http://www.trackpads.com/forum/ Newsletters from various sources en Mon, 06 Sep 2010 08:39:02 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.trackpads.com/forum/images/misc/rss.png http://www.trackpads.com/forum/ http://www.trackpads.com/forum/jfc-gom-summary/944026-no-gcom-summary-2010-sep-03-a.html Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:45:59 GMT Ladies and Gentlemen, Given the projected... Ladies and Gentlemen,

Given the projected track of Hurricane Earl and the related effects of the storm’s expected arrival in Hampton Roads during the overnight hours, no GCOM summary will be produced 3 Sept.

Production will resume 7 Sept.

Apologize for any inconvenience. ]]> JFC GOM Summary CoopMGI http://www.trackpads.com/forum/jfc-gom-summary/944026-no-gcom-summary-2010-sep-03-a.html http://www.trackpads.com/forum/jfc-gom-summary/943913-gcom-summary-2010-sep-02-a.html Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:32:46 GMT *U.S. Joint Forces Command* *Global Current... U.S. Joint Forces Command
Global Current Operations Media Summary
Operations Enduring Freedom/New Dawn/Noble Eagle
Current as of September 2, 2010

Ø New Developments

• U.S., Iraqis Mark End Of Combat Under Cloud Of Pessimism. In a crystal-chandeliered palace once occupied by Saddam Hussein, American and Iraqi leaders gathered Wednesday for the latest ceremony to herald an independent, democratic Iraq. But in the same city, both inside and outside the domed palace serving as America's military headquarters at the walled-off Baghdad airport compound, a more sober mood prevailed. As the American combat mission officially ended, Iraqi politicians, security officers and civil servants spoke of a daunting series of challenges they face until the end of 2011, when the last of nearly 50,000 remaining U.S. troops assisting Iraqi forces are scheduled to depart. At the top of the list are how to combat steadily rising violence and how to cope with the lack of a new government six months after inconclusive national elections were held. (Los Angeles Times – see attached)
• U.S. Charges Pakistani Taliban Leader With Killing Americans. The U.S. government designated the Pakistani Taliban a terrorist group Wednesday and accused its leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, of involvement in a December suicide bombing that killed seven Americans at a forward CIA post in eastern Afghanistan. A criminal complaint, filed Aug. 20 by the Justice Department in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia and unsealed Wednesday, charges Mehsud with conspiracy to murder U.S. citizens abroad and conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, namely explosives, against them. Mehsud was thought to have been killed by a U.S. drone strike in January, but he resurfaced in May in videos in which he vowed to attack U.S. cities. (Washington Post – see attached)
• Suicide Bombers In Pakistan Kill Dozens Of Shiites. Three suicide bombers struck a procession of Shiite Muslim worshipers on Wednesday in Lahore in eastern Pakistan, killing at least 25 people and touching off violent clashes between local police forces and mourners and protesters infuriated by the attack. Pakistani officials said two attackers detonated explosives as the gathering was dispersing, scattering bodies into the streets and sowing panic and anger among the thousands observing an annual Shiite day of mourning. A third bomber struck about 20 minutes later in a packed city square as many of the worshipers were leaving. At least 200 people were wounded in the attack, said Sajjad Bhutta, a district administrator, who added that he expected the number of dead and wounded to rise. (New York Times – see attached)
• U.S. Funding Boost Is Sought For Yemen Forces. U.S. Central Command has proposed pumping as much as $1.2 billion over five years into building up Yemen's security forces, a major investment in a shaky government, in a sign of Washington's fears of al Qaeda's growing foothold on the Arabian Peninsula. The timing and the final funding amount will depend on how supporters of the effort overcome resistance from some officials at the State Department and the Pentagon, who have doubts about Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and the ability of his government, seen by many as corrupt, to effectively use a flood of American-taxpayer money. The threat to the U.S. from al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen has become a priority concern for the Obama administration, fueling a robust internal debate over how to calibrate assistance to address what many officials see as the biggest counterterrorism challenge outside Afghanistan and Pakistan. (Wall Street Journal – see attached)
• 3 Afghan Oxfam Workers Dead In Bombing. British aid group Oxfam says it is temporarily suspending its work in Badakhshan province in Afghanistan after a bombing that killed three people. Two of the victims were members of the group's Afghan staff and the third a local volunteer, Oxfam said. Two people, a volunteer and staff member, were hurt in the roadside bombing Monday. "They were deeply committed to improving the lives of other Afghans and our thoughts are with their families at this time," Oxfam said in a statement. Badakhshan in northern Afghanistan has only recently been hit by the violence that has overwhelmed other areas. In August, 10 medical volunteers were killed in a part of the province that borders more violent areas. The Oxfam bombing was near the border with Tajikistan, The Guardian reported. That area, while home to drug-trafficking networks, had been thought to be free of political violence. (UPI)

Ø Military Coverage

• As U.S. Deaths In Afghanistan Rise, Military Families Grow Critical. As American combat deaths have reached record levels this summer, public support is eroding for the 9-year-old conflict. Several recent opinion polls found that more than half of those surveyed oppose the war, with the high casualty rate among concerns most often cited. American combat deaths reached 60 in June, 65 in July, and 55 in August, according to icasualties.org. That is by far the highest three-month total of the war. Criticism is mounting among military families too. An antiwar group of families of service members in Afghanistan and Iraq has called for an end to the Afghanistan war. At the same time, families like the Osborns, who describe themselves as conservative, are questioning the way the war is being waged. (Los Angeles Times – see attached)
• WikiLeaks Case Lawyer Questions Soldier's Sanity. An Army private is undergoing medical tests to determine his mental state in a case alleging he leaked classified material to WikiLeaks, his lawyer said Wednesday. Pfc. Bradley Manning is undergoing the mental health examination to determine whether he understood his behavior from November through May, when he allegedly gave a classified video and diplomatic cables to an unauthorized person while working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq, attorney David E. Coombs said. The exam by three Army mental health professionals could determine whether the 22-year-old soldier from Crescent, Oklahoma, will stand trial for allegations that could send him to prison for 52 years, Coombs said in written comments e-mailed to The Associated Press. Coombs said Manning is under psychiatric care in the brig at the Quantico Marine Corps Base in northern Virginia, partly out of concern that he is suicidal. (MSNBC/AP)

Ø Homeland Security

• Dutch Free Two Men Held In Terror Scare. Dutch prosecuting authorities have freed two Yemeni men arrested in Amsterdam on suspicion of terrorism. The men were taken into custody when they arrived Monday in Amsterdam on a United Airlines flight from Chicago. U.S. officials say they found a cell phone taped to a small bottle, multiple cell phones and watches taped together, a knife and a box cutter in their checked luggage. At the request of the United States, Dutch officials initially detained the men on suspicion of conspiring to carry out a terrorist act. But officials say Ahmed Mohamed Nasser al-Soofi and Hezam al-Murisi were freed without charge Wednesday due to a lack of evidence of their involvement in a terror plot. The Dutch prosecutors said tests conducted in the U.S. on the men's luggage did not reveal any signs of explosive material. (Voice of America)

Ø World Developments

• Obama Urges Middle East Leaders To Make Peace. On the eve of the first direct Middle East peace negotiations since he took office, President Obama urged Israeli and Palestinian leaders Wednesday to seize "this moment of opportunity" and to end their decades-long conflict, pledging to throw his administration's "full weight" behind their effort to do so. Speaking in the Rose Garden after a day of preparatory meetings, Obama sternly addressed both parties and the region's Arab leaders, whom he scolded for endorsing the creation of a Palestinian state in principle while often doing little to help bring one about. But he said that, ultimately, only Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas could make the compromises necessary to secure peace between their peoples. (Washington Post – see attached)
• In Somali Civil War, Both Sides Embrace Pirates. For years, Somalia’s heavily armed pirate gangs seemed content to rob and hijack on the high seas and not get sucked into the messy civil war on land. Now, that may be changing, and the pirates are taking sides – both sides. While local government officials in Hobyo have deputized pirate gangs to ring off coastal villages and block out the Shabab militant group, down the beach in Xarardheere, another pirate lair, elders said that other pirates recently agreed to split their ransoms with the Shabab and Hizbul Islam, another Islamist insurgent group. This seems to be the beginning of the West’s worst Somali nightmare, with two of the country’s biggest growth industries – piracy and Islamist radicalism – joining hands. (New York Times – see attached)
• UK Islamist Says Like-Minded U.S. Groups Expanding. Radical U.S. Muslim discussion groups are growing in influence much as similar forums did in 1990s Britain, a hardline British preacher said on Wednesday, referring to a period when London was Europe's Islamist hub. Anjem Choudary, accused by his critics of poisoning young Muslim minds with virulent anti-Western propaganda, added that a ban on a group he had led had backfired on UK authorities by boosting his standing among European and U.S. Muslims who shared his aim of establishing sharia (Islamic law) in the West. Choudary told Reuters global publicity about Britain's January 2010 prohibition of Islam4UK had provoked the creation or expansion of similar groups in Belgium, France, Switzerland, Sweden and Denmark and even in Australia and Indonesia. He had visited France, Belgium and Indonesia this year to meet sympathizers, he said. (Reuters)
• Russian President To Azerbaijan Amid Karabakh Tensions. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is due to open an official visit to Azerbaijan Thursday amid heightened tensions between Azerbaijan and neighboring rival Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh territory. The Russian president's visit follows reported deadly clashes on August 31 between Azerbaijani forces and ethnic Armenians in Karabakh. The two sides have given conflicting casualty tolls, with Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry saying three Armenian and two Azerbaijani soldiers were killed, while Karabakh Armenian officials said four Azerbaijani troops were killed and one Armenian was wounded. Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a six-year war over the territory, an Armenian-majority enclave located inside Azerbaijan, that ended with a cease-fire in 1994. However, the territory's final status remains unresolved. (Radio Free Europe)

* AP = Associated Press UPI = United Press International KR = Knight Ridder

Please contact the U.S. Joint Forces Command (J00P) Public Affairs Office (757) 836-6554 ~ fax: (757) 836-6561 to report non-receipt of this product or to change your e-mail address.

U.S., Iraqis Mark End Of Combat Under Cloud Of Pessimism
Los Angeles Times
September 2, 2010

In a crystal-chandeliered palace once occupied by Saddam Hussein, American and Iraqi leaders gathered Wednesday for the latest ceremony to herald an independent, democratic Iraq. But in the same city, both inside and outside the domed palace serving as America's military headquarters at the walled-off Baghdad airport compound, a more sober mood prevailed. As the American combat mission officially ended, Iraqi politicians, security officers and civil servants spoke of a daunting series of challenges they face until the end of 2011, when the last of nearly 50,000 remaining U.S. troops assisting Iraqi forces are scheduled to depart. At the top of the list are how to combat steadily rising violence and how to cope with the lack of a new government six months after inconclusive national elections were held.

Rather than move forward, the parliament has met just once, and Iraq's caretaker government has stalled on projects aimed at improving people's lives. "There are no decisions. We are just hanging now and we have stopped everything. We are waiting for the government to make decisions," said Ghazi Abdul Aziz Essa, director-general of Baghdad's main power plant."The delay affects the system very badly. It's not good for us." After a government is formed, many emphasize, a mountain of problems remains to be dealt with. Among the points at issue: reconciliation of Iraq's ethnic and religious groups, the splitting of oil revenue and the disputed ownership of lands now controlled by Arabs and Kurds and an equitable revision of the nation's constitution.

"If they do not have faith in each other, it will be a weak government. Decisions will be blocked. It will be a weak, democratic system," said longtime Kurdish politician Mahmoud Othman, who served in Iraq's Governing Council under the Americans. "If the groups don't trust each other, the possibility comes up of [even more] violence. I hope it won't be there but we have to put it in consideration." On Wednesday, such fears were momentarily set aside as an American military brass band played the national anthems of Iraq and the United States in the domed palace wrested from Hussein after the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Commanders spoke with a restrained optimism about Iraq's future and called on Iraqi political blocs to form a new government, downplaying the increasing violence while praising the competence and attitude of Iraqi security forces. They honored the memories of the 4,416 U.S. military personnel and the estimated 112,000 Iraqis who died in the strife of the last seven years. "We fought together, we laughed together and sometimes cried together. We stood side by side and shed blood together.

But it was for the shared ideals of freedom, liberty and justice," outgoing commander Gen. Ray T. Odierno told a sea of soldiers and dignitaries. "Because of your tremendous efforts, justice has replaced chaos, accord has replaced strife and hope has replaced despair." But many Iraqis, including some who wholeheartedly believe the war was worth the cost, voice trepidation about the American withdrawal.

Maj. Gen. Noaman Jawad, the head of an elite police brigade, swears that the world for his children will be far better than what they would have known under Hussein. But he remains skeptical about his own safety when the final American soldiers leave at the end of 2011 under a joint agreement reached during the George W. Bush presidency. "If I have a 95% threat on my life now, it will be million percent when the Americans leave," Jawad said. Since an election slate headed by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi won slightly more parliamentary seats than that of current Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, a stalemate has persisted, casting a bold spotlight on the differences between Maliki's mainly Shiite backers and Allawi's secular Shiite and Sunni support base.

Rival parties speak bitterly about one another. Maliki's rivals argue that if he wins a second term, he will establish a dictatorial regime; Maliki's backers warn that without his guidance, the government could slip into paralysis or slide back into civil war. Allawi, for his part, has warned that if he doesn't get the chance to head the government, the country risks violence. Allawi's supporters are now whispering that the United States has betrayed them despite the fact that his slate won 91 seats to Maliki's 89. "Mr. Maliki is supported by Iran and America. We don't understand this," said Qutaiba Turki, a parliament member of Allawi's list. "I think America killed freedom and democracy in Iraq when they left Iraq in the hands of Iran and Maliki."

Othman also spoke in grim terms. He bluntly criticized the American drawdown as a domestic calculation for President Obama. He emphasized that he agreed with the goal of removing American troops but said the timing was wrong. "If they could have [waited for] Iraqis to form their government it would have been better," he said. "But Obama made a promise to the voters. November elections are approaching and the Democrats aren't expected to do very well. Obama wants more support from the people." Officials talk of a ruling coalition that includes all the major political blocs as the only way forward, and wonder what happens if one side or the other fails to join in. All worry about the role of neighboring countries: Sunnis speak darkly of Iran's role; Shiites point to the invisible hand of Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

Some Iraqi security officials describe the country as remaining very much ensnared in an internal war. Jawad said Iraq is as at least two years away from an end to its conflicts. "We are still in the middle of a civil war, but we have passed through the sectarian war," Jawad said. "Iraqis are still killing each other." He said the government was battling figures from political parties, organized crime and armed groups. "Once the government is formed, with an economic program, oil and reconstruction providing jobs … eventually we will absorb all the people causing the violence."

A senior U.S. military officer, who was not authorized to talk publicly, agreed Wednesday that violence is bound to continue. "The war for Iraq, who is going to control Iraq, is just getting underway," the officer said. "It's too early to declare complete success…. In the end if this doesn't succeed, maybe we destroyed Iraq and imperiled the region." The American officer framed the conflict as one between secular and religious Iraqis, as well as a fight between Arab nations and Iran for influence in Iraq.

Perhaps the biggest challenge remains addressing the popular discontent over the government's continuing failure to adequately provide for the general population. The longer the current stalemate goes on, the less faith Iraqis have in their democratic system. The country's new elected leaders soon will have to show they can make good on promises of a better life, several leaders said. "People have changed their point of view. They feel sorry for having done what they did. If they voted today, they would change their votes," said lawmaker Wael Abdul Latif, a former governor of Basra. "They think the current political powers have failed."

U.S. Charges Pakistani Taliban Leader With Killing Americans
Washington Post
September 2, 2010

The U.S. government designated the Pakistani Taliban a terrorist group Wednesday and accused its leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, of involvement in a December suicide bombing that killed seven Americans at a forward CIA post in eastern Afghanistan. A criminal complaint, filed Aug. 20 by the Justice Department in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia and unsealed Wednesday, charges Mehsud with conspiracy to murder U.S. citizens abroad and conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, namely explosives, against them. Mehsud was thought to have been killed by a U.S. drone strike in January, but he resurfaced in May in videos in which he vowed to attack U.S. cities.

As the Justice Department announced the charges, the State Department on Wednesday officially designated the Pakistani Taliban as a "foreign terrorist organization" and labeled Mehsud and another Taliban leader, Wali ur-Rehman, as "specially designated global terrorists." The two-count criminal complaint against Mehsud cites a prerecorded video released after a Dec. 30, 2009, bombing by a Jordanian double agent, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, of a U.S. military base near Khost, Afghanistan. In the video, Mehsud and Balawi appear together and claim responsibility for the impending attack, which killed seven CIA officers and contractors and injured six other U.S. citizens.

"Today's charges underscore our continuing commitment to seek justice for Americans who are murdered or victimized by overseas terrorist attacks," said David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security. In designating Mehsud and Rehman as global terrorists, the State Department offered a reward of up to $5 million each for information leading to their location. Mehsud, self-proclaimed emir of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), as the Pakistani Taliban is known, is based in Pakistan's northwestern tribal areas. He has sought to expel Pakistani government troops from the region and battle U.S. coalition forces in Afghanistan. The group also claimed responsibility for the May 1 failed bombing of Times Square in New York.

U.S. authorities said the TTP has claimed responsibility for, or is alleged to have had a role in, numerous other attacks, including the December 2007 assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto and raids on NATO supply lines throughout Pakistan's northwestern tribal areas. The Justice Department said the group has often coordinated attacks with other terrorist groups, including the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaeda. Mehsud inherited the leadership of the TTP from his cousin, Baitullah Mehsud, the group's founder, who died in August 2009. In the video cited in the criminal complaint, Mehsud explains that the motive for attacking the CIA base was revenge for the death of Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in a U.S. drone attack in the rugged South Waziristan region of Pakistan along the Afghan border.

The CIA base that was attacked in December 2009 was at the heart of a covert program overseeing strikes by the agency's missile-firing Predator drones, U.S. officials said. The bombing carried out by Balawi, who had been recruited by the CIA to infiltrate al-Qaeda's inner circle, killed seven Americans and a Jordanian officer who had been assigned to work with him. Balawi gained access to the post, called Forward Operating Base Chapman, by offering new information about al-Qaeda's top leadership, then detonating explosives he had hidden under his clothing.

Hakimullah Mehsud is currently a fugitive believed to be residing in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), as the lawless northwestern border region is officially known. If apprehended and convicted of the charges unsealed Wednesday, Mehsud would face a maximum sentence of life in prison, the Justice Department said. Since July, the United States has also designated for sanctions the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network and three financiers: Gul Agha Ishakzai, head of the Taliban's financial commission; Amir Abdullah, former treasurer to senior Afghan Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar; and Nasiruddin Haqqani, an emissary for the Haqqani network.

Last month, the U.S. government named as a terrorist organization Harkat-e-Jihad-e-Islami, an anti-India Pakistani group linked to al-Qaeda. Its leader, Mohammed Ilyas Kashmiri, was listed as a designated global terrorist. Earlier, the government slapped terrorist designations on U.S.-born Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi and the group, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which operates in Yemen. Under the designations, the groups are subject to sanctions such as asset freezes, travel limits and arms embargoes.

Suicide Bombers In Pakistan Kill Dozens Of Shiites
New York Times
September 2, 2010

Three suicide bombers struck a procession of Shiite Muslim worshipers on Wednesday in Lahore in eastern Pakistan, killing at least 25 people and touching off violent clashes between local police forces and mourners and protesters infuriated by the attack. Pakistani officials said two attackers detonated explosives as the gathering was dispersing, scattering bodies into the streets and sowing panic and anger among the thousands observing an annual Shiite day of mourning. A third bomber struck about 20 minutes later in a packed city square as many of the worshipers were leaving. At least 200 people were wounded in the attack, said Sajjad Bhutta, a district administrator, who added that he expected the number of dead and wounded to rise.

As rescuers rushed to reach the wounded, demonstrations broke out in Lahore, Pakistan’s second largest city and the site of regular bombings and other attacks by militant groups. Protesters set fire to police vans and tried to light a police station ablaze. They marched through the streets, chanting slogans that condemned the Taliban, whom demonstrators blamed for the attacks, and the police, who were blamed for failing to prevent it. “This is lack of security,” said one demonstrator, Glalib Abbas, who cried and beat his chest and head as he walked through the streets in blood-stained clothes.

The police called in paramilitary reinforcements and fired canisters of tear gas to disperse the demonstrators. No one claimed responsibility for the blasts, but the timing and target of the attacks appeared to be intended to worsen sectarian tensions. Also on Wednesday, unidentified gunmen fired on a Shiite procession in Karachi, wounding seven people. The unrest and anger set off by the attacks seemed to underline Pakistan’s flagging support for local and national governments, which are struggling to cope with rising militant violence and the aftermath of the worst flooding in the country’s history.

Elsewhere in Pakistan, the fallout continued from an episode this week in which members of a Pakistani military delegation were removed from a flight at Dulles International Airport outside Washington. A spokesman for the Pakistani military, Gen. Athar Abbas, said on Wednesday that the delegation was pulled off the plane for “unwarranted security checks.” The group had been on a United Airlines plane bound for Tampa, Fla., to visit the United States Central Command. A spokesman for Central Command declined to comment.

