Month: January 2006

Maritime Terrorism Threat

~ Matt Armstrong

News background from 12 December 2005 and a PINR questioning the threat from Maritime terrorism:

In October 2000, al-Qaeda carried out an attack on the U.S. Navy destroyer the USS Cole while it was anchored in Aden Harbor in Yemen. Shortly before noon, two suicide bombers approached the USS Cole in an explosive-laden speed boat and detonated it along the port side of the vessel. The blast tore open the Cole’s steel hull and killed 17 members of the crew.

Two years later, the MV Limburg was the target. The super-tanker was attacked in the Gulf of Aden as it approached Yemen’s Ash Shihr oil terminal. Again, a small boat was used which exploded as it approached the vessel. Despite causing substantial damage to the side of the Limburg, only one crew member was killed in the attack.

 

In June 2002, Moroccan authorities foiled a number of attempts to attack commercial and naval vessels transiting the Straits of Gibraltar. Following the arrests of several Jemaah Islamiyah (J.I.) operatives in Singapore in 2001, it was revealed that the group has planned to attack visiting U.S. naval warships in the region.

In February 2003, after the arrest and interrogation of al-Qaeda’s Abdelrahim al-Nashiri, it emerged that the group had intended to attack ships in the Straits of Hormuz. The planned operation would use a number of small craft, which would be packed with explosives and discharged from a "mother ship" once in position near passing U.S. warships.

By far the most lethal maritime terrorist incident this millennium was the attack on the M/V Superferry 14 in Manila by the Abu Sayyaf Group in February 2004. Just after midnight local time, a bomb exploded onboard the passenger ferry, which had left Manila Bay two hours earlier. The resulting fire caused the ship to capsize, and more than 100 people were killed in the attack.

Djibouti Sues France

~ Matt Armstrong

From Opinio Juris comes news Dijibouti, where our Marines have an counter-terrorism base and are practicing the a real campaign of public diplomacy (see CT in the Horn and Revisiting the Roosevelt Doctrine).

[T]he Republic of Djibouti has filed an application with the International Court of Justice against France alleging France violated its treaty obligations to provide judicial assistance in a Djibouti criminal investigation.

This looks like a fairly tedious and unimportant case. The only
interesting aspect (to me, anyway) is whether France refuses to accept
the ICJ’s jurisdiction. France famously withdrew from the compulsory
jurisdiction of the ICJ back in 1996 (those unilateralist Frenchies, so
disrespectful of international courts!) and this case can only go
forward with France’s consent. If France refuses to accept ICJ
jurisdiction, even here in this fairly minor case, it will be a slap at
the ICJ’s authority and credibility.

Sudan army attacks rebel stronghold

~ Matt Armstrong

News Brief from ISN Security Watch:

Sudanese and UN troops have entered rebel territory in southern Sudan and are threatening to evict opposition forces there, news agencies reported.

Some 3,000 Sudanese soldiers entered the town of Hamesh Koreb on Wednesday to take up position against the former southern rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), reports said.

The move comes only a week before peace negotiations were set to begin.

Rebels told reporters that at least two children were killed in the aircraft and artillery attacks by the Sudanese army forces.

Peace talks are due to start in Libya next week between the government and rebels. The rebels accused the government of discrimination.

Somalia clashes leave 15 dead

~ Matt Armstrong

News Brief from ISN Security Watch:

At least 15 militiamen have been killed and 35 others wounded in fighting between opposing factions from a clan in central Somalia in a territorial battle for control over grazing land and water, news agencies reported.

The late Wednesday clashes between members of the Sa’ad and Suleman factions of the Habar Gidir clan broke over control of several small towns in Somalia’s arid Mudug and Galgudud regions.

The two sides have fought several times for control of the lawless region.

Going Norwegian instead of Swedish

~ Matt Armstrong

From the Norwegian Press:

The US elite force Navy Seals has shown considerable interest in the Norwegian high speed patrol boats of the "Skjold" class, built with stealth technology. This makes the vessels difficult to detect by radar.

The US Navy had one patrol boat on loan for a year for test purposes, and the Norwegian Umoe Mandal Yard has now entered into a contract with the Navy Seals for a further study and evaluation of the suitability of the new patrol boats for US purposes.

The Swedes also have a stealth ship, but the Norwegian ship is apparently superior to both the Swedish and American stealth projects currently underway. These craft will become increasingly important with looming (and in some cases current and covert) littoral warfare and anti-piracy efforts, Not to mention penetrating the coast lines of potential adversaries.

