May 19, 2008 • Vol. 13, No. 34
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Main
A pair of car bombs in the Algerian capital of Algiers has killed at least 47 and wounded an unknown number of people. The death toll is feared to be over 60. The bombings occurred in front of the Constitutional Court and the UN refugee agency and a police station in different neighborhoods in Algiers. Reports indicate the bombs were detonated just ten minutes apart. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which has taken credit for similar attacks in the past, is the culprit.
The blast in front of the U.N. refugee agency and police station is believed to have been a suicide bombing. "The explosion occurred around 9:30 a.m. (3:30 a.m. EST) and blew off the front off the U.N. refugee agency building," UNHCR chief spokesman Ron Redmond told the Associated Press. "It apparently caused even worse damage to the main U.N. building housing the U.N. Development Program and other agencies diagonally across the street."
At least ten UN employees were reported killed. Several school buses were reportedly destroyed on the street outside the attack on the Constitutional Court.
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb most certainly conducted the Algiers bombings. The mode of attack--coordinated bombings against government and international institutions designed to inflict massive casualties and maximum media coverag--is al Qaeda's specialty. The North African branch of al Qaeda has taken credit for similar strikes in the past.
On April 11, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb took credit for a pair of coordinated suicide bombings in the capital. A powerful bomb was detonated outside the headquarters of Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem's headquarters in Algiers, and another blast occurred outside the headquarters of the security forces.
Continue reading "Al Qaeda Hits U.N. Offices, Courts, Police Station in Algiers" »
It happens, on rare occasion. When the USS Porter came to the rescue of a hijacked North Korean ship off the coast of Somalia, I speculated that the North Korean public would never hear about the encounter, remaining blissfully ignorant of the fact that the United States fleet includes a single vessel other than the captured USS Pueblo.
Don Surber, took a different view, though, saying "this should help relations with North Korea":
Still, I have to think that there are a few Koreans who think a little more highly of the United States because of this.
Well, apparently it has helped relations:
In an extremely rare public expression, North Korea officially thanked the United States for helping the crew of a North Korean cargo ship hijacked by pirates off the Somali coast late last month, describing the rescue as a symbol of Washington-Pyongyang rapprochement.
"We feel grateful to the United States for its assistance given to our crewmen. This case serves as a symbol of the DPRK [North Korea]-U.S. cooperation in the struggle against terrorism," the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency said.
Best word to describe the North Koreans, other than evil: unpredictable.
Via our buddies at Op-For, the official caption: "A pirate skiff burns after being hit by several rounds from a 25mm gun aboard guided-missile destroyer USS Porter (DDG 78). The skiff belonged to a group of pirates that had taken a cargo ship."
You can read the full story here at Military.com. The long and the short of it is that the United States Navy seems to be increasingly engaged in a campaign to suppress the rampant piracy off the coast of Somalia. Unfortunately, the beneficiaries of this recent success happen to be North Korean, but as CSBA's Bob Work told the Virginia Pilot, "The Navy does this for all mariners." Though he also said that this may not be the best allocation of naval resources:
"Essentially, you don't want to use a billion dollar DDG [guided missile destroyer] to suppress pirates," Work said. "That's a mission for a much smaller ship. But we have a lot of ships in that area because of ongoing operations in the Horn of Africa. These are ships designed for high-end war fighting, not chasing pirates."
Don Surber looks for an upside for U.S.-Nork relations in all this, but I'm not so optimistic. I suspect the only American warship that ever gets a shout-out on North Korean radio is the USS Pueblo.
When my fellow Hoya Dikembe Mutombo joins forces with Alyssa Milano, is there anything they cannot conquer? According to Milano’s debut on the Huffington Post, a crisis even larger than AIDS and malaria combined afflicts the poor: Neglected Tropical Diseases, or NTD’s (as opposed to STD’s). It sounds serious enough:
Diseases like river blindness, that's caused by black flies that bite their victims near the eyes and leave behind parasitic worms to destroy sight. And snail fever, which you get by simply bathing or washing in a stream, and which causes severe liver or kidney damage. And elephantiasis, so named because it leads to unspeakable deformities, like swelling of the legs to elephant-sized proportions, making even walking impossible.
Apparently Poison Ivy is not an NTD.
But she is ultimately upbeat:
“You can control and potentially eliminate the seven most common NTDs for just 50 cents per person, per year—the average cost of parking your car at a meter for one hour, and a fraction of the cost of antiviral treatment for HIV/AIDS and mult-idrug therapy for tuberculosis.”
Which to me is somehow more convincing coming from the star of Embrace of the Vampire than Sally Struthers.
Milano also provides the useful link to the Sabin Vaccine Institutes's STOP NTDs Campaign.
Right about now you are probably wondering when I am going to say “Who will be sexing Dikembe tonight?” But just because I happen to mention Dikembe Mutumbo does not mean I have to automatically ask who will be sexing Dikembe tonight, for “who will be sexing Dikembe tonight” is none of our business. Now aren’t you glad I didn’t mention it?
 Bulgarian medics convicted of infecting Libyan children with
HIV arrive at Sofia airport on Tuesday. (Nikolay Doychinovn/Reuters TV) During his recent presidential campaign, Nicolas Sarkozy promised to be the candidate of change, someone who was committed to breaking up France’s sclerotic political system and over-regulated economy. In foreign policy, too, Sarkozy vowed to make France "a shining city upon a hill," a beacon of hope and a staunch defender of freedom, democracy, and human rights around the world. In this context, it seemed to be both smart politics and good morals when the media savvy Sarkozy (who never seems to miss an opportunity to make a splash) appointed Socialist politician Bernard Kouchner, the internationally respected co-founder of French humanitarian NGO "Doctors Without Borders," as his new foreign minister in May. However, barely two months into his five-year term, it appears that President Sarkozy is personally committed to a foreign policy agenda primarily driven by narrowly-defined French national interests, thus leaving his more idealistic foreign minister in the dust.
