Sunday, August 31, 2003

Ross' fresh views on Mideast

PV Vivekanand

THE ONLY way to salvage the wrecked Middle East peace process and restore the implementation of the international "roadmap" for peace could a visit to the occupied territories by Arab foreign ministers for talks with the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers, says Dennis Ross, who tried his hand at mediating the Israeli-Palestinian crisis for several years.
Prima facie it is a non-starter since a delegation representing the Arab World visiting the Israeli-occupied territories, let alone meeting Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, would imply Arab recogniton of the state of Israel. Not many Arab states are keen on doing that until Israel signs a peace accord that accepts and recognises a state of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza.
However, the Ross proposal is interesting if only because it breaks new ground against the vicious cycle of violence raging in Palestine, with both sides saying it is impossible to return to diplomacy without basic changes in mindsets.
An overall review of the situation and the worsening mistrust between the two sides as well as the fundamental differences in their approaches clearly indicates that the peace process is beyond salvation with dramatic and emphatic moves from the two sides.
Ross, who served as special co-ordinator for the Middle East in the Clinton administration, wrote in the Washington Post this week that while there was a ceasefire since June announced by militant Palestinian groups, "the progress was always more illusionary than real... (and)... but there was not a peace process."
Ross took note of the complexities of the equation and that the Palestinians were hoping calm would produce Israeli pullbacks and the Israelis reluctant to pull back far
without some sign that groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad would be controlled.
Both did not happen and now Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas faces the double challenge of having to pacify the Israelis and successfully resist Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's efforts to undermine him.
"The stakes are high," wrote Ross, who now heads a private thinktank in Washington. "Should Mahmoud Abbas resign there would be no Palestinian partner -- no one to assume responsibilities, no one to build a state based on reform and the
rule of law, and no one with whom to negotiate. Yasser Arafat would be happy, believing he would recoup his position. But his constant efforts to undermine Mahmoud Abbas and block any efforts to confront those who literally blew up the cease-fire have
cemented his status as a revolutionary whose only cause is his personal rule, not the well-being of Palestinians."
Writing under the title "Arab leaders must act," Ross conceded that Israel's policy of targeted killing of Palestinian resistance activists was also undermining Abbas.
"For Abbas to survive he will have to produce, and that is harder today than it was yesterday and will be even harder tomorrow than it is today," he said. "Israeli targeted killings signal that the Israelis will act if the Palestinians do not, and yet they also create
such anger among Palestinians that Abbas and his security chief find it more difficult to crack down on Hamas and Islamic Jihad — even in Gaza, where they have the means to do so."
The solution to the problem could lie with the Arabs, he wrote.
"It is time for Arab leaders to assume their responsibility. Slogans are not sufficient. Prime Minister Abbas needs the cover of Arab legitimacy to confront Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. The Israelis need to see some dramatic actions by Palestinians and Arab leaders alike to give them a reason to pause and give the Palestinians the chance to take convincing steps on security.
"To that end, Arab leaders need to cross a threshold: Send a delegation of Arab foreign ministers -- to include Saud al Faisal -- to Jerusalem and Ramallah. They must meet with Prime Ministers Sharon and Abbas. While calling on the Israelis to fulfill their
parts of the road map -- cease military operations, lift checkpoints, pull back from Palestinian cities, freeze settlement activity -- they must make clear that Hamas and Islamic Jihad violated the ceasefire and threatened the Palestinian cause.
"The actions of these organisations can no longer be tolerated, and the
Palestinian Authority will have the active support and material assistance of Arab leaders in doing what the road map requires of the Palestinians -- namely, the effective targeting of terrorist groups, collection of illegal weapons, and dismantling of terrorist capability and infrastructure. There is no other way; the Arab call to action must be presented as the only way to achieve Palestinian interests."

Friday, August 29, 2003

Iran-Argentine fight - US role

PV Vivekanand

A MAJOR diplomatic battle is brewing, with Iran pitted against American-British pressure — with Israel playing the game from behind the scenes -- following Britain's arrest of a former Iranian ambasador pending possible extradition to Argentina to face murder charges.
It is not simply an open and shut affair for any party involved in the tussle over Argentina's effort to put on trial former ambasasdor Hade Soleimanpour, 47, and several other Iranians on charges that they were behind a 1994 bombing in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people and wounded over 200.
For the US and its allies, including Israel, it offers an opportunity to drive home their contentions that Iran is a sponsor of itnernational terrorism in what many see as a run-up towards toppling the theocratic regime in Tehran that has stood fast in its opposition to American plans in the Gulf.
For Iran, it is a matter of remaining firm against what it describes as a conspiracy to implicate it in a cooked-up conspiracy and subject it to international isolation and further diplomatic and economic sanctions.

Worst time for Iran

The arrest of Soleimanpour could not have come at a worse juncture in history for Iran, which is already reeling from American pressure over its alleged plans to develop nuclear weapons and support for "terrorist" groups.
It does not need much imagination to assume that the crisis over the British detention of Soleimanpour, an environmentalist student at Durham University, is no coincidence and could be part of an engineered effort to step up the presure on Iran.
Soleimanpur was arrested on Aug.19 after Argentine federal Judge Juan Jose Galeano sent a request to British authorities seeking his arrest in connection with the July 18, 1994, bombing at a Jewish community centre — the Asociacion Mutua Israelita Argentina (AMIA).
The Argentine arrest warrant said Soleimanpour, who was ambassador to Argentina at the time of the explosion, involved in the planning and commission of the bombing and that he provided information about the place and the timing of the attack.
Soleimanpour has been denied bail at a London court and remanded until Aug.29. He has been studying at Durham University in northeastern England since February 2002. His wife is a reputed biologist and the couple have two children.
Soleimanpour's wife and children were vacationing in Iran at the time of his arrest.
The extradition warrant for Soleimanpour was one of eight issued by Judge Galeano against Iranian citizens in August.
Similar warrants issued in March against four Iranian diplomats caused tension between Buenos Aires and Tehran, and resulted in the recall of the Iranian ambassador.

Allegations

Argentine and Jewish leaders blame the Iranian government of orchestrating the attack with help from members of Lebanon's Hizbollah group. Both have denied the charges many times in the past.
The purported motive for the bombing was cited as "Iranian hostility towards Jews" in general. Argentina, which has a 300-000 strong Jewish community, was chosen for the attack because Buenos Aires refusal to suppy nuclear material to Iran, says some versions of the bombing.
However, apart from hints and suggestions, no concrete evidence has been cited to prove the charge.
A 1992 bomb attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in which 29 people were killed also remains unsolved.

Iranian response

Predictably, Iran has hit back with vehemence to Soleimanpour's arrest. It has cut off all trade and cultural ties with Argentina but stopped short of severing diplomatic ties.
The Argentine charge d'affaires in Tehran has been informed his government would be held accountable for all the legal and political impacts of the ruling, reports in the Iranian press said.
Argentine losses in the tug-of-war is relatively little when compared with that of the UK, whose government says the arrest of Soleimanpour is judicial matter beyond its influence.
British-Iranian relations have generally been uneasy. However, signs of an improvement have appeared in recent years. .
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has visited the country four times in the last two years and there is growing co-operation between the two countries over Afghanistan and the war against drugs trade.