Once again, heeeeeeeere’s al-Jazeera

~ Matt Armstrong

Eccentric Star has a posting with articles on al-Jazeera’s postive (from our perspective) on Arab (not Islamist) publics. I have heard (and received) arguments that al-Jazeera is a mouthpiece for Islamism and anti-Americanism. Eccentric Star’s article demonstrates the US is not the only target of AJ which I wrote about in the context of public diplomacy, or lack of. Possibly the Bush Administration, in its failure to take Egypt to task on the unfair elections and its continued reliance on an unpopular government that contributes to the perception of a double-standard US, see al-Jazeera attacks on Egypt as attacks on the Administration?

Millions not a couple of dozen Americans “sucked into the vacuum”

~ Matt Armstrong

ABC’s Nightline had an NSA whistleblower alleging illegal spying (the link has the Nightline video) could have eavesdropped on millions of Americans. As the source for the NY Times article blowing the cover of the operation (thoughts and implications here), he is apparently the target of rage by the Administration on the leaking of the program.

The damage to domestic and foreign credibility may be severe,
although not to those who feel "no holds barred" is the name of the
game. "Do as we say, not as we do" is not a good motto for a role model.

Meanwhile, Opinio Juris notes a number of "prominent law scholars and attorneys" rejected the Administration’s claims to have the right to conduct this surveillance in a letter:

The letter critiques the Department of Justice’s legal justifications
for the NSA wiretapping program, in particular, the U.S. government’s
reliance on the Sept. 11 Resolution authorizing military force, to
circumvent or avoid the restrictions created by the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Of course it is well-crafted,
reasonable, and persuasive. It takes a couple of unnecessary shots at
John Yoo, I think, but it is still very sensible in focusing on the
statutory rather than constitutional arguments. But while I am halfway
persuaded, I do wonder if the law prof letter relies too heavily on a
FISA provisions limiting wiretaps to 15 days after the declaration of
war.

The argument against the right to do anything hinges on what the authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) comprises:

[E]ven where Congress has declared war—a more formal step than an
authorization such as the AUMF—the law limits warrantless wiretapping
to the first fifteen days of the conflict. Congress explained that if
the President needed further warrantless surveillance during wartime,
the fifteen days would be sufficient for Congress to consider and enact
further authorization. [footnote omitted] Rather than follow this
course, the President acted unilaterally and secretly in contravention
of FISA’s terms. The DOJ letter remarkably does not even mention FISA’s
fifteen-day war provision, which directly refutes the President’s
asserted "implied" authority.

Did Bush really suggest bombing al-Jazeera?

~ Matt Armstrong

The news of the "al-Jazeera Memo" in the UK is a transcript of a meeting between Prime Minister Blair and President Bush in April 2004. The subject of a Freedom of Information Act request in Britain, the release of the memo (that has been officially acknowledge as existing) is the subject of a case going before the court tomorrow. Two men in the UK are charged with violating the Official Secrets Act.

The memorandum is actually a five-page transcript stamped "Top Secret." It describes a meeting at the White House on April 16, 2004, between President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair. At that meeting, which took place while desperately hard fighting was in progress in the Iraqi town of Fallujah, Bush mooted the idea of taking out the headquarters of Al Jazeera in Doha, Qatar. The network’s correspondents inside the city had been transmitting lurid footage of extreme violence. The exchange apparently puts Blair in a good light, in that he dissuaded the president from any such course of action and was assisted in this by Colin Powell, who was then secretary of state.

Slate also reports that Colin Powell may have had some difficulty later on in remembering the meeting, which BlairWatch digs on. Based on Powell’s profile and past soldierly commitment to the Chief, I would suggest that either he honestly did not remember or did not want to remember because anything he could have honestly said would have reflected poorly on his boss. The still diplomatic answers he gave a recent BBC interview continues to confirm this.

A little background on where al-Jazeera is:

The state of Qatar, which though a Wahabbi kingdom has a free press and allows women to run and to vote in elections, has not been the host of just Al Jazeera since the network’s predecessor was kicked out of Saudi Arabia. It has also been the host of United States Central Command, and of many American civilians.

This memo, if it comes out to be a)existant and b)accurate would fit in with a growing opinion of the Bush Administration’s "unitary executive" methodology in all things it does.

Al-Qaeda Manhunt in Kenya

~ Matt Armstrong

From the Jamestown Weekly Journal of News and Analysis on International Terrorism comes news of US CT (counter-terror) / al-Qaeda operations in Kenya. Andrew McGregor writes (text is below) about operations along the Kenya-Somalia border as the Horn region become hotter than before.