The nine-member delegation, which included senior officers from the Pakistani Army, Navy and Air Force and was led by a two-star naval officer, was asked to leave the plane as a result of what Pakistani news reports said was a passenger complaint after an army brigadier general was overheard making what were interpreted as threatening remarks. The English-language newspaper Dawn reported that he had an altercation with an attendant that delayed the flight by 40 minutes before the delegation was asked to leave. The brigadier general and two of his colleagues were then detained for questioning, Dawn reported.

Dawn quoted unidentified people in the military as saying that security officials detained the delegation for at least two hours, “telling them nothing, not allowing them to talk to anyone.” “Later, the delegation was cleared, and U.S. defense officials regretted the incident,” General Abbas said. “However, as a result of these checks, military authorities in Pakistan decided to cancel the visit and call the delegation back.” The Pakistani government did not provide further details. “They were treated like terrorists,” Dawn quoted an unidentified Pakistani official as saying.

Megan McCarthy, a spokeswoman for United Airlines, said the nine delegation members were removed from the plane after a remark one of them made to a crew member during boarding. Ms. McCarthy said the airline had offered to rebook the delegation on a flight the next day. “We recognize the inconvenience this caused our customers, and we apologize,” she said. It was the second time this year that an official Pakistani delegation had returned angry over its treatment at American airports. In March, several Pakistani legislators refused to submit to extra screening at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington during an official tour of the United States and were hailed as heroes at home.

U.S. Funding Boost Is Sought For Yemen Forces
Wall Street Journal
September 2, 2010

The U.S. military's Central Command has proposed pumping as much as $1.2 billion over five years into building up Yemen's security forces, a major investment in a shaky government, in a sign of Washington's fears of al Qaeda's growing foothold on the Arabian Peninsula. The timing and the final funding amount will depend on how supporters of the effort overcome resistance from some officials at the State Department and the Pentagon, who have doubts about Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and the ability of his government, seen by many as corrupt, to effectively use a flood of American-taxpayer money.

The threat to the U.S. from al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen has become a priority concern for the Obama administration, fueling a robust internal debate over how to calibrate assistance to address what many officials see as the biggest counterterrorism challenge outside Afghanistan and Pakistan. Central Command, which oversees military operations across the Mideast and South Asia, argues a large infusion of cash is necessary to stanch al Qaeda gains and enable Yemen's security forces to conduct more effective counterterrorism operations, U.S. military officials and diplomats say. The money would be used primarily for training and equipment.

But senior U.S. diplomats and experts warn of a widening imbalance between fast-growing U.S. military support and the slow pace of civilian development assistance, which is aimed at peeling away popular support for Islamists. "It tends to encourage a negative perspective in Yemen that all we care about is U.S. security," said a senior U.S. official. More safeguards are needed, officials say, to ensure U.S. equipment and resources aren't diverted by the Yemeni government to its fight against domestic rivals. In addition to battling the homegrown group al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the government in San'a faces rebels to the north and secessionist groups in the south of the country.

U.S. Special Operations teams in Yemen, birthplace of Osama bin Laden's father, already play an expansive role in the country. Some spearhead an effort to track and kill al Qaeda leaders as part of a campaign authorized by President Barack Obama. Other teams run small development projects, a role typically handled by State Department aid officials. The U.S. military accelerated strikes against Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula following December's failed attempt by the group to blow up a Detroit-bound American airliner.

Over the past nine months, the U.S. military has carried out a handful of missile strikes on alleged al Qaeda operatives in Yemen, according to U.S. officials briefed on the operations. All of the strikes were approved by Washington's then-ambassador to San'a, Stephen Seche, the officials said. Mr. Seche recently returned to Washington. The White House is now weighing a proposal to add armed, aerial drones operated by the Central Intelligence Agency to the arsenal against al Qaeda in Yemen, mirroring the CIA's drone campaign in Pakistan. Tensions between Central Command and the State Department have simmered for months over the size and scope of the U.S. military's security assistance to Mr. Saleh's government, according to U.S. officials.

U.S. officials said Central Command originally floated the idea of a bigger, $1.6 billion package for Yemen, but scaled it back after objections from the State Department and some in the Pentagon. Mr. Seche and others have argued that Yemen doesn't have the capacity to absorb such large sums, according to officials involved in the deliberations. They also voiced concerns that the Pentagon's plans risked overly militarizing Yemen, and potentially fueling a wider insurgency in the country. "We can't just throw dollars at Yemen and think it will solve itself," said a U.S. official who has taken part in the Yemen debate. "This is the mistake we've made in efforts to combat the Taliban in Pakistan."

The State Department has been particularly concerned that the large influx of funds to Yemen could be diverted to the government's war against a Shiite group known as the Houthis. The U.S. doesn't believe claims by Yemen and Saudi Arabia that the Houthis are being funded and trained by Iran. Aid to Yemen under the U.S. government's main counterterrorism program has grown from less than $5 million in fiscal 2006 to more than $155 million in fiscal 2010, the Pentagon said. But that effort has been piecemeal, prompting calls within the military for a more concerted, sustained campaign.

Jeremy Sharp, a specialist in Middle Eastern affairs at the Congressional Research Service, said the proposed increase was significant in terms of the large dollar amounts involved, but more importantly because "it would send a message that cooperation is expected over a longer time period." A Pentagon spokesman said the proposal by Central Command is being evaluated as part of the fiscal 2012 budget process in consultation with the State Department. "Any discussion on the outcome of this process would be premature at this time," the spokesman said.

A senior U.S. military official said the Pentagon was taking a close look at how much aid Yemen can accept. "There are times when we don't spend money, when the partner doesn't have the carrying capacity," the senior military official said. One of the most vocal supporters of aid to Yemen, Gen. David Petraeus, left his position as head of Central Command in July to lead coalition forces in Afghanistan. It is unclear if his successor, Gen. James Mattis, will fight for all of the funds or push for a scaled-back version.

Some at the Pentagon think a one-year to two-year package makes more sense because it could give the U.S. more leverage to encourage Mr. Saleh to remain cooperative. Oil revenue, a key source of funding for the Yemeni government, has been dwindling, increasing U.S. concerns that Mr. Saleh's government will weaken. "Yemen is already running out of water; they're already running out of oil," said Henry Crumpton, a former counterterrorism chief at the State Department and senior CIA official.

Christopher Boucek, a fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said there is danger on relying too heavily on a military solution in Yemen. "It is a lot easier to focus on the counterterrorism side," Mr. Boucek said. Special Operations teams run several rural development programs in Yemen's tribal areas. They are doing the type of work the State Department's Provincial Reconstruction Teams have done to understand local needs in regions of Iraq and Afghanistan, a congressional official said. Officials said the teams' aid role in Yemen has grown in part because of the U.S. Embassy's stricter travel restrictions for civilian employees. In some cases, USAID officers haven't been out to visit their projects in years.

The State Department recently committed $120 million in development assistance to Yemen over the next three years. That pales in comparison to the aid provided to other countries where counterterrorism is a high priority, such as Pakistan, which has been promised $7.5 billion over five years. "It's a cycle: Which comes first, security or development? Security has really hampered these efforts," said a Yemeni official, who described civilian development efforts so far as "minimal" compared to military and security expenditures. "That is a problem."

As U.S. Deaths In Afghanistan Rise, Military Families Grow Critical
Los Angeles Times
September 2, 2010

Bill and Beverly Osborn still can't bring themselves to erase the phone message from their son Ben. He had called from Afghanistan in June to assure them that he was safe. Four days later, he was killed in a Taliban ambush. The Osborns long ago accepted the risks faced by their son, an Army specialist. But what they can't accept now are the military rules of engagement, which they contend made it possible for the Taliban to kill him. "We let the enemy fire first, and they took my son from us," Beverly Osborn said of the rules, which in most instances require U.S. forces to identify an enemy threat before firing, and to withhold fire if civilians are close by. The rules also place restrictions on close air support and artillery, prompting complaints from some service members that their lives are put at risk against an enemy that fights by no rules at all.

As American combat deaths have reached record levels this summer, public support is eroding for the 9-year-old conflict. Several recent opinion polls found that more than half of those surveyed oppose the war, with the high casualty rate among concerns most often cited. American combat deaths reached 60 in June, 65 in July, and 55 in August, according to icasualties.org. That is by far the highest three-month total of the war. Criticism is mounting among military families too. An antiwar group of families of service members in Afghanistan and Iraq has called for an end to the Afghanistan war. At the same time, families like the Osborns, who describe themselves as conservative, are questioning the way the war is being waged.

After Bill Osborn publicly criticized the rules of engagement just before his son's wake, he said, other families of service members killed or serving in Afghanistan contacted him to express similar concerns. They don't want to end the war, Osborn said, but to change the way it's being fought. "Our soldiers are forced to fight with one hand tied behind their backs. They're not allowed to take care of business – and they know it," Bill Osborn said in his living room, where his son's Bronze Star, Purple Heart and campaign ribbons are on display.

Debbie Morris of Arnold, Calif., who lost her son in Afghanistan on June 10, said the rules of engagement protect Afghan civilians at the expense of American troops. She blames the rules, in part, for the death of her son, Marine Lance Cpl. Gavin Brummund, 22, from a roadside bomb. If the rules prevent troops from aggressively pursuing Afghan militants who plot attacks against them while posing as civilians, "then the rules aren't working, and why are we even there?" Morris said. Brummund's widow, Michaela, said Marines in her husband's unit told her they were frustrated by the rules. Protecting civilians, many of whom are hostile to U.S. forces, "isn't worth our guys' lives," she said.

On June 27, the Osborns wrote an impassioned e-mail to Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan. They described how Ben, 27, volunteered to man the machine gun on an armored vehicle headed out on a patrol in Kunar province on June 15. Their son's unit of 20 men was ambushed by a Taliban force of 70 to 100 fighters, the e-mail said. According to the Osborns, who said they talked with members of their son's unit, Ben had to wait to return fire until ordered to do so. He got off 10 rounds before he was shot and killed, they said. The rules of engagement "led to the demise of our son … and other warriors like him," the e-mail said. The Osborns asked Petraeus to revise the rules and lift restrictions.

"Winning the hearts and minds of the Afghans is not what's best for America," they wrote. "We are at war. The rules of engagement must be to empower our soldiers, not to give aid and comfort to the enemy." Petraeus responded within minutes, the Osborns said. His e-mail offered condolences, and noted that "commanders have a moral imperative to ensure that we provide every possible element of support to our troopers when they get into a tight spot." The general added: "And I will ensure that we meet that imperative." Petraeus, who wrote the military's counter-insurgency doctrine with a focus on minimizing civilian casualties, has said he is reviewing the rules of engagement. Petraeus assumed command July 4 after the ouster of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who had tightened the rules when he took command in June 2009.

Military Families Speak Out, the antiwar group, has long demanded an end to the war in Iraq but for years refrained from demanding an end to the Afghanistan conflict – which many members considered "the good war." After U.S. combat deaths in Afghanistan rose early last year, the group formally called for ending that war and bringing troops home. More families have joined the group since casualties jumped this summer, said Nancy Lessin, the organization's co-founder. Military Families Speak Out, founded in 2002, represents 4,000 military families, with 25 to 30 chapters nationwide, Lessin said. The group has no formal position on the rules of engagement, said Paula Rogovin, whose son is a Marine captain who served in Iraq. But bringing the troops home would eliminate any dangers they face as a result of the restrictions, she said.

By contrast, the Osborns say they believe the war in Afghanistan must be fought – and won. But they want it waged more aggressively. Soon after Ben deployed in April, he began telling his parents that the rules of engagement were too restrictive and were putting him and his fellow soldiers at risk. "He said he felt more like a Peace Corps worker than a warrior," his father said. After Ben's death, his comrades told his father they had the same concerns. "I don't know that if Ben had been able to fire spontaneously, he'd be alive today,"

Bill Osborn added. "But I do know that he would have had a much better chance of surviving by being able to defend himself quickly." "It almost appears that our civilian leaders and military command think more of the natives than our own troops," he said. "That's a disturbing thought, and I don't want to believe it." Ben left behind three brothers, a sister and a widow, Nicole, whom he had married in February. "It's too late for us and for Ben," Bill Osborn said, sitting next to photos of his son in uniform. "But there are other families out there, and if we can help save just one soldier, it'll be worth it."

Obama Urges Middle East Leaders To Make Peace
Washington Post
September 2, 2010

On the eve of the first direct Middle East peace negotiations since he took office, President Obama urged Israeli and Palestinian leaders Wednesday to seize "this moment of opportunity" and to end their decades-long conflict, pledging to throw his administration's "full weight" behind their effort to do so. Speaking in the Rose Garden after a day of preparatory meetings, Obama sternly addressed both parties and the region's Arab leaders, whom he scolded for endorsing the creation of a Palestinian state in principle while often doing little to help bring one about.

But he said that, ultimately, only Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas could make the compromises necessary to secure peace between their peoples. "The hard work is only beginning," Obama said after meeting. "Neither success nor failure is inevitable. But this much we know: If we do not make the attempt, then failure is guaranteed." Obama's inauguration of direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations comes after more than a year of diplomacy to bring the two sides together. The last direct talks broke off in December 2008 amid an intensive Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip to stop Palestinian rocket fire into southern Israeli towns.

The events Wednesday, which culminated in a White House dinner for Netanyahu, Abbas, King Abdullah II of Jordan and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, marked at least a temporary success for the Obama administration, which has at times appeared confused over how to further peace-making in the region. The president's Rose Garden remarks followed meetings with the four leaders who will be involved, either directly or as mediators, in negotiations that are scheduled to begin Thursday and that are supposed to conclude in a year with the conflict's most difficult issues resolved.

Those issues include the status of Jerusalem, which both Israelis and Palestinians claim as their capital; the right of Palestinian refugees to return to homes inside what is now Israel; and the final borders of a Palestinian state. But a deeply divided Palestinian national movement, a right-leaning Israeli public, and the energetic extremes on both sides who oppose compromise of any kind are already complicating efforts to forge an agreement that has eluded Israelis, Palestinians and their U.S. mediators for years. Perhaps the most immediate threat to the negotiations is the impending expiration of Israel's 10-month moratorium on West Bank settlement construction.

The building freeze, opposed by Netanyahu's hawkish coalition partners, is set to expire Sept. 26. Abbas has warned that he might walk away from the talks if Netanyahu does not extend the moratorium, which U.S. officials also want to see remain in place. "The central piece of worry focused on the moratorium," Soliman Awaad, Egypt's ambassador to Washington, told reporters after Mubarak's meeting with Obama. Awaad said Mubarak also told Obama that "it is not enough to offer dinner, to give some speeches," warning that the United States must remain involved after the official start of direct talks.

Obama struck a note of hope in his remarks in the Rose Garden and, later, in the East Room, at one point saying that "despite what the cynics say, history teaches us that there is a different path." But he tempered his optimism with a realistic assessment of the challenges ahead. "We are under no illusions," Obama said. "Passions run deep. Each side has legitimate and enduring interests. Years of mistrust will not disappear overnight." Obama met with each Middle East leader in a one-on-one session in the Oval Office. The dinner he later hosted on their behalf was attended also by representatives of the Quartet of Middle East peace interlocutors: the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations.

Each leader delivered brief remarks during the East Room reception, setting an urgent tone for the negotiations to come. Netanyahu addressed Abbas as "my partner in peace." "The Jewish people are not strangers in our ancestral homeland, the land of our forefathers," Netanyahu said. "But we recognize that another people share this land with us. And I came here today to find an historic compromise that will enable both peoples to live in peace and security and dignity."

Following the Israeli prime minister, Abbas said he would "spare no effort and we will work diligently" to achieve a peace agreement that would meet Palestinian interests and address Israeli security concerns. "It is time to put an end to the struggle in the Middle East," said Abbas, who referred to Palestinians as "victims" in the long conflict. "Let us sign a final agreement for peace." But Abbas, Netanyahu, and Obama all agreed that the nascent process is already threatened by groups that will seek to upend it in the months ahead.

Earlier in the day, Obama condemned the fatal shooting Tuesday of four Israeli settlers in the West Bank. The armed wing of the Islamist group Hamas claimed responsibility for the killing, which Obama called "senseless slaughter" after his meeting with Netanyahu. Hamas does not recognize Israel's right to exist, and has opposed the renewal of direct talks between Abbas and the Israeli government. Abbas's secular Fatah movement was driven from Gaza by Hamas in 2007 during months of what amounted to a Palestinian civil war. Those divisions within the Palestinian national movement have yet to heal, likely hindering Abbas' ability to enforce any peace agreement that he might reach with Israel.

"The tragedy that we saw yesterday, where people were gunned down on the street by terrorists who are purposely trying to undermine these talks, is an example of what we're up against," Obama said. Those threats persisted Wednesday when an Israeli couple was wounded in a shooting attack on their car in the West Bank. King Abdullah II told the East Room audience: "Time is not on our side." "If hopes are disappointed again, the price of failure will be too high for all," he said. "Our people expect us to rise to their high expectations."

In Somali Civil War, Both Sides Embrace Pirates
New York Times
September 2, 2010

Ismail Haji Noor, a local government official, recently arrived in this notorious pirate den with a simple message: we need your help. With the Shabab militant group sweeping across Somalia and the American-backed central government teetering on life support, Mr. Noor stood on a beach flanked by dozens of pirate gunmen, two hijacked ships over his shoulder, and announced, “From now on we’ll be working together.” He hugged several well-known pirate bosses and called them “brother” and later explained that while he saw the pirates as criminals and eventually wanted to rehabilitate them, right now the Shabab were a much graver threat. “Squished between the two, we have to become friends with the pirates,” Mr. Noor said. “Actually, this is a great opportunity.”

For years, Somalia’s heavily armed pirate gangs seemed content to rob and hijack on the high seas and not get sucked into the messy civil war on land. Now, that may be changing, and the pirates are taking sides – both sides. While local government officials in Hobyo have deputized pirate gangs to ring off coastal villages and block out the Shabab, down the beach in Xarardheere, another pirate lair, elders said that other pirates recently agreed to split their ransoms with the Shabab and Hizbul Islam, another Islamist insurgent group.

The militant Islamists had originally vowed to shut down piracy in Xarardheere, claiming it was unholy, but apparently the money was too good. This seems to be the beginning of the West’s worst Somali nightmare, with two of the country’s biggest growth industries – piracy and Islamist radicalism – joining hands.

Somalia’s pirates are famous opportunists – “we just want the money” is their mantra – so it is not clear how long these new alliances of convenience will last. But clan leaders along Somalia’s coast say that something different is in the salty air and that the pirates are getting more ambitious, shrewdly reinvesting their booty in heavy weapons and land-based militias, and now it may be impossible for such a large armed force – the pirates number thousands of men – to stay on the sidelines. “You can’t ignore the pirates anymore,” said Mohamed Aden, a clan leader in central Somalia. “They’re getting more and more muscle. They used to invest their money in just boats and going out to sea but now they’re building up their military side.”

Take the elusive and powerful pirate boss Mohamed Garfanji, who surfaced briefly two weeks ago wearing a belt of bullets strapped across his chest in an X and a purple rain jacket to guide a group of foreign journalists to Hobyo, his base of operations. The journalists had been invited by the Galmudug State administration, a clan-based local government trying to gain a foothold in the region. But Hobyo is a fully engulfed piracy community, where 10-year-old boys with Kalashnikovs hang out in the sandy streets and glare at outsiders, and the visit could happen only with Mr. Garfanji’s blessing. During a meeting with Hobyo elders, Mr. Garfanji stuck his head through the door and grunted: “It’s O.K. for you guys to speak to the journalists. And for them to take pictures.” After that, he vanished.

Mr. Garfanji is believed to have hijacked a half-dozen ships and used millions of dollars in ransom money to build a small infantry division of several hundred men, 80 heavy machine guns and a fleet (a half dozen) of large trucks with antiaircraft guns – not exactly typical pirate gear of skiffs and grappling hooks. While some of his troops wear jeans with “Play Boy” stitched on the seat, others sport crisp new camouflage uniforms, seemingly more organized than just about any other militia in Somalia. Mr. Garfanji’s original motivation was probably profit, pure and simple – by mustering a formidable force on land, nobody could squeeze him to pay protection fees. But now his associates claim that their pirate army was created to stop Hizbul Islam and the Shabab. “Sometimes,” explained Fathi Osman Kahir, a pirate middle manager, “you commit crimes to defend your freedom.”

Somalia’s violence has been grinding on since 1991, when the central government collapsed, but it keeps morphing in subtle but potentially significant ways. Just last year, elders in several coastal areas were turning against pirates because of their un-Islamic ways. Now, with the security situation deteriorating so rapidly, elders today seem to ask fewer questions, especially about where their young men get their guns. In Hobyo, a poor, isolated village on a crescent of white sand, the big fear is the Shabab. The Shabab are the most fearsome insurgents in Somalia – they have pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda – and last month they showed how effective – and brutal – they can be by infiltrating a hotel in the government zone of Mogadishu, the capital, and methodically gunning down more than 30 people, including four lawmakers. Once the Shabab take over an area, they impose a harsh form of Islamic law, banning music, soccer, even bras. Offenders can get their hands chopped off or their heads bashed in with rocks.