New investigation

Argentina had investigated the 1994 bombing and had all but closed the file two years ago.
A new investigation was launched early this year when an unidentified Iranian described as a defector and held in Germany alleged that former Argentine president Carlos S. Menem had accepted $10 million from the Iranian government to cover up the bombing.
Menem denied the accusation but was forced to admit he had a Swiss bank account that he previously had denied. It remains unknown at this point whether that account had received the purported $10 million hush money.
The investigation was given a boost when Nestor Kirchner became Argentina's president in May 25 and promised to declassify intelligence files about the attack and the subsequent nvestigation.
Soleimanpour had been interviewed by police in Britain three times and he had denied all charges.
Tehran has labelled the affair as politically motivated and orchestrated by Israel and its allies.
President Mohammed Khatami has demanded that Soleimanpour be released and the British government offer an apology for the arrest. He has vowed to take "strong action" if the demand was not met.
"The rulings lack judicial and legal basis and are merely politically motivated," said Hamid Reza Asefi, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman. "This measure was politically motivated under the influence of the Zionist regime," he said.
Another Iranian spokesman, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, asserted that "a special wing in the US and Zionists are undoubtedly hard at work to distort Iran`s international image."
Diplomatic contacts are continuing between London and Tehran, but it is unlikely that the row be settled, given the signs that the US has shifted its gunsights to Iran following the ouster of Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.
In strict legal terms, a British court has to study the "evidence" that Argentina says it has against Soleimanpour and rule whether he should be extradited. It could take several months before a verdict is issued.
In the meantime, Tehran could impose a boycott of British products and ban all dealings with London. That would have a serious impact on European-Iranian relations and play into the hands of the US.
US President George W Bush, who named Iran as part of an "axis of evil" along with Iraq and North Korea, has made no secret of his desire to see the theocratic regime in Tehran toppled.
No doubt the Bush administration would be seizing the opportunity offered by the Argentine affair to strengthen its argument that Iran under the present regime and set-up is a source of regional and international destabilisation.
So far, Iran, obviously mindful of the Iraq experience, has played a careful game and defended its nuclear programme saying it is intended for peaceful purposes.
It rejects American charges that it supports terror by emphatically pointing out that its backing for Palestinian resistance groups, Syria and Lebanon's Hizbollah is matter of principle since Israel is occupying Arab land.
The pressure on Tehran went a notch higher this week, with a report prepared by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) seen to voost concerns that Iran's alleged failure to inform the agency of its atomic activities boosts fears that it wants nuclear weapons.
The IAEA report is reported to have found Iran in breach of its UN nuclear safeguards obligations and could lead to Iran declared as in "non-compliance" with its UN Safeguards Agreement.
A verdict of non-compliance means IAEA notification to the UN Security Council, which could impose economic sanctions.
Tehran insists it is co-operating fully with the IAEA. It said last week that it was was ready to sign up to snap inspections of its nuclear programme, but said it wanted prior clarification on "the preservation of its sovereignty."
Obviously, Iran is worried that snap IAEA inspections could be used for American spying on its military facilities and defence capablities.

In the final analysis, the US is trying to get Tehran over a barrell like it did with Iraq. Either way it turns, Iran would face American and international pressure to come clean on its nuclear programmes -- and its missile projects -- or face economic sanctions. But then, opening itself for nuclear inspections could mean exposing its military capabilities to the US and its allies.
Indeed, Tehran might not really be worried about limited UN sanctions since it has shown the world that it could survive despite international isolation; perhaps it might indeed be a better option that opening the door for its defensive capabilities to be advertised to the US while it is clear that Washington is bent upon regime change in Tehran.
However, Iran's real fear should be of being pushed into a corner with a combination external pressures, American incitement of Iranians to revolt against the regime and flexing military muscles across the border from Iraq and sanctions against its oil industry. These could be with a steady build-up of a negative image on the international scene -- like the Argentine affair — that could eventually be worked into endorsement of action for regime change in Tehran.

Thursday, August 28, 2003

Hossein Khomeini — ace or dud?