On Wednesday last week, Sarkozy visited with Libyan homme fort (even the French employ this euphemistic code-word for dictator) Col. Moammar Gadhafi and signed various, wide-ranging bilateral cooperation agreements in critical areas such as defense, health, the fight against terrorism, and civilian nuclear power. In fact, Sarkozy’s plane landed in Tripoli less than 24 hours after his wife Cecilia had left the Libyan capital together with six Bulgarian medical workers who were released from a Libyan prison in what turned out to be major photo-op for France’s telegenic first lady.
Under the terms of the Franco-Libyan nuclear deal, Sarkozy has agreed to provide Col. Gadhafi with an atomic reactor to be used for powering a desalination plant. In return, Libya will provide France’s nuclear power giant Areva with much-needed uranium. It comes very handy that Col. Gadhafi has about 1,600 tons of uranium left over from his country’s clandestine nuclear weapons program abandoned in 2004. Sarkozy’s nuclear deal with Col. Gadhafi--for many years a key sponsor of international terrorism--was criticized both in France and abroad. France’s anti-nuclear coalition, "Sortir du Nucleaire," accused Sarkozy of handing over nuclear technology to Libya in exchange for the nurses. "Civilian and military nuclear are inseparable," the French NGO said in a statement. "Delivering ‘civilian’ nuclear energy to Libya would amount to helping the country, sooner or later, to acquire nuclear weapons."
Continue reading "Germany Attacks France’s Nuclear Deal With Libya" »
On July 15th, after nine days of captivity, Zhang Guohua, an executive with the China Nuclear International Uranium Corporation (Sino-U), was released by the Niger Movement for Justice (MNJ). Within days of the abduction, heeding MNJ’s call for foreign companies to withdraw, the China Nuclear Engineering & Construction Corporation, parent company of Sino-U, suspended its uranium-prospecting operation in Niger’s northern Agadez region.
 Chinese President Hu Jintao (C) addresses the round table of the Beijing
Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) at the Great Hall
of the People in Beijing, Nov. 5, 2006. (Xinhua Photo) The kidnapping in Niger is one of a string of attacks on Chinese nationals in Africa this year. In April, in a pre-dawn attack, guerrillas of the Ogaden National Liberation Front killed nine Chinese workers and 65 Ethiopians while they slept on the campground of a Chinese-owned oil exploration field in eastern Ethiopia.
In January, a Chinese engineer was killed and another injured in a Chinese stone materials plant in Kenya. And in three separate incidents in Nigeria this year, a total of 16 Chinese nationals were kidnapped, though all were subsequently released unharmed.
Motivated initially by political ideology, Chinese involvement in Africa began in the 1960s. More recently, the explosion of Chinese investment on the resource-rich continent is driven by China’s energy needs and Beijing’s "go-out" national strategic policy adopted at the 16th party congress in 2002. From Angolan oil to Zambian copper, African-Chinese trade between 2000 and 2006 grew from $10 billion to $55.5 billion. And by 2009, Chinese aid to Africa is expected to reach $10 billion. In the past 12 months, Chinese president Hu Jintao has visited 17 African countries, more than any other head-of-state.
Unlike Western countries, China typically attaches no conditions to its investment in, and economic aid to, Africa. One recent example of the practical effects of this tactic concerns Zimbabwe. In 2005, ostracized by Western governments and investors over human rights abuses in that country, President Robert Mugabe launched a "Look East" policy. China is now Zimbabwe’s second largest trade partner, behind only South Africa.
China’s economic offensive across Africa carries geopolitical implications as well. Since President Bush announced the creation of a unified military command for Africa this past February, Chinese media have been following the development closely.
After the April killing of nine Chinese oil workers in Ethiopia, Chinese media were quick to conclude that the incident was the result of internal strife in that restive country and that the action was not specifically targeted at China’s presence there. It was also noted that with the creation of the Africa Command, the Pentagon is putting the continent on a par with its Pacific Command and that "the unshakable superpower status of the United States has obtained yet another powerful pillar."
In fact, China’s suspicion of U.S. objectives in Africa pre-dates the Africa Command. A 2006 opinion piece in People’s Daily titled "U.S. steps up military infiltration into Africa" underscores Beijing’s concerns over the U.S. presence on the continent:
[The] U.S. military presence in Africa has two obvious tendencies: one is to deepen military cooperation in North Africa and the Horn of Africa for anti-terrorism purposes; and the other is to cooperate with West Africa for oil security. From strategic [sic] perspective, Washington’s Africa policy has combined anti-terrorism, oil and garrisoning.
Just last month, the surprisingly competitive French presidential candidate Francois Bayrou threatened a boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympics if China continued to protect the Sudanese government from the international community's attempts to intervene in Darfur. Bayrou said that the Olympics were now "a political issue because China decided to bring its protection to the Khartoum regime."
The Chinese were outraged that Bayrou would make such an accusation. Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said that "the people who put forward those remarks are not very clear on China's position on the Darfur issue."
In what must be an effort to clear up that position for ignorant foreign leaders, the People's Daily now reports that "China and Sudan vowed in Beijing Monday to boost military exchanges and cooperation in various sectors."
"Military relations between China and Sudan have developed smoothly," said Chinese Defense Minister Cao Gangchuan at a meeting with Chief of Joint Staff of Sudanese armed forces Haj Ahmed El Gaili.
China and Sudan have enjoyed profound friendship though the two countries are far apart, said Cao, who is also vice chairman of the Chinese Central Military Commission and state councilor.
China cherished the traditional friendship with Sudan and would like to further promote bilateral cooperation in various fields, said Cao.
Haj Ahmed El Gaili appreciated China's long-term support to Sudan. He said the Sudanese armed forces want to maintain and strengthen cooperation with the Chinese side so as to lift bilateral ties to a new height.
And now that that's been cleared up, I'm sure that we can all watch the Beijing Olympics with a clear conscience.
From the New York Times:
They [experts] say North Africa, with its vast, thinly governed stretches of mountain and desert, could become an Afghanistan-like terrorist hinterland within easy striking distance of Europe. That is all the more alarming because of the deep roots that North African communities have in Europe and the ease of travel between the regions. For the United States, the threat is also real because of visa-free travel to American cities for most European passport holders.
