Twelfth Bough

i run my own damn think tank

Archive for February 3rd, 2010

tension builds over plane crash recovery

Feb 3

Posted by A. Peasant in Lebanon, Terrorism | No Comments

1. Monday: recovery may take days (it already has)

Recovering all the bodies from the deadly Ethiopian passenger plane crash with 90 people on board may take days. Transport and Public Works Minister Ghazi Aridi vowed, however, to continue search and rescue operations “at any price and no matter how long it takes.”

more @ naharnet

2. plane debris found in Syrian waters, body trapped between rocks

Public Works and Transportation Minister Ghazi Aridi said Wednesday that he was informed by his Syrian counterpart about the discovery of a piece of the Ethiopian plane in Syrian waters. Aridi told reporters during a press conference at his office in the ministry that the piece will be handed over to Lebanese authorities.

The minister unveiled that one of the victims’ body was trapped between rocks in the sea. It hasn’t been retrieved yet due to bad weather and high waves, he said.

On Tuesday, authorities retrieved another body. DNA tests confirmed Wednesday that the body belonged to passenger Albert Assal, whose grieving father died of heart attack last week.

The minister reiterated that the area where the plane’s black box is located has been determined. However, the exact location of the flight recorders is not known yet.

Aridi has denied that Ocean Alert ship, which has been scanning Lebanese waters since the Ethiopian plane crash, was costing the Lebanese government huge sums of money.

“We are being criticized for (allegedly) paying huge sums of money to bring in foreign ships. Had we not asked for their help, they (critics) would have said that we are being stingy and we are not thinking about the victims,” Aridi said in remarks published Wednesday.

“I will tell you clearly that we haven’t paid any penny yet,” the minister said, adding the Ethiopians haven’t proposed to provide “any technical assistance so that we oppose it” in the first place.

Asked about the reasons behind the authorities’ refusal to allow members of the Divers Syndicate to take part in diving operations, Aridi said: “The divers working (to find victims) belong to the army and the civil defense department. Is there any doubt in their professionalism? Should we allow anyone who wants to volunteer to go down there and search on his own?”

naharnet

3. storm hampers search

A heavy storm lashed Lebanon Wednesday hampering operations to find more parts of the Ethiopian plane and bodies of victims a day after media reports led to confusion over the discovery of the jet’s wreckage.

…Wednesday’s storm, which is expected to last for three days, brought to a standstill diving operations. VDL said Ocean Alert, which has been scanning Lebanese waters since after the crash, will return to Beirut port due to the storm.

The Lebanese army command issued a communiqué on Tuesday night saying divers were able to retrieve part of the plane’s wing 4 kilometers west of Ras al-Naameh.

The army communiqué came in response to reports about the discovery of the plane’s main body and the retrieval of human remains, giving hope to the family members of the plane crash victims.

Also late Tuesday, the French embassy announced that a French navy team equipped with sonar devices arrived in Beirut upon the request of Lebanese authorities to find the jet’s flight recorders.

Last week, a U.S. Navy ship, the USS Ramage, detected signals from the black box at a depth of 1,500 meters. But officials described the operation as “difficult and complicated.”

The Lebanese government has formally asked the U.S.-based Odyssey Marine Explorations to send a submarine to help in retrieving the victims, more parts of the plane and the black box.

more @ naharnet

comment: it very much seems that the black boxes must not be recovered, presumably so that the real reason for the crash may not be known. - ed.

India’s geostrategic role: enhance

Feb 3

Posted by A. Peasant in Canada, China, India, Military, Pakistan, Russia, Terrorism | No Comments

1. Harper for stronger Canada-India ties. kiss kiss hug hug.

Toronto: Canada and India must forge stronger trade, investment and educational ties to build a more productive friendship, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said. “Canada stands besides India as a steadfast and faithful friend,” Harper said in a message to a function organised by Panorama India to commemorate India’s 61st Republic Day celebration here. Outlining the many historical, cultural, social and economic ties between the two countries, Harper said: “These bonds are a solid foundation upon which we can build an even stronger, more productive friendship.”

more @ samachar

2. US more at ease with India’s rise than China’s ascent. and pakistan is at the geopolitical crossroads of the region and so maybe that explains why some people would really like to control pakistan, and the usual way of doing that sort of thing is to destroy the country and take it over from the inside, as in iraq and afghanistan

The Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) 2010 has recognized ”a more influential role in global affairs” for India including in the Indian Ocean region and beyond based on its commonalities with the US, while expressing Washington’s concern about the nature of China’s military development and decision-making processes.