PV Vivekanand

"The Great Satan," his late grandfather called the US as he loomed into the Iranian scene as the saviour of the nation after ousting the Shah from power in 1979. "Death to America," his followers rallied to him.
"America means freedom," says his grandson today. "Iranians will welcome American intervention if that the way to freedom for themselves," he says.
The region is still reverberating from the shocking comments made this month by Hossein Khomeini, 46, the eldest grandson of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini who founded the Islamic Republic of Iran after ousting the Shah.
Many see Hossein Khomeini's sudden appearance in Baghdad as a glimpse into the uncertainty of regional developments that have been brought about by the US invasion of Iraq, ouster of Saddam Hussein from power and occupation of the country.
It comes amid an American intensification of pressure against Iran, after accusing the theocratic regime there of being a destabilising factor in the region by seeking to develop nuclear weapons and supporting "terrorist" groups in Palestine and Lebanon.
It is in line with the American campaign to destabilise Iran and bring about a regime change there -- without necessarily launching an Iraq-style war -- that Washington seems to have enlisted Hossein Khomeini among others.
What is untested is the political clout of Hossein Khomeini, who carries the title of hojatoeslam -- several rungs down the ultimate Shiite rank of grand ayatollah that his grandfather occupied.
But his comments are seized by the US and other Western countries -- which do not necessarily back American designs against the regime of Khomeini's successor Ayatollah Ali Khamenei -- as giving a degree of legitimacy for Washington's drive against Tehran.
Not much is known about Hossein Khomeini except that he used to be a constant companion of his grandfather, including 14 years of exile in Iraq during the Shah's reign. His father, Mustafa Khomeini, was killed by agents of the Shah's dreaded Savak secret police in the 70s. That left Ahmed Khomeini as the only surviving son of Ayatollah Khomeini. Ahmed Khomenei is believed to have been poisoned to death in the bitter power struggle that followed the demise of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989.
Some Iranians content that Hossein Khomeini went against the regime that followed the death of his grandfather when it became clear that the ultimate helm of Shiites was not a hereditary affair.
Others say that Hossein Khomeini was always a liberal and had disputes with his grandfather, who once jailed him for a week.
In any event, it is now clear that Hossein Khomeini has joined the US camp - something that could make his grandfather turn in his grave -- and Washington is using him in its propaganda campaign against the Khamenei-led theocratic regime in Tehran.
He is housed in a palace on the banks of the river Tigris in Baghdad that once belonged to Saddam deputy Izzat Ibrahim Al Douri and grants interview after interview to the media. After all, the world is keen to know what had happened to the Khomeini family tree and given that the late Ayatollah Khomeini continues to the most reverred among Iranians, as well as among Iraq's Shiites, who comprise almost two-thirds of Iraq's 24 million people.
It is in the course of those interviews that Hossein Khomeini sent shockwaves through the region and indeed outside by describing the current regime in Tehran as "the worst dictatorship... worse even than the communists."
He contented that the overthrow of Saddam would allow newfound freedoms to flourish in the region and if they did not, US intervention would be welcomed by most Iranians.
He argued that Iraqi Shiites calling for an Islamist government in Iraq were misguided because the Iranian experiment had failed.
"Religion has got to be separated from regimes, such as it is in America," he said.
"Iranians insist on freedom, but they are not sure where it will come from," he said. "If it comes from inside, they will welcome it, but if it was necessary for it to come from abroad, especially from the United States, people will accept it."
The US-led Coalition Provisional Authority has confirmed that US officials had met with Hossein Khomeini because his viewpoints were interesting. Other than that, not much is known about links, if any, between the US and the man who carries the legacy of a grandfather who changed the course of history in the region 24 years ago.
Hossein Khomeini suggested that Iranian clerics from the renowned theocratic schools in the city of Qom could move to Najaf in Iraq if the United States establishes security in Iraq.
"If Qom remains under the same kind of oppressive atmosphere everyone will come to Najaf."
He called on Iraqi Shiites should overcome their historical persecution complex by pushing for a democratic government that respected their rights.
In an interview with the BBC Persian Service, Hossein Khomeini accused the regime of oppressing the Iranian people and committing human rights abuses.
He argued that Iran's reformist movement was finished and suggested that a referendum to decide how the country should be governed in the future.
He questioned the principle of velayat faqih, or Islamic jurisprudence, upon which the Iranian system is based.
According to Hossein Khomeini, if his grandfather were alive today, he would have opposed all of Iran's current leaders because of what he described as their excesses and wrongdoing.
The reformist camp in Iran is finished, he said.
People who had voted for President Mohammed Khatami in 1997 hoping things would change had seen things get worse, rather than better, in his second term of office, he said, adding that those who voted for an Islamic Republic in Iran more than 20 years ago were now in a minority.
He is vague about his political ambitions, but affirms he would like to be involved in politics.
"I would love to be effective in bringing about freedom with a movement either inside Iran or outside," he said. "I want freedom for myself and my children, whether in the leadership or a step away."
Despite his rejection of many of his grandfather's beliefs, Hossein Khomeini says he has loving memories of the man.
"He would play wonderfully with his grandsons. And he did his own housework," said Hossein Khomeini. "He didn't want people to do things for him. He was very well organised. He had hours for sleeping, hours for studying."
He said it was difficult to entirely write off his grandfather's extraordinary political career.
"He was a man of the circumstances of the time," he said. "My grandfather accomplished a big historical achievement."
He said he had slipped out of Iran in early July and now lives under risk of assassination by Iranian security agents.
"Iran has given an order that I must be assassinated by whatever means possible," he said. "Their feeling is: This man is dangerous."
Comments made by some of those who interviewed him are equally interesting:
"So what is a man whose grandfather cemented the Islamic theocracy in Iran by exploiting the 1979 US embassy hostage crisis doing espousing views that could have come straight from an American foreign policy briefing or have been written by the press office of the Coalition Provisional Authority situated in the former presidential palace a couple of miles down the road?" said the Observer of London.
"Listening to his grandson condemning the current situation in Tehran, it is difficult not to get a sense that perhaps history is repeating itself," it said. "Whatever way the administration decides to play it (in Iran), Khomeini could be useful to both sides."
Thomas Friedman, who interviewed Hossein Khomeini in early August, wrote: "The best thing about being in Baghdad these days is that you just never know who's going to show up for dinner."
Friedman said he was introduced to Hossein Khomeini by "a rising progressive Iraqi Shiite cleric, Sayyid Iyad Jamaleddine, at his home on the banks of the Tigris."
Jamaleddine introduced Hossein Khomeini to Friedman, as -- and rightfully so -- "this is Sayyid Hussein Khomeini — the grandson of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of Iran's Islamic revolution."
Friedman wrote of Hossein Khomeini: "He has Ayatollah Khomeini's fiery eyes and steely determination, but the soul of a Muslim liberal."
The Boston Globe wrote: "Hossein Khomeini's "danger to Iran comes largely from his hugely well-known name. His father, Hojjatoleslam Ahmad Khomeini, was a leader in Iran's Islamic revolution and died in 1995. His grandfather is revered among Iranians, as well as among Iraq's Shi'ites, who constitute two-thirds of this country (Iraq)."
The Star Ledger wrote; "A longtime reformist silenced and shut out of Iran's conservative inner circle of power, (Hossein) Khomeini confined his critiques of the Islamic Republic to scholarly rather than political arguments. He said a religious government can only come once the 12th Shi'ite prophet Mahdi -- who disappeared in the 9th century -- returns."
Ibrahim Sada, editor of Egypt's second largest circulation Al Akbar daily, was harshly critical of Hossein Khomeini whom he described as an opportunist of the worst kind. Sada said the younger Khomeini was once one of the greatest supporters his grandfather and questioned why now the change of heart.
Sada presented a strong argument that by distancing himself from and even denouncing what his grandfather had advocated, Hossein Khomeini was playing into the hands of the enemies of the Tehran regime but discrediting himself because his legitimacy and status came from the Khomeini bloodline.
What the world is waiting to see is how the US would play Hossein Khomeini in its game with Iran. Would he be an ace or a dud?