Our own expert, Olivier Guitta, reported in THE DAILY STANDARD this week on the alarming spread of terrorist groups in North Africa. His piece, Terror in the Maghreb, made much the same point as New York Times reporter Craig Smith:
GSPC, which officially merged with al Qaeda over the summer--underlined by al Qaeda's Ayman Al Zawahiri in a September 11, 2006 video--and changed its name a few weeks ago to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, is clearly the dominant terrorist group in the Maghreb and the countries of the Sahel. The organization's aim is to make the Maghreb a springboard to Europe with the help of the Algerian Islamist Khalid Abou Bassir, believed to be one of al Qaeda leaders in Europe. This was confirmed last year when Belgian police arrested a Moroccan Islamist named Mohamed Reha, who told police that "not only were we preparing jihad operations in Morocco, but we were working to expand our jihadist movement to all the countries of the Maghreb with the help of our Algerian brothers from the GSPC."
Guitta also points to "reports that this new terror group has been recruiting scores of Moroccan, Tunisian, and Algerian volunteers; to join the forces of al Qaeda in Iraq." As worrisome as that may be, it seems Europe has the most to fear from the unchecked spread of these groups. And it will be interesting to see how Europe confronts this problem. Guitta says that the French have a great deal of knowledge about the old-guard GSPC, but the groups is "recruiting every single day in the suburbs of Algiers," with the aim of enlisting young men who have no criminal background and whom the French authorities will be unable to track. The French are supporting the Algerian government, financially and otherwise, in its fight against the GSPC, but Guitta says that the French so fear their own restive Muslim population, that any direct action is out of the question.
A little good news from the war on terror. The AP reports that a relative of Osama bin Laden was killed in Madagascar yesterday in what family members are calling a burglary. The victim, Jamal Khalifa, was wanted in the Philippines "for alleged terror financing," was named by the U.S. government as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, and was married to one of bin Laden's sisters. According to Khalifa's brother, more than 25 armed men broke into the house, killed Khalifa while he was sleeping, and stole everything that wasn't nailed down, including computers.
Sounds suspiciously like a successful counterterror operation, but if not, it's still nice to see bad things happen to bad people. You can read more about Khalifa here.
In what is perhaps the wackiest analysis of the recent war in Somalia, the New Republic's John B. Judis stops just shy of calling Bush a terrorist for his complicity in the Ethiopian invasion:
What exactly are we doing in the Horn of Africa, where we have encouraged the Christian government of Ethiopia to invade Somalia and replace its Islamic government? As far as I can tell, we have violated international law, committed war crimes, helped Al Qaeda recruit new members, and involved ourselves in a guerrilla war that could last decades. It's Iraq writ small.
The United Nations, however, seems to have taken a kinder view to the ousting of Somalia's al Qaeda affiliated ICU. The BBC reports that Francois Fall, the U.N. envoy to Somalia, has warned President Abdullahi Yusuf not to squander what he called "the best opportunity for peace for 16 years." Of course it's not all good news, the ICU has pledged to fight a drawn out insurgency, though it seems unlikely that the decimated group would be capable of any such thing, and there are more credible fears that Yusuf is no Thomas Jefferson. Still, the country is largely at peace, the bad guys have fled, and not a single American life has been lost. That's about as good as anyone could have hoped for 2 months ago.
As if the Horn of Africa didn't already have enough problems, now Eritrea, which had relatively friendly relations with the United States when it first gained independence from Ethiopia in 1991, is looking ever more like a state sponsor of terrorism. No state has been officially labeled with that designation since the Sudan--which shares a border with Eritrea--back in 1993, not long after that country sponsored a conference that boasted representatives from Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Saddam's Baath party, and the Islamic Republic of Iran among other distinguished guests (not to imply that Saddam's secular Iraq had any connection with terrorism). But Eritrea has become increasingly hostile to American interests in East Africa and it has done so most recently by supporting Somalia's al Qaeda affiliated Islamic Courts Union.
Eritrea has strained relations with nearly all its neighbors, including Sudan, but a border dispute with Ethiopia led to full-scale war in 1998, with more than 20,000 Eritreans killed over two years. That Eritrea would prefer Somalia's ICU in its struggle against the Ethiopian-backed interim government is hardly surprising then; however, the extent of the cooperation between Eritrea and the ICU is only now coming to light. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross posted a story on Pajamas Media this weekend on the alliance between the two:
Ethiopia’s longtime rival, Eritrea, had troops in the country for about four months prior to [the Ethiopian invasion]. A confidential UN report drafted by the Monitoring Group on Somalia in late 2006 says that “2000 fully equipped combat troops from Eritrea” arrived to the north of Mogadishu in late August, and redeployed to different areas held by the ICU. According to high-level sources in Somalia’s transitional government and U.S. intelligence, these Eritrean troops never left the country--a development unknown to American policymakers until today.
It seems reasonable to conclude then that the ICU's rise can best be explained by Eritrea's support for it, rather than as the result of an indigenous yearning for Islamic order. That the ICU is closely linked to al Qaeda is beyond doubt, but this fact seems not to have concerned the Eritreans in the least. Now, in addition to collaborating with terrorist organizations, Eritrea is making direct threats in an attempt to deter further American involvement in Somalia. According to Reuters:
Eritrea warned the United States yesterday that its involvement in Somalia would “incur dangerous consequences” following a US air strike in the Horn of Africa nation targeting Al Qaeda suspects.
The Eritreans kicked USAID out of the country in the summer of 2005. But we still provide Eritrea with a small amount of aid and military training. If the Bush administration does not want to brand Eritrea as a state sponsor of terrorism, it could at least cut off that funding as a symbolic gesture. The threat of sanctions and increased military support for Ethiopia would have an effect as well. Still, it will be difficult to rally international support for any move against Eritrea--like every other rogue state, Eritrea is forging ever closer ties with China.
Fazul Abdullah Mohammed
The Associated Press is now reporting that a U.S. airstrike on suspected al Qaeda militants early Monday morning was, in fact, a success, resulting in the death of Fazul Abdullah Mohammed. From the AP:
Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, who allegedly planned the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa, was killed in a U.S. airstrike early Monday morning local time, according to an American intelligence report passed on to the Somali authorities.