Al-Qaeda Manhunt in Kenya
Andrew McGregor

Kenya is widely remembered as the site of the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombing that killed over 200 people and cast al-Qaeda into international prominence. The attack was followed by a 2002 suicide car bombing that targeted a hotel popular with Israelis near Mombassa and the attempted destruction of an Israeli airliner. In both incidents, the vast majority of victims were Kenyans. There is, however, a great difference in the perception of the ongoing terrorist threat in Nairobi and Washington. Over Kenyan opposition the U.S. has issued a new terrorist warning for Kenya, damaging the important Kenyan tourism industry. Kenyan officials claim their country is largely free from terrorist threat and is unfairly blamed for its unavoidable proximity to lawless Somalia.

The warning cites “continuing terrorist threats and the limited ability of the Kenyan authorities to deter and detect such acts” (U.S. State Department, December 30). One day after the warning was issued Kenyan Internal Security announced they were intensifying their search for suspected al-Qaeda members. Of special interest are two Mombassa-born Kenyans, Ahmad Salim Swedan and Salah Ali Salah Nabhan, both indicted in the U.S. for leading roles in the 1998 bombing and suspected of planning the 2002 attacks. Nabhan is believed to be living in Mogadishu. Kenyan security officials claim that al-Qaeda is active in the country only through infiltrators from Somalia. Muslims constitute about 10 percent of Kenya’s population and are a majority in the port city of Mombassa.

U.S. and Israeli officials are highly displeased with the June 2005 acquittals of seven suspects brought to trial on conspiracy charges in the 2002 hotel bombing. Charges of planning a new attack on the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi in 2003 were dropped. The lack of convictions has fostered perceptions the U.S. that the Kenyan government is not serious about terrorism.

Despite the development of well-trained counter-terrorist forces, large areas of the sensitive Somali-Kenyan border remain poorly administered and beyond the operational range of conventional Kenyan police or their anti-terrorist squadrons. The recent seizure of a rocket launcher and ammunition by the poorly equipped Administration Police (AP) was the result of solid police work following a tip that weapons were being brought across the border. Without radios or other communications equipment, an AP constable had to wait two days to hitch a ride from a UN vehicle to the closest regular Kenyan police detachment to report the arrest (The Nation [Nairobi], January 3). With drought and a growing food shortage in the region there are fears of large-scale movement of nomads across the border that may be exploited by members of the al-Qaeda connected al-Ittihad movement. There are also security concerns in Mombassa, where the port security chief was recently murdered when he failed to accept a bribe to stop investigation of a large container-theft syndicate. A Kenyan MP and his family are being investigated in the killing (The Nation, January 4).

The U.S. occupation of Iraq is unpopular in Kenya, and the renewal of the terrorism advisory has been widely condemned by government and the media. The United States maintains a counter-terrorist force in Djibouti (known as the Combined Joint Task Force for the Horn of Africa) that has participated with Kenya in combined military exercises designed to combat regional terrorist activity. Although further security assistance has been offered to Kenya by both the U.S. and the EU, persistent corruption at all levels of government is hindering international cooperation and threatens foreign aid.

Remote Warfare… some comments

~ Matt Armstrong

Remote and/or unattended warfare & monitoring is a field that will grow in importance and visibility over the coming years. Its impact on the composition and format of the US military over the next several decades will be substantial. Advances in technology may already be seen in the current UAV Roadmap of 2005 (PDF on GoogleDocs) that will be further strategized and propagated with the upcoming QDR that will be taking its “final shape” next week.

Continue reading “Remote Warfare… some comments
“ →

Camera Grenade and Other Thoughts

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 2 Comments

From the unattended & remote warfare department is this tool:

"The HUNTIR Round is a fixed-type
cartridge designed to be fired from 40mm Grenade Launchers M79 and M203
(attached to the M16/M16A1 rifle) or a Milkor MK-1/[MGL-140] Grenade Launcher.
The round consists of a cartridge case assembly, and a metal projectile body
containing a first fire charge, a pyrotechnic delay column, an ejection charge,
a CMOS Camera, and a parachute assembly. Upon firing, the projectile assembly is
propelled to an average height of 700 feet, the first fire charge ignites the
pyrotechnic delay element, which ignites an ejection charge that effectively
ejects the CMOS Camera, which is attached to the parachute. The CMOS Camera
provides up to 5 minutes of real-time streaming video to a handheld device with
a correcsponding transmitter."