Tuesday, August 26, 2003

Streak of violence

PV Vivekanand

WASHINGTON has grossly miscalculated the streak of violence in the Iraqi society that is behind the continuing and rising wave of attacks against coalition troops occupying Iraq. True, American strategists might have taken note of the history of violence and bloodshed in the country and perpetual state of tension and confrontation there, but they went wrong when they expected the people of Iraq to stay put and remain forever grateful to Washington for ending the tyrannic regime of Saddam Hussein.
That is the fundamental message that the Bush administration should learn from last week's bombing at the UN headquarters in Baghdad that killed at least 20 people -- including chief of mission Sergio Vieira e Mello -- and injured over 100 others.
Shocking as it might have been to many around the world, the bombing should not have been surprising since the natural course of events dictated that the UN would be targeted, notwithstanding the world body's efforts to alleviate the suffering of the people of post-Saddam Iraq.
The US brushed aside international opposition and UN refusal to authorise war and going ahead with its invasion of Iraq on justifications that have been proved hollow. The US told the world that it did not care what the international community felt about its moves and pressing its own agenda in Iraq after invading the country and toppling Saddam.
At that point, everyone respected the UN's position that it needed much more evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction before authorising war.
But the twist came when the UN Security Council was pressured into adopting Resolution 1500 welcoming the formation of the US-picked Iraqi Governing Council (but stopping short of recognising it), it was seen by some as the forerunner of an eventual UN endorsement of American moves and decisions concerning Iraq. The bombing at the UN office in Baghdad was a message that the world body should not allow itself to be manipulated by the US. If the very image of the UN flag flying outside the Canal Hotel in Baghdad was seen as the world body's acquiesence with the US occupation of Iraq, it came to symbolise what many saw as its being part and parcel of the occupation of the country; and last week's bombing was a message to the UN to stay way from becoming part of occupation as much as it was also a warning to the international community not to assign troops to support the American occupation of Iraq.
One needs to understand the violent streak in Iraqi blood that could be traced to several centuries ago.
Many historians note that Iraq was ruled for more than 150 years in the 13th and 14th century by the Mongols, known for their savagery and brutality as well as intolerance as evident in their policy of not taking prisoners in their conquests. For them, taking prisoners not only meant having to feed and guard them but also leaving the door open for a potential enemy to re-emerge to pose a new challenge.
That approach has been handed down to the generations and remains a strong feature of the Iraqi society today, the historians argue.
Examples are many to support this theory. The simplest of them is the fact that it takes very little for two Iraqis to go for each other's throat at the slighest provocation. Degeneration of arguments into fisticuffs among Iraqis are a daily feature of life in the country. It does not really matter whether they belong to the same community or otherwise; quite simply, they have a violent temper of a magnitude that is several notches higher than any other people, whether Arab, Muslim or otherwise.
That streak has prevailed throughout the years of the evolution of modern Iraq.
There has never been any smooth transition of power in Iraq over the centuries. The Ottomans, who occupied the entire region for nearly 500 years, had great difficulty in containing the Iraqis and it was only through conspiring with local communities and playing one against another that the Ottomans largely saved their own skin from the dangers of controlling a people whose history is more bloody than any other in the region.
The very diversity of Iraqi society -- Sunnis, Shites, Kurds (with varying links to Iran, Syria and Turkey), Turkomen, Christians and Assyrians, not to mention groups following differing ideologies -- always remained a challenge to anyone who tried to rule them.
In the years after the Ottoman Empire collapses after World War I, Britain, by sheer military force, held the communities together and imposed on them the Hashemite monarchy. But then, more than 20,000 British and allied Indian soldiers died between 1916 and 1920 in battles with Iraqi tribes who resisted the British designs in post-Ottoman Iraq.
"Iraq was and is a very violent and dangerous place," wrties British journalist Patrik Coburn. "It is easy to get into, as the British armies found in 1914, but one of the most difficult countries in the world to rule."
Recovering from the centuries of oppression and enjoying what they saw as newfound freedoms, the Iraqis started challenging the Hashemite monarchy soon thereafter, and the ruling family hit back with equal force and brutality. However, it was not until 1958 that the Iraqis got together and mustered enough strength for themselves to overthrow the monarchy.
Even at that, the ouster of the regime was violent. Jubilant Iraqis dragged the bodies of royal family members through the streets of Baghdad; oldtimers remember that pieces of bones from the bodies were offered for sale as coveted souvenirs. Such violence should be compared with the ouster of the monarchy in Egypt only four years earlier, when the Egyptians put their ousted king and his family aboard a boat from Alexandria into the Mediterranean and sent him out to exile.
No doubt, it is the very nature of the Iraqi society that produced a ruthless and iron-fisted Saddam Hussein as its ruler. Had Saddam been soft, he would not have survived in power and the Iraqis themselves understood it more than anyone else.
It was not at all surprising during the Saddam reign to hear many Iraqi grudgingly agreeing that "we Iraqis need someone like Saddam to keep the country together because we Iraqis recognise the language of physical force than anything else."
As such, it should not have been shocking for the Iraqis to see the gruesome images of the dead bodies of Uday and Qusay Hussein -- Saddam's sons – on television and blown up on front pages of newspapers. They simply accepted it as something that could happen any day; but then, by displaying those bodies, the Americans sent a wrong message to some Iraqis -- that the US was all-too powerful and could and would do anything it wanted in the country; surely that did not go down well with them since it touched the very core of the Iraqi mindset (notwithstanding the bitter and intense hatred that the Saddam family had acquired for themselves).
And now the Americans, recording an everage of 12 attacks on its soldiers every day in occupied Iraq and having lost about 60 soldiers since May, are learning the lessons the hard way; and it is only a matter of time when a massive attack takes place to claim dozens of American soldiers' lives in one go.

Saturday, August 23, 2003

Ben Laden remains elusive

AMERICAN intelligence agents and their cronies
scouting the Afghan countryside have grown wary of
false tip-offs about the whereabouts of Osama Bin
Laden coming up almost every day and have got nowhere
near the elusive Al Qaeda leader, who gave the slip of
tens of thousands of American soldiers and their
allies at the end of the Afghan war last year.
It is more of a matter of luck than anything else that
the Americans agents believe would be decisive in
capturing Bin Laden alive or dead. The leads they
have received so far are so flimsy that they are they
not even sure that the man is alive or dead. This is
the finding of Western intelligence sources who keep
track of American operations in the Afghan war
theatre, which covers Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and
some of the former Soviet republics which border
Afghanistan.
At the same time, as every day passes by without any
success in locating Bin Laden and his ally Taliban
leader Mullah Omar, the Bin Laden legend continues to
grow among his faithful similar to that of the
Phantom, the "ghost who walks" immortalised in comic
books.
Frustrating the Americans are the occasional tapes
released through Qatar's Al Jazeera television station
carrying a voice that sounds like Bin Laden and
confirmed as that of the Al Qaeda chief.
Instead leading the hunters closer to the quarry,
every wasted day makes it more difficult for the
American military to get their hands on information
about him let alone capturing him, according to the
intelligence sources.
"They have been working overtime to get Bin Laden,"
said the source. "But the operations are all messed up
and the hunters are non-plussed to explain how some of
the best equipped intelligence agencies backed up the
best resources in the world could not come up with one
man -- Bin Laden.
"They would never admit that they have run aground
without leads and hence the high secrecy and media
blackout imposed on the actual state of the hunt for
Bin Laden."
Intelligence agents were led dozens of times this year
to believe that they are hours close to capturing Bin
Laden in the western deserts of Pakistan and the
mountain ranges on the Pak-Afghan border. Invariably,
all of them turned out to be false alarms, and most of
them produced by people overenthusiastic about the $25
million bounty offered for information leading to the
capture or death of Bin Laden.
"Surprisingly, however, even those bounty-seekers
coming forward with 'information' on Bin Laden have
been limited in numbers, " said a highly informed
source.
"The Bin Laden situation is not like Iraq and Saddam
Hussein where there was little love lost for the
dictator and there could be hundreds of thousands
ready to try their hand at getting the $25 million
bounty on his head," said the source. "What the
American and British intelligence agents have come
across among Afghans as well as Pakistanis in the
border areas is devotion to Bin Laden and
determination to defend him at whatever cost."
The communities along the Pak-Afghan border live by
their own laws and are bound by codes of honour
handed down over centuries that could not broken by
any external consideration. Those who dare to violate
the code of conduct -- particularly a commitment to
protect a "guest" who has sought protection -- might
not live another day to recount the tale.
American efforts to locate turncoat Al Qaeda agents
also have had little success.
What the US agents have failed to realise and respect
is the high motivation among Al Qaeda that makes it
almost impossible to break into the rank and file of
the organisation.
It might sound strange, given that $25 million would
represent the income of several generations of
hundreds of communities in an Afghan or Pakistan town,
but that is the way the Bin Laden culture has taken
root among devout Muslims in the region.
"For the bulk of them Bin Laden is their leader in the
fight against the Western evil as represented by the
Americans and they have surprisingly unwavering
commitment to their beliefs and convictions," said the
source. "They understand his language and words more
than American assurances about their well-being,
including democracy and everything else connected to
that."
"No amount of bounty is going to undermine their stand
since they believe that they will be held accountable
to God in their afterlife if they betray someone like
Bin Laden."
However, that has not stopped some of them from
collecting "easy money" in return for false
information to the point that the American-British
combine is no longer generous with cash to informants,
said the source.
"Tens of thousands of dollars and gifts like mobile
phones used to change hands every day in the hunt for
Bin Laden and Mullah Omar in the initial days after
the Afghan war," said the source. "It is no longer the
case since the agents now feel that they had been
taken for a ride by the so-called informants and
bounty hunters."
An 11,000-strong American task force backed by Afghan
allies is combing the area for what they call remnants
of the Taliban and Al Qaeda — including of course
Mullah Omar and Bin Laden — in the Afghan-Pakistan
border.
American agents and Pakistani security forces are
searching the Pakistani side of the border, but apart
an intensification of mortar and rocket attacks, the
Americans have found little success.
Iran is no help either.
Given the Iranian theocratic hostility towards the US
and Tehran's tight-knit and merciless approach to
people suspected of spying for foreign elements, the
American intelligence community has run into a blank
wall in trying to get information from within Iran.
They know that a handful of Al Qaeda activists are in
Iranian hands but they don't even know the identity of
the detainees.
According to Mansoor Ijaz, who is described by
London's Guardian newspaper as a financier who has
spent years tracking Bin Laden's movements and
operations, the Al Qaeda leader is is hiding in the
"northern tribal areas" -- the long belt of seven
deeply conservative tribal agencies which stretches
down the length of the mountain ranges that mark
Pakistan's 2,400-kilometre border with Afghanistan.
Ijaz should know, says the Guardian, since Manoor Ijaz
has "close contacts in Pakistan's intelligence
agencies and has worked, behind the scenes, as
negotiator over Bin Laden in the past."
According to the paper, Mansoor Ijaz was involved in
negotiating attempts by Sudan to provide crucial
information on Bin Laden in 1997 and worked on an
attempt to have him extradited from Afghanistan
through the United Arab Emirates in 2000.
Mansoor Ijaz told the paper that he believes Bin Laden
is protected by an "elaborate security cordon of three
concentric circles, in which he is guarded first by a
ring around 200 kilometres in diameter of tribesmen,
whose duty is to report any approach by Pakistani
troops or US special forces."
"Inside them is a tighter ring, around (20
kilometres) in diameter, made up of tribal elders who
would warn if the outer ring were breached," it says.
"At the centre of the circles is Bin Laden himself,
protected by one or two of his closest relatives and
advisers. Bin Laden has agreed with the elders that he
will use no electronic communications and will move
only at night and between specified places within a
limited radius."
No wonder the US has made little headway in its
unprecedentedly intense hunt for Bin Laden, and it is
highly unlikely that its approach would come to
fruition any soon.