"I have received a report from the American side chronicling the targets and list of damage," Abdirizak Hassan, the Somali president's chief of staff, told The Associated Press. "One of the items they were claiming was that Fazul Abdullah Mohammed is dead." If confirmed Mohammed's death would be a major victory for the U.S. in its hunt for the 1998 embassy bombers. The strike was part of the first U.S. offensive in the African country since 18 American soldiers were killed there in 1993.
Further reports indicate as many as 10 other terrorists may have been killed in that strike. Following that success, U.S. aircraft have reportedly been engaged in at least 3 separate attacks in Southern Somalia.
What happens when we get the bad guys? From Deutsche Welle:
Europe Critical of US Airstrikes in Somalia
UN spokeswoman Michele Montas said new UN chief Ban Ki-moon was distressed by Washington's move.
"The secretary-general is concerned about the new dimension this kind of action could introduce to the conflict and the possible escalation of hostilities that may result," Montas said.
Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema said Rome opposed "unilateral initiatives that could spark new tensions in an area that is already very destabilized."
Norway, a member of the international contact group on Somalia along with Italy, said it was not satisfied with Washington's explanation of its conduct in Somalia and stressed that terrorism should be fought in a court room and not with military hardware.
The European Commission also slammed US moves to hunt down al Qaeda operatives in Somalia.
"Any incident of this kind is not helpful in the long term," a spokesman for the EU Commission told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday. "Only a political solution can bring any serious prospects of peace and stability in Somalia."
Would the Norwegians have us arrest Fazul? And try him where? Surely not at Gitmo. These comments are absurd, but not so absurd as the caption accompanying one of the photos in the article:
The EU fears that the US airstrikes may destabilize Somalia.
That’s right. The U.S. Air Force is bringing instability to the Horn of Africa by killing terrorists.
Writing at Pajamas Media, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross has broken a major story revealing the extensive cooperation between American military personnel and the Ethiopian armed forces during that country's recent invasion of ICU-controlled areas of Somalia. According to Gartenstein-Ross, "U.S. ground forces have been active in Somalia from the start, a senior military intelligence officer confirmed. 'In fact,' he said, 'they were part of the first group in.”
Many observers were surprised by the rapid advance of Ethiopian troops, and the hasty retreat of the ICU, despite assurances by Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi that the Islamists could be displaced in "one to two weeks." Gartenstein-Ross has now confirmed the involvment of American aircraft, including American-piloted helicopter gunships, in the assault, which largely explains the success of the campaign. From Gartenstein-Ross:
Pajamas Media previously reported that Ethiopia’s use of helicopter gunships capable of targeting the Islamic Courts Union’s ground forces was a decisive factor in the army-to-army fighting against the ICU. A senior military intelligence source says that some of the gunships earlier described as Ethiopian were in fact U.S. aircraft. This has been confirmed by Dahir Jibreel, the transitional government’s permanent secretary in charge of international cooperation, who said that U.S. planes and helicopters with their markings obscured have been striking targets since December 25.
My first impression of the ICU's collapse was to reflect on the advantages of fighting wars by proxy, but it now seems that American air power played an important role in removing the threat of a Taliban-style terrorist regime imposing itself on Africa's most chaotic state--not that the Bush administration will get any credit from the press for taking such bold action. No, instead the New York Times has seemed to lament the exit of Somalia's Islamists: "The Islamists, using Islam as a bridge, did a better job than any recent authority to unite warring clans. But their military was no match for the better-trained, better-equipped Ethiopian-led troops, and now that the Islamists are gone, many fear a return to clan mayhem."
PS--My favorite quote from the above referenced article comes from Abdullahi Jama Ali, who the Times describes as "once part of an underground Islamist group": "The Islamic religion is like an ocean, everyone can swim where he likes." Ah, yes...those Islamists are so progressive.
CBS News reports that a "U.S. Air Force gunship has conducted a strike against suspected members of al Qaeda in Somalia.... The targets included the senior al Qaeda leader in East Africa and an al Qaeda operative wanted for his involvement in the 1998 bombings of two American embassies in Africa.... Those terror attacks killed more than 200 people….The gunship flew from its base in Dijibouti down to the southern tip of Somalia ... where the al Qaeda operatives had fled after being chased out of the capital of Mogadishu by Ethiopian troops backed by the United States.)
The Associated Press reports:
A jungle hideout used by Islamic militants that is believed to be an al-Qaida base was on the verge of falling to Ethiopian and Somali troops, the defense minister said Monday….
Somali officials said the Islamic movement's main force is bottled up at Ras Kamboni, the southernmost tip of the country, cut off from escape at sea by patrolling U.S. warships and across the Kenyan border by the Kenyan military.
Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is a smart politician. He wants to rapidly drawdown U.S. troops in Iraq and escalate our involvement in Darfur. Both positions are extremely popular with Democratic primary voters. On ABC’s This Week, he explained what he’d do to end the atrocities in Darfur:
EDWARDS: Well, it depends on what your definition of a moral cause is and what moral leadership is. The kind of things that I'm talking about, I think there would be universal support for. Doing something about the genocide in Sudan and Darfur.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Even if it takes American troops?
EDWARDS: No. Actually, my own view is that putting American troops on the ground in Darfur would probably be a mistake. It would probably do more damage than good. But there are obvious things we can do in Sudan. The Janjaweed militia have air support from the Sudanese government. We could enforce a no-fly zone. We ought to be much tougher about imposing sanctions on the Sudanese government. But the genocide, global poverty, the spread of HIV-AIDS, the atrocities that occurring in northern Uganda -- there are a whole range of places that America would have basically universal support if we showed some leadership.
And the last thing I would say about this, a lot of people would think, well, this is a quote “feel good” thing. He wants the world to feel good about America. This is much more than that. Without America as the central stabilizing force in the world, there is no stability. There's chaos. There's no one else that can do this. We have to do it.