Many areas of Somalia have given up on the central government’s saving them from the Shabab, which is why local administrations are beginning to gain traction. The local governments are often run by Somalis who have lived abroad, like Mr. Noor, a former Somali Army officer who resided in London for years and still seems to enjoy playing war. (Night vision scope: Check. Body armor: Check. 9 mm pistol tucked into the small of his back: Check.) One of Mr. Noor’s favorite expressions, which he continually barked out to the journalists with him, was “be my skin,” meaning something like “stay close to me” because even though he was working with the pirates, there were still some serious questions about trust. Still, Mr. Noor said, he needed the pirate muscle to protect his area because “we just don’t have the forces.”

Many pirates seem happy to help. Though 2010 is shaping up as another banner year — more than 30 ships have been hijacked, which means tens of millions of dollars in ransom — the increased naval presence off Somalia’s coast has taken its toll, with hundreds of pirates now in jail and even more lost at sea and presumably drowned. Ahmed Elmi Osoble, 27, said his family was so upset at him for being a pirate that they basically staged an intervention to get him to quit. “As soon as I got back from the Seychelles,” he said, where he had been jailed for six months on piracy charges, “my mom locked me in the house.” “She wouldn’t let me out until I got another job.” He is now driving a truck for the government/pirate militia – it is hard to separate the two – working side by side with policemen in grubby Galmudug administration uniforms and his pirate friends wearing the Play Boy jeans. ]]> JFC GOM Summary CoopMGI http://www.trackpads.com/forum/jfc-gom-summary/943913-gcom-summary-2010-sep-02-a.html http://www.trackpads.com/forum/jfc-gom-summary/943912-gcom-summary-2010-sep-01-a.html Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:31:39 GMT *U.S. Joint Forces Command* *Global Current... U.S. Joint Forces Command
Global Current Operations Media Summary
Operations Enduring Freedom/New Dawn/Noble Eagle
Current as of September 1, 2010


Ø Iraq

• Obama Declares That Combat In Iraq Is Over. Saying it is "time to turn the page" on one of the most divisive chapters in American history, President Obama declared the U.S. war in Iraq over Tuesday night, telling the nation that he was fulfilling his campaign pledge to stop a war he had opposed from the start. He heralded his belief "that out of the ashes of war, a new beginning could be born in this cradle of civilization." In his speech, the president sought to unshackle the nation from a military invasion, begun by his predecessor that was supposed to swiftly depose a dictator, seize hidden weapons of mass destruction and leave behind a democratic government. Instead, it dragged on for more than seven years as U.S. troops battled a growing insurgency. (Washington Post – see attached)
• As Combat Mission Ends, A New U.S. Operation Begins. The U.S. mission in Iraq is set to undergo a major rebranding on Wednesday, when Vice President Joe Biden presides over a change-of-command ceremony in Baghdad marking the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the campaign that began in March 2003, and the beginning of a military assistance mission called Operation New Dawn. But while the formal combat phase may end, U.S. troops aren't all going away. A substantial U.S. contingent will remain in Iraq to advise and train Iraqi security forces, and a civilian-led reconstruction effort will also continue. That new mission is set to expire in December 2011. (Wall Street Journal – see attached)
• Iraqis Are Conflicted As U.S. Combat Mission Ends. Seven and a half years after then- President George W. Bush attacked Iraq, Baghdad is a battered and weary city whose streets still bear the scars of a still inconclusive war, and whose residents are still groping to comprehend the magnitude of the changes that turned their lives upside down. For more than 20 years they endured a dictatorship whose rules most didn't like, but easily understood. Then came the invasion, which many at first welcomed, followed by days of looting, years of insurgency, four governments and a sectarian war, transforming their country in ways that may not be fully resolved for many years, after the dust has settled on the huge uncertainties that still linger. Will Iraqi politicians reach agreement on a new government? Will the insurgency succeed in its efforts to make a comeback? Can the nation's security forces stand alone? (Los Angeles Times – see attached)
• Iraq's Failure To Form A Government Concerns U.S. Spy Officials. With the U.S. officially having ended combat operations in Iraq Tuesday, U.S. spy officials see the country's inability to form a government as the greatest security threat it faces. Other major security concerns include continued Iranian efforts to stoke militant attacks in Iraq and al Qaeda's severely degraded, but not extinguished, affiliate in Iraq, according to a senior intelligence official. "It's important that they get their act together," the official said of Iraqi leaders. Unresolved, the political vacuum could lead to an unraveling of stability and security, he said, though adding that it's unknown when that tipping point might come. (Wall Street Journal – see attached)
• Blair Says Did Not Foresee Iraq "Nightmare". Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Wednesday he could have not have imagined what he called the nightmare that unfolded in Iraq but still did not regret joining the U.S.-led invasion. In extracts of his memoirs released before the book's publication, Blair echoed previous statements that the 2003 invasion was justified because Saddam Hussein posed a threat and could have developed weapons of mass destruction. "I can't regret the decision to go to war ... I can say that never did I guess the nightmare that unfolded," said Blair, referring to the years of political and sectarian bloodshed in Iraq that followed the invasion. "I have often reflected as to whether I was wrong. I ask you to reflect as to whether I may have been right." Blair was the closest ally of former U.S. President George W. Bush over the decision to invade Iraq. (Reuters)

Ø New Developments

• U.S. Toll Rising In Afghanistan: 22 Soldiers Killed Since Friday. U.S. forces lost 22 soldiers in Afghanistan, mostly to roadside bombs, since Friday, marking a bloody step-up in the insurgency as a major U.S.-led offensive seeks to capture the spiritual homeland of the Taliban movement in Kandahar. The U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan said it is gaining ground against the insurgents, but violence is rising across the country, including in areas that were considered relatively safe. Five more U.S. soldiers were killed Tuesday, while three Afghan workers for the British charity Oxfam were killed by a roadside bomb in Badakhshan, which had been one of the safer places in the country. (Miami Herald – see attached)
• Afghan Ambassador Said T. Jawad Leaving His Post In Washington. After serving as Afghanistan's top diplomat in Washington for seven years, Ambassador Said T. Jawad said Tuesday that his government has ordered him to vacate his post in September. Jawad, a dapper and eloquent advocate for his war-torn nation, has been the subject of what he called a "smear campaign" in Afghanistan during the past few weeks. Several Afghan Web sites published photographs that purported to show people consuming alcohol and women dancing in sleeveless dresses at an embassy party to celebrate the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Embassy officials insisted that there was no Ramadan party and that Jawad was on a trip to South America when the bash is alleged to have occurred. They said the pictures appear to have been taken at an Afghan independence day party a year ago. (Washington Post – see attached)
• Afghan Bank's Bosses Ousted To Avert Meltdown. Authorities have reportedly intervened to try to avert the potentially disastrous collapse of Afghanistan's biggest bank after uncovering a web of shady transactions involving well-connected insiders. The suspect dealings at Kabul Bank, whose shareholders include a brother of President Hamid Karzai, have sparked huge losses that could bring down the lender and undermine the U.S.-led war against the Taliban, U.S. press reports said. The central bank threw out Kabul Bank's two top executives and installed its own temporary managers in a move that was blessed by Karzai himself, according to the reports. The central bank on Monday ordered Kabul Bank chairman Sherkhan Farnood to hand over 160 million dollars' worth of property including luxury villas bought in Dubai for his personal use and for cronies. (Google/AFP)
• Pakistan Raid Kills 45 Militants And Their Families. Pakistani government air raids have killed up to 45 militants and their family members in hideouts in the northwestern Khyber region on the Afghan border, security officials said on Wednesday. The strikes targeted militants in their stronghold, the Tirah Valley, on Tuesday night. "We have reports that 40 to 45 terrorists were killed," a security official told Reuters. Taliban militants often deny official death tolls of militants. A security official said those killed included families of the militants who had fled military offensives in the Swat Valley and other northwestern regions. "Some of the families were living in the vicinity of these hideouts and they were also among the dead," he said, adding he did not know how many non-combatants were among the casualties. Another security official confirmed the incident. (Reuters)

Ø Military Coverage

• Gates Speaks Cautiously On Iraq. Speaking somberly about the end of combat operations in Iraq, Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned that now is not the time for "premature victory parades." In a speech to the American Legion's national convention in Milwaukee, Mr. Gates eschewed any triumphant declaration that the mission in Iraq had been accomplished. The uneasy peace of Baghdad, Mr. Gates said, had come at great cost, with 4,427 U.S. service members killed and another 34,265 wounded. And the mission, he said, was incomplete. Iraq is still without a coalition government months after its election and political compromise remains elusive. "Sectarian tensions remain a fact of life, al Qaeda in Iraq is beaten, but not gone," Mr. Gates said. "This is not a time for premature victory parades or self-congratulations." (Wall Street Journal – see attached)
• Appeals Court Backs Away From War Powers Ruling. A federal appeals court on Tuesday unanimously upheld the detention of a Guantánamo prisoner from Yemen. But lurking just beneath the surface of its ruling was a sharp disagreement among the judges over the scope and limits of presidential power. At issue, beyond this single case, is whether international laws of armed conflict can restrict the wartime power of the president. In January, two of the most conservative judges appointed by President George W. Bush – Janice Rogers Brown and Brett M. Kavanaugh – declared that international law does not restrict presidential power. (New York Times – see attached)

Ø Homeland Security

• Yemeni Passengers Expose Strengths, Weaknesses Of Airport Security, Experts Say. As U.S. officials announced that two Yemeni men arrested in Amsterdam after a flight from O'Hare International Airport face no charges in this country, experts said the case exposed both strengths and weaknesses of U.S. aviation security. U.S. Homeland Security officials, who allowed the men to fly despite suspicious circumstances, concluded that the system worked properly. A suitcase containing strange items was scrutinized, and the men were monitored as they continued their trips, officials said. But counter-terrorism experts said U.S. authorities, unable to sort out exactly what they had on their hands, should have taken more time in their searches and questioning of the men, one of whom was in this country on an expired visa, a law enforcement source said. That in itself would be a crime. (Chicago Tribune – see attached)
• Muslims Debate FBI Presence At Mosques. Muslim leaders are debating the wisdom of inviting FBI agents to mosques to provide protection at a time of rising anti-Muslim rhetoric and debate about the proposed Islamic community center near Ground Zero. The issue surfaced Tuesday as word spread of a Nashville mosque's decision to host two FBI agents at a prayer service last Saturday night. The agents discussed the investigation of a fire, suspected to be arson, at a planned mosque in nearby Murfreesboro, a project that has also triggered vehement opposition. The agents then silently observed prayers from the back row. The dispute reflects the tensions between the FBI and some Muslims since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The FBI has reached out to Muslims but also tried to keep tabs on their community, staying alert for signs of terrorist plots. (Washington Post – see attached)
• U.S. Jails Accused bin Laden Aide For Life. An accused former top aide to Osama bin Laden was sentenced on Tuesday to life in prison for stabbing a guard through the eye with a sharpened comb while awaiting trial for conspiring with al Qaeda to kill Americans. Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, 52, pleaded guilty in 2002 to attempted murder and conspiracy to murder a federal official. Salim was sentenced in 2004 to 32 years in prison, but the case was sent back to U.S. District Judge Deborah Batts for resentencing after an appeals court ruled the judge had failed to take terrorism-related factors into account. U.S. prosecutors say Salim, who trained as an engineer in Iraq, was a founder of al Qaeda who issued religious decrees for bin Laden and operated training camps and safe houses in Pakistan and Afghanistan. (Reuters)
• N.Y. Terror Plot Suspect Caught On Tape Planning Attack. James Cromitie, the alleged leader of a plot to blow up New York City synagogues, told undercover informant Shahed Hussain he wanted to kill Jews and send a message “bigger than the World Trade Center” in two days of secretly recorded talks played for jurors in his trial. The excerpts played for jurors during the past two days ranged in length from less than a minute to a half-hour and detailed conversations between the two men in cars, hotel rooms and restaurants as Hussain posed as a member of the Pakistan- based terrorist group Jaishe-e-Mohammad, trying to lure Cromitie into planning a terrorist attack. Tuesday was the sixth day of the trial of Cromitie and three co- defendants before U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon in federal court in Lower Manhattan, and the third day of Hussain’s testimony. The trial is scheduled to resume Sept. 7 following the Labor Day holiday in the U.S. (Bloomberg)
• Maine Detainee Says NYC Bomber Liked To Party. A Pakistani man detained during an investigation of a botched car bombing in New York City’s Times Square says he knew the plotter years ago as a partying college student — not as the radical Muslim who later said he received explosives training from the Pakistani Taliban. Mohammad Shafiq Rahman told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he was a computer programmer working 18-hour days in Connecticut when he met Faisal Shahzad through his employer’s brother. Rahman said he and others joined Pakistani students on weekends at Shahzad’s dorm in Bridgeport, Conn. He recalled Shahzad as a typical student who drank and partied. Rahman, who last saw Shahzad in 2002, distanced himself from Shahzad and terrorism in his first public remarks since being released from federal detention last week. (Bangor Daily News/AP)

Ø World Developments

• 4 Israelis Killed In West Bank As Peace Summit Nears. As Israeli and Palestinian leaders headed to Washington for a much-anticipated peace summit, four Israelis were killed Tuesday near the disputed West Bank city of Hebron after their vehicle came under fire from unidentified gunmen. The militant Hamas movement, which rules the Gaza Strip, later took responsibility for the attack. Drive-by shootings on the roads near the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba adjoining Hebron and the Gush Etzion settlement block to the north are not uncommon, though Tuesday's attack was one of the deadliest in months. In June, a police officer was killed and two others were wounded when their vehicle came under fire. (Los Angeles Times – see attached)
• Ex-Islamists Walk Free From Libyan Jail. Libya freed 37 prisoners late on Tuesday, including at least one former detainee at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, who had been jailed for links to radical Islamist groups but have since renounced violence. The prisoners were kissed and hugged by waiting relatives when they walked out of the Abu Salim prison near Tripoli, in the latest in a series of releases designed to draw a line under radical Islamist violence in Libya. "These releases come in the context of national reconciliation and social peace," said Mohamed al Allagi, chairman of the human rights committee of the Gaddafi Foundation, the charity which helped organize the release. The charity is headed by Saif al-Islam, a reform-minded son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi who some analysts say could eventually succeed his father. (Reuters)
• Mexico, U.S. Open Joint Office To Combat Drug Gangs. Mexican and U.S. officials opened a first joint office to manage the distribution of more than 1.3 billion dollars in U.S. security aid to help fight brutal drug gangs. The office will oversee transfers of equipment and training under the so-called Merida Initiative, a 1.6-billion-dollar three-year plan for Central America and mainly Mexico which the U.S. is seeking to extend, a Mexican foreign ministry statement said. It will allow permanent contact between the two neighbors, the ministry said, as escalating drug violence, which has seen more than 28,000 deaths since 2006, raises increasing concern on both sides of the border. U.S. officials in the new office would not carry out intelligence or operations work, in compliance with Mexican law, the statement added. Mexican officials have complained about long delays in the delivery of the Merida aid, and frequently urge U.S. officials to do more to stop U.S. drug consumption and illegal weapons trafficking to Mexico. (Google/AFP)

Ø Public Opinion

• Poll: Most Americans Say Iraq War Was A Mistake. With combat operations in Iraq coming to an end, most Americans believe the war is going well for the United States, a recent CBS News survey finds. But nearly six in ten say it was a mistake to start the battle in the first place, and most say their country did not accomplish its objectives in Iraq. 57% now say the war is going well for America, including majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents. That reflects improved perceptions since July 2007, when just 22% said things were going well. 38% say things are going badly. 35% predict more violence in Iraq because of the troop withdrawal, while 60% say the violence will lessen or stay where it is now. Asked who should get credit for how things are going in Iraq, one in three say both the Obama and Bush administrations. 26% credit the Bush administration, 20% credit the Obama administration, and 19% say neither deserves credit. 52% approve of how President Obama is handing the situation in Iraq. (CBS News)

* AP = Associated Press UPI = United Press International KR = Knight Ridder

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Obama Declares That Combat In Iraq Is Over
Washington Post
September 1, 2010

Saying it is "time to turn the page" on one of the most divisive chapters in American history, President Obama declared the U.S. war in Iraq over Tuesday night, telling the nation that he was fulfilling his campaign pledge to stop a war he had opposed from the start. "Tonight, I am announcing that the American combat mission in Iraq has ended," Obama said in his second prime-time address from the Oval Office. He heralded his belief "that out of the ashes of war, a new beginning could be born in this cradle of civilization."

In his speech, the president sought to unshackle the nation from a military invasion, begun by his predecessor that was supposed to swiftly depose a dictator, seize hidden weapons of mass destruction and leave behind a democratic government. Instead, it dragged on for more than seven years as U.S. troops battled a growing insurgency. The war became a recruiting tool and training ground for al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Obama noted the "huge price" the United States paid during the long, wrenching conflict. Over the course of the war, 1.5 million troops served in Iraq, many of them returning for multiple tours. More than 4,400 died, and 32,000 were wounded.

The demands of the war stretched the limits of American military readiness, and its $740 billion cost far outpaced the original estimates. After making the case in his remarks for withdrawing combat troops, Obama quickly pivoted to his other priorities. He said resources could now shift to the war in Afghanistan and to boosting the economy, which he labeled "our most urgent task." Before his speech, Obama called former president George W. Bush, whose legacy is largely defined by the invasion and its controversial underpinnings. Aides would not say what the two presidents discussed, or whether Obama gave Bush credit for his decision, as sectarian divisions exploded and the war dragged on, to order the 2007 troop surge that led to a reduction in violence.

In his remarks, Obama invoked Bush, noting that his predecessor sat behind the same desk in announcing the war seven years earlier. He said much had "changed since that night." Obama used the moment to draw a lesson of bipartisanship. "It's well known that he and I disagreed about the war from its outset. Yet no one could doubt President Bush's support for our troops, or his love of country and commitment to our security," he said. ". . . The greatness of our democracy is grounded in our ability to move beyond our differences, and to learn from our experience as we confront the many challenges ahead. And no challenge is more essential to our security than our fight against al-Qaeda."

A Divided America

It was the contested grounds for the 2003 invasion that made it the most polarizing conflict since Vietnam. The Bush administration insisted that Iraq's dictator, Saddam Hussein, had stockpiled a lethal arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and that he posed a threat to the United States and its allies. But those claims were based on questionable intelligence, and no such weapons were ever found. The bitter national argument over whether Bush had misled the country into war divided Americans and strained the country's relationship with the world - ultimately setting the stage for Obama to ascend to the presidency. Obama, who traveled to Fort Bliss earlier Tuesday to meet with veterans, paid tribute to the military, saying he is "awed by their sacrifice."

The sacrifice is likely to continue: Though combat units have left Iraq, 50,000 troops remain as advisers and are almost sure to suffer further casualties. The speech came at a seemingly arbitrary moment, on a deadline set by Obama himself and unrelated to any progress on the ground in Iraq, where a government has not been formed and deadly violence shatters daily life. While the war removed a dictator, it left civil society in tatters; electricity is still sporadic, even in Baghdad. Obama, who has long contrasted the Iraq war he opposed with the Afghanistan invasion he supported, linked the two once more. "Because of our drawdown in Iraq, we are now able to apply the resources necessary to go on offense" in Afghanistan and elsewhere against al-Qaeda, he said.

Obama also linked the ending of the war to the U.S. economy, his most pressing problem two months before midterm elections in which the Democratic Party expects to suffer. "Today, our most urgent task is to restore our economy and put the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs back to work. To strengthen our middle class, we must give all our children the education they deserve, and all our workers the skills that they need to compete in a global economy," Obama said. "We must jump-start industries that create jobs, and end our dependence on foreign oil. We must unleash the innovation that allows new products to roll off our assembly lines, and nurture the ideas that spring from our entrepreneurs. This will be difficult. But in the days to come, it must be our central mission as a people, and my central responsibility as president."

An Unsettled Iraq

Obama spoke against a backdrop of uncertainty in Iraq over whether the government and its security forces can keep the country from becoming further destabilized. Nearly six months after national elections, Iraqi politicians have been unable to settle on a new government. Insurgents, meanwhile, have managed to pull off spectacular attacks, including one in August that left more than 60 Iraqi army applicants dead. Instead of cheering the American drawdown, Iraqis have been apprehensive, fearing a return to conditions from the worst days of the war.

Further challenges are on the horizon: Under the status-of-forces agreement signed by Bush and the Iraqis, all remaining U.S. troops are scheduled to leave by the end of 2011. The Obama administration has left itself little room to alter those plans, saying that it would require a request from the Iraqis to leave troops behind and that no such request has been made.

"Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country," Obama said. "This was my pledge to the American people as a candidate for this office. Last February, I announced a plan that would bring our combat brigades out of Iraq, while redoubling our efforts to strengthen Iraq's security forces and support its government and people. That is what we have done. We have removed nearly 100,000 U.S. troops from Iraq. We have closed or transferred hundreds of bases to the Iraqis. And we have moved millions of pieces of equipment out of Iraq."