Tuesday, August 19, 2003

Lakhani case — more than meets eye

PV VIVEKANAND

THERE IS much more than meets the eye in the recent arrest of three people on charges of conspiring to supply weapons to stage terrorist attacks against the US.
If anything, it appears now that it was a case of a carefully charted plot going wrong at the last minute, with the directors wringing their hand ruefully that their hopes of laying hands on "real terrorists" seeking "real guns" having been frustrated by a premature media disclosure.
Hemant Lakhani, 64, a British national of Indian origin, American Yehuda Abraham, 75. and Moinuddeen Ahmed Hameed, 38, believed to be a Malaysian national, were arrested on Aug.11 after an 18-month "sting" operation staged by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in co-ordination with Russian and British intelligence.
The first speculation when the story of the arrest broke was that they were affiliated with Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda network. Since then, however, reports have said that the FBI could not come up with any evidence to link Lakhani with Al Qaeda, and that he was only trying to make a fast buck by attempting to buy and sell missiles.
Some reports in the British press threw doubts on assertions that he was an arms merchant and suggested instead that, in view of his heavy indebtedness as a textile merchant, he was easily lured into the sting operation involving purported arms sales.
Another account suggested that the FBI could not complete the sting operation and net the alleged terrorist contacts of Lakhani and his "associates" Abraham and Hameed when the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) broke the story prematurely.
Since then, however, American media has reported that administration officials were leaving out key facts and exaggerating the significance of the alleged plot to smuggle a shoulder-launched missile into the United States
According to law enforcement officials quoted by ABCNEWS, Lakhani had no contacts in Russia to buy the missiles before
the sting and had no known criminal record for arms dealing,
"Here we have a sting operation on some kind of small operator . . . who's bought one weapon when actually, on the gray and black market, hundreds of such weapons change hands," said military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer.
Court documents show much of the case is based on the government's key co-operating witness, an "informant " seeking lenient treatment on federal drug charges, officials told ABCNEWS.
The "informant," who is identified only as "CW" in the indictment unsealed at a New Jersey court, was the first person who led the government to Lakhani. He is believed to be of Indian sub-continental origin since, according to the indictment, Lekhani and "CW" spoke in Urdu and Hindi.
The missile shipped into the New York area from Russia last month was not a real missile — just a mockup  — also arranged entirely by the government.
US officials insisted that the case would show that Lakhani went along with the scheme willingly and was not entrapped. But the question remains whether any of this would have happened if the government had not set it up.
According to the indictment, the story began three months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
A summary of the nine-page indictment compiled by the Philadelphia Inquirer says:
In late 2001, Lakhani approached the (FBI) informant, CW, who was pretending to be a conduit for "radical" Somalis.
Their first significant meeting was on Jan.17, 2002, in the Newark area. As would be the case in most of the more than 150 conversations they would have in the next 18 months, they spoke primarily in Hindi or Urdu.
And, as in virtually all those cases, the FBI was listening.
Lakhani was the first to broach the subject of weapon sales. According to the indictment he bragged that he could procure antiaircraft guns and missiles.
CW said he wanted to buy one anti-aircraft missile, then more later. The two agreed to split the commission on future sales.
Besides business, they also talked politics, documents show, with Lakhani saying Bin Laden "did a good thing" on Sept.11, 2001.
In April 2002, the two met again at a New Jersey hotel, where CW said his people wanted to buy a shoulder-fired missile.
"It can be done," Lakhani allegedly said, emphasising that he wanted the Somalis to know he was "a serious businessman."
The FBI informant said he wanted the missiles for "jihad" and "a plane."
According to the affidavit, Lakhani replied: "The Americans are b....s."
Lakhani said he understood CW's desire to acquire the weapon by the first anniversary of the Sept.11 attacks.
They missed that deadline, but continued to work the deal, meeting on Sept.17, 2002, at a hotel at Newark Liberty International Airport, where they talked price and customs complications.
At one point, CW pointed to passenger jets taking off and landing at the airport. Lakhani allegedly indicated he understood that airplanes were the intended target and said: "Make one explosion … to shake the economy."
In the coming weeks, the men exchanged faxes with technical information — target distance, calibre, missile weight, warhead weight etc.
In October, a third man entered the picture. Unidentified in court documents, this man, based in London, called the FBI informant on Lakhani's behalf and told him to gather a down-payment in $100 bills. He gave the informant the first name of his New York contact, gem dealer Yehuda Abraham, who will identify himself by producing a $1 bill with the serial number F83616063J.
On Oct. 16, CW met with Abraham, who showed him the $1 bill with the proper serial number. The informant gave Abraham the $30,000 down payment, which he counted then and there.
In November, the informant and Lakhani spoke again by phone. This time, Lakhani lamented that his task was "very dangerous" and "not very easy," especially given heightened US security.
The FBI informant suggested that he simply wire the next deposit to the supplier's account.
"No," Lakhani replied, according to documents. "You will get caught. Try to save your skin. … This business is getting so dangerous. No one has the guts to do it. … I won't do anything if it's risky."
In March 2003, after several nervous fax exchanges, the informant wired $56,000 as final payment.
Lakhani soon called to say the missile would be shipped from St.Petersburg, Russia. The lading bill would say "spare parts."
On July 12, the FBI informant flew to Moscow to meet Lakhani and finalise the sale. Two days later, they met with two arms dealers — in fact, two undercover Russian officers — who showed Lakhani the purported shoulder-fired, Igla portable anti-aircraft missile.
Lakhani did not know it was a non-working replica.
The two men then travelled to the port in St. Petersburg to see the missile off. Just before the ship left, Lakhani allegedly broached the idea of selling 50 more surface-to-air missiles, and mentioned his desire to acquire tons of C-4 plastic explosive.
The phony missile arrived at the Port of Baltimore, then made its way to Newark, an official involved in the case said.
On Aug.11, Lakhani met the FBI informant at the Wyndham Hotel in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He came to confirm that the missile had reached the Newark area, and he also planned to discuss the 50-missile deal and the C-4.
Meanwhile, in Manhattan's diamond district, Abraham met with Hameed, who had just flown in from Malaysia. Hameed allegedly expected to help collect $500,000 as a down payment for the next 50 missiles.
Abraham and Hameed were waiting to count the money.
That never happened. The three were arrested later that day.
Hameed was holding the $1 bill.
From subsequent reports, the role of Abraham and Hameed seemed to have been limited to dealing with the financial side of the "deal."
In London, people who knew Lakhani said he was operating from an area near Oxford Street in the West End of London until his clothing business collapsed three years ago. They said it was difficult to believe that Lakhani, a Hindu, would collaborate with Al Qaeda.
A native of Gujarat in India, Lakhani lived in Mumbai's Ghatkopar suburb until the mid-80s when he migrated to the UK. His family is said to have been killed in a motor accident and he was reported to have remarried. That wife was said to have been with him when he was arrested in New York.