See the category Unattended and Remote Warfare for more

The Spivak Conspiracy

~ Matt Armstrong

Hmmm… a public relations campaign that could easily explode. The foreign press, if they picked up on this or will pick on similar cases in the future, will distort and blow up the misguided and foolish attempts to boost an exec’s year-end bonus. In light of the expanding Abramoff scandal today is a story a few months old called the Spivak Conspiracy:

A pharmaceutical consultant secretly commissions a novel about terrorists poisoning Americans with medicine from Canada, then backs out and inadvertently spawns a thriller pillorying his own industry.

This is no pulp-fiction farce. Call it bookgate, an impossible-to-make-up public-relations disaster now dogging the pharmaceutical industry.

Its real-life cast includes a deputy vice president of the country’s drug lobby, a celebrity divorce lawyer, a tell-all book publisher, and even former New York Times fabricator Jayson Blair in a cameo.

"It’s a nightmare beyond nightmares," admitted Mark A. Barondess, the consultant who initiated the book deal and now calls it a mistake.

Media Influence and Misinformation

~ Matt Armstrong

An example of how disinformation becomes reality from the WashingtonPost.

A White House official said last night the administration was confident that press reports changed bin Laden’s behavior. CIA spokesman Tom Crispell declined to comment, saying the question involves intelligence sources and methods.

The article demonstrates how OBL’s use of a cell / satellite phone was in the public domain before 9/11 and before the "press blew the lid".

Leveraging the Internet, part I

~ Matt Armstrong

It is not just pornographers that purchase domain names that are similar to mainstream companies, publications, etc that people may want to visit. I was trying to surf to a German political journal, International Politik. So I naturally typed in: http://www.internationale-politik.de.  However, that link is a redirect to an old Kurdish freedom page, http://kurdistan-solidaritaet.de. This site, btw is out of date some five years…. but it is an example that it is not just non-terrorists that can use the Net. More to come on this.

Kathryn Cramer: Top Cat Marine Security Has an Executive Level

~ Matt Armstrong

In an effort to keep information fresh, from Kathryn Cramer’s blog on TopCat Marine Security:

We had our differences and I’m no longer associated with Peter Casini, TCMS, Cobra Boats, Topcat Design or any other Casini enterprise.

It seems that "Bacehlor #3" in an earlier post by Kathryn is a man who now is making it clear he has nothing to do with TopCat. TCMS is an interesting org, but still more interesting: Did they hope to get in front of the coming action?

Britain: imperial nostalgia

~ Matt Armstrong

Link: Britain: imperial nostalgia.

Britain not only conveniently still forgets the crimes of its imperial past, but it has also again begun to romanticise its colonial achievements and declare them a proper source of pride.

Without spending too much time on various Western — I am thinking of French, German, Belgian, Dutch, and British here — protestors disengaged the present from the past, I would like to remind them of Africa, the ‘Middle East’, and their involvement then and today.

Looking for regulating international private military companies? Maybe we should look at International Maritime Law

~ Matt Armstrong

Should we look toward the Law of the Sea and anti-pirate laws to regulate Private Military Companies? The use of military force is based on international norms and agreements. Through either tacit or implicit permission of organizations and states, an actor, generally a state can use its military. Of course, it used to have freedom to wield its Weberian monopoly of legitimate force within its borders at its leisure, but times have changed.

The latest wave of globalization has reversed border ossification of the last 150 years to allow penetration of domestic policies. With mixed results, states have influenced internal politics of states (Tianamen, Cote d’Ivorie, Congo, FYR, PNG, Sri Leone, etc) to make their constituents ‘feel’ better about the world in which they trade and conduct commerce and communication because much of the time these external regions really had little, if any, direct impact on the outsiders. Today, however, we have military forces outside the direct control of the state and possibly outside the Weberian-defined norms.

The effect of these PMCs have to influence states and peoples, possibly outside the control of states, must be regulated. States and corporations do not not uncertainty by their nature, at least those who operate in the institutionalized with our Disneylands, 401(k), and minimal need for personal protective services.

Mercenary companies were once outlawed as interfering with state business. The Laws of the Seas, with its international cooperative construct that does not require ascension like the WTO, be a fair model for a global agreement on military force? The multi-lateral agreement between all states bordering the seas is functional, should it be extended? What about the growing piracy menace? Is it cover for 4GW ‘warriors’, terrorists, or something else?