As Combat Mission Ends, A New U.S. Operation Begins
Wall Street Journal
September 1, 2010

The U.S. mission in Iraq is set to undergo a major rebranding on Wednesday, when Vice President Joe Biden presides over a change-of-command ceremony in Baghdad marking the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the campaign that began in March 2003, and the beginning of a military assistance mission called Operation New Dawn. But while the formal combat phase may end, U.S. troops aren't all going away. A substantial U.S. contingent will remain in Iraq to advise and train Iraqi security forces, and a civilian-led reconstruction effort will also continue. That new mission is set to expire in December 2011.

Currently, just under 50,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq, down from a peak of 166,300 at the height of the 2007 troop surge. The military anticipates that force level will remain steady through the end of next summer. A total of six "advise and assist" brigades will remain on the ground to back up Iraqi security forces and oversee their training. The brigades will have their own intelligence and logistics components, and will offer communications support, medical evacuation and air transportation to Iraqi units.

The brigades will also have some assets that the Iraqis lack, such as drones and robots. They are also supposed to support Provincial Reconstruction Teams, the hybrid civilian-military teams that oversee development projects in the Iraqi hinterlands. The U.S. military footprint is being substantially scaled back. In June 2009, U.S. troops occupied 357 bases; fewer than 100 bases will remain after the transition. In recent months, U.S. forces have moved millions of pieces of equipment from Iraq, a logistical operation that the military describes as the largest operation of its type since the buildup for World War II.

A mountain of military equipment will also remain in the country, however. Some 1.2 million items of military equipment are needed to support the new mission. Some equipment from the drawdown will be sent to troops fighting in Afghanistan; some will be handed over to Iraqi forces. A substantial diplomatic mission will also stay in Iraq, staffing an embassy in Baghdad with hundreds of people, and civilian-led outposts in the provinces.

Continuing the U.S. diplomatic mission will require serious military-style support, from armored convoys to medical evacuation. The State Department has already requested that the Defense Department provide it with some military equipment to support its mission, including Black Hawk helicopters and mine-resistant trucks.

The State Department is also considering hiring contractors to operate some equipment to defend against rocket and mortar attacks or clear roadside bombs. The department expects that it may need as many as 6,000 or 7,000 security contractors in total to fully carry out its missions in Iraq. James Danly, a former Army officer and Iraq veteran who is a contributing scholar at the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said civilian agencies would be focused on "capacity building"—coaching their Iraqi counterparts. "There are functions the Iraqis just can't fulfill independently right now," Mr. Danly said. "These range from technical things like running our equivalent of an FAA, to less-technical ones like forming a proper government."

Sectarian tensions continue in Iraq, and the country has seen a spate of bombings in recent weeks. In a speech at the American Legion's annual conference in Milwaukee, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made clear that the mission in Iraq was far from over. "This is not a time for premature victory parades or self-congratulation, even as we reflect with pride on what our troops and their Iraqi partners have accomplished," Mr. Gates said. "We still have a job to do and responsibilities there."

Iraqis Are Conflicted As U.S. Combat Mission Ends
Los Angeles Times
September 1, 2010

Muwafak Ali's downtown Baghdad music store is still pockmarked by the American rocket that whizzed through the door on one of the first days of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. He has since reopened, but business is bad. So are many of his memories concerning the seven-plus years of American combat operations that officially came to an end Tuesday. "It would have been better if they didn't come, but now that they're here, they should stay," said Ali, 44, a wedding musician who hated Saddam Hussein, yet fondly remembers the days when the dictator was in control, the days before the chaos set in. It's a view shared by many Iraqis as the American presence winds down to 50,000 troops serving in an advisory role.

Seven and a half years after then- President George W. Bush attacked Iraq, Baghdad is a battered and weary city whose streets still bear the scars of a still inconclusive war, and whose residents are still groping to comprehend the magnitude of the changes that turned their lives upside down. For more than 20 years they endured a dictatorship whose rules most didn't like, but easily understood. Then came the invasion, which many at first welcomed, followed by days of looting, years of insurgency, four governments and a sectarian war, transforming their country in ways that may not be fully resolved for many years, after the dust has settled on the huge uncertainties that still linger. Will Iraqi politicians reach agreement on a new government? Will the insurgency succeed in its efforts to make a comeback? Can the nation's security forces stand alone?

"How can the Americans leave when we don't have a government, don't have a state?" asked Hafedh Zubaidi, 39, who sells mattresses in Baghdad's middle-class Karada district and is deeply anxious about the future given the political stalemate over the formation of a government six months after national elections. "We thought things were really going to be better when the Americans came, and instead they brought us only sorrow," he said. "But if they leave now, there will be no Iraq." Over the years, the role of the Americans has shifted for most Iraqis from liberators to hated occupiers, from colonizers to peacekeepers in a civil war. And now, the ending of the combat mission, decreed by President Obama in fulfillment of an election campaign pledge, comes as just one more event over which Iraqis have no control, and which they worry will disrupt their lives yet again.

In an address to the nation Tuesday, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki hailed the moment as "a landmark in the Iraqi people's long hard struggle for freedom and dignity." Iraq "today is independent," he said, without mentioning that it was Obama who set the deadline, and not the Iraqi government. Maliki had warned of the likelihood of major attacks to mark the day, and placed the security forces on high alert. There were none. Three people were killed when a rocket struck their home in a south Baghdad neighborhood, police said, but otherwise the city was unusually calm, a relatively auspicious start for a new era. The Iraqi army was out in force, stopping and searching cars at checkpoints and patrolling the streets in its U.S.-supplied Humvees. "We deserve the future," proclaimed signs on the backs of the camouflage-painted vehicles, portraying smiling children holding hands.

In the fortified Green Zone, now under Iraqi control but just as off-limits to ordinary Iraqis as it was when Americans were in charge, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden shuttled between Iraqi leaders, pressing them to hurry up and form a new government. He disputed recent reports that violence has increased. Indeed, things are much different from how they were a little over three years ago, when violence raged between Shiite Muslims and minority Sunni Arabs, who had controlled Iraq during the Hussein era, and U.S. troops were building up their presence to help tamp it down. There are signs of renewal, intermingled with the debris of war. New stores and restaurants have opened beside the collapsed wrecks of those that have been bombed. Shrubs have been planted along major highways, adding splashes of green to the drab gray landscape.

But much uncertainty, and bitterness, remain. Mutanabi Street is one of the few places in Baghdad to have received a complete makeover; the legendary block of booksellers was destroyed in a 2007 bombing. Its crisp new pavement and renovated storefronts thrum with shoppers and cart-pushers hauling stacks of paper and piles of books. But urban renewal can't erase the lingering anger of those who lost loved ones to violence. "It was a total collapse," said Fahim Mohammed, 48, who lost four brothers and a nephew in the bombing. He had stepped around the corner to buy supplies when the bomb exploded, and rushed back to drag their bodies from the rubble.

Mohammed says he welcomes the departure of the American combat troops because he blames them for the violence that over the years resulted in the deaths of killed an estimated 100,000 Iraqis, including his relatives. "For that, they don't deserve to stay," he said. But he also doesn't believe anything good will come from their departure. "Iraq is destroyed. It doesn't have a past, it doesn't have a present and it will not have a future." Najah Abdul Rahman, 64, agrees. "If they leave, of course things will get worse," said Rahman, who lost a brother and nephew in the bombing. "But still I'm glad because the cause of all our tragedies is America."

There's much that hasn't changed since the days of full combat operations, such as the concrete blast walls that still run for miles around Baghdad's neighborhoods, giving the city a militarized feel. They played a key role in subduing the sectarian violence, by separating Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods. Now, they continue to separate communities, suppressing commerce, and, despite repeated promises by the Iraqi government, no one has yet dared tear them down. Ahmed Saad, 36, hasn't dared venture beyond the wall encircling the Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiya since he fled there to escape Shiite militias that overran his mixed-sect neighborhood in 2006, killing his father and forcing his family out. He's considered venturing past the first Iraqi army checkpoint guarding the neighborhood.

"But to tell you the truth, I'm too scared," he said. "I always remember the bad things that happened, and then I turn back." Saad fought with the Americans against the Sunni insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq, and now runs a tea shop a stone's throw from the makeshift cemetery where Sunni residents of the enclave buried their dead from sectarian fighting with Shiites from 2005 to 2007. "The Americans came here and did all of this," he said, a question mark rising in his voice. "And now they are leaving?"

Iraq's Failure To Form A Government Concerns U.S. Spy Officials
Wall Street Journal
September 1, 2010

With the U.S. officially having ended combat operations in Iraq Tuesday, U.S. spy officials see the country's inability to form a government as the greatest security threat it faces. Other major security concerns include continued Iranian efforts to stoke militant attacks in Iraq and al Qaeda's severely degraded, but not extinguished, affiliate in Iraq, according to a senior intelligence official. "It's important that they get their act together," the official said of Iraqi leaders. Unresolved, the political vacuum could lead to an unraveling of stability and security, he said, though adding that it's unknown when that tipping point might come.

Meanwhile, the Iranians continue to provide militants in Iraq with equipment, training, and refuge and are expected to do so "for some time to come," the official said. They are also providing anti-Western militant and criminal groups with components of roadside bombs, the official added. "Clearly the Iranians are uneasy with an Iraq next door that's aligned with us," the official said. "There's an incipient level of support that comes primarily from the IRGC," the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. As Americans leave, it is possible that Iran might try to step up its effort to bolster militants and sow instability, the official said, but it's not certain yet exactly how Iran will respond.

Al Qaeda in Iraq is a concern, but a lesser one for now, the official said, adding that it's only very loosely affiliated with al Qaeda's leadership in Pakistan and primarily comprises Iraqis, not foreign fighters. While al Qaeda in Iraq posed a grave danger to U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians at its peak in 2006 and 2007, U.S. intelligence officials estimate it is now just 10% of the size it was then, the official said, declining to provide totals. Since March, 10 of its top 18 leaders have been "neutralized," the senior intelligence official said.

Al Qaeda in Iraq isn't currently in a position to threaten the stability of Iraq's government, in part, because "it doesn't appear to have a large base of support," the senior intelligence official said. Yet it maintains the ability to carry out high-profile attacks, currently concentrated in the Baghdad and Mosul areas, and those will probably never be completely eliminated, the official said. Such attacks "could erode security if the government becomes complacent," he added. With the drawdown in troops, the U.S. will also lose "eyes and ears" on the ground because military units have provided considerable local intelligence, as have the officers assigned to units from spy agencies like the National Security Agency and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency.

That loss will pose major intelligence challenges, said the official, who declined to say how many officers from the spy agencies will be moved out of Iraq. Until this year, Baghdad, for example, was the Central Intelligence Agency's largest station, and it's now been eclipsed this year by Afghanistan. While it is difficult to translate intelligence lessons from Iraq to Afghanistan because the countries' governments are so different, the official said, there is at least lesson that applies: "It's indirectly a lesson for staying the course."

U.S. Toll Rising In Afghanistan: 22 Soldiers Killed Since Friday
Miami Herald
September 1, 2010

U.S. forces lost 22 soldiers in Afghanistan, mostly to roadside bombs, since Friday, marking a bloody step-up in the insurgency as a major U.S.-led offensive seeks to capture the spiritual homeland of the Taliban movement in Kandahar. The U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan said it is gaining ground against the insurgents, but violence is rising across the country, including in areas that were considered relatively safe. Five more U.S. soldiers were killed Tuesday, while three Afghan workers for the British charity Oxfam were killed by a roadside bomb in Badakhshan, which had been one of the safer places in the country.

The coalition says that casualties are rising as they push against the strongholds of the Taliban in the south and the allied Haqqani network in the east. The majority of casualties - 60 percent - this year and in 2009 came from improvised explosive devices planted on roads and paths. U.S. and Afghan forces are expected to begin soon an offensive in Zhari and Panjwai, southwest of Kandahar city, the last part of operation "Hamkari," to secure and stabilize Kandahar province. Mullah Omar started the Taliban movement in this area in 1994, and it conquered much of the country in the two years that followed.

Of the 22 American losses since Friday, 17 were the result of IEDs, according to figures provided by the ISAF. In that period, only one non-American coalition soldier was killed. "It has all been in the south and the east, where most of the kinetic activity is at the moment," said Katie Kendrick, a spokeswoman for the ISAF in Kabul, referring to the fatalities. The United States accounted for 55 of the 76 coalition deaths in August, which topped a painful summer for coalition forces, with 102 foreign soldiers killed in Afghanistan in June and an additional 88 in July, according to the website iCasualties, which tracks losses in Afghanistan.

Kandahar is the spiritual home of the Taliban, from where Mullah Omar had ruled until Afghan and U.S. forces toppled him from power in 2001. The province is considered to be the primary goal of the Taliban, but until this year, analysts think that coalition forces didn't commit sufficient troops to the area. While the other major operation in the south of Afghanistan this year - targeting the town of Marjah in Helmand province - had a defined and spectacular start, the Kandahar "mission" is more dispersed and less defined.

The coalition and Afghan forces say they've improved security in Kandahar city, though it remains a dangerous place, and gained control over most of the Arghandab valley to the north of the city. The next goal of the push, expected to start within days, in the south are the Taliban-controlled districts of Zhari and Panjwai, where there is little Afghan government presence. "Zhari and Panjwai are the last pieces of this problem set," said a senior ISAF officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak on the record. "Today we own about 10 percent of those areas."

The coalition is under pressure to demonstrate progress in Afghanistan ahead of President Barack Obama's deadline of July 2011 to begin the withdrawal of U.S. soldiers from Afghanistan. Obama in a Tuesday evening address is to declare an end to the seven-year combat mission in Iraq.

Afghan Ambassador Said T. Jawad Leaving His Post In Washington
Washington Post
September 1, 2010

After serving as Afghanistan's top diplomat in Washington for seven years, Ambassador Said T. Jawad said Tuesday that his government has ordered him to vacate his post in September. Jawad, a dapper and eloquent advocate for his war-torn nation, has been the subject of what he called a "smear campaign" in Afghanistan during the past few weeks. Several Afghan Web sites published photographs that purported to show people consuming alcohol and women dancing in sleeveless dresses at an embassy party to celebrate the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The images were subsequently printed by a few Kabul newspapers.

Their release promptly caused a scandal in Afghanistan – where mixed-sex dancing is highly unusual and where Muslims are forbidden to consume alcohol. Some members of parliament called on President Hamid Karzai to fire Jawad. Embassy officials insisted that there was no Ramadan party and that Jawad was on a trip to South America when the bash is alleged to have occurred. They said the pictures appear to have been taken at an Afghan independence day party a year ago. In a statement, the embassy called the assertions that the photos were taken at a Ramadan party "slanderous and libelous false accusations." Karzai's government did not immediately provide a reason for Jawad's removal. A successor has not been named.

In an interview, Jawad said the party photos "had nothing to do with" the end of his ambassadorship. "These things happen in Afghanistan," he said. "Everything has a beginning and an end, and I look forward to continuing to serve my country," he added. Jawad said he was asked to return to Kabul to work in the Foreign Ministry, but he said he has not decided what he will do. He said he and his family plan to stay in the Washington area – which is where they lived before the Taliban was toppled in 2001 – as they work out transition plans.

Jawad had served as an adviser to Karzai before the Afghan leader asked him to return to Washington as ambassador in 2003. Although his dismissal was conveyed by his superiors at the Foreign Ministry, such decisions are typically made with Karzai's approval. Karzai has made a series of hasty firings in the past few months. Last week, he dismissed a deputy attorney general who had been involved in corruption investigations of government officials. In June, Karzai abruptly fired Interior Minister Hanif Atmar and intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh.

In a farewell e-mail message Tuesday, Jawad called his tenure as ambassador "a most rewarding experience." "We secured the generous financial and moral support of the private sector, civil society, foundations, and universities, to address our national priorities, build human capital and promote investment in Afghanistan," he wrote. "Our hopes are still high and I am committed to continuing to contribute to Afghanistan's future in my private capacity."

Gates Speaks Cautiously On Iraq
Wall Street Journal
September 1, 2010

Speaking somberly about the end of combat operations in Iraq, Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned that now is not the time for "premature victory parades." In a speech to the American Legion's national convention in Milwaukee, Mr. Gates eschewed any triumphant declaration that the mission in Iraq had been accomplished. The uneasy peace of Baghdad, Mr. Gates said, had come at great cost, with 4,427 U.S. service members killed and another 34,265 wounded. And the mission, he said, was incomplete. Iraq is still without a coalition government months after its election and political compromise remains elusive. "Sectarian tensions remain a fact of life, al Qaeda in Iraq is beaten, but not gone," Mr. Gates said. "This is not a time for premature victory parades or self-congratulations."

Mr. Gates drew a number of parallels between Iraq and Afghanistan, beginning with the skepticism that the Iraq surge was met with in 2007. He acknowledged the U.S. public's "impatience about the pace of progress" this year in Afghanistan. But he noted that the full complement of additional troops ordered to Afghanistan by President Barack Obama is only now arriving. In an attempt to counter that impatience, Mr. Gates made an unusual specific reference to the number of militants eliminated by U.S. forces and said 350 Taliban leaders had been killed or captured in the last three months. The Pentagon usually avoids focusing on enemy body counts, believing them an imperfect, or even inaccurate, measure of progress.

Soon after Mr. Gates took office, the U.S. began a dramatic troop buildup in Iraq. At that time, few believed the strategy would work and, Mr. Gates said, "there were plenty of reasons for doubts." But a retooled strategy in Iraq, helped curb the rising violence there, and the same is possible in Afghanistan, he said.

"Success there is not inevitable," Mr. Gates said of Afghanistan. "But with the right strategy and a willingness to see it through, it is possible." The imperfect, but relatively stable, peace of Baghdad, could serve as something of a best-case model for Afghanistan, Mr. Gates suggested. The U.S. will formally end its combat mission in Iraq on Wednesday, when Vice President Joe Biden will preside over a change of command, and change of mission ceremony in Baghdad.

Mr. Gates said that the security gains in Iraq since the 2007 surge made the handover possible. He noted that despite recent bombings, violence is at the lowest point since the war began and that al Qaeda in Iraq has been cut off from its parent organization. And, Mr. Gates also said, it was the war in Iraq which took the nation's attention off Afghanistan in the first place, allowing the Taliban to regroup and reconstitute. Mr. Gates said the current strategy in Afghanistan was aimed at building the self-reliance the Afghans will need to govern. Beginning a draw down from the current troop levels in Afghanistan, Mr. Gates said, would encourage that self-reliance.

Republicans have criticized that proposed drawdown, arguing it has undercut the effectiveness of the surge forces, allowing the Taliban to tell its followers that they can wait out the U.S. military. Echoing recent comments by Gen. James Conway, the Marine Commandant, Mr. Gates said it will be a mistake for the Taliban to believe the U.S. will not be involved in intense fighting next year. And he said the continuing robust American presence next year would break the militant's morale and erode their willingness to resist the Afghan government. "If the Taliban really believe that America is heading for the exits next summer in large numbers, they'll be very deeply disappointed and surprised to see us still very much in the fight," he said.

Appeals Court Backs Away From War Powers Ruling
New York Times
September 1, 2010

A federal appeals court on Tuesday unanimously upheld the detention of a Guantánamo prisoner from Yemen. But lurking just beneath the surface of its ruling was a sharp disagreement among the judges over the scope and limits of presidential power. At issue, beyond this single case, is whether international laws of armed conflict can restrict the wartime power of the president. In January, two of the most conservative judges appointed by President George W. Bush – Janice Rogers Brown and Brett M. Kavanaugh – declared that international law does not restrict presidential power.

That proposition, in a panel ruling upholding the detention of the Yemeni detainee at the Guantánamo Bay naval base, Ghaleb Nassar al-Bihani, sent shockwaves through the legal world. It was criticized by many scholars, and the Obama administration said it did not agree with it – even though the ruling gave the executive branch more power. On Tuesday, all nine judges on United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected a request by Mr. Bihani to rehear his case. But seven of the nine judges issued an unusual one-paragraph note saying that they viewed Judge Brown’s and Judge Kavanaugh’s discussion of international law as irrelevant to deciding Mr. Bihani’s fate.

Stephen I. Vladeck, an American University law professor who filed a friend-of-the-court brief asking the court to rehear the case, said the note amounted to a nullification of the more sweeping parts of the January ruling without the court bothering to rehear it. The paragraph, he said, tells the world that the section of the January ruling about international law should be treated like what lawyers call “dicta” – editorializing about issues that are not necessary to decide the matter at hand, which has little controlling authority for other cases. “They’ve basically removed the single biggest complaint people had with that opinion,” Mr. Vladeck said. “They said, ‘We don’t think we need to rehear the whole case just to limit the opinion – we can just say it, and going forward this is how we understand it.’ That matters a lot.”

The Obama administration and judges have been wrestling with legal questions about the outer bounds of the government’s power to detain terrorism suspects. The issue turns on how much contact with Al Qaeda and what kind is sufficient to define someone as part of the enemy force. That question can be murky in a conflict against a global network of terrorists who wear no uniforms and whose membership is vague. In some cases, whether principles of international law that were developed for traditional wars should come into play can make the difference between whether someone on Al Qaeda’s fringes must be let go or can be imprisoned indefinitely – or even targeted for killing.