The rise of China and India is a prominent theme underlying the QDR, a four-yearly document that offers a broad outline of US security posture that was released on Tuesday. While jettisoning the long-held goal of being able to fight two conventional wars at once (just when India is considering it) and recognizing a new range of threats including terrorism, the review also spells out US views of the two countries (China and India) it says will shape the international system in the years to come….The US policy projection comes at a time when there is much talk of India and China jostling for position and influence in the Indian Ocean region, and there are doubts and hand-wringing in New Delhi over Washington sidelining India in Afghanistan. in deference to a Pakistan-China flaking move. But the 2010 QDR is distinctly upbeat about its India outlook overall compared to reservations – laced with respect — about China.

…Virtually abandoning the US military’s traditional goal of being able to fight two conventional wars at once, the QDR instead emphases a new range of threats, including irregular warfare and cybersecurity. Urging a rethink on the ”construct” of national security, U.S defense secretary Robert Gates told reporters at Pentagon while releasing the report that ”we have learned through painful experience that the wars we fight are seldom the wars that we planned”

In one of several references to the Af-Pak imbroglio, the QDR says the United States recognizes that Pakistan is at the geopolitical crossroads of South and Central Asia, giving it an important regional role in security and stability. ”Our efforts in Afghanistan are inextricably linked to our partnership with Pakistan. Though our partnership with Pakistan is focused urgently on confronting al-Qaida and its allies, America’s interest in Pakistan’s security and prosperity will endure long after the campaign ends. While the epicenter of the terrorist threat to the US is rooted in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the war against al-Qaida and its allies continues around the world,” it says.

more @ times of india

3. US gives India policing power in the Indian Ocean, citing same report

Taking note of India’s “growing influence” in global affairs, the US has said the country will be a net provider of security in the Indian Ocean and beyond with the growth of its military capabilities.

more @ times of india

4. intelligence blooper! 1/29/10 - there weren’t 50 hang gliders procured for terrorism, only 3.

New Delhi, Jan 29: Intelligence inputs that Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba has acquired as high as 50 para-gliding equipments for potential use to launch suicide attacks prompting a security alert in India ahead of the Republic Day appears to be a blooper.The Union Home Ministry has begun a discreet probe into the basis for the inputs with official sources today saying it has now emerged that only three para gliding equipments were procured from China. According to intelligence inputs ahead of the R-Day, LeT is believed to have procured 50 such equipments from Europe sending security personnel into a tizzy.

Official sources said the inquiry will focus on how the quantum of acquisition was apparently inflated irrespective of their source.

Senior officials in the Home ministry claimed that they had been briefed by the officials of the security agencies, who washed their hands off about the possibility of the para gliders being used to carry out terror strikes, sources said.

source

5. Monday: Russian NSA in Delhi to discuss terrorism

New Delhi: With the London conference clearing the way for reconciliation with the Taliban, national security advisers (NSA) of India and Russia will meet Monday to share views on the new strategy of integrating the hardline militia in Afghanistan that is a cause of concern to both countries.

National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon will hold talks with his Russian counterpart Nikolay Patrushev, secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation - the first foreign NSA to visit New Delhi since Menon assumed charge a week ago.

“Negotiations are expected to focus on topical issues of regional and international security, development of multifaceted Russian-Indian cooperation in bilateral and multilateral formats,” the Russian embassy said here Sunday while announcing Patrushev’s visit.

The agenda includes exchange of opinions on such urgent problems as fight against international terrorism, illegal production and trafficking of drugs, the embassy said.

more @ zee news

karachi project and related news

Feb 3

Posted by A. Peasant in CIA, Identities, India, Mumbai, Pakistan, Terrorism | No Comments

1. tension in Mumbai, sports as the venue

Rejecting Shiv Sena contention of ‘Mumbai for Maharashtrians’ as “pernicious thesis”, Home Minister P Chidambaram said on Monday that the financial capital belonged to all Indians who are free to live and work there. Speaking on Sena threats to Australian and Pakistani players’ participation in the IPL cricket event in Mumbai, the Home Minister asserted that he would “guarantee them full security.”