Edwards is right. American leadership is often crucial in successfully dealing with the world’s problems. He’s also right that a no-fly zone should be enforced and stiff sanctions should be slapped on Khartoum. But he’s wrong about “universal support for doing something about the genocide in Sudan and Darfur.” Moscow and Beijing (and the Arab League for that matter) haven’t been very helpful. Both governments have coddled Khartoum on the Security Council and have extensive business ties with the regime. So to end the brutality in Darfur any time soon what we’re really talking about is a coalition of the willing, one that targets Khartoum’s economy and aircraft operating in support of its proxy forces in Darfur. America would lead such a coalition and no doubt would be accused of acting “unilaterally” by some governments. So be it.
(The Pentagon will establish a new Africa command within two months, reports Reuters.)
Posted on October 16, 2006:
Going back to the early 1990s, Africa has been a target for al Qaeda. Two letters, dated September 30, 1993 and May 24, 1994, captured during US military operations in Afghanistan related directly to al Qaeda “African Corps” operations in Somalia before and after the U.S. withdrawal in early 1994. Sudan provided a safe harbor for bin Laden before he fled to Afghanistan in 1996, and our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed in 1998. Since September 11, the Algerian terrorist group GSPC has formally aligned with al Qaeda. And in Somalia, a burgeoning Taliban has emerged that has engaged in an assassination campaign against moderate Muslim scholars, introduced suicide bombing as weapon against their enemies, and closed the doors on media outlets that don’t follow the fundamentalist line. At the same time, the US military has been engaged throughout the continent, so much so that some in the Pentagon believe a separate command for Africa should be created.
Reuters reports:
The U.S. military is sharpening its focus on counterterrorism in Africa, a top general says, as it faces challenges including a newly announced alliance between a regional militant group and al Qaeda.
General William ’Kip’ Ward also hinted it would make sense to establish a U.S. military command on African soil, instead of running operations on the continent from hundreds or even thousands of km away, as has been the case until now.
"I think ... having the unified command located in the area in which it has responsibility is the preferable solution set," Ward, number two at the U.S. European Command (EUCOM), told Reuters.
The Pentagon said in August it was considering creating a new military command for Africa. Responsibility for the continent is currently split between three separate U.S. centres, including Stuttgart-based EUCOM.
A single command, advocates argue, would help Washington focus better on its goal of denying sanctuary to militants who might otherwise find African havens in the same way that al Qaeda cultivated bases in Sudan and Afghanistan in the 1990s.
The stakes were underlined when al Qaeda announced last month, on the 5th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, that it was forging an alliance with one of the leading Islamist movements in the region: the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, known by its French initials GSPC….
Ward, in an interview, declined to go into detail about the mode of operation of the GSPC and other militant groups.
"It’s a thinking enemy. They are constantly attempting to change their tactics," he said.
"As our (African) partners get better at intervening, interdicting, capturing, they are constantly adapting what they do as well."
Stars and Stripes reports:
U.S. troops delivering aid to Kenyan flood victims
A team of American servicemembers assigned to Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa has begun delivering relief supplies to areas of Kenya hit by severe flooding, the military said Monday.
In all, the team of soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen hopes to deliver about 150 metric tons of supplies through an airlift. Many of the roads around the flood-stricken area have proved impassable.
The U.S. military teams began the aid mission after a request from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; many of those affected by the floods were living in refugee camps in areas of Kenya. Some 150,000 people have been affected by the flood.
Kofi Annan didn’t get around to any of this in his speech today trashing the U.S.
I'm confident the Iranian regime will act even more responsibly if it manages to acquire nuclear weapons. From today’s New York Times:
A senior American intelligence official said Monday that the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah had been training members of the Mahdi Army, the Iraqi Shiite militia led by Moktada al-Sadr.
The official said that 1,000 to 2,000 fighters from the Mahdi Army and other Shiite militias had been trained by Hezbollah in Lebanon. A small number of Hezbollah operatives have also visited Iraq to help with training, the official said.
Iran has facilitated the link between Hezbollah and the Shiite militias in Iraq, the official said. Syrian officials have also cooperated, though there is debate about whether it has the blessing of the senior leaders in Syria….
General Abizaid also said it was hard to pin down some details of relationships between armed factions in the Middle East, adding: “There are clearly links between Hezbollah training people in Iran to operate in Lebanon and also training people in Iran that are Shia splinter groups that could operate against us in Iraq These linkages exist, but it is very, very hard to pin down with precision.”
From the November 24 Wall Street Journal:
Tensions in Tehran are intensifying, leading Afghan officials to worry about potential spillover into their country. Iran has developed a pervasive economic and intelligence capacity inside the Central Asia state, which it could potentially turn against American forces. “They have a destructive capability,” says Said Jawad, Afghanistan’s ambassador to the U.S.
From the November 16 New York Times:
More than 700 Islamic militants from Somalia traveled to Lebanon in July to fight alongside Hezbollah in its war against Israel, a United Nations report says. The militia in Lebanon returned the favor by providing training and — through its patrons Iran and Syria — weapons to the Islamic alliance struggling for control of Somalia, it adds….
The report also says Iran sought to trade arms for uranium from Somalia to further its nuclear ambitions, though it does not say whether Iran succeeded….
While the sources of the information remain unclear, the report is dense with details about arms shipments to the groups vying for power in Somalia.
It states that in mid-July, Aden Hashi Farah, a leader of the Somali Islamist alliance, personally selected about 720 combat-hardened fighters to travel to Lebanon and fight alongside Hezbollah.
At least 100 Somalis had returned by early September — with five Hezbollah members — while others stayed on in Lebanon for advanced military training, the report says. It is not clear how many may have been killed, though the report says some were wounded and later treated after their return to Somalia.
The fighters were paid a minimum of $2,000 for their service, the report says, and as much as $30,000 was to be given to the families of those killed, with money donated by “a number of supporting countries.”
In addition to training some Somali militants, Hezbollah “arranged for additional support to be given” by Iran and Syria, including weapons, the report found. On July 27, 200 Somali fighters also traveled to Syria to be trained in guerrilla warfare, the report says.
It also indicates that Iran appears to have sought help in its quest for uranium in Dusa Mareb, the hometown of Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, the leader of the Islamist alliance in Somalia, which is known as the Council of Islamic Courts.
“At the time of the writing of this report, there were two Iranians in Dusa Mareb engaged on matters linked to the exploration of uranium in exchange for arms” for the Council of Islamic Courts, says the report, which is dated Oct. 16.