Weak argument

Following their arrest, US Attorney Christopher Christie has claimed that Lakhani was involved with terrorists who want to kill Americans.
"There is no question that Lakhani was sympathetic to the beliefs of those who are trying to do damage to our country," Christie said after the court hearing last week where Lakhani was ordered held without bail.
"He knew the arms dealing he was engaging in was being engaged in an attempt to kill American citizens and to try and shake the stability of our economy. Lakhani was a knowing, willing and anxious participant," he said.

"He, on many occasions, in recorded conversations (with undercover American intelligence agents), referred to Americans as 'b......ds' [and] Osama Bin Laden as a hero," said Christie.
But does that indicate that he was selling missiles to terrorists?
That is a question that the US intelligence agencies hope to establish during Lakhani's trial.
The clinch will be evident if the US authorities insist on a "closed-door" trial for Lakhani and also use the special legal provisions which allow the prosecutors to argue their case without having to produce the evidence to the defence lawyer.


Media ruckus


In Britain, meanwhile, the BBC is standing firm after it was accused of wrecking the operation because it ended up netting only Lakhani.
The Newsweek magazine said the US officials were "fuming" that the BBC's leak "may have blown a rare opportunity to penetrate al Qaeda's arms-buying network."
According to the report, the FBI's true intention had been to catch Lakhani hoping that he might lead them to real terrorists trying to buy real weapons. But the assertion has raised eyebrows since there has never been any trace of any link between Lakhani and extremist groups. The arrest of Lakhani was to remain a closely guarded secret.
The BBC's Tom Mangold seemed to have forced the FBI hand by planning to report the arrest, including a now-discredited detail that the smuggling of an SA-18 missile was part of a terror plot to shoot down Air Force One, the presidential aircraft.
News of a British terror arrest, and a possible plot to strike Air Force One, was flying round Washington well before it was first broadcast on the BBC.
The ABC network sent out an internal "news flash" at 4.22pm Washington time, more than half an hour before the BBC was first due to broadcast the story on the 10 o'clock news bulletin in Britain, according to Mangold.
However, ABC denied breaking the story, saying it was tipped off to the arrest when it learned that BBC reporters were calling US officials for confirmation of the arrest.

(With input from The Philadelphia Inquirer/Knight Ridder Newspapers).

Friday, August 15, 2003

US in Afghanistan — Reaping hostility

PV Vivekanand

American military behaviour in Afghanistan in the US quest to eliminate all traces of the Taliban and Al Qaeda groups is alienating the people of the war-shattered country and undermining prospects for the Bush administration's success in its objectives there.

AMERICAN soldiers are slogging along the mountain trails and valleys of Afghanistan in search of what Washington calls remnants of the Taliban regime and Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda network who escaped the dragnet during the US-led war against that country in retaliation for the Sept.11 attacks.
There is no trace of Taliban leader Mullah Omar and Bin Laden, who carries a $25-million bounty for information leading to his capture or death. Strong signs have emerged that Taliban fighters have regrouped. There is an upsurge in hit-and-run attacks aimed at the US forces and soldiers of the newly-constituted Afghan army.
They have issued warnings that they intend to step up their operations.
Against that backdrop is what could nothing be but a growing hostility towards the Americans among ordinary Afghans if only because the US military is aligned with local warlords, many of whom are accused of committing gross violations of human rights against their own people.
Many conquerers have tried and failed to control Afghanistan -- a key post along the ancient "Silk Route" -- over the centuries and there is no reason to think the US would be able to achieve it despite its super high-tech equipment and military strength. For, that is the very nature of the country, its terrain and its people, and it is absolutely vital that they have close alliances with powerful Afghan groups. 
The mighty British army and Imperial Russia vied with each other for control of Afghanistan in the 19th century, and both gave up.
The Russians came back again in 1980 and got bogged down in a proxy war with the US that cost Moscow dearly and forced the Red Army to withdraw unceremoniously.
Today, the mighty American army is in Afghanistan, and, more than one year after the real war was over, it looks like getting mired in a war of attrition with Taliban and Al Qaeda elements as well as fighters of defiant anti-US warlords like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
Despite their success in toppling the Taliban regime and wrecking the Al Qaeda group in the war that was launched in October 2001, US soldiers have also been accused of war crimes in Afghanistan. A 45-minute documentary produced by Irish filmmaker Jamie Doran -- The Massacre in Afghanistan: Did the Americans Look On? — was shown in December in one of the main German public channels — ARD. It was previously shown on the British Channel 5 and the Italian station RAI.
The Bush administration reacted angrily to the Germans and said the documentary contained "completely wrong " facts and "unfairly depicts the US mission in Afghanistan.”
The documentary suggested that Taliban and Al Qaeda prisoners were summarily massacred in Kunduz, the Taliban’s last stronghold in northern Afghanistan, in November of 2001 and US soldiers were involved in contravention of all international laws and standards governing the treatment of prisoners of war.
The story of the massacre might or might not be true and has become part of history now, but such allegations give an insight to the reality that the outside world is given controlled information about Afghanistan.

Reaping hatred

If indeed the story of the massacre is accurate, then it does not need much thought to realise that incidents like that would only reap hatred for the Americans among Afghans for having been party, albeit indirectly perhaps, to massacres of their loved ones.
As such, the belief that the shape of things in Afghanistan might not be as good as the Americans try to portray it be is growing around the world.