In response to their colleagues’ implicit rebuke, Judge Brown and Judge Kavanaugh issued 15-page and 87-page opinions, respectively. Judge Brown attacked her seven colleagues for appending “a cryptic statement” that she said would “muddy the clear holding” that international law does not limit the war powers Congress authorized. Judge Kavanaugh defended the proposition that only rules explicitly enacted by Congress, not international laws of armed conflict, can constrain what an American president can do in wartime. “International law is not a judicially enforceable limit on a president’s wartime authority unless Congress expressly says it is,” he wrote with emphasis.

Yemeni Passengers Expose Strengths, Weaknesses Of Airport Security, Experts Say
Chicago Tribune
September 1, 2010

As U.S. officials announced that two Yemeni men arrested in Amsterdam after a flight from O'Hare International Airport face no charges in this country, experts said the case exposed both strengths and weaknesses of U.S. aviation security. U.S. Homeland Security officials, who allowed the men to fly despite suspicious circumstances, concluded that the system worked properly. A suitcase containing strange items was scrutinized, and the men were monitored as they continued their trips, officials said.

But counter-terrorism experts said U.S. authorities, unable to sort out exactly what they had on their hands, should have taken more time in their searches and questioning of the men, one of whom was in this country on an expired visa, a law enforcement source said. That in itself would be a crime.

Officials in the Netherlands arrested the men Monday at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam following information provided to the Dutch by U.S. law enforcement officials. The two men, flying on United Airlines, were ultimately bound for Yemen. "The men are held in custody on suspicion of a conspiracy to a terrorist criminal act,'' Dutch authorities said in a statement regarding Ahmed Mohamed Nasser al Soofi, a legal permanent resident of the U.S. who has a Detroit address, and Hezam al Murisi, who was in the U.S. on a visa that had reportedly expired. The men, who are Yemeni citizens, did not appear to know each other, "but that's part of the ongoing investigation,'' a U.S. official said.

For al Soofi, the unusual episode started Sunday in Birmingham, Ala., when Transportation Security Administration screeners looked into his suitcase and spotted a cell phone taped to a Pepto-Bismol bottle and bundles of wristwatches and cell phones stuffed inside – a combination that could be used to simulate a bomb. But the items were deemed to pose no threat, officials said, and the bag and its owner were allowed to continue on a United flight to O'Hare. Then a gate change at O'Hare resulted in both al Soofi and al Murisi, who flew in from Memphis, to miss their connection to Dulles International Airport outside Washington and take another flight, seated near each other on the plane, to Amsterdam.

The bag containing the bizarre collection of items didn't follow al Soofi, however. Instead, it was loaded into the belly of a United plane bound for Dulles and then on to Dubai, airline officials confirmed, despite a federal requirement that the owners of all checked baggage on international flights must be on board. A passenger-bag match is not required on domestic flights. The screening of checked baggage provides enough protection, officials said. The bag made it only as far as Dulles, where it was pulled off the plane when airline officials realized there was no passenger matching it.

Other potential red flags were evident, including knives and box cutters inside the luggage, $7,000 in cash that al Soofi was carrying and a final destination that is a terrorist breeding ground. Top U.S. officials have repeatedly warned in recent months about the danger of al-Qaida-linked militants in Yemen. Some U.S. officials seemed to throw cold water on the notion that this bizarre case was a dry run for a terror plot. But another official said the case involved too many coincidences for it not to raise suspicions and noted that the 9/11 terror plotters had made several test runs before the flights they took on the day of the attack.

By early Tuesday evening, though, a U.S. official said: "The bottom line for us is they don't have any charges here. We've told the Dutch that we don't see anything derogatory on these individuals' records or about their story, so we're done with it at this point, the whole U.S. government. "Should further information come to light, we obviously can take action then." Earlier Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a statement saying: "As of right now, these two passengers have not been charged with any crime in the United States and we caution you against jumping to any conclusions."

White House spokesman Bill Burton said President Barack Obama was aware of the arrests. "This is an instance where I think that everyone in government was impressed with the amount of information-sharing that happened with some of our partners overseas and the speed with which we were able to run incidents to the ground," Burton said. While U.S. officials insisted the incident is a good example of how the aviation security system is supposed to work, some security experts said authorities should have done a more thorough job of screening al Soofi, even though he and al Murisi were not listed on the U.S. no-fly or terrorist watch lists. As to al Murisi, one U.S. official, when asked why a Yemeni who reportedly had a lapsed U.S. visa did not automatically come under greater suspicion, said that factor alone wasn't sufficient.

The TSA has trained some of its elite screeners in areas of psychology to serve as behavior detection officers. The purpose is to identify unusual behavior among passengers that could indicate an intention to cause harm to airliners and their passengers. But neither al Soofi nor al Murisi was brought to the attention of behavior detection officers deployed at O'Hare, federal authorities said. "If there are these behavior specialists, why didn't they go into gear?'' said Arnold Barnett, an expert on aviation safety and security at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Even if it was innocent, if you look at the way the TSA and the airline reacted to it, there were inadvertent shortcomings.''

Billie Vincent, a former security chief at the Federal Aviation Administration, said: "It seems the TSA was just a few steps behind. If you are unsure about a person's intent or their belongings, you can pull him aside and get law enforcement and the FBI involved. "In this case, someone looked at it and decided there were no safety or security implications." Al Soofi and al Murisi were being held in Amsterdam on Tuesday on suspicion of conspiring to commit a terrorist act. A Dutch official said by Thursday or Friday a public prosecutor in Amsterdam is expected to present a case to a judge to determine if the men should continue to be held. When asked whether there was a chance the men could be released, the official said: "I have no reason to believe that could be the case."

Muslims Debate FBI Presence At Mosques
Washington Post
September 1, 2010

Muslim leaders are debating the wisdom of inviting FBI agents to mosques to provide protection at a time of rising anti-Muslim rhetoric and debate about the proposed Islamic community center near Ground Zero. The issue surfaced Tuesday as word spread of a Nashville mosque's decision to host two FBI agents at a prayer service last Saturday night. The agents discussed the investigation of a fire, suspected to be arson, at a planned mosque in nearby Murfreesboro, a project that has also triggered vehement opposition. The agents then silently observed prayers from the back row. "I don't think it's really appropriate to station agents in mosques," said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington. "It has a chilling effect on a house of worship, and we would have concerns that agents would also be gathering information on ordinary worshipers."

The dispute reflects the tensions between the FBI and some Muslims since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The FBI has reached out to Muslims but also tried to keep tabs on their community, staying alert for signs of terrorist plots. A coalition of leading Muslim groups last year threatened to suspend contacts with the bureau over what it called inappropriate infiltration of mosques. But others are welcoming the FBI's presence at a time of intense debate over U.S. Muslims and their houses of worship. A recent Time magazine poll found that 43 percent of Americans hold unfavorable views of Muslims amid controversy over the proposed Islamic centers near Ground Zero and in the Nashville suburbs.

"I think people felt reassured that the FBI is helping us and supporting us and will make sure that nothing happens to our mosque," said Amir Arain, a spokesman for the Islamic Center of Nashville, which invited the two agents in response to Saturday morning's fire at the construction site of the Murfreesboro mosque. "That was a hate crime, so the FBI needs to be involved," said Arain, who said the fire was the third incident of vandalism at a Nashville-area mosque this year. Supervisory Special Agent Scott Augenbaum, a spokesman for the FBI's Nashville office, said agents attended the prayer service "because we were invited guests" and to reinforce that "hate crimes and violations of civil rights are very important priorities for the FBI."

"We have a long-standing relationship with the Muslim community," said Augenbaum, adding that the FBI's outreach "is important for us to build bridges, to build relationships out there." FBI and other federal officials met with local Muslim leaders Monday at the U.S. attorney's office in Nashville, seeking to ease their concerns about violence. The FBI, along with local officials and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, is investigating Saturday's fire. Glenn Anderson, special agent in charge of the ATF's Nashville field division, said the early morning blaze destroyed a dump truck at the mosque site and damaged three other construction vehicles. He said that gasoline was apparently poured over the vehicles and that officials "are leaning toward arson," pending laboratory results.

Saleh Sbenaty, a spokesman for the planned 52,900-square-foot Islamic center, which will include a school and swimming pool, said congregants are "really scared" but determined to proceed with construction. "This is our constitutional right," he said. Sbenaty said that there should be a law enforcement presence at prayer services but that it should be police, not the FBI. "There is some sensitivity about the FBI," he said.

"People think the FBI is quicker to investigate terrorism than when someone is terrorizing the Islamic community."But Agha Saeed, national chairman of the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections - a coalition of leading Muslim groups - said he "applauded and welcomed" the FBI's presence at the Saturday prayers. "That's the FBI's job: to protect citizens," said Saeed, whose organization threatened to suspend contacts with the FBI last year and who still says the FBI's relationship with the Muslim community is "troubled."

4 Israelis Killed In West Bank As Peace Summit Nears
Los Angeles Times
September 1, 2010

As Israeli and Palestinian leaders headed to Washington for a much-anticipated peace summit, four Israelis were killed Tuesday near the disputed West Bank city of Hebron after their vehicle came under fire from unidentified gunmen. The militant Hamas movement, which rules the Gaza Strip, later took responsibility for the attack. Drive-by shootings on the roads near the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba adjoining Hebron and the Gush Etzion settlement block to the north are not uncommon, though Tuesday's attack was one of the deadliest in months. In June, a police officer was killed and two others were wounded when their vehicle came under fire.

Hebron has long been a volatile area. Several hundred nationalist Israelis live in a tightly guarded settlement surrounded by more than 150,000 Palestinians. The victims – two men and two women – were not identified. One of the women was pregnant, Israeli media reported. The timing of the attack appeared to be linked to the Thursday meeting in Washington between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who are resuming direct negotiations for the first time in 20 months. The Obama administration will host the initial talks.

"This is an apparent attempt by lowly terrorists to sabotage the attempt to achieve a diplomatic process and to try to hurt the chances of the talks opening in Washington," said Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak in a statement, adding that Israel would "exact a price" for the killings. Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said in a statement, "We condemn this operation, which contradicts the Palestinian interest and efforts by the Palestinian leaders to gain international support for the rights of our people." Opponents of the U.S.-sponsored talks, including Palestinian militants and right-wing Jewish groups, have been accused of trying to spoil the atmosphere for negotiations. ]]> JFC GOM Summary CoopMGI http://www.trackpads.com/forum/jfc-gom-summary/943912-gcom-summary-2010-sep-01-a.html http://www.trackpads.com/forum/jfc-gom-summary/943911-gcom-summary-2010-aug-31-a.html Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:29:56 GMT *U.S. Joint Forces Command* *Global Current... U.S. Joint Forces Command
Global Current Operations Media Summary
Operations Iraqi Freedom/Enduring Freedom/Noble Eagle
Current as of August 31, 2010

ØNew Developments

• Petraeus Finishes Rules For Afghan Security Transition. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top commander in Afghanistan, has completed work on new guidelines for turning some security duties over to Afghan forces in the months ahead, calling for American and allied troops to step back gradually from areas as they are pacified rather than handing off the task all at once to local units, according to senior NATO and Pentagon officials. The guidelines envision that while some troops would leave the country when their current areas were secured, others could be reassigned new missions within Afghanistan, giving General Petraeus flexibility in troop deployments as he confronts pressure from some allies and some Democrats in Washington to begin winding down the war next year. (New York Times – see attached)
• Biden To Meet With Top Iraqi Politicians Amid End Of Combat Operations. Vice President Biden arrived in Baghdad Monday, planning to meet with senior politicians as Iraqis worry about the impact of the official end of U.S. combat operations in the country Tuesday. Biden's visit comes as the U.S. military fulfills an Obama administration pledge to drop to 50,000 troops in Iraq by Sept. 1. Already, troop levels have declined to just under 50,000, from more than 140,000 at the beginning of 2009. Many Iraqis say they are concerned that the U.S. drawdown comes in the midst of a political impasse that has continued for nearly six months since national parliamentary elections and an increase in violence across the country. Biden arrived to commemorate the change of mission in Iraq but also urge Iraqi leaders to form a government at this "critical time." (Washington Post – see attached)
• Mysterious Killings Spread Panic In Iraq. As the U.S. ends combat operations in Iraq and politicians seem unable to break a deadlock over forming a new government nearly six months after national elections, every attack rattles the general population and fans the panic that the "bad men," the "terrorists," are back. Dozens of security officers, ministry officials, judges and clerics have been killed or wounded this year. From March through the end of June, at least 354 people across Iraq died from explosives planted on their cars. "2010 is worse than 2008 and 2009. We hope and pray to God that security will improve," said Ghazi Abdul Aziz Essa, director-general of Baghdad's main power plant. (Los Angeles Times – see attached)
• NATO Chief Hopes For Nov. Afghanistan Handover Deal: Report. The head of NATO said on Monday he hoped alliance states would agree at a Lisbon summit to start handing over security responsibility in Afghanistan to local authorities next year. Allied military and civilian deaths have hit record levels in recent months, with violence at its worst since the Taliban were ousted in 2001. "I do not say that the security situation in Afghanistan is satisfactory, because it definitely isn't. But there is progress," Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told Danish TV2 News. "And I hope that we at the NATO summit in November will be able to decide to begin to gradually hand over responsibility in 2011," he said on the eve of an official visit to his home country Denmark. Afghanistan has set a target of 2014 for the country to take over complete security responsibility from NATO and the United States, which is ramping up efforts to train Afghanistan's army and police. (Reuters)

ØMilitary Coverage

• Army Revises Training To Deal With Unfit Recruits. Dawn breaks at Fort Jackson, S.C. with the reliable sound of fresh recruits marching to their morning exercise. But these days, something looks different. That familiar standby, the situp, is gone, or almost gone. Exercises that look like pilates or yoga routines are in. And the traditional bane of the new private, the long run, has been downgraded. This is the Army’s new physical-training program, which has been rolled out this year at its five basic training posts that handle 145,000 recruits a year. Nearly a decade in the making, its official goal is to reduce injuries and better prepare soldiers for the rigors of combat in rough terrain like Afghanistan. But as much as anything, the program was created to help address one of the most pressing issues facing the military today: overweight and unfit recruits. (New York Times – see attached)

ØHomeland Security

• Yemeni Men Arrested In Amsterdam On Terror Charges After Flight From U.S. Two Yemeni men arriving in Amsterdam on a flight from Chicago were arrested Monday on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack after peculiar items turned up in their luggage, Dutch officials said. U.S. authorities asked the Dutch to make the arrests after discovering that one of the men had checked his luggage from Chicago to Dulles International Airport in Virginia, then taken a flight to Amsterdam, said a Dutch official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the case. The luggage sent to Virginia on Sunday night contained a cellphone taped to a bottle of Pepto-Bismol, three cellphones taped together and several watches taped together, Dutch and U.S. officials said. (Chicago Tribune – see attached)
• Jury Hears Bomb Plot Tapes. The alleged ringleader in a plot to blow up a Bronx synagogue last year ranted about wanting to kill Jewish people and about his frustration with Muslims being killed by U.S. soldiers overseas, in a videotape played for jurors on Monday. James Cromitie was secretly recorded by Shahed Hussain, a paid government informant, over several months in 2008 and 2009. As part of Mr. Hussain's testimony, prosecutors are playing excerpts of the conversations. In one videotaped conversation played for jurors Monday, Mr. Cromitie said, "They're taking down Islamic countries. What do we do to make it stop, we start taking things down here, you understand?" The conversation was recorded in 2008 at a home rented by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Newburgh, N.Y. (Wall Street Journal – see attached)
• Rights Groups Challenge Obama On Targeted Killings. Civil liberties groups sued the Obama administration on Monday over a program they said illegally tries to kill U.S. citizens believed to be militants living abroad, like the anti-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a lawsuit on behalf of Nasser al-Awlaki, the father of the Muslim cleric, arguing targeted killings violate the U.S. Constitution and international law. U.S. authorities have tied the cleric to the failed bombing attempt of a U.S. commercial jet on Christmas Day in 2009 and to an Army major who went on a shooting spree that killed 13 people last year at Fort Hood in Texas. No charges have been publicly filed against al-Awlaki, who was born in the United States but left in late 2001. He is believed to be in Yemen, where al Qaeda has been growing. (Reuters)

ØWorld Developments

• North Korean Pair Viewed As Key To Secret Arms Trade. A North Korean arms chief and Pyongyang's former ambassador to the United Nation's nuclear agency have emerged as key figures in an intensifying international effort to curb North Korea's weapons-trading activities. The global dealings of the two men, Chun Byung-ho and Yun Ho-jin, whom North Korea analysts believe to be related through marriage, date back to the 1980s. They have played leading roles in North Korea's development and testing of atomic weapons, according to current and former U.S. officials, Asian intelligence analysts and U.N. nonproliferation staffers. More troubling to officials, Messrs. Chun and Yun also oversee Pyongyang's vast arms-trading network, which appears to be spreading. They have shipped components for long-range missiles, nuclear reactors and conventional arms to countries including Iran, Syria and Myanmar. (Wall Street Journal – see attached)
• Obama Administration Announces New Sanctions Against North Korea. The White House announced Monday it is hitting North Korea with sanctions aimed at providers of weapons, luxury goods and various illicit financial services that benefit the elite in the closed communist country. The administration had previously said it would strengthen sanctions on Pyongyang in response to the March sinking of a South Korean warship, an attack that U.S. officials have blamed on North Korea. But the announcement came just days after former president Jimmy Carter visited North Korea and won the release of an American activist, raising speculation about a possible thaw between Washington and Pyongyang. The new sanctions sent a different signal. (Washington Post – see attached)
• Mexico Fires 3,200 Federal Police Officers. About 3,200 Mexican federal police officers, nearly a tenth of the force, have been fired this year under new rules designed to weed out crooked cops and modernize law enforcement, officials said Monday. The housecleaning is part of President Felipe Calderon's crackdown on drug cartels, which includes overhauling the 34,500-strong federal police force. An additional 465 federal officers have been charged with breaking the law, and 1,020 others face disciplinary action after failing screening tests, officials said. Facundo Rosas, a senior federal police official, said in a radio interview that the 3,200 dismissed officers were removed for substandard performance. (Los Angeles Times – see attached)
• Mexico Captures "La Barbie" Drug Trafficker. Mexico captured major drug trafficker Edgar "La Barbie" Valdez on Monday in a new victory for President Felipe Calderon's high-stakes war on murderous cartels that threatens the country's image among investors and tourists. Federal police caught Valdez, a leader of the Beltran Leyva cartel based in central Mexico, in a residential area near Mexico City, the government said. Valdez, a 37-year-old Mexican-American born in Texas, put up little resistance, a police spokesman said. "Valdez has connections with organized crime groups operating in Central and South America to smuggle drugs to the United States, where he is also wanted," national security spokesman Alejandro Poire told a news conference. Valdez is believed to have been behind a surge in bloodshed in central Mexico as he fought for leadership of his cartel. U.S. authorities put a $2 million bounty on his head but Poire did not say if Valdez would be sent to the United States. (Reuters)
• Mortar Kills AU Peacekeepers In Somalia. A mortar attack on the presidential palace in the Somali capital has killed at least four African Union peacekeepers and critically wounded nine others. For the past week, the peacekeeping force, protecting the country's U.N.-backed government in Mogadishu, has been battling a new round of attacks by al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab militants. According to the spokesman of the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia, Barigye Ba-Hoku, a mortar round fired from an al-Shabab position near the presidential palace exploded near a contingent of Ugandan peacekeepers guarding the palace compound, also known as Villa Somalia. Ba-Hoku called the mortar strike a "lucky hit" for the al-Qaida-linked militants, who are battling to overthrow Somalia's weak, U.N.-backed government and to force the withdrawal of the peacekeeping force. (Voice of America)

ØPublic Opinion

• Majorities Of Americans And Britons Believe The War In Iraq Was A Mistake. People in the United States and Britain regret the decision of their respective governments to engage militarily in Iraq in 2003, and are now more likely to brand the war as a failure rather than as a success, a new Angus Reid Public Opinion poll has found. The online survey of representative national samples of 1,011 American and 2,006 British adults also finds that at least two thirds of respondents in the two countries agree with the argument that taking action against Saddam Hussein despite the absence of weapons of mass destruction was the right thing to do. Only 23% of Americans believe the war in Iraq was success, along with 12% of Britons. Conversely, two-in-five Americans (45%) and three-in-five Britons (63%) think the conflict was a failure. Half of Americans (52%) believe their government made a mistake in launching military action against Iraq in 2003. Two-thirds of Britons (66%) also chide their own government's decision to support and participate in the war. (Angus Reid Global Monitor)

* AP = Associated Press UPI = United Press International KR = Knight Ridder

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Petraeus Finishes Rules For Afghan Security Transition
New York Times
August 31, 2010

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top commander in Afghanistan, has completed work on new guidelines for turning some security duties over to Afghan forces in the months ahead, calling for American and allied troops to step back gradually from areas as they are pacified rather than handing off the task all at once to local units, according to senior NATO and Pentagon officials. The guidelines envision that while some troops would leave the country when their current areas were secured, others could be reassigned new missions within Afghanistan, giving General Petraeus flexibility in troop deployments as he confronts pressure from some allies and some Democrats in Washington to begin winding down the war next year.