…Asked about safety of Australian and Pakistani players’ participating in IPL, Chidambaram said, “Let Australian players come to India. Let Pakistani players come to India. Let them play in Mumbai and I will guarantee them full security”. Sena had said its activists would not allow Australian players to play IPL matches in Maharashtra to protest the attacks on Indians in that country. The party has been opposing sporting ties with Pakistan contending that the neighbouring country has been supporting anti-India terrorists.

more @ samachar

2. ‘another LeT strike on India will undermine US efforts’ - PANETTA, CIA

Washington: Amidst reports that terror outfit LeT might be planning a major attack in India, the CIA chief today told US lawmakers that another such strike would undermine US efforts in Pakistan by raising tensions between the two neighbours.

CIA Director Leon Panetta said at a Congressional hearing that besides al Qaeda the US now faces a series of threats from terror groups like al-Shabaab, Hezbollah and Hamas. “A particular concern is Lashkar-e-Taiba which, if they should conduct an attack against India, could very well undermine our efforts in Pakistan,” Panetta said expressing his apprehension of the impact that attack could have on relationship between India and Pakistan.

Panetta said this in his appearance before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence which held a hearing on ‘Current Projected Threats to the United States’.  A US-based security think tank in its yearly forecast had recently said that Pakistan-based terror groups have a “strategic intent” to launch major new attacks on the Indian soil to trigger a conflict between the two countries.

Panetta said one of the greatest concerns was of an al Qaeda attack on the United States, and the threat was a prime reason why the US has undertaken the task of dismantling terror infrastructure. He said the greatest threat comes from the fact that al Qaeda, which had launched the 9/11 attacks, had adapted its methods making them difficult to detect.

“We have done a very effective job at disrupting their operations in FATA,” forcing them to move to other regional nodes like Yemen and Somalia, the Maghreb and others, Panetta said. “I think intelligence confirms that they are finding it difficult to be able to engage in planning and command-and-control operations to put together a large attack,” he said.

He said the terrorists were now pursuing an effort to try to strike at the US in three ways, including deploying individuals like Zazi and Headley in the country and by using terrorists who have hitherto had “clean credentials” like Abdulmutallab. “And the third is the loner, an individual like Hasan (Texas military base shooter) who, out of self-radicalisation, decides that the moment has come to engage in an attack by himself,” Panetta said.

The bottom line here, he said, is that the war on terrorism is against a series of groups confronting the US.

Appearing before the same committee, FBI Director Robert Mueller said al Qaeda trainers see Pakistan’s tribal areas as less secure and this had led al Qaeda to franchise into regional components in places such as North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. “This evolution has been most rapid with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula which has changed from a regional group with links to al Qaeda to a global threat with reach into American cities such as Detroit,” he said.

source: zee news

3. suspected US drone strike kills 16 in NW Pak, Karachi violence continues - VOA

Suspected U.S. drones fired missiles at several suspected militant hideouts in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal region Tuesday, killing at least 16 people. North Waziristan is known as a base for the Taliban-allied Haqqani group, which is blamed for cross-border attacks against U.S., NATO and Afghan troops in Afghanistan.

U.S. officials do not publicly comment on the drone strikes, which have raised tensions between Pakistan and the United States in the past.

Meanwhile, the death toll from four days of violence in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi has reached at least 26, after at least six more people were killed Tuesday. The clashes appeared to be between activists from rival political parties - the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and the Awami National Party - which traditionally gather support from different ethnic groups.

source: VOA

4. Headley and Khwaja both talk about “karachi project” in which Pak trains Indian nationals to commit terror in India. so Pakistan can get Indians to strike India, and India can still blame everything on Pakistan for turning these people into terrorists i guess. right? but that would make Leon Panetta very sad, because he predicts that another LeT strike on India will ‘undermine US efforts’ with Pakistan, and perhaps spark a war between India and Pakistan…..which can be blamed on…….Pakistan.

Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI is planning to carry out terror attacks in the country and has put together a team of Indian jihadis in Karachi for the same, a media report claimed on Monday.  The alleged plot has been revealed to investigators by terror suspects David Coleman Headley and Mohammad Amjad Khwaja, the report added.

The FBI had arrested Headley in Chicago in October last year. He is accused of conducting a recce of Mumbai and several other Indian cities on behalf of Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) for the 26/11 attacks. Khwaja, who is a member of Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul Jihad-i Islami (HuJI), was nabbed on January 18, and is currently in the custody of Hyderabad police.