Semblance of normalcy

Indeed, things are looking up for the Afghans. Life is getting relatively better for them. They are enjoying the newfound freedom from the strictures imposed by the Taliban and the US says it is committed to creating a democratic Afghanistan before leaving the country.
Governance is slowly being institutionalised under the interim administration headed by President Hamid Karzai, who was chosen at Loya Jerga -- traditional assembly of tribal representatives -- in June 2002.
Karzai's mandate runs out in 2004. He faces the task of drafting a new constitution, overseeing the formation of a national army and of preparing for elections at the end of its term.
Plans for general elections are already afoot. A Loya Jerga is scheduled to be held in a few weeks to give shape to a constitution.
Tens of thousands of Afghans who sought refuge in neighbouring countries, mainly Pakistan and Iran, are coming back, and reconstruction is under way although not at a pace that would satisfy the Afghans hungry for early and speedy improvements in daily life.
The international community, prodded by the US, has taken an interest in Afghanistan, partly because world governments do not want to neglect the country and allow Qaeda-like groups to emerge from frustration and despair.
For the first time in decades, there is a government, albeit temporary, and there is a semblance of normalcy.
However, the very diversity of the people of Afghanistan is a major hurdle for the American objective of building a strong and stable country based mostly on good faith and common interests.
And the task is getting murkier with the emergence of signs that the Taliban have implicit control of several regions of the country and Taliban supporters are biding their time in positions of influence.

Main fear

The main fear is that some of the warlords who are openly defying the Karzai government in their areas of influence could find partners from among the Taliban remnants and pose serious problems for the US.
An international think-tank of experts has highlighted that the ethnic Pashtuns -- who represent 45 per cent of the 24 million people of Afghanistan -- are alienated and their lack of representation in the political process could end in disaster
According to the International Crisis Group (ICG), resentment against the government is growing among the Pashtuns -- whose members dominated the Taliban regime -- and adding to the threat of regional instability.
Rivalry between warlords is creating conditions "dangerously close" to those prevailing at the time of the Taliban's emergence in the late 90s, says the group.
"The risk of destabilisation has been given added weight by the re-emergence of senior Taliban commanders who are ready to capitalise on popular discontent," says the report.
The group criticises what it calls violence against Pashtuns in the north and west of Afghanistan and heavy-handed missions by US forces in the southern regions and asserts that these are adding to resentment against the US as well as the Karzai government.
The report cited examples of the "alienation" of the Pashtuns. It said Pashtun traders who traditionally controlled commerce in the country are not welcome in Herat, in western Afghanistan, where local Tajik militias reign supreme.
The Tajiks comprise up to one-fourth of the population and they trace their roots to the northern and north-eastern regions of Afghanistan, near the border with modern-day Tajikistan.
According to the ICG, the Karzai government has been unable to limit the broad powers of the Tajik faction and its monopoly over the government's security institutions.
However, Karzai this week moved against Herat's powerful warlord Ismail Khan by stripping him of his post as military commander of western Afghanistan in a major reshuffle of provincial governors and officials.
It remains to be seen how Khan would respond to the move.
The mounting guerrilla attacks against the US military and Afghan soldiers could be partly linked to the American heavy-handed searches and involvement in factional and personal rivalries, says the ICG report.
American soldiers' interference in local disputes is fomenting distrust and payment to local commanders is encouraging militia membership, it says.
"The US needs to reconcile its short term military objectives with the political goal of rebuilding Afghanistan," according to the think-tank.
"Besides conveying the impression of partisanship in local disputes, the heavy-handed tactics used by coalition forces in some of their operations risk alienating sources of support," it says.
It cites an example: "In simple terms the Pashtuns don't like GIs barging in doors and lifting the burqas of their women."
The potential exists for the Pashtuns to see the Taliban as "a real guarantor of security despite the anti-Taliban rhetoric since 2001," according to Michael Griffin, an expert on Afghanistan.
"The Pashtuns are beginning to lean more closely to this social order."


Measure of stability

The Taliban is credited by the Pashtuns for having brought in a measure of stability after nearly two decades of bloodshed. And the US runs the risk of creating that impression again, the ICG report implies.
Afghan government leaders say Taliban and Al Qaeda remnants find refuge across the border in Pakistan and retreat there after staging attacks.
As an answer to the contention, the Pakistani army has been deployed to parts of the tribal areas in the country's north-west.
It is the first time that Pakistan has sent the army there in a bid to gain control of the tribal areas that have historically been autonomous, governed by tribal leaders under their own laws.
In the meantime, there is no let-up in the US commitment to stay on in Afghanistan, says Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers
During a recent visit to Kabul, he affirmed that the US will stay in Afghanistan as long as necessary and that military operations in post-war Iraq will not undermine the "war on terror."
"The US is committed... to be here as long as it takes to finish the Bonn process," he said, referring to the conference in Germany which established the Karzai administration.
"I don't think the war in Iraq has taken any of the resources away from the fight against international terrorism, specifically Al Qaeda."
Despite the tough talk, the reality on the ground facing the US military might be quite different, analysts suggest.
'It is difficult to estimate at a distance, through the prism of a subservient international media, the impact of months of US bombing and a rising toll of civilian casualties in Afghanistan,"
according to Peter Symods. "There are a growing number of signs, however, which indicate that the US military is not engaged in a mopping up operation but faces Afghan militia groups, previously allied to the Taliban regime, who are sustained by growing local resentment and anger towards Washington," he wrote in March this year.
From the look of things, and from what we hear from Afghanistan, the situation has only turned worse since then.

Human rights violation

One thing is clear: The US, which has political and military imperatives to align itself with some Afghan warlords in the war against Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters, is not endearing itself to the Afghans, according to a report prepared by the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) and released on July 29.
The report catalogues the systematic violation of human rights by the militias of the Northern Alliance who were placed in power following the US invasion in late 2001.
“Much of what we describe may at first glance be seen as little more than criminal behaviour," said the report. "But this is a report about human rights violations, as the abuses described were ordered, committed or condoned by government personnel in Afghanistan—soldiers, police, military and intelligence officials, and government ministers..."
The situation today, says the report, is "in large part, the result of decisions, acts, and omissions of the United States government, the government of other coalition members and parts of the transitional Afghan government itself."
While ultimate responsibility and blame lie with Afghan warlords themselves, it said, the US "in particular bears much responsibility for the actions of those they have propelled to power, for failing to take steps against other abusive leaders and for impeding attempts to force them to step aside.”
The HRW report listed many incidents of human rights violation and brutality and pointed out that the Bush administration could not escape blame for the state of affairs since US military forces “co-operate with (and strengthen) commanders in areas within and outside of Kabul.”
Translated on the ground in Afghanistan, it means the US is being seen as the protector of those engage in atrocities against civilian population.
An addendum written by James Conachy to a summary of the 102-page HRW report says:
"One can safely assume that the HRW report provides only a pale indication of the social devastation and political chaos that reign in Afghanistan nearly two years after the American invasion.
"The reality on the ground in the Central Asian country completely exposes the lies that were used to justify the US intervention, whose essential aim was to replace one set of warlords with another that would be more pliable to American interests, above all its designs on the rich oil and natural gas resources in the adjoining Caspian basin."