The emphasis in his plan would be on shifting troops to train Afghan security forces to accelerate the pace at which local police officers and soldiers could successfully take over, allowing even more of the alliance force to depart. But some remaining foreign troops could move into areas near their current operations where militants remain active. The security transition guidelines acknowledge that progress has been slow, and that Afghan forces are nowhere near ready to take over the mission across the country. One senior NATO military officer in Kabul said there actually were a few areas in which American forces had begun thinning out and moving to neighboring regions, especially in Helmand Province, in southern Afghanistan, the focus of President Obama’s troop surge. But the officer acknowledged that areas showing such progress are few in number so far.

In another illustration of the continued challenges facing the United States and its allies, seven American service members were killed by two roadside bombs in southern Afghanistan on Monday, according to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. The two bombings were unrelated, officials said, with one killing five service members and the other killing two. Fourteen American service members have been killed in Afghanistan, mostly in the south, since Saturday. Pentagon and administration officials acknowledged that the guidelines drawn up by General Petraeus and his staff at their Kabul headquarters – in particular a goal of redeploying troops pulled from contested areas to other tasks – might clash with timetables set by some NATO nations to begin pulling troops from Afghanistan.

But a range of military and administration officials, who discussed the planning on the condition of anonymity, said that the guidelines developed by General Petraeus did not represent a shift in the Obama administration’s strategy for Afghanistan, and that they had the Defense Department’s strong backing. In particular, these officials said, the guidelines were designed to set the conditions for fulfilling Mr. Obama’s pledge to begin reducing the American military presence by next July. “It has everything to do with getting the principles and concepts for transition right,” said a senior NATO military officer in Kabul. “The transition pace will, after all, be conditions-based, and this reflects that.”

Even so, the new road map to long-term security transition does represent a substantial reorientation of how the president’s strategy of counterinsurgency would be carried out, and is being viewed as the most significant effort by General Petraeus to put his stamp on the mission since taking over last month. Other new areas of his emphasis have been rooting out corruption across the government and increasing security operations in additional areas of the country, including Kabul, the capital. The fear among supporters of the current strategy is that the priority in some NATO capitals – and among some in Washington – is getting out of an unpopular war, instead of committing to a patient, sustainable transition to Afghan government control. That concern underscores another of the new Petraeus guidelines, which is to ensure that resources are not diverted simply to pursue transition as an end in itself.

In the past, in part driven by a shortage of combat forces, American and allied troops might have cleared an area of insurgents and moved on to other priority combat missions – leaving an ill-trained and insufficient number of Afghan soldiers or police officers unable to effectively hold that area from returning insurgent forces. And there was little government or financial capability to improve life in the area through rebuilding. With the broad guidelines complete, General Petraeus and his team now are turning to the task of writing specific projections for security transition by time and region in 2011. Those projections will be completed for a NATO meeting in Lisbon in November.

In support of General Petraeus’s new guidelines, the White House, Pentagon and State Department leadership plan to continue lobbying NATO partners to take on more of the politically palatable training mission, even if they are pressured by their populations to end their combat role, officials said. The administration’s strategy in the coming months will aim to explain to the population in NATO countries that, while the war in Afghanistan has been going on for nearly nine years, the current counterinsurgency strategy began only in the first year of the Obama administration – and that a full complement of forces has only arrived late this summer.

General Petraeus hinted at his effort to develop new plans for security transition during an interview broadcast by NBC on Aug. 15, when he said that he and his team had drawn up “principles and guidelines, which we’ve provided up our operational chain of command.” He provided further details in an interview posted on Wired.com. A senior military officer at the Pentagon noted that of Afghanistan’s more than 300 districts, divided among 34 provinces, about two-thirds could see control turned over to local security forces without significant risk as there is little fighting now. Most of the current insurgent effort, this officer said, is focused in about one-third of Afghanistan, mostly in the south and east, although officials acknowledge that militants are showing their numbers in the north and west.

Biden To Meet With Top Iraqi Politicians Amid End Of Combat Operations
Washington Post
August 31, 2010

Vice President Biden arrived in Baghdad Monday, planning to meet with senior politicians as Iraqis worry about the impact of the official end of U.S. combat operations in the country Tuesday. Biden's visit, his fifth since becoming vice president, comes as the U.S. military fulfills an Obama administration pledge to drop to 50,000 troops in Iraq by Sept. 1. Already, troop levels have declined to just under 50,000, from more than 140,000 at the beginning of 2009.

Many Iraqis say they are concerned that the U.S. drawdown comes in the midst of a political impasse that has continued for nearly six months since national parliamentary elections and an increase in violence across the country. Biden arrived to commemorate the change of mission in Iraq but also urge Iraqi leaders to form a government at this "critical time," said his national security adviser, Antony J. Blinken. He said that so far the lack of a new government has not created the security vacuum many feared. But Iraq cannot move forward on major issues or build partnerships with foreign countries, including the United States, he said.

"It's hard to build a partnership if you don't have a partner," Blinken said. He reaffirmed that the United States was on track to fully with draw from Iraq by the end of 2011 as stipulated in a security agreement between Iraq and the United States. "Even as we draw down our troops, we are ramping up our engagement across the board." U.S. Embassy officials were on alert Monday for possible rocket attacks and advised to wear protective gear when walking outside on the fortified embassy compound. The bloodshed is substantially less than during the worst days of the civil war between 2005 and 2007. But with no new government in sight, many worry that Iraq's security forces would be unable to contain a surge in violence.

U.S. officials have said that it is critical to form a government now. Shiite incumbent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is battling with Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite whose coalition won a slim lead in the national elections, for the chance to form the government. Biden will meet with Maliki and Allawi along with other Iraqi officials. Last week, the new U.S. ambassador to Iraq, James F. Jeffrey, warned in a briefing to reporters that "the potential for violence . . . is quite significant." "The ability of terrorist acts to have an impact on the political life of this country is still a significant risk," he said, noting that so far it had not had such an impact. "It is something we and the Iraqis watch."

Last week, Maliki put the nation on high alert following coordinated bombings across the country that killed at least 60 people. He warned that intelligence showed more attacks were possible to exploit the political uncertainty. Biden met with outgoing and incoming U.S. military commanders Gen. Ray Odierno and Gen. Lloyd James Austin III as well as Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, who has been chosen to take over U.S. Central Command, and with Ambassador Jeffrey. "We are going to be just fine. They're going to be just fine," Biden said, referring the transition from military to state-led operations in Iraq.

Mysterious Killings Spread Panic In Iraq
Los Angeles Times
August 31, 2010

It has been a month now and still there are no answers. There is just a father gripping the photographs of his son. In one, 21-year-old Ali Mohammed Fakher is in Japan, dressed in his white judo robe; in another, he's on a boat in Turkey with his coach and teammates. Fakher had gone further than any of his family imagined, rising from the rough streets of west Baghdad to become the star player on Iraq's national judo team. On the day before he was to leave Iraq to train for tournaments, he was shot to death as he walked down the main street of his neighborhood. State television broadcast video of his family and supporters weeping as they carried his coffin. "The hero is gone!" one mourner cried in the street. "The bad men have killed him."

But like other killings and assassinations in a wave of violence that has crept up on Iraq during an unnerving political stalemate, no one really knows who the "bad men" are. Was Fakher killed by a Sunni Arab insurgent group like Al Qaeda in Iraq, or a Shiite Muslim militia like the one that once controlled the neighborhood, or did the attack stem from a personal feud? Iraqis are left muttering one word, vague yet ominous: Terrorists, the television announcer intoned about Fakher's killers. Terrorism, police recorded in their books. It was terrorists, his parents say.

Fakher's killing is a chilling echo of the early years after the U.S.-led invasion, a time when people were gunned down without explanation or logic and killers faded into the woodwork. The stealthy decimation of communities caused a ripple effect, sowing dissension and discrediting the workings of the new state and the U.S military, until the deluge of sectarian bombings and killings tipped the country into civil war. U.S. military and civilian officials have hailed Iraq's step back from the abyss since 2008 and the tentative return of normality, with a capable army and police force and a major drop in violence.

But as the U.S. ends combat operations in the country and politicians seem unable to break a deadlock over forming a new government nearly six months after national elections, every attack rattles the general population and fans the panic that the "bad men," the "terrorists," are back. Dozens of security officers, ministry officials, judges and clerics have been killed or wounded this year. From March through the end of June, at least 354 people across Iraq died from explosives planted on their cars. "2010 is worse than 2008 and 2009. We hope and pray to God that security will improve," said Ghazi Abdul Aziz Essa, director-general of Baghdad's main power plant.

He bristles at the notion that he and others in his ministry aren't in danger. "Of course there is a threat," he said, adding he has again taken to switching cars to throw off would-be hit men. Some Iraqis whisper that anyone can be killed now because no one is in charge, no questions will be asked, and the evidence will be long gone by the time a government is finally in place. People can use the cover of political deadlock to make power plays and settle personal scores. "Of course this situation is because the government has not been formed," said Kamil Kanjar, head of the local council in Baghdad's Sadr City district. "Probably the security forces are not obeying instructions and orders in a proper way because they feel there is no government."

U.S. military officers suspect at least a portion of the violence is tied to efforts to influence the shape of the next government. They caution that the targeted killings and assassinations are driven by factors that transcend strict sectarian hatreds. "It's very hard to attribute some of those assassinations," said Army Brig. Gen. Kevin Mangum, one of the deputy commanding generals for Baghdad. "It could be political, could be tribal, could be economic; it could be criminal." Fear grips officials and rank-and-file state employees in Iraq, where every day brings news of a new death or botched attack. Last week, a member of the Sadr City council opened his door and was shot dead by two men just 100 yards from parked Iraqi army Humvees and 200 yards from a police checkpoint.

Each killing and ambush resonates, spreading panic and destroying people's faith that the future will be better. Ali Fakher's father, Mohammed, weeps readily. He remembers how his son was always gifted. He started judo when he was 11, shortly after the family moved to Shula, a Shiite neighborhood in west Baghdad. Agile and clever, he could always tackle the bigger boys wrestling on the street. His older brother often ended up crying to his parents after Ali, three years younger, routinely pinned him. Mohammed recalls his son's last day alive. Ali said he might stay overnight by the sports club because his team was leaving early the next day, and Mohammed wished him a safe trip, like he always did.

His son was walking down the street when a man, his face covered by a head scarf, rode up on a motorcycle and fired at Ali's head and chest. The young man lifted his hand to ward off the bullets, and three went through it. "Ali became well known," his father said, lingering over his son's image. "For that he was killed." His family said Ali had recently talked about buying a gun because he was worried he might be targeted. His mother, Umm Ali, began crying, saying some people might have been jealous. But asked who would have done it, both parents had the same answer: terrorists.

"Nowadays there is no stability in this country," Mohammed said. "If the government was formed, it would provide security and generally this would not have happened.' He worries for his three remaining sons. "I don't want my sons to go out," he says. "If I had money, I would send them abroad. But I don't have the means." Outside, a few boys run near where Ali Fakher slumped to the ground. Laughing, they play with water guns, pointing them at one another's heads in their own miniature version of Baghdad's turbulent season.

Army Revises Training To Deal With Unfit Recruits
New York Times
August 31, 2010

Dawn breaks at Fort Jackson, S.C., the Army’s largest training post, with the reliable sound of fresh recruits marching to their morning exercise. But these days, something looks different. That familiar standby, the situp, is gone, or almost gone. Exercises that look like pilates or yoga routines are in. And the traditional bane of the new private, the long run, has been downgraded. This is the Army’s new physical-training program, which has been rolled out this year at its five basic training posts that handle 145,000 recruits a year. Nearly a decade in the making, its official goal is to reduce injuries and better prepare soldiers for the rigors of combat in rough terrain like Afghanistan. But as much as anything, the program was created to help address one of the most pressing issues facing the military today: overweight and unfit recruits.

“What we were finding was that the soldiers we’re getting in today’s Army are not in as good shape as they used to be,” said Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, who oversees basic training for the Army. “This is not just an Army issue. This is a national issue.” Excess weight is the leading reason the Army rejects potential recruits. And while that has been true for years, the problem has worsened as the waistlines of America’s youth have expanded. This year, a group of retired generals and admirals released a report titled “Too Fat to Fight.” “Between 1995 and 2008, the proportion of potential recruits who failed their physicals each year because they were overweight rose nearly 70 percent,” the report concluded.

Though the Army screens out the seriously obese and completely unfit, it is still finding that many of the recruits who reach basic training have less strength and endurance than privates past. It is the legacy of junk food and video games, compounded by a reduction in gym classes in many high schools, Army officials assert. As a result, it is harder for recruits to reach Army fitness standards, and more are getting injured along the way. General Hertling said that the percentage of male recruits who failed the most basic fitness test at one training center rose to more than one in five in 2006, up from just 4 percent in 2000. The percentages were higher for women. Another study found that at one training center in 2002, 3 recruits suffered stress fractures of the pubic bone, but last year the number rose to 39. The reason, General Hertling said: not enough weight-bearing exercise and a diet heavy on sugared sodas and energy drinks but light in calcium and iron.

The new fitness regime tries to deal with all these problems by incorporating more stretching, more exercises for the abdomen and lower back, instead of the traditional situps, and more agility and balance training. It increases in difficulty more gradually. And it sets up a multiweek course of linked exercises, rather than offering discrete drills. There are fewer situps, different kinds of push-ups and fewer long runs, which Army officials say are good for building strength and endurance but often lead to injuries. They also do not necessarily prepare soldiers for carrying heavy packs or sprinting short distances. “We haven’t eliminated running,” General Hertling said. “But it’s trying to get away from that being the only thing we do.” (The new system does include plenty of sprinting.)

Some of the new routines would look familiar to a devotee of pilates, yoga or even the latest home workout regimens on DVD, with a variety of side twists, back bridges and rowing-like exercises. “It’s more whole body,” said First Lt. Tameeka Hayes, a platoon leader for a class of new privates at Fort Jackson. “No one who has done this routine says we’ve made it easier.” The program was largely the brainchild of two former gym teachers who now run the Army Physical Fitness School based here. They are a military version of Click and Clack, finishing each other’s sentences and wisecracking with the alternating beat of gas-fired pistons.

One, Stephen Van Camp, is a former professional kick-boxer who unwittingly ran a marathon with a fractured ankle. “That’s not tough. That’s stupid,” he now says. The other, Frank Palkoska, is a former Army officer and West Point fitness instructor who adorns his office here with black-and-white photographs of 19th-century exercise classes and an assortment of retrograde equipment like medicine balls and wooden dumbbells. “It’s back to the future,” Mr. Palkoska says before starting into a lament about the Xbox generation. “Technology is great, but it’s killing us.”

As he and Mr. Van Camp started developing what became a 434-page manual, they began by considering what combat soldiers do and came up with a checklist of things like throwing grenades and dodging gunfire. Then they matched those needs with exercises. Some of those are already in use by the Army, but others are new and still others are drawn from century-old routines. There are drills that mimic climbing, that teach soldiers how to roll and that require swift lateral movements. Some are done in body armor. The old style of physical training, he said, was less relevant to soldiers’ tasks, which entail lots of jumping, crouching and climbing. “What we did in the morning had nothing to do with what we did the rest of the day,” Mr. Palkoska said.

Under General Hertling, the new regimen will also include a makeover of the mess halls at its training bases. At Fort Jackson, there are more green leafy vegetables, less fried food, and milk instead of soda. The food line includes color-coded messages to encourage privates to eat low-fat entrees (marked in green). And there are other changes: no more assaulting tires with bayonets, but more time spent on rifle marksmanship and fighting with padded pugil sticks.

The trick now will be to push the program into the rest of the Army, where evidence suggests many soldiers are becoming overweight, particularly during or soon after deployments. The Army Training and Doctrine Command recently distributed the new fitness policy to the entire Army, officially replacing a physical fitness field manual that was first published in 1992.

While the training posts will have to follow the new program, since they are under General Hertling’s command, it is not mandatory for officers in the field. Every unit’s exercise routine is determined by its commander, and the current generation of officers has been indoctrinated under the old system. The key, Mr. Palkoska says, will be to revamp the Army’s fitness test, which is taken twice a year. It measures a soldier’s ability to do situps, push-ups and a two-mile run. Since soldiers often train to the test, those are the exercises most of them do. Mr. Palkoska and Mr. Van Camp hope the Army will revise that test by including new kinds of exercises and perhaps eliminating the situp. “We know kids today are less fit,” Mr. Palkoska said. “We have to adjust.”

Yemeni Men Arrested In Amsterdam On Terror Charges After Flight From U.S.
Chicago Tribune
August 31, 2010

Two Yemeni men arriving in Amsterdam on a flight from Chicago were arrested Monday on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack after peculiar items turned up in their luggage, Dutch officials said. U.S. authorities asked the Dutch to make the arrests after discovering that one of the men had checked his luggage from Chicago to Dulles International Airport in Virginia, then taken a flight to Amsterdam, said a Dutch official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the case. The luggage sent to Virginia on Sunday night contained a cellphone taped to a bottle of Pepto-Bismol, three cellphones taped together and several watches taped together, Dutch and U.S. officials said.

The owner of the luggage, Ahmed Mohamed Nasser al Soofi, a Yemeni citizen who lives in Detroit, also was carrying $7,000 in cash, said the Dutch official. After sending his luggage to Dulles, Al Soofi was joined at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport by a second man, Hezem al Murisi, and the pair took United Airlines flight 908 to Amsterdam. Air marshals were aboard that flight, according to a U.S. law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

Al Soofi's luggage went to Virginia, apparently without officials realizing he was not aboard that flight. From there, his luggage had been scheduled to go to Dubai, then Yemen. But once authorities learned Al Soofi had taken a different plane, federal officials in Virginia ordered the aircraft back to the gate and removed Al Soofi's baggage. An inspection revealed no explosives. In a statement Monday night, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that authorities found "suspicious items" in checked luggage belonging to two passengers aboard a United flight from Chicago to Amsterdam on Sunday night.

"The items were not deemed to be dangerous in and of themselves, and as we share information with our international partners, Dutch authorities were notified of the suspicious items," the Homeland Security statement said. U.S. officials said the matter was under investigation because of the types of items found taped together. The arrests were first reported by ABC News.

Authorities' suspicions were aroused in Birmingham, Ala., where federal airport screeners stopped Al Soofi for an additional security check because he wore bulky clothing in the summer heat. Officials found the watches and the Pepto-Bismol taped to the cellphone, but because those were not banned items, he was permitted to board a flight to O'Hare. It was unclear what he was doing in Birmingham or how long he had been there.

In Chicago, the two men were searched and their luggage inspected. Again, officials found no banned items and allowed them to board the flight to Amsterdam. Dutch authorities questioned the men Monday. The luggage that went to Dulles remained in the possession of U.S. officials, the Dutch official said. No court appearance is expected for several days, the Dutch official said.

Jury Hears Bomb Plot Tapes
Wall Street Journal
August 31, 2010

The alleged ringleader in a plot to blow up a Bronx synagogue last year ranted about wanting to kill Jewish people and about his frustration with Muslims being killed by U.S. soldiers overseas, in a videotape played for jurors on Monday. James Cromitie was secretly recorded by Shahed Hussain, a paid government informant, over several months in 2008 and 2009. As part of Mr. Hussain's testimony, prosecutors are playing excerpts of the conversations. In one videotaped conversation played for jurors Monday, Mr. Cromitie said, "They're taking down Islamic countries. What do we do to make it stop, we start taking things down here, you understand?" The conversation was recorded in 2008 at a home rented by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Newburgh, N.Y.

Mr. Cromitie and three other Newburgh men are on trial in U.S. District Court in Manhattan in an alleged plot to bomb a synagogue and Jewish community center in the Riverdale section of the Bronx in May 2009. They also allegedly planned to use Stinger missiles to shoot down military aircraft at Stewart International Airport in Newburgh, prosecutors said. The case is expected to last about six weeks. Mr. Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen have been charged with attempting to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiracy and other crimes. Onta Williams and David Williams aren't related. The defendants have denied the charges.

Inert explosives and nonworking missiles were provided to the men by Mr. Hussain as part of a sting operation, prosecutors said. The men were arrested in May 2009 shortly after Mr. Cromitie allegedly planted the inert explosives in Riverdale. In one videotape played Monday, Mr. Cromitie said he would have "no hesitation" to kill 10 Jewish people. "I would think 20,000 times before I would kill one Muslim," Mr. Cromitie said. Later in the fall, Mr. Cromitie and Mr. Hussain traveled together to Philadelphia for an Islamic conference. The FBI recorded conversations between the men there.

In one conversation in November 2008, Mr. Hussain asks Mr. Cromitie about what targets in New York he believed were best for an attack. His response on the tape: "The best target's already been hit." He later says he would like to do something on a bridge, according to the tape. Prosecutors have said he was suggesting the George Washington Bridge. "I'm going to do something, you better believe it," Mr. Cromitie said. In the conversation, Mr. Cromitie brags about bombing police stations and targeting white people. However, defense lawyers have argued that never happened and Mr. Cromitie was just trying to impress the government informant.