The plot has been named “Karachi project”, details of which Headley has shared with FBI sleuths. The US investigating agency, on its part, has forwarded the details to New Delhi. According to sources, Headley has told the FBI that Indian nationals are being regularly trained for terror activities both by the ISI and the LeT. Once trained, these Indian jihadis are sent back to India for “terror projects” from time to time.

HuJI’s Khwaja, who was arrested by the Chennai police following his return from Saudi Arabia on a Pakistani passport, too has told investigators that the ISI-LeT Karachi project was a reality. According to sources, Khwaja has revealed that Karachi had a huge number of highly-indoctrinated jihadi Indian nationals.

Khwaja is also believed to have revealed that he met alleged Indian Mujahideen terrorists Amir Raza Khan and Riyaz Bhatkal in Karachi, both of whom are staying in Karachi’s Defence Enclave, probably under the ISI protection.

source: zee news

5. possibly related, i guess we’ll see if they’re part of the same shadowy network:  Indian militant arrested, confessed to planning air attacks, also “mastermind” arrested in multiple train blasts from 1993.. .

The arrested Indian Mujahideen (IM) militant and Delhi bomb blast accused Shehzad Ahmed alias Pappu confessed that the outfit was planning air attacks through its air terror module, reports Zee News. As per reports, Shehzad had undergone pilot training in Bangalore and was planning to carry out aerial attacks on key installations. He was also actively involved in the regrouping the IM following the death of key operative Atif Amin in the Batla House encounter and the arrest of Sadiq Sheikh. As per Sehzad’’s confession, besides the plan to carry out aerial attacks, the IM had also planned to plant bombs in education centres during the counselling season in May-June. He also, reportedly, revealed that the IM had sent young men out of the country for terror training by packing them in containers. As reported earlier, Shehzad was arrested by a joint team of Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) and Delhi Police from his native village in Azamgarh District on February 1.

source

also: train blast mastermind nabbed

LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh police on Tuesday arrested Hamiduddin alias Hamiruddin alias Salim, who was wanted in connection with the serial bomb blasts on running trains in different parts of the country in 1993.

Hamiduddin, who carried a reward of Rs. 50,000 on his head, was nabbed by the Special Task Force after an encounter on the outskirts of Lucknow, Additional Director-General ( Law and Order, STF and ATS) Brij Lal said here. A .32 bore pistol, a hand grenade and a fuse were seized from Hamiduddin, who had been absconding for the past 16 years. “Three other serial bomb blasts accused, Syed Abdul Kareem, Mohammad Tufail and Irfan Ahmed, are still at large. They belong to Ghaziabad, Hardoi and Bahraich in Uttar Pradesh,” Mr. Lal said. Hamiduddin was among the 15 persons who were instrumental in planting bombs aboard the Rajdhani Express, the Flying Queen Express and the A.P. Express in December 1993.

source

take one for the team

Feb 3

Posted by A. Peasant in CIA, FBI, India, Israel, Limited Hangouts, Mossad, Mumbai, Pakistan, Terrorism | No Comments

aangirfan asks:

Were the Mumbai Attacks of 2008 an inside-job, involving the CIA, Mossad and corrupt elements of the Indian security services?

Recent news suggests that the Indian military is corrupt.

…The alleged Mumbai Attacks mastermind, the American David Headley, claimed to know the names and titles of senior Defence personnel in Mumbai and New Delhi. (HEADLEY-GATE)
On 8 February 2009, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi revealed that the Mumbai terror attacks could not have been carried out without internal help from India. (Indian Non Cooperation in the Mumbai Investigations)

On 12 February 2009, the Mumbai police Chief Hassan Ghafoor admitted that two Indians who were arrested by the Indian police had been involved in the Mumbai carnage.

Something to keep in mind when India accuses Pakistan of “dragging it’s feet” on the Mumbai investigation.

Today we learn of the “Karachi project.” Both Headley AND Khwaja have told their interrogators of this project. What could this mean?

The ISI has put together a team of Indian jihadis in Karachi, and is waiting to launch them into the country on a terrorist project, alleged terror suspects David Coleman Headley and Mohammad Amjad Khwaja have told their interrogators.

Headley was arrested by the FBI in Chicago in October last year, and is accused of recceing Mumbai and other Indian cities for the Lashkar-e-Toiba as part of the preparations for 26/11. Khwaja, belonging to the Harkat-ul Jihad-i Islami, was arrested on January 18, and is being held in Hyderabad.