Those claims, if proved, could worsen global tensions over Iran’s nuclear program. Iran ignored an Aug. 31 deadline to suspend its uranium enrichment, and the United States has been leading a United Nations effort to impose sanctions….
The report recommends that the Security Council blockade Somalia….
The truth is the UN Security Council could put enormous pressure on Syria and Iran to end all the above, but, regrettably, there’s little chance they’ll do much anytime soon. And so it goes.
Despite the comments of Rep. Pelosi ("The war on terror is the war in Afghanistan”) and DNC chair Howard Dean (Afghanistan “is where the fight on terror is.”), the Global War on Terror is, in fact, global. Today’s New York Times reports:
More than 700 Islamic militants from Somalia traveled to Lebanon in July to fight alongside Hezbollah in its war against Israel, a United Nations report says. The militia in Lebanon returned the favor by providing training and — through its patrons Iran and Syria — weapons to the Islamic alliance struggling for control of Somalia, it adds….
The report also says Iran sought to trade arms for uranium from Somalia to further its nuclear ambitions, though it does not say whether Iran succeeded….
While the sources of the information remain unclear, the report is dense with details about arms shipments to the groups vying for power in Somalia.
It states that in mid-July, Aden Hashi Farah, a leader of the Somali Islamist alliance, personally selected about 720 combat-hardened fighters to travel to Lebanon and fight alongside Hezbollah.
At least 100 Somalis had returned by early September — with five Hezbollah members — while others stayed on in Lebanon for advanced military training, the report says. It is not clear how many may have been killed, though the report says some were wounded and later treated after their return to Somalia.
The fighters were paid a minimum of $2,000 for their service, the report says, and as much as $30,000 was to be given to the families of those killed, with money donated by “a number of supporting countries.”
In addition to training some Somali militants, Hezbollah “arranged for additional support to be given” by Iran and Syria, including weapons, the report found. On July 27, 200 Somali fighters also traveled to Syria to be trained in guerrilla warfare, the report says.
It also indicates that Iran appears to have sought help in its quest for uranium in Dusa Mareb, the hometown of Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, the leader of the Islamist alliance in Somalia, which is known as the Council of Islamic Courts.
“At the time of the writing of this report, there were two Iranians in Dusa Mareb engaged on matters linked to the exploration of uranium in exchange for arms” for the Council of Islamic Courts, says the report, which is dated Oct. 16.
Those claims, if proved, could worsen global tensions over Iran’s nuclear program. Iran ignored an Aug. 31 deadline to suspend its uranium enrichment, and the United States has been leading a United Nations effort to impose sanctions….
Not only has the volume of arms flowing into Somalia grown, according to the authors, but more sophisticated weapons like surface-to-air missiles are being brought in. The conflict could grow into a regional war, with Somalia’s neighbors, Ethiopia and Eritrea, backing opposing sides.
The report also accuses Djibouti, Egypt, Iran, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Syria of supplying the Somali Islamists with arms, advisers and fighters. It says three nations — Ethiopia, Uganda and Yemen — are aligned with the so-called transitional government based in Baidoa, an inland city….
The report recommends that the Security Council blockade Somalia….
I’m confident the UN Security Council will act swiftly against the apparent chief state sponsors of the above – Syria and Iran.
Reuters reports that Beijing is being its usual helpful self on Darfur.
Sudan must first agree before any United Nations peacekeeping force enters its war-wracked Darfur region, China said on Thursday, as its President Hu Jintao met the president of the African state.
Beijing is hosting dozens of African leaders for a summit opening Friday and intended to show China as a benign force for development on the largely poor continent. But among them is Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, accused by critics of abetting a vicious civil conflict in Darfur.
China has lucrative business interests in Sudan, which sells it large amounts of oil, and is a major arms supplier to the country. Beijing has resisted calls to authorise U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur without the nod of the Sudanese government."
Last February, Fortune magazine published a piece, ”China's African Safari,” on Beijing’s “benign” activities on the continent.
...African governments view China as a more cooperative partner than the West. China has refused to back regular Western rebukes of African corruption and human-rights abuses and last year used its permanent seat on the UN Security Council to block genocide charges against Sudan--source of about 7% of China's oil--for the massacres in Darfur. "The U.S. will talk to you about governance, about efficiency, about security, about the environment," says Mustafa Bello, head of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission, who has visited China seven times. "The Chinese just ask, 'How do we procure this license?'"
China has become the biggest foreign investor in Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe's policies have beggared the country and left millions homeless. Zimbabwe doesn't have oil, but it is the world's second-largest exporter of platinum, a key import for China's auto industry. Chinese radio-jamming devices block Zimbabwe's dissident broadcasts, and Chinese workers built Mugabe's new $9 million home, featuring a blue-tiled roof donated by the Chinese government. While Western politicians railed against Mugabe last year for flattening entire shantytowns, China was supplying him with fighter jets and troop carriers worth about $240 million, in exchange for imports of gold and tobacco.
And so it goes.
The Henry Jackson Society has released an open letter “on the crisis in Darfur, signed by fifty-five politicians, opinion formers, academics and journalists, to both raise awareness of this pressing moral and strategic issue, and call on the international community to end ethnic cleansing in Darfur.”
Here are two pieces on Khartoum's support for the Arab militias that are brutalizing the people of Darfur. A defector tells the BBC that the Janjaweed take orders directly from the Sudanese government.
"The Janjaweed don't make decisions. The orders always come from the government," he said.
"They gave us orders, and they say that after we are trained they will give us guns and ammunition."
"Ali" - who is now seeking asylum in Britain - said the men who had trained them were wearing the uniforms of the Sudanese military, adding that Interior Minister Abdul Rahim Muhammad Hussein was a "regular visitor".
The former fighter said the majority of the victims were civilians, mostly women, and also talked of "many rapes" committed by the Janjaweed.
"Whenever we go into a village and find resistance we kill everyone," he said, but denied that he personally killed or raped civilians.
The International Herald Tribune also reports on Khartoum’s use of the Arab militias to do its dirty work:
The attitudes and general despondency of the Sudanese troops held here underscore why Sudan, despite its large military, well supplied by arms bought from China with Sudan's growing oil wealth, has relied primarily on brutal Arab militias to carry out its grim counterinsurgency campaign against the rebels in Darfur.
