippine National Police laboratory test in Negros Occidental but a later test done by the PDEA in Manila showed it to be ammonium sulfate.

N-methylepehedrine can be processed into an ingredient in manufacturing shabu (methamphetamine hydrochloride). Ammonium sulphate, on the other hand, is a fertilizer component but can also be used in producing explosives.

The rice from Vietnamese was part of the rice importation that the Department of Agriculture announced in December last year.

An announcement on Dec. 14, 2009 on the DA website said the NFA had given the notice of awards to four winning bidders to supply a total of 509,950 metric tons of well-milled long grain white rice to the Philippines .

The NFA awarded the rice importation to Vietnam Southern Food Corp., Louis Dreyfus Commodities Asia Pte. Ltd., Chairyaporn Rice Co., Ltd and Asia Golden Rice, it said.

A total of 300,000 metric tons of rice will be sourced from Vietnam. The balance of 209,950 tons will come from Thailand, the United States, China and Pakistan.

The whole shipment is scheduled to arrive within the first half of the year starting January until May, it added.

8. cocaine bricks wash up on Philippines shores

February 1, 2010

January 8, 2010

December 29, 2009

cobra gold (CG10) starts today

Feb 1

Posted by A. Peasant in Japan, Military, Philippines, South Korea, Southeast Asia, Thailand | 1 Comment

1. one can’t help notice how extra light is the news coverage of this important exercise in Southeast Asia, a known hotspot for terrorists. of course there is a history of these sorts of things suddenly going ‘live’, as they did on 911 and 7/7.

THE Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) is taking part in in Exercise Cobra Gold, being held in Pattaya, Thailand from Monday to Feb 11.

The multilateral exercises, also involving the Royal Thai Armed Forces, United States Pacific Command, Japan Self-Defence Forces, Indonesian National Defence Forces and the Republic of Korea Armed Forces, focus on peace support and civilian evacuation operations, said a statement from the Singapore’s Ministry of Defence on Monday.

…Representatives from another 20 countries are also involved in this year’s exercise as observers.

more @ straits times

2. largest US - Asia wargames — “rehearsal” for the day when the services are needed.

RAYONG (Thailand) - THE US military began its largest war games in the Pacific region on Monday - an annual training exercise with troops from Thailand, Japan, Indonesia and Singapore, now joined by South Korea.

At the opening ceremony in the eastern Thai province of Rayong, US Ambassador Eric G. John said that the ‘Cobra Gold’ exercise, now in its 29th year, had become a ‘multinational showcase event’. ‘The US continues to view this exercise, which is our premier training event in Thailand, as an important symbol of US military commitment to maintaining peace and security in Asia,’ he told the audience.

‘It’s imperative that our separate militaries learn to work with each other - together - and rehearse for the day their services are needed to answer that call for help,’ he said. In total representatives from more than 20 countries will participate, observe or support, he added. — AFP

more @ straits times

3. Thailand and the United States are long-time allies, but a large sum of US military assistance to the Southeast Asian nation was suspended after a Thai coup in 2006. The aid was resumed after elections in December 2007.

source

4. Thailand walks a fine line with the weapons cache: keeps the men in detention, mentions Iran, but splits hairs with the cargo and the flight plan

BANGKOK - THAILAND said Monday that an aircraft loaded with North Korean weapons was flying to Iran when it was intercepted in December but the ultimate destination of the arms is still not known….

But Thai government spokesman Panitan Wattanayarkorn said Monday that ‘to say that the weapons are going to Iran, that might be inexact.’ ‘The report only says where the plane was going to according to its flight plan, but it doesn’t say where the weapons were going to,’ he said. ‘It’s still under investigation, and the suspects are under our legal system.’

The five-man crew - four from Kazakhstan and one from Belarus - remain under detention. The crew has been charged with illegal arms possession, but the charges are expected to be stiffened once the investigation wraps up, police have said. The weapons found on board the aircraft were reportedly light battlefield arms, including grenades - hardly the ones Iran’s sophisticated military would need.

more @ straits times

5. training based on a computer simulation

“The training is based on a “computer-simulated command post exercise (CPX), field training exercises linked to the CPX, and humanitarian and civic assistance projects,” he said. The joint activity is designed to improve the American Pacific Command’s ability to carry out joint and multi-national military operations and to improve the ability of the participating countries’ armed forces to work together.

The computer-era exercise combines Thai, US, Singaporean, Japanese, Indonesian, and South Korean participants in a coalition grouping.
Thai, US, Singaporean, Japanese, Indonesian, South Korean, and United Nations military force personnel will participate in the field training modelled after the UN’s multi-national peace support operations scenario.

more @ bernama

6. additional details from the military: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2010/01/mil-100112-afps04.htm

Sponsored by U.S. Pacific Command and the Royal Thai Supreme Command, the three-week exercise includes a command-post exercise, a series of medical and engineering civic-action projects and joint and combined field training. The exercise continues to serve as a venue to build interoperability between the United States and its Asia-Pacific regional partners.

The command-post exercise focuses on training a Thai, U.S., Singaporean, Indonesian, and South Korean coalition task force. The exercise also includes Japan participating within a United Nations Force staff. A team composed of representatives from Brunei, Chile, China, Germany, Laos, Mongolia, New Zealand, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Vietnam will observe the command-post exercise at the invitation of the Thai government.

Among Cobra Gold 2010’s objectives is Pacom’s rapid deployment of a joint task force and subsequent coordination with U.N. forces, with the aim of improving Pacom’s ability to conduct multinational operations and increase interoperability with partner nations, officials said.

In addition, officials noted, the military-to-military relationships developed during Cobra Gold exercises underscore a combined capability to face myriad issues in the Asia-Pacific theater, including terrorism, transnational threats, and humanitarian-assistance and disaster-relief efforts.

(From a U.S. Army Pacific news release.)

7. overview of why the military does this exercise in general: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/cobra-gold.htm

“Cooperative engagement” is the USCINCPAC strategy designed to deter aggression, promote peace, encourage prosperity and democratic ideals, and — if necessary– allow the US to fight and win if a conflict cannot be avoided. Specifically, the strategy is a process of aggressively employing the means available to USPACOM (forces, assets, funds, and programs) in three principal ways: forward presence, strong alliances and friendships, and a visible demonstrated capacity for crisis response. The goal is to achieve engagement and participation in peace, deterrence and cooperation in crisis, and a swift and decisive victory in conflict, through multilateral alliances if possible.

Thailand is one of five countries in the Pacific region with which the US has a functioning security alliance. The other four countries are Japan, the Republic of Korea, Australia, and the Republic of the Philippines. Thailand and the US have an extensive bilateral military exercise program.

Cobra Gold is a regularly-scheduled joint/combined exercise and is the latest in the continuing series of U.S. – Thai military exercises designed to ensure regional peace and strengthen the ability of the Royal Thai Armed Forces to defend Thailand or respond to regional contingencies. Cobra Gold is one of several training exercises the US conducts with Thailand each year. The US funds Thai military and civilian professional development training under the international military education and training program (IMET). Thailand is a generous host to US Navy ships that make frequent port calls at Pattaya and Phuket.

Cobra Gold is a six-week exercise during April and May, the hottest time of the year in Thailand where daytime temperatures linger between 103 and 107 degrees Fahrenheit.