North Korean Pair Viewed As Key To Secret Arms Trade
Wall Street Journal
August 31, 2010

A North Korean arms chief and Pyongyang's former ambassador to the United Nation's nuclear agency have emerged as key figures in an intensifying international effort to curb North Korea's weapons-trading activities. The global dealings of the two men, Chun Byung-ho and Yun Ho-jin, whom North Korea analysts believe to be related through marriage, date back to the 1980s. They have played leading roles in North Korea's development and testing of atomic weapons, according to current and former U.S. officials, Asian intelligence analysts and U.N. nonproliferation staffers.

More troubling to officials, Messrs. Chun and Yun also oversee Pyongyang's vast arms-trading network, which appears to be spreading. They have shipped components for long-range missiles, nuclear reactors and conventional arms to countries including Iran, Syria and Myanmar. On Monday, the Obama administration announced economic sanctions against various individuals and entities involved in Pyongyang's nuclear work and in alleged illicit trading activities. The Treasury Department named Mr. Yun and the North Korean body headed by Mr. Chun – the Second Economic Committee of Pyongyang's ruling Korean Workers' Party. The sanctions freeze any U.S. assets of those named and bar Americans from conducting business with them. Treasury also warned that foreign firms doing business with them risked sanctions.

The Second Economic Committee oversees a little-known foreign trade office with the Orwellian name of Office 99. The proceeds from the Office's arms sales go directly to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il and Pyongyang's senior leadership, according to these officials and recent North Korean defectors. "It is broadly believed that the Second Economic Committee...plays the largest and most prominent role in nuclear, other WMD and missile-related development programs, as well as arranging and conducting arms-related exports" for North Korea, says a report issued in May by the U.N. committee tasked with enforcing international sanctions on Pyongyang.

The U.S. and U.N. recently have intensified efforts to combat the Second Economic Committee and Office 99, alarmed by Pyongyang's two nuclear-weapons tests and its alleged role in sinking a South Korean naval vessel in March. Last year, the U.N. formally sanctioned Mr. Yun and his arms company, Namchongang Trading Co. North Korean arms shipments moving through Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, South Africa and the South China Sea have been seized or turned back by the U.S. and its allies over the past few years. A Japanese court convicted a Tokyo-based trading company in November of procuring military technologies for Pyongyang with the intent of shipping them to Myanmar.

Still, Messrs. Chun and Yun's decades of experience in the weapons trade pose a challenge to an international community keen to disrupt Pyongyang's proliferation activities, say U.S. and Asian officials. "There is no reason to assume that Chun and Yun won't sell nuclear weapons," says David Asher, a former Bush administration official who has tracked Pyongyang's arms trade for a decade. "There needs to be an active effort to disrupt their WMD networks and drive them out of business now, before it's too late."

The two men have established a network of front companies in Asia, Europe and the Middle East and have partnered with Southeast Asian, Japanese and Taiwanese criminal syndicates to move cash and contraband, say U.S. officials. And Mr. Yun has used the political cover provided by Pyongyang's closest ally, China, to openly conduct business in cities such as Beijing and Shenyang, drawing official rebukes from Washington. North Korean diplomats at Pyongyang's U.N. mission in New York did not respond to requests for comment. Messrs. Chun and Yun couldn't be reached.

Current and former U.S. officials say North Korea's operations resemble in both scale and tactics those of Pakistan's Abdul Qadeer Khan – one of the most notorious arms dealers in recent years. U.S. officials fear that isolated North Korea, desperate for hard currency, could accelerate its arms exports in a bid to prop up Kim Jong Il's finances. Mr. Chun, now 84 years old, and his Second Economic Committee emerged as major global arms exporters in the 1980s, as North Korea shipped as much as $3 billion worth of rockets, pistols and submarines to Tehran during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, say recent defectors and North Korea analysts.

Pyongyang assisted some communist and socialist countries militarily during the 1960s and 1970s, and provided fighter pilots to aid Egypt and Syria in their wars against Israel. But North Korea found a largely captive market in Iran, which faced a U.S.-led weapons embargo as the West threw its support behind Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein. One senior North Korean defector who worked in Pyongyang's munitions industries says he was dispatched to Iran by the Second Economic Committee in 1987 with the task of constructing missile batteries on the Iranian island of Kish to help Tehran better control the movement of ships through the Straits of Hormuz. His main interlocutor was Iran's elite military unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The former hydro-mechanic says camaraderie developed between his 100-man team and the Guard, despite their different backgrounds.

Mr. Chun's control over the Second Economic Committee was tied to his close relationship with Pyongyang's ruling Kim family, say defectors and North Korea experts. The Russian-trained bureaucrat served as a member of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung's bodyguard unit. He rose up the ranks of the Korean Workers' Party with the political support of Kim Jong Il, eventually securing a position on Pyongyang's most powerful political body, the National Defense Commission. North Korea's high-level defector, Hwang Jang-yop, has identified Mr. Chun as the broker of a key barter trade in the 1990s with Pakistan that significantly advanced Pyongyang's nuclear infrastructure. The agreement resulted in North Korea shipping parts for long-range missiles to Islamabad in exchange for A.Q. Khan sending centrifuge equipment used in producing nuclear fuel.

As Mr. Chun pushed forward North Korea's nuclear program from Pyongyang, Mr. Yun, believed to be the husband of Mr. Chun's second daughter, emerged as a key player in procuring technologies for the Second Economic Committee from Europe, according to U.S., U.N. and European officials. Mr. Yun, 66, arrived in Vienna in 1985 as Pyongyang's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The English and German speaker led negotiations with the U.N. agency aimed at forging a nuclear-inspection agreement with North Korea, and he helped oversee a 1992 tour of his nation's Yongbyon nuclear facility for Hans Blix, the IAEA's then-managing director. "Yun was dedicated to turning things around. I truly believe that," says Willi Theis, who worked closely with Mr. Yun as the head of the IAEA's safeguards unit overseeing North Korea. Mr. Theis is now retired.

Still, concerns grew inside the IAEA about Mr. Yun's activities, as relations between Pyongyang and the international community deteriorated, according to IAEA officials. In 1993, North Korea broke off talks with the IAEA over the agency's demands for an inspection of the country's nuclear operations, and the U.S. charged Pyongyang with secretly stockpiling plutonium for atomic weapons. The next year, the Clinton administration threatened to bomb the Yongbyon facility if North Korea didn't explain where the plutonium had gone. Mr. Yun grew embittered with the diplomatic process and mistrustful of the U.S. and its allies, according to IAEA staff and journalists who met with him.

Mr. Theis says he spent hours discussing the process with Mr. Yun and pressed the Agency to remain engaged with Pyongyang. The West German-born nuclear inspector says he grew suspicious of Mr. Yun's many trips to other European cities and his contacts with local companies. Mr. Yun even hinted to Mr. Theis that he might have no choice but to directly support North Korea's nuclear-weapons programs if relations with the IAEA collapsed. "He came to the conclusion that dealing with the international community was totally disappointing," said Mr. Theis in a phone interview from Austria. "Mr. Yun had definitely learned how to establish contacts with all types of people [while in Vienna] – not just from the IAEA, but managers of companies."

Mr. Theis's concerns about Mr. Yun would be borne out in 2003, when a German businessman, Hans Werner Truppel, was arrested and eventually convicted by a Stuttgart court of selling 22 metric tons of aluminum tubes to Mr. Yun. The North Korean and his company, Namchongang Trading, used offices in Beijing and Shenyang, China, to place orders for the equipment, which is critical to building centrifuges needed to enrich uranium, according to a German Customs Bureau report. U.S. officials briefed on the case were alarmed that Mr. Yun conducted some of his business through the offices of Shenyang Aircraft Industry Co., a Chinese state-owned firm.

In the ensuing months, the State Department aired its concerns about Mr. Yun's activities to China's government, according to former U.S. officials. But Beijing took no action. China's ministries of foreign affairs and commerce didn't respond to requests for comment. Shenyang Aircraft says it had no recollection of any dealings with Mr. Yun. Messrs. Chun and Yun have sought to accelerate North Korea's weapons sales and procurement in recent years and allegedly have played important roles in strengthening Pyongyang's military ties to countries such as Syria and Myanmar, say current and former U.S. officials. North Korea analysts believe most of these transactions have been conducted through Office 99, which they describe as an international sales office and slush fund for Kim Jong Il.

"Anything that has to do with the imports and exports of weapons flows through Office 99," says Oh Kongdan, a North Korea expert at Virginia's Institute of Defense Analyses, a Pentagon-funded think tank. "It's a royal patronage system." U.S. officials say that since the late 1990s they detected through intelligence channels intensifying military cooperation between North Korea and Syria, focused on everything from the development of chemical weapons to missiles. In September 2007, Israeli jets bombed a facility in eastern Syria that U.S. officials say was a nearly operational replica of North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear reactor. As many as 10 North Koreans died in the Israeli attack, according to U.S. officials. Mr. Yun and Namchongang Trading are believed to have played a central role in brokering development of the facility.

"That particular company was all over the nuclear trade. There's no question about it," says John Bolton, who served as the Bush administration's top non-proliferation official. Both Syria and North Korea have denied cooperating on developing nuclear technologies. Over the past two years, U.S. and U.N. officials have also voiced concerns about North Korea's deepening military ties with Myanmar, the Southeast Asian country formerly known as Burma. North Korea engineers have helped Myanmar build a maze of fortified bunkers to house senior government officials and military installations, according to Burmese defectors and commercial satellite photos. Current and former U.S. officials say Washington has intervened to block the transfer of Scud missiles to Myanmar from Pyongyang.

In June, Japan's Ministry of Economy and Trade banned Tokyo-based Toko Boeki Trading Co. and device maker Riken Denshi from conducting international trade after three of their affiliated executives, one of them an ethnic Korean, were arrested trying to send machine tools on an export-control list to Myanmar using a dummy company in Malaysia. The equipment could be used to develop either ballistic missiles or centrifuges for a uranium-enrichment program, according to weapons experts. And the U.N. in its May report said it was examining "suspicious" ties between Mr. Yun's Namchongang Trading and Myanmar, possibly linked to these activities in Japan.

The Obama administration, in response, has announced a stepped-up campaign to block North Korea's ability to raise funds through the arms trade. In addition to the new sanctions, the Pentagon has said it will intensify the interdiction of ships and planes believed to be carrying North Korean arms. Still, Mr. Theis and other North Korea experts believe that it is only through dialogue that the West will be able to curb the North's proliferation threat. Mr. Theis says he is recently lobbied the IAEA to allow him to return to Pyongyang to hold meetings with Mr. Yun. So far, he says, the IAEA hasn't agreed.

Obama Administration Announces New Sanctions Against North Korea
Washington Post
August 31, 2010

The White House announced Monday it is hitting North Korea with sanctions aimed at providers of weapons, luxury goods and various illicit financial services that benefit the elite in the closed communist country. The administration had previously said it would strengthen sanctions on Pyongyang in response to the March sinking of a South Korean warship, an attack that U.S. officials have blamed on North Korea. But the announcement came just days after former president Jimmy Carter visited North Korea and won the release of an American activist, raising speculation about a possible thaw between Washington and Pyongyang. The new sanctions sent a different signal.

They "are early evidence the administration is not about to drop pressure and choose a path of engagement alone with North Korea," said Michael Green, who was a senior Asian affairs official in the George W. Bush administration. "In many respects, what's happening is the Obama administration is going back to the hard-line Bush approach to North Korea that Democrats had criticized," said Green, now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The executive order signed by President Obama on Monday targets people and companies involved with selling arms to North Korea, providing it with luxury goods, and assisting the country's authorities with money laundering, counterfeiting and narcotics trafficking.

The entities named included Office 39 of the Korean Workers' Party, which helps top North Korean officials through "illicit economic activities and managing the leadership's slush funds," according to a fact sheet from the Treasury Department. The other entities named are involved in North Korea's conventional arms trade, it said. They are the Reconnaissance General Bureau and Green Pine Associated Corp. Stuart Levey, a senior Treasury official, told reporters that other entities could be named later under the sanctions. "The effect of this is potentially global in application," if foreign firms are found to be helping North Korea in illicit activities, he said.

The sanctions would freeze any of those targets' U.S. assets, and make it illegal for American companies to do business with such firms. The United Nations has already banned trade in conventional arms and luxury goods to North Korea, but the executive order signed by Obama strengthens the penalties involved, officials said. A senior State Department arms-control official, Robert Einhorn, told reporters that the administration still hoped to resume negotiations with North Korea on dismantling its nuclear-arms program. North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-Il, said during a recent visit to China that he hoped to soon resume the six-party negotiations that broke off in April 2009, according to official media there.

But the sanctions announcement would complicate the relaunch of talks, said Selig S. Harrison, a Korea expert at the Center for International Policy. "This is exactly the wrong time to be making that process more difficult," he said. "What we have learned in the last 50 years is that North Korea's response to pressure is to retaliate, not to succumb."

The talks, which also include South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia, were halted when the North walked out. It carried out its second nuclear-weapons test the following month. The Obama administration also announced Monday that it had added five more North Korean entities and three individuals to a list of those sanctioned under a previous executive order aimed at people supporting the country's nuclear program.

Mexico Fires 3,200 Federal Police Officers
Los Angeles Times
August 31, 2010

About 3,200 Mexican federal police officers, nearly a tenth of the force, have been fired this year under new rules designed to weed out crooked cops and modernize law enforcement, officials said Monday. The housecleaning is part of President Felipe Calderon's crackdown on drug cartels, which includes overhauling the 34,500-strong federal police force. An additional 465 federal officers have been charged with breaking the law, and 1,020 others face disciplinary action after failing screening tests, officials said. Facundo Rosas, a senior federal police official, said in a radio interview that the 3,200 dismissed officers were removed for substandard performance.

Rosas said the 1,020 officers who failed vetting fell short for a variety of reasons, including suspected criminal links and medical problems. He said failure rates were within "operable limits." Among the 465 arrested officers were four commanders fired Aug. 7 in Ciudad Juarez after 250 subordinates publicly accused them of corruption. The new police standards, which took effect in May, are aimed at cleaning up Mexico's graft-plagued police force through lie detector tests, financial disclosure statements and drug testing. The government has sought to improve the caliber of federal officers by boosting wages and requiring that recruits have college degrees.

Eliminating police corruption is a pillar of Calderon's nearly 4-year-old war against drug cartels. Crooked officers tip off drug lords and often moonlight as hit men. The problem is considered worst at the local level, where fear or low wages prompt many officers to help drug gangs. State and local forces account for the vast majority of Mexico's 427,000 police officers. The cleanup is to take place nationwide and began with the federal police, the law enforcement agency mainly responsible for fighting the powerful cartels.

The United States has backed the reform push by helping evaluate officers and supplying trainers for a state-of-the-art police academy in the city of San Luis Potosi. Calderon has rapidly expanded the federal police force, hiring about 10,000 officers during the last two years. Experts applaud the cleanup as long overdue. Mexicans so mistrust police that they often refuse to report crimes. But firing suspect or substandard officers also carries risks that they might jump to another department or join the traffickers. Rosas said a new computerized public safety database, called Platform Mexico, would make it easier to monitor former officers. ]]> JFC GOM Summary CoopMGI http://www.trackpads.com/forum/jfc-gom-summary/943911-gcom-summary-2010-aug-31-a.html http://www.trackpads.com/forum/jfc-gom-summary/943487-gcom-summary-2010-aug-30-a.html Mon, 30 Aug 2010 14:05:47 GMT *U.S. Joint Forces Command* *Global Current... U.S. Joint Forces Command
Global Current Operations Media Summary
Operations Iraqi Freedom/Enduring Freedom/Noble Eagle
Current as of August 30, 2010

ØNew Developments

• U.S. Troops In Iraq Go From Shock And Awe To 'Advise And Assist'. The soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Heavy Brigade Combat Team are, as their designation implies, trained and equipped to fight. They have a fleet of tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles. They carry their M-16 rifles slung over their shoulders at all times, ready to shoot if they are attacked. But since they deployed to Iraq eight months ago, they haven't fired their guns. Their tanks and Bradleys sit unused in a lot at the sprawling Camp Victory beside Baghdad airport. And most important of all, no one has been killed. "It's wonderful," said Sgt. 1st Class Anthony Hunter of Boston, Ga., a tank crew commander on his third tour of duty who survived 20 roadside blasts when he was first deployed, in 2004-05. (Los Angeles Times – see attached)
• American Concerns Over Karzai Deepen. Renewed tension with Afghan President Hamid Karzai – this time over the ouster of a graft-fighting prosecutor – is adding to doubts within the Obama administration and the U.S. military about their ability to show progress fighting corruption and improving governance, ahead of a White House review of war strategy in December. The abrupt dismissal last week of Fazel Ahmed Faqiryar, Afghanistan's deputy attorney general, caught U.S. officials off guard, and the State Department said it was seeking information from the Afghan government about his status. With many U.S. policy makers on vacation and Congress in recess, officials acknowledged it would take time for Washington to formulate a fuller response. They have limited room to maneuver because Washington is wary of igniting a full-blown confrontation with Mr. Karzai, whom some see as an increasingly shaky part of the administration's war strategy. (Wall Street Journal – see attached)
• Afghan President Criticizes Anti-Terror Strategy. President Hamid Karzai has again criticized coalition strategy in fighting Afghanistan's stubborn insurgency, saying it has thus far produced nothing but civilian deaths. The sharp comments delivered Sunday fit a pattern of greater outspokenness by the Afghan leader as he appeals for support among the beleaguered Afghan public. In a meeting Sunday with visiting German Parliament speaker Norbert Lammert, Karzai said there was a "serious need" to alter strategy against the Taliban and other groups linked to al-Qaida, the presidential office said. "There should be a review of the strategy in the fight against terrorism, because the experience of the last eight years showed that the fight in the villages of Afghanistan has been ineffective apart from causing civilian casualties," Karzai was quoted as saying. Karzai's statements come at a time when the Obama administration is ratcheting up pressure on the Afghan leader to do more to stamp out corruption. (Indianapolis Star/AP)
• Coalition: Attacks In Afghanistan Leave More Than 30 Insurgents Dead. Afghan and coalition soldiers killed more than 30 insurgents, including 13 would-be suicide bombers, as they fought off assaults on two military bases and government buildings in eastern Afghanistan, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said on Sunday. The attacks, which happened Saturday morning, were led by Haqqani network insurgents and were against Forward Operating Base Salerno and Forward Operating Base Chapman, ISAF said. Both bases are located in Khost province, a volatile region on Afghanistan's rugged border with Pakistan. Insurgents clad in U.S. military uniforms and wielding rocket-propelled grenades and small arms launched simultaneous attacks on the two bases, ISAF said. ISAF had previously reported more than 20 insurgents had died in the fighting. (CNN)

ØMilitary Coverage

• U.S. Commander Fears Political Stalemate In Iraq. The departing commander of American forces in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno, said Sunday that a new Iraqi government could still be two months away and warned that a stalemate beyond that could create demands for a new election to break the deadlock, which has lasted since March. While General Odierno said he believed negotiations had picked up and would prove successful, he predicted politicians still needed “four to six to eight weeks.” “That’s a guess,” he said. “If it goes beyond 1 October, what does that mean? Could there be a call for another election? I worry about that a little bit.” The prospect of another election would probably throw Iraq’s already turbulent politics into even greater turmoil as the United States begins withdrawing its last 50,000 troops, scheduled to be out by the end of 2011. (New York Times – see attached)

ØWorld Developments

• Terror Investigators Trying To Buy Time By Keeping Ottawa Man In Custody: Lawyer. Police investigating Ottawa’s alleged terrorist cell are attempting to buy time with “a pile on” of unrelated charges against a 20-year-old suspect, his lawyer claimed Sunday. Call centre worker Awso Peshdary was arrested in a dramatic RCMP swoop Friday in Ottawa. Mounties subsequently announced in a news release that they had released him after six hours of questioning. Peshdary was denied bail by Justice of the Peace Ray Switzer Sunday on two domestic assault charges laid by Ottawa police. At a court hearing Saturday, Switzer had released Peshdary on bail, but before the accused man could leave the Ottawa courthouse he was re-arrested on a new charge. Before Sunday’s court hearing, police laid a fourth charge. In total he faces two charges of assault and two charges of uttering threats. (Ottawa Citizen – see attached)
• N. Korea Leader's Train 'May Be Headed Home'. A train believed to be carrying North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il left the northeast Chinese city of Harbin Monday amid speculation he is headed home after a surprise trip to China, a report said. The secrecy-shrouded visit which began Thursday to the North's chief ally and benefactor is widely seen as seeking Beijing's approval for an eventual transfer of power from the ageing leader to his youngest son Jong-Un. The train left shortly after 8:00 am (0000 GMT) and was possibly heading for the Tumen River that marks the border with North Korea, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported. Kim arrived in Harbin Sunday and stayed near Songhua River before visiting a historic site there linked to his late father Kim Il-Sung, the North's founder, the agency quoted sources as saying. The North's leader reportedly met Chinese President Hu Jintao during an earlier stay in the northeastern city of Changchun. (Google/AFP)
• Mayor In Violent Mexican Border State Killed. Gunmen killed the mayor of a town in the drug-plagued Mexican border state of Tamaulipas on Sunday in a region where suspected cartel hitmen recently massacred 72 migrants, the government said. Hidalgo Mayor Marco Antonio Leal Garcia was the second mayor to be assassinated in the past two weeks in the area, which has become a battleground between the Gulf and Zetas cartels. President Felipe Calderon condemned the attack on Leal Garcia, which left the mayor's daughter wounded. Leal Garcia's rural town, Hidalgo, has about 25,000 inhabitants. It lies southwest of a part of Tamaulipas where a massacre survivor said Zetas gunmen killed 72 Central and South American migrants last week. Hidalgo is also near the border with Nuevo Leon state, where the mayor of another town, Santiago, was found murdered on Aug. 18. Local police allied with a drug gang are suspected in that killing. (CBS News/AP)

ØPublic Opinion

• Half Of Americans Think Obama 'Not Tough Enough' On Terrorists. A Newsweek poll conducted last week surveyed 1,029 adults nationwide. "We'd like your opinion of the way Barack Obama is handling certain aspects of his job. What about the war on terrorism? Do you approve or disapprove of the way Obama is handling this issue or problem?" 48% of respondents said they approve of the way President Obama his handling the issue of terrorism while 42% disapprove. The survey then asked, "As president, do you think Barack Obama has been tough enough in dealing with terrorists, or not tough enough?" 50% of respondents said they think Obama has not been tough enough in dealing with terrorists with 43% saying they think he has been tough enough. (PollingReport.com)

* AP = Associated Press UPI = United Press International KR = Knight Ridder

Please contact the U.S. Joint Forces Command (J00P) Public Affairs Office (757) 836-6554 ~ fax: (757) 836-6561 to report non-receipt of this product or to change your e-mail address.