It was a strategy Sudan perfected in its 20-year civil war in the south, where it used Arab tribal militias as a paramilitary force. The militias terrorized Southern Sudan, razing villages, raping women and kidnapping children. The militias in Darfur, known as the janjaweed, have carried out a similar campaign.
What to do? So far, the Arab League isn't interested in doing much. The same holds for China and Russia. But Senators Dole and McCain have some ideas and so do the folks at the International Crisis Group.
Going back to the early 1990s, Africa has been a target for al Qaeda. Two letters, dated September 30, 1993 and May 24, 1994, captured during US military operations in Afghanistan related directly to al Qaeda “African Corps” operations in Somalia before and after the U.S. withdrawal in early 1994. Sudan provided a safe harbor for bin Laden before he fled to Afghanistan in 1996, and our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed in 1998. Since September 11, the Algerian terrorist group GSPC has formally aligned with al Qaeda. And in Somalia, a burgeoning Taliban has emerged that has engaged in an assassination campaign against moderate Muslim scholars, introduced suicide bombing as weapon against their enemies, and closed the doors on media outlets that don’t follow the fundamentalist line. At the same time, the US military has been engaged throughout the continent, so much so that some in the Pentagon believe a separate command for Africa should be created.
Reuters reports:
The U.S. military is sharpening its focus on counterterrorism in Africa, a top general says, as it faces challenges including a newly announced alliance between a regional militant group and al Qaeda.
General William ’Kip’ Ward also hinted it would make sense to establish a U.S. military command on African soil, instead of running operations on the continent from hundreds or even thousands of km away, as has been the case until now.
"I think ... having the unified command located in the area in which it has responsibility is the preferable solution set," Ward, number two at the U.S. European Command (EUCOM), told Reuters.
The Pentagon said in August it was considering creating a new military command for Africa. Responsibility for the continent is currently split between three separate U.S. centres, including Stuttgart-based EUCOM.
A single command, advocates argue, would help Washington focus better on its goal of denying sanctuary to militants who might otherwise find African havens in the same way that al Qaeda cultivated bases in Sudan and Afghanistan in the 1990s.
The stakes were underlined when al Qaeda announced last month, on the 5th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, that it was forging an alliance with one of the leading Islamist movements in the region: the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, known by its French initials GSPC….
Ward, in an interview, declined to go into detail about the mode of operation of the GSPC and other militant groups.
"It’s a thinking enemy. They are constantly attempting to change their tactics," he said.
"As our (African) partners get better at intervening, interdicting, capturing, they are constantly adapting what they do as well."
Here's more evidence from the AP:
The U.N. said Thursday it has temporarily pulled international staff out of parts of Somalia controlled by Islamic radicals after receiving written threats.
The U.N. said the threats came shortly after the Sept. 17 shooting deaths of an Italian nun and her bodyguard in the capital, Mogadishu, which was seized by an Islamic militia in June. Somalia's president narrowly escaped a suicide car bombing a day later in Baidoa, the seat of the weak U.N.-backed government….
The Islamic movement controls much of Somalia's south. Its strict interpretation of Islam has raised fears of rule like that of Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime.
The United States has accused the group of sheltering suspects in the 1998 al-Qaida bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Bin Laden has said Somalia is a battleground in his war on the West.
(Today's Washington Post has a lengthy piece on the GSPC. A couple of points: The Post suggests that since 2003 the GSPC “has planted deep roots in Europe [and] in the past year, authorities have broken up cells in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland…” But there’s evidence (see below) that the GSPC had its European network up and running by 2000 with the help of al Qaeda-linked Abu Doha. Also, were any GSPC terrorists trained in Iraq prior to the March 2003 invasion? It would be nice to get a conclusive answer one way or the other. The Senate Intelligence Committee doesn’t mention the GSPC in its recent report on Iraq.)
Posted on September 14, 2006:
The BBC reports on Zawahiri's latest claim "that a radical Algerian Islamist group has joined al-Qaeda and is being urged to punish France.” In the video that aired on a website on September 11, Zawahiri stated: "Osama Bin Laden has told me to announce to Muslims that the GSPC [the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat] has joined al-Qaeda." He called on the Algerian-based terror group to become "a bone in the throat of the American and French crusaders.” The GSPC has since released a statement: “We pledge allegiance to Sheikh Osama Bin Laden... Our soldiers are at his call so that he may strike who and where he likes.”
How did the GSPC come about?
In 1997, a splinter group emerged from Algeria’s GIA (Armed Islamic Group) called the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, or GSPC. Stanley Bedlington, who worked counterterrorism for the CIA from 1986 to 1994, told USA Today in December 2001 that "we traced considerable sums of money going from bin Laden to the GIA in Algeria. We believed some of the money came from Iraq." But how close a relationship the GSPC had with al Qaeda before this recent pledge has been difficult to nail down. Some say there wasn’t much of one; others believe the GSPC had close ties to bin Laden. A January 2004 analysis from the Center for Defense Information noted this on the relationship between the GSPC and bin Laden:
The Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC) has emerged in recent years as a major source of recruiting and other support for al Qaeda operations in Europe. A splinter faction of the Algerian-based Armed Islamic Group (GIA), the GSPC is engaged simultaneously in efforts to topple Algeria's secular government and to organize high-profile attacks against Western interests on the continent....
Yet more alarming to U.S. and European observers, by 2000, according to Italian investigators, the GSPC had taken over the GIA's external networks across Europe and North Africa and were moving to establish an 'Islamic International' under the aegis of Osama bin Laden. Haydar Abu Doha, a London-based Algerian known as "the Doctor," was instrumental in this reorganization. Abu Doha moved to the UK in 1999 after serving as a senior official in a Qaeda Afghan terrorist camp.
Doha was one of the first to encourage the GSPC to split from the GIA and he helped recruit new terrorists from the large base of disenfranchised Algerian youth in Europe's cities, especially in France. (Algerians to have been among the most numerous militants at al Qaeda's terrorist training camps in Afghanistan before the war.) Many of these new adherents were involved in petty crimes such as car theft, credit-card fraud, and document forgery; and their earnings were now channeled to finance terrorist operations.