Headley has described the “Karachi project” to FBI interrogators, details of which have been shared with New Delhi, sources said. He is believed to have said that both the ISI and the Lashkar have been training Indian nationals in terrorist activities, and using them for anti-India “projects” from time to time.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has also been able to unearth significant details about Headley’s movements in Pakistan through his e-mail correspondence. Contents of his Gmail account were shared with New Delhi following an official request to Google.

Details of Headley’s movements in and out of India, reported in The Indian Express last Thursday, show that he flew into Mumbai from Karachi and returned to the same city twice over the last three years — once in late 2006, and then again in April 2008.

Evidence of the ISI-Lashkar Karachi project has also come independently from HuJI man Khwaja, who was picked up by Chennai Police on his return from Saudi Arabia on a Pakistani passport. Top sources said Khwaja has told his interrogators that a large number of highly-indoctrinated jihadi Indian nationals have been housed in the Pakistani port city.

Reportedly, Headley had earlier told investigators of other targets, including high-profile boarding schools:

Then comes an input from the FBI’s interrogation of David Coleman Headley and Pakistani Canadian Tahawwur Hussain Rana that the prestigious National Defence College in New Delhi, Doon School, Dehra Dun, and Woodstock, Mussoorie, both high-profile boarding schools in Uttarakhand, are on the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba’s target list. America and Israel have already issued advisories on travel to India.

Killing promising young people? That is certain to get a response.

More recently, it was reported that Headley was in the process of finalizing the next target in India at the time of his arrest.

Mumbai, Jan. 31: American terror suspect David Headley was scheduled to visit India aga-in in November last year ap-parently to finalise the next target for LeT group and set up a base in Delhi.

Sources privy to the investigations said that Headley had told his friends in India that he was coming to the country in November for his business. Headley’s messages to his friends, who have recorded their statements before the NIA, stopped in the last week of September, barely a few days before he was arrested by the FBI at O’Hare airport in Chicago on October 3 last year, the sources said.

After recording the statements, the sleuths believe that since Lashker had postponed its planned terror strike on Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten because of international pressure following 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, Headley, who was arrested just before he could board a plane for Philadelphia en route to Pakistan, was coming to India for finalising the next target.

The friends, which included some women, told the investigators that Headley was constantly in touch with them from the US and before being arrested he had said that he was coming to India and that they will have a get-together.

According to the documents shared by the FBI, Headley had been asked by his handler, a Pakistani Army official, that he should wind up his office — First World Office — in Mumbai and “open up a new business centre in Delhi to be used as a cover for future activities”.
The travel details of Headley, who is now turning out to be the globe-trotting prize asset of LeT, was being examined by various agencies, the sources said.

The investigators believe that the last visit of Headley to India in March last year may have been to finalise synchronised terror strikes on Jewish houses located in five cities. —PTI

Headley frequently introduced himself as a CIA agent. I’m pret-ty sure that it’s illegal to impersonate a CIA agent. I bet the “various agencies” are poring over Headley’s travel details. We will probably learn some more interesting details about them soon.

Why would Headley and Khwaja get pinched and start talking about the “Karachi project,” which now implicates India?

One possibility: Limited Hangout

A limited hangout is a form of deception, misdirection, or coverup often associated with intelligence agencies involving a release or “mea culpa” type of confession of only part of a set of previously hidden sensitive information, that establishes credibility for the one releasing the information who by the very act of confession appears to be “coming clean” and acting with integrity; but in actuality by withholding key facts is protecting a deeper crime and those who could be exposed if the whole truth came out. In effect, if an array of offenses or misdeeds is suspected, this confession admits to a lesser offense while covering up the greater ones.

A limited hangout typically is a response to lower the pressure felt from inquisitive investigators pursuing clues that threaten to expose everything, and the disclosure is often combined with red herrings or propaganda elements that lead to false trails, distractions, or ideological disinformation; thus allowing covert or criminal elements to continue in their improper activities.

Victor Marchetti wrote: “A ‘limited hangout’ is spy jargon for a favorite and frequently used gimmick of the clandestine professionals. When their veil of secrecy is shredded and they can no longer rely on a phony cover story to misinform the public, they resort to admitting - sometimes even volunteering - some of the truth while still managing to withhold the key and damaging facts in the case. The public, however, is usually so intrigued by the new information that it never thinks to pursue the matter further.”

You know… take one for the team……?