Wednesday, August 06, 2003

Blow to confidence - Indonesia blast



TUESDAY's massive bombing at Jakarta's JW Marriott Hotel has dealt a serious blow to a growing belief that the crackdown across South-East Asia against hardline groups has been bearing fruit.
With dozens of suspected Jemaah Islamiyeh (JI) members under detention in Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore, the governments were hoping that they had squashed the head of extremism in the region.
The hopes were dashed on Tuesday, and so was the American assertion that the US-led war against terror had scored remarkable success in pre-empting extremist attacks.
It had not been lost on Indonesia or the world that the bombing came in the same week as the first verdict was due in the trials of the alleged perpetrators of the previous attack - last October's Bali bombing.
During their trials, the defendants had repeatedly said they were seeking to strike at western interests and inflict as many casualties as possible in Bali, and were certain their colleagues at large would continue the campaign.
Authorities from Indonesia and its neighbours have been warning that the movement is still active despite the detention of more than 100 alleged members in the past two years, and preparing to mount another major operation.
.According to Indonesian police, security forces had come across documents last month showing extremists were planning to target the area around Marriott hotel, where the blast had killed 15 people and wounded over 150 others.
The documents were seized in a raid that netted seven alleged members of the JI, the regional militant group accused of carrying out last year's Bali nightclub bombings.
The revelation came as Indonesian and Australian authorities warned that more terror strikes were possible in Indonesia in the coming days.

Unusual claim

A man, claiming to speak for JI was quoted as saying by Singapore's Straits Times on Wednesday: "This is a message for ... all our enemies that, if they execute any of our Muslim brothers, we will continue this campaign of terror in Indonesia and the region."
It was the first known claim of responsibility issued by JI and drew scepticism.
The Marriott, Jakarta's newest upmarket hotel, is regularly used for functions by American and other Western diplomats. US Secretary of State Colin Powell, stayed there last year, as did Australian Prime Minister John Howard in February. The hotel, near the business and diplomatic district, was the venue for the US embassy's July 4 celebrations.
The Marriott is considered to have the best security in Jakarta. Cars are checked before allowing entry, and people have to pass through a metal detector to get into the lobby. But the heightened security measures, introduced across Jakarta to protect Western targets, failed to prevent a suicide bomber driving up to the entrance in an Indonesian-made Kijang van on Tuesday.
Police pointed to similarities with the Bali attacks— including the apparent use of a mobile-phone to detonate the bomb.
After the document’s discovery in the central Java town of Semarang, Indonesian police had increased security patrols in the Marriott area.
Obviously the security alert was not enough to pre-empt the attack, which came two days before a verdict in the trial of a key suspect in the Bali attacks, Amrozi Bin Nurhasyim.
More attacks feared

It is now widely believed that the ongoing court cases against JI suspects would lead to more bombings in Indonesia.
Predictably, Amrozi reacted with joy over the Jakarta bombing as he testified at another JI suspect's trial in Bali.
Asked about the blast, he grinned and yelled out, "Bomb!" After testifying at the same trial, the alleged mastermind of the Bali blasts, Imam Samudra, shouted, "Thank God, I am thankful" about Tuesday's bombing.
The largest political groups in Indonesia — Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah — condemned the bombing and offered condolences to the victims.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer had spoken of intelligence in the hours after the bombing that there could be more militant attacks in Indonesia in the coming days. He did not say what the intelligence was.
The explosion followed repeated warnings by Western embassies in recent weeks that JI — which is said to have links with the Al Qaeda network — was planning further attacks in Indonesia.
Last month police claimed they had uncovered a group plotting strikes in the capital and seized a tonne of explosives in Samarang. But they said two bombs shipped to Jakarta were still missing.
The US embassy renewed its warning to exercise rigorous security precautions, and avoid "soft" targets such as hotels, clubs, schools, restaurants and shopping centres where Westerners congregate. Since the Bali bombing, most Western countries have advised their nationals to avoid non-essential travel to Indonesia.
While bombings are a regular occurrence in Indonesia, which is wracked by political and nationalist tensions, most cause only minor damage. Only JI is thought to have the training and capability to stage such large-scale attacks.
Indonesian police have rounded up scores of JI operatives since the Bali bombing, which killed 202 people. The authorities in Malaysia and Singapore have also made numerous arrests. But intelligence agencies are uncertain about the size of the group. And it was not clear — until Tuesday — whether it remained an effective force.
Officials believe dozens of operatives have attended militant training camps in remote parts of Indonesia, particularly on Sulawesi island, and in the southern Philippines.
One of JI's notorious bombers, an Indonesian national, Fathur Rohman Al Ghozi, walked out of one of the Philippines' most secure prisons three weeks ago. His whereabouts are unknown, and no one is sure whether he was involved in Tuesday's attack.

Internal preoccupation

Some say the government's preoccupation with a separatist rebellion in Aceh province and presidential elections scheduled for next year have diverted attention away from the need to root out militancy.
Indonesian police have earned considerable praise for their efficient investigation into the Bali attacks and for the arrests of at least three dozen suspects.
The Bali bombings caused a sharp downturn in the number of visitors to the island which accounts for about half of the $4.5 billion the country earns annually from tourism.
But its effects on other sectors of the economy — particularly the dominant energy and manufacturing areas — proved negligible.
"The recovery after the Bali bomb was faster than expected, showing our economy's resilience," says Dorodjatun Kuntjoro-Jakti, Indonesia's top economics minister. He predicted that the attack in Jakarta would not affect economic prospects for this year.
Still, the country's hopes of regaining the high growth rates of past decades, necessary to keep up with a burgeoning population, will almost certainly suffer.

Political fallout

The political fallout will be more difficult to gauge.
Analysts say that while police were focusing on the JI, the attention of the military is now on the campaign to crush the 25-year rebellion in Aceh.
The government had pinned two recent attacks — a pipe bomb that exploded in front of the parliament building in July and another at the Jakarta airport in April — on Acehnese rebels, despite the fact that there was little or no evidence to back the claim.
The latest bombing could contribute to the growing disenchantment with President Megawati Sukarnoputri.
This could boost the electoral chances of presidential candidates such as General Wiranto, a former armed forces commander and protégé of the country's longtime ruler Suharto.
Wiranto is campaigning for the nomination of the Golkar Party, Suharto's political party during his 32-year rule.
He is said to enjoy considerable popularity among Indonesia's 210 million people, many of whom still respect Suharto for the economic progress he brought to the country before his ouster in 1998.
One thing is clear: The blast in Jakarta was not aimed at Indonesians as much as the West, particularly the US.
And that brings attention to the relevance of comments that Libya's Muammar Qadhafi made last week.
Qadhafi said on American television that the US-led war on terror has strengthened Al Qaeda — and, by extension, similar groups, including JI — because Muslims have perceived the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as aggression against Islam and attempts to spread American influence.
While affirming that Libya is co-operating with the US to fight terrorism and describing Al Qaeda as the "common enemy" and as "crazy and insensible people," he asserted that
America's war against Osama Bin Laden has transformed him into "a symbol for defending the Islamic world." Al Qaeda members have committed attacks on America, Egypt, Nigeria, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and other countries, "so all these countries are fighting one common enemy," he said.
No doubt, Qadhafi's words would find resonance with what many are convinced in the Arab and Muslim worlds, particularly his assertion that the US "sacrificed its own interests with the Arabs for the sake of the Jews."
Qadhafi singled out Washington's foreign policy for criticism. He called it colonialist and controlled by Jewish group and said:
"As long as America (is) approaching (the war on terror) in such a method ... together with the Israelis ... the more they do that, the more they create an environment or atmosphere for the development of A1 Qaeda,."


Compiled from news agencies