Another Algerian, Mohamed Bensakhria, who was based in Germany, and a Tunisian, Tarek Maaroufi, based in Italy, helped Doha establish and coordinate these cells across Europe. They expanded upon the Algerian base of recruits by incorporating radical militants who had left behind dormant conflicts in Bosnia, Chechnya, and Afghanistan. Bensakhria and Maaroufi also created a vast support network that provided newcomers with false documents, lodgings, and incidental spending money.
In recent years, authorities have foiled an alarming number of terrorist plots across Europe and uncovered cells — many linked in one way or another to the GSPC — in Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Britain. Some of the high profile operations planned included a plot to blow up the U.S. Embassies in Paris and Rome, and attacks on the Christmas market in Strasbourg, France and the G-8 summit in Genoa.
Bensakhria was arrested in Spain in June 2002. Maaroufi is wanted in Italy but remains free because of his Belgian citizenship, which prevents his extradition to Italy. Meanwhile, Abu Doha has been connected to Ahmed Ressam, the Algerian convicted for trying to attack Los Angeles International Airport during the millennium changeover, and is currently in British custody fighting extradition to the United States.
Although European and allied authorities have now begun to unearth the myriad connections between these groups and expose their plots, the struggle continues. Most recently French officials arrested four people, two Algerians and two Moroccans, on Dec. 16, 2002, in possession of chemicals and a military personal-protection suit. French authorities say they appear to have been planning a chemical attack. The four were later linked to the GSPC Frankfurt cell.
The group's possible contact with Saddam’s regime was touched on in the January 2006 Weekly Standard cover piece, "Saddam's Terror Training Camps." Regarding the training of Algerian terrorists, in particular, Stephen Hayes wrote:
The secret training took place primarily at three camps--in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak--and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army.
Hundreds of thousands of non-Arabs have been killed in Darfur, with more killed and displaced every day, and this is the cheap politics being played by Arab governments. From the Associated Press:
Maamoun Fandy of the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London said the Arab League is unlikely to push Khartoum on Washington's behalf unless the U.S. changes its policy toward Israel.
"Darfur is horrific, but also what is taking place in Palestine ... is horrific, so unless the menu includes movement on the Palestinian issue, the Arabs will not bite on that Darfur issue," said Fandy.
President Clinton also claimed on Fox News yesterday that “all the right-wingers” believed he was “too obsessed” with bin Laden, that he “did too much” in going after the al Qaeda head. The reality is a bit different. Many conservatives applauded Clinton’s decision to strike in Sudan and Afghanistan following the 1998 embassy bombings in Africa. In November 1998, for example, Andrew McCarthy wrote a lengthy piece in the Weekly Standard in support of the strikes, but he also explained why the Clinton administration’s overall approach to combating the terror threat was woefully inadequate. Similar to what Reuel Marc Gerecht would argue in the wake of the USS Cole bombing, McCarthy pushed the administration to treat international terrorism as “a military problem, not a criminal-justice issue.” He wrote:
Does the administration actually grasp the nature of the threat we face? Following the August 20 retaliatory strikes, secretary of state Madeleine Albright and national security adviser Samuel Berger rejected the predictable "wag the dog" accusations with solemn admonitions that, in terrorism, the United States has suddenly been confronted with a "new war" -- one we would now have to be prepared to fight, alone if necessary. This was exceedingly curious. There is nothing at all "new" about radical Islam's terrorist war against the United States. It has been going on since the late 1980s. It has been openly declared since the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center in Manhattan, which killed six, injured over a thousand, and caused nearly $ 1 billion in damage. Its leaders, moreover, have been promising for more than five years that in pursuing this war, they would kill American civilians and bomb American military installations and embassies overseas….
Such an adversary will not be defeated by the techniques the president recommended at the U.N. -- increased international cooperation in the prosecution and extradition of terrorists. These are necessary steps, but breathtakingly inadequate. A military threat calls for a military response….
In the main, international terrorism is a military problem, not a criminal-justice issue. There is a severe limit to the circumstances in which it is either possible or prudent to apprehend terrorists overseas only to swaddle them in the rights of American defendants -- including education them, through the extensive discovery our system mandates, as to what we know about them and the precious and regrettably scarce sources of that information. Terrorists, furthermore, see the world in gimlet-eyed simplicity. They are not swayed by our breathless pursuit of international conventions that are broken with impunity, weapons-inspection regimes that we lack the stomach to police, or "peace processes" that become hideous euphemisms for body counts. These convey weakness. What impresses them is the certainty that force will swiftly and surely be met with exponentially superior force. That alone is a meaningful deterrent.
Continue reading ""Too Obsessed"" »
(I noted in an earlier post that I’d checked to see if any of the material below is discussed and evaluated in the latest Senate Intelligence Committee report. It isn’t. In fact, there’s not a single mention of either group in the report. )
Posted on September 14, 2006:
The BBC reports on Zawahiri's latest claim "that a radical Algerian Islamist group has joined al-Qaeda and is being urged to punish France.” In the video that aired on a website on September 11, Zawahiri stated: "Osama Bin Laden has told me to announce to Muslims that the GSPC [the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat] has joined al-Qaeda." He called on the Algerian-based terror group to become "a bone in the throat of the American and French crusaders.” The GSPC has since released a statement: “We pledge allegiance to Sheikh Osama Bin Laden... Our soldiers are at his call so that he may strike who and where he likes.”
How did the GSPC come about?
In 1997, a splinter group emerged from Algeria’s GIA (Armed Islamic Group) called the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, or GSPC. Stanley Bedlington, who worked counterterrorism for the CIA from 1986 to 1994, told USA Today in December 2001 that "we traced considerable sums of money going from bin Laden to the GIA in Algeria. We believed some of the money came from Iraq." But how close a relationship the GSPC had with al Qaeda before this recent pledge has been difficult to nail down. Some say there wasn’t much of one; others believe the GSPC had close ties to bin Laden. A January 2004 analysis from the Center for Defense Information noted this on the | | | |