U.S. Troops In Iraq Go From Shock And Awe To 'Advise And Assist'
Los Angeles Times
August 30, 2010

The soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Heavy Brigade Combat Team are, as their designation implies, trained and equipped to fight. They have a fleet of tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles. They carry their M-16 rifles slung over their shoulders at all times, ready to shoot if they are attacked. But since they deployed to Iraq eight months ago, they haven't fired their guns. Their tanks and Bradleys sit unused in a lot at the sprawling Camp Victory beside Baghdad airport. And most important of all, no one has been killed. "It's wonderful," said Sgt. 1st Class Anthony Hunter of Boston, Ga., a tank crew commander on his third tour of duty who survived 20 roadside blasts when he was first deployed, in 2004-05.

For Hunter and the other soldiers of the division's 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, many of whom are on their third or fourth tours, the formal end of combat operations in Iraq on Tuesday is just that: a formality. The war as they knew it is already over. That's not to say U.S. troops are out of danger. Eighteen U.S. soldiers have been killed in attacks this year across Iraq. But that's a fraction of the 4,408 who have died since 2003. These days Hunter spends his time training the Iraqi army, as part of a 70-member Stability Transition Team based at Joint Security Station Constitution in the still volatile neighborhood of Abu Ghraib, on the western outskirts of Baghdad.

"I don't wish I was out there fighting. It means we can take everyone home safely," he said in his air-conditioned trailer on the base, one of the 94 in Iraq that will house the 50,000 U.S. troops staying after combat operations end. For this combat unit, many of whose members stormed into Baghdad seven years ago, a war that began with shock and awe is ending with "advise and assist." That's the new label being given to the six brigades that will be left in Iraq, even if all of them are made up of combat soldiers. "It sounds like it's semantics, but it's not," 2nd Battalion commander Lt. Col. Gregory Sierra said of the name change. "What we do is completely different. I am an infantryman. We are a combat brigade. But we're assigned as an advise and assist brigade."

Troops offer Iraqi soldiers advice, and assist them, but only if asked. "Gone are the days where we had to grab three [Iraqi] soldiers and say, 'We're going outside the wire.' That does not happen," Sierra said. In a telling sign of how different the war has become, many of the soldiers at the camp didn't know about a wave of bombings across the country Wednesday that killed at least 50 people, even though several exploded in the west Baghdad area they cover. In days past, "we would have had an active role," said Staff Sgt. Frankie Parra, 28, of Queens, N.Y., whose quick reaction force wasn't aware of the bombings. "Now they only call us if they need us."

When soldiers do go out, it's mostly to provide what amounts to a heavily armored escort service for officers and experts visiting with Iraqis. Roadside bombs, known as improvised explosive devices, are still a threat to troops who ride out on the streets. Rocket fire is also a continuing menace, and two of the three soldiers killed this month died on their bases in the usually peaceful south, which has seen a rise in rocket attacks by Shiite Muslim militias in recent weeks. There will probably be more casualties before U.S. forces withdraw entirely at the end of 2011, Iraq commander Gen. Ray T. Odierno has warned. And Iraq's war isn't over. The country is still unstable, there is no proper government, bombs explode every day, and assassinations are on the rise.

U.S. troops do have the right to fight to defend themselves. It is not inconceivable that American forces will be called back into combat "if … you had a complete failure of the [Iraqi] security forces," Odierno told CNN this month. "But we don't see that happening." With just 50,000 troops on the ground, there's also a lot less the Americans can do. In 2007, there were 166,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, including eight combat brigades in Baghdad. Now there is one, responsible for a vast area comprising not only Baghdad, still one of the most violent areas of the country, but also an arc of territory to the south and west.

"I have 70 guys covering an area that had a whole combat brigade," said Lt. Col. Rob Rooker, who was among the soldiers who stormed Baghdad in 2003 and now commands the Stability Transition Team at Constitution, pointing out on a map an area stretching from the Tigris River to Abu Ghraib in the west. "There's just things we don't do anymore. Things fall off the plate." For soldiers who have already performed several tours of duty, the new pace is a big relief. "It's real good that we can go outside the wire and not have to deal with all the stuff that we used to," said Sgt. Michael Davis, 30, of Baton Rouge, La., who is on his third tour of duty. "But sometimes if you get a new guy just out of high school, they get caught up in the war stories people tell and then you have to explain to them that they need to be grateful they're not going through that."

Spc. Travis Carroll, 29, of Crawfordsville, Ind., is on his second deployment to Iraq, but mostly performed guard duty at a large base the last time. "Knock on wood, I've yet to fire my weapon in combat," he said. "There's a small part of me that does feel disappointed," he said. "I joined to be a soldier and I trained to fight. "But the big part of me says it means I'm going to go home 100% OK. I'd much rather see my family again than fire my weapon."

American Concerns Over Karzai Deepen
Wall Street Journal
August 30, 2010

Renewed tension with Afghan President Hamid Karzai – this time over the ouster of a graft-fighting prosecutor – is adding to doubts within the Obama administration and the U.S. military about their ability to show progress fighting corruption and improving governance, ahead of a White House review of war strategy in December. The abrupt dismissal last week of Fazel Ahmed Faqiryar, Afghanistan's deputy attorney general, caught U.S. officials off guard, and the State Department said it was seeking information from the Afghan government about his status. "What he was doing was very important," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said of Mr. Faqiryar. "Those charged with pursuing corruption need to continue their work without political interference. It's something we are watching to make sure the Afghan government lives up to the pledges it has made in battling corruption."

With many U.S. policy makers on vacation and Congress in recess, officials acknowledged it would take time for Washington to formulate a fuller response. They have limited room to maneuver because Washington is wary of igniting a full-blown confrontation with Mr. Karzai, whom some see as an increasingly shaky part of the administration's war strategy. Rising U.S. casualties, including the deaths of seven U.S. troops in weekend attacks in Afghanistan's southern and eastern regions, have fueled opposition to the war at home ahead of November congressional elections, particularly within President Barack Obama's Democratic Party. U.S. officials said the flare-up over Mr. Faqiryar shows the difficulty of managing relations with Mr. Karzai, who they say has become increasingly confrontational, in public and private, especially when he feels pressure to combat corruption in his administration.

They said ties improved during Mr. Karzai's visit to Washington in May but worsened again over his efforts to exert control over U.S.-backed Afghan panels set up to combat high-level graft, fraud and drug trafficking. Mr. Obama sent a trusted envoy, Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry, to Kabul earlier this month to seek assurances of cooperation from Mr. Karzai. But officials acknowledged afterward that it was unclear whether the mercurial president would deliver, and described Mr. Faqiryar's dismissal as a potentially serious setback. "The relationship can be very difficult to manage," one U.S. official said of Mr. Karzai, adding that a lack of progress fighting corruption and expanding Afghan governance could weigh on the December review, which will look at security as well as the corruption issue. "It is going to be an important factor," the official said.

But the Obama administration's options may be limited. Mr. Karzai isn't going anywhere, and Mr. Obama has set the goal of beginning to withdraw some U.S. forces in July 2011, conditions permitting. Some U.S. military officials point to what they see as a worrying trend: Their ability to expand security isn't being matched in many places by progress on governance, undercutting a counterinsurgency strategy that hinges on boosting Kabul's legitimacy among the Afghan people. "It's not like we're sitting around in the Pentagon wringing our hands over each and every issue of un-dealt-with corruption. We know this is a big problem and we know any progress against it is going to take time and it's going to be spotty," one senior military official said. "But there are numerous places in Afghanistan where security is outpacing governance at a rate that is probably not helpful. There is a shelf life here. ...You have to follow security up quickly with good governance."

Christine Fair, an assistant professor in the Center for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University, said she is increasingly pessimistic that the Afghan government will do its part to make the counterinsurgency strategy work. "We can go in, and we can clear, we can kill Taliban. But without the governance angle, why are we here?" said Ms. Fair, who returned to Washington recently from a visit to southern Afghanistan. "There is a fundamental lack of commitment from the Afghan side and we simply can't win this without the governance." Mr. Faqiryar has long faced political pressure over attempts to prosecute senior officials for corruption. In an interview earlier this year, he pulled a revolver out from under his jacket and made clear he wasn't afraid of retribution.

He and another Afghan prosecutor recently forced into retirement had been pursuing high-level corruption cases that touched on Mr. Karzai's administration. Officials close to the president have resisted the effort, describing the anticorruption campaign as an infringement on the country's sovereignty. According to Mr. Faqiryar, more than two dozen top Afghan officials are now under investigation, including cabinet ministers and governors. But he said cases against most of them remain stymied by Attorney General Mohammed Ishaq Aloko, who was appointed by the Afghan president and who Mr. Faqiryar said is "taking orders directly from Mr. Karzai." "I am willing to arrest people," said Mr. Faqiryar in an interview at his home. "But Aloko is only willing to release them."

The Afghan president's top security adviser dismissed Mr. Faqiryar's allegations, calling him a liar. A spokesman for the Afghan attorney general's office denied any political element in the dismissals, saying Mr. Faqiryar, 74, had reached retirement age. The other prosecutor, Amrodin Wafa, 65, who had worked closely with Mr. Faqiryar, may have been mistakenly dismissed and his case is under review, the spokesman said. Mr. Faqiryar said he and his colleague were dismissed last week after tensions rose over the arrest of one of Mr. Karzai's closest aides, Mohammed Zia Salehi, who Mr. Faqiryar said had been wiretapped while soliciting a bribe from another Afghan seeking his help in blocking a separate corruption investigation.

Mr. Faqiryar said the investigation against Mr. Salehi was largely the work of the U.S.-backed major-crimes task force, whose staff has been mentored by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and some of whom have received training in the U.S. Mr. Faqiryar said that Mr. Aloko last month signed a warrant allowing investigators to search the aide's home and arrest him, but then issued another order to have him released from jail within hours of his arrival there. Mr. Karzai has laid blame for much of the corruption in Afghanistan on the U.S. and its allies, which he says have been pouring billions of aid into the country with little oversight.

U.S. Commander Fears Political Stalemate In Iraq
New York Times
August 30, 2010

The departing commander of American forces in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno, said Sunday that a new Iraqi government could still be two months away and warned that a stalemate beyond that could create demands for a new election to break the deadlock, which has lasted since March. While General Odierno said he believed negotiations had picked up and would prove successful, he predicted politicians still needed “four to six to eight weeks.” “That’s a guess,” he said in an interview at his headquarters, whose plaster roof is still engraved with the initials of Saddam Hussein. “If it goes beyond 1 October, what does that mean? Could there be a call for another election? I worry about that a little bit.”

The prospect of another election would probably throw Iraq’s already turbulent politics into even greater turmoil as the United States begins withdrawing its last 50,000 troops, scheduled to be out by the end of 2011. While the election in March was viewed as successful, the periods before and after included bitter disputes over disqualifications, recounts, legal challenges and score-settling that exacerbated still smoldering sectarian tensions. Even the suggestion of a new election underscored the ambiguity in an anxious and unsettled Iraq these days. President Obama plans a speech from the Oval Office on Tuesday to address what the administration describes as the end of combat operations here. But the date has largely gone unnoticed by Iraqis, whose frustration with the political deadlock has mirrored their deepening anger over a dysfunctional government and the shoddy delivery of the basic necessities of life.

“The longer that takes, the more frustrated they might get with the process itself,” General Odierno said. “What I don’t want is for them to lose faith in the system, the democratic system, and that’s the long-term risk, do they lose faith in the process.” American officials had hoped to have a new government in place long before the Tuesday deadline, set by the Obama administration, to bring troop levels down to 50,000. But an effort to form a coalition between the two winning blocs – one led by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, the other by Ayad Allawi, a former interim prime minister – has proceeded only haltingly.

Powerful groups within Iraq, and some of the country’s neighbors, remain deeply opposed to either man leading the country. Even some Iraqi officials acknowledge there is little urgency in the talks, particularly during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began this month. The prospect of an election, however remote, comes amid worries that insurgents might stage high-profile attacks to create havoc, that Iran has stepped up support for militant groups and that Iraqi military leaders might be tempted to take matters into their own hands. “If we get the government formed, I think we’re O.K.,” General Odierno said. “If we don’t, I don’t know.”

General Odierno will leave the country Wednesday, after formally turning over command to Lt. Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III. For General Odierno, the ceremony will mark the end of more than four years in Iraq, where he has gone from a commander criticized for heavy-handed operations in regions that became insurgent strongholds to a figure praised, in military circles and beyond, for overseeing the American military buildup here in 2007. But part of his legacy may rest on the performance of Iraq’s security forces in taking sole control of the country. American officials have conceded they were dealt a blow last week by a wave of car bombings, roadside mines and hit-and-run attacks that insurgents unleashed in at least 13 towns and cities across Iraq. The attacks were “not unexpected,” General Odierno said. “What I would tell you surprised me a little bit was that they were able to do it over the country with some coordination.”

In his four years here, General Odierno was often at the center of shifting American military strategy in Iraq. He said the military learned lessons “the hard way.” “We all came in very naïve about Iraq,” he said. “We came in naïve about what the problems were in Iraq; I don’t think we understood what I call the societal devastation that occurred,” he said, citing the Iran-Iraq war, the Persian Gulf war and the international sanctions from 1990 to 2003 that wiped out the middle class. “And then we attacked to overthrow the government,” he said. The same went for the country’s ethnic and sectarian divisions, he said: “We just didn’t understand it.”

To advocates of the counterinsurgency strategy that General Odierno has, in part, come to symbolize, the learning curve might highlight the military’s adaptiveness. Critics of a conflict that killed an estimated 100,000 Iraqis, perhaps far more, and more than 4,400 American soldiers might see the acknowledgment as evidence of the war’s folly. Asked if the United States had made the country’s divisions worse, General Odierno said, “I don’t know.” “There’s all these issues that we didn’t understand and that we had to work our way through,” he said. “And did maybe that cause it to get worse? Maybe.”

Terror Investigators Trying To Buy Time By Keeping Ottawa Man In Custody: Lawyer
Ottawa Citizen
August 30, 2010

Police investigating Ottawa’s alleged terrorist cell are attempting to buy time with “a pile on” of unrelated charges against a 20-year-old suspect, his lawyer claimed Sunday. Call centre worker Awso Peshdary was arrested in a dramatic RCMP swoop Friday in Ottawa. Mounties subsequently announced in a news release that they had released him after six hours of questioning. Peshdary was denied bail by Justice of the Peace Ray Switzer Sunday on two domestic assault charges laid by Ottawa police. At a court hearing Saturday, Switzer had released Peshdary on bail, but before the accused man could leave the Ottawa courthouse he was re-arrested on a new charge. Before Sunday’s court hearing, police laid a fourth charge. In total he faces two charges of assault and two charges of uttering threats.

The two latest charges date back to April 8 and the others to Aug. 10. Switzer, who agreed Sunday to assistant Crown attorney Nathalie Cote’s request to adjourn Peshdary’s second bail hearing, changed his decision of 24 hours earlier after hearing the new allegations. Because of a publication ban, news media cannot report what was said during the hearing. Peshdary will appear for his next bail hearing on Tuesday. Defence lawyer Richard Morris criticized police and prosecutors for bringing the new charges. “On the face of it, the domestic (assault) charges are being used to further another investigation,” he said.

“I assume the RCMP received this information (about the assaults), considered it and decided not to act on it because they had other issues they considered more important, or because they didn’t consider it a valid or credible threat. “If they had an allegation of a threat (in April) and chose not to act on it until the 29th of August one has to question what their reasoning was.” He said the case against Peshdary “became a pile on when they laid the second set of charges.” “If the RCMP have something to bring forward they should do it now rather than later,” added Morris. “He (Peshdary) found himself in jail as a result of fairly serious allegations that are not substantiated and he is now detained on other charges that come out of the blue.”

Morris said that prosecutors and police have told him they have not had enough time to do the complete review of the material they need to lay all the charges. “My view is that the Crown has had enough time and that they are dragging things out unnecessarily. Normally, one would be held on charges that exist and not on charges that might be laid in the future,” he added. Three accused terrorists – all living in Ontario and all Canadian citizens – were arrested last week and remain in custody. The two Ottawa suspects – Hiva Alizadeh, 30, and Misbahuddin Ahmed, 26 – appeared in court Thursday and Khurram Syed Sher, 28, a Montreal-born pathologist living in London, Ont., made a brief appearance Friday. Ahmed works as an X-ray technician an Ottawa hospital. Together, the three suspects face a variety of terrorism charges under the Criminal Code.

Morris said Peshdary is “fairly depressed,” unable to eat and in need of medical attention, which he expects to get at the Ottawa Regional Detention Centre. “He looks like a deer caught in the headlights,” said Morris of his client. “He has never been in any trouble before. I don’t think he’s even had a speeding ticket. This is all new to him. “He finds himself taken down on his way to work on Friday morning and ends up being interrogated for many hours by RCMP and further interrogated by the Ottawa police,” he added. “He is brought to court, has a full bail hearing and is released and he finds out as the (release) papers are being typed that he is being charged with new offences. He comes to court today fully prepared to deal with those and finds out that the Crown wants to adjourn it again so they can scrape up more charges. “He is very disappointed. There is no reason to keep him in custody.”

Morris said he will be “taking a look” at the implications of his client’s treatment under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. “He is entitled to be brought before the court in a timely manner,” he said, “and is entitled to know the charges.” RCMP Chief Supt. Serge Therriault, head of criminal operations for the Ottawa region, said efforts are under way to arrest other suspects who are outside of Canada. “This group posed a real and serious threat to the citizens of National Capital Region and Canada’s national security,” Therriault told an Ottawa news conference Thursday. The yearlong investigation, dubbed Project Samossa, employed about 100 officers from several forces.

Police were apparently forced to move on the suspects this week when they learned financial support was about to be transferred from Canada for weapons to attack western coalition forces in Afghanistan. Michel Juneau-Katsuya, a former senior CSIS counter-terrorism agent and one-time RCMP security service officer, said a source close to the investigation claims that alleged ringleader Alizadeh used Ottawa Public Library computers to communicate with other members of the Ottawa-based cell. “He was trying to avoid detection and surveillance,” Juneau-Katsuya said.

Juneau-Katsuya said Internet messages between the men tripped computer “sniffers” at Ottawa’s Communications Security Establishment, the government’s electronic spy agency that intercepts phone calls and emails. “One of the filters picked up their chat,” said Juneau-Katsuya. “The way the system is established, we’ve got red flags everywhere and you can trip one of those flags anytime. If you’re travelling to Pakistan, that’s a red flag. If you’re going on certain websites, that’s another red flag and if you use certain key words in email. When you’ve got enough red flags, then you become a person of interest. My understanding is they were caught from the Internet.” ]]> JFC GOM Summary CoopMGI http://www.trackpads.com/forum/jfc-gom-summary/943487-gcom-summary-2010-aug-30-a.html http://www.trackpads.com/forum/jfc-gom-summary/943271-gcom-summary-2010-aug-27-a.html Fri, 27 Aug 2010 19:33:25 GMT *U.S. Joint Forces Command* *Global Current... U.S. Joint Forces Command
Global Current Operations Media Summary
Operations Iraqi Freedom/Enduring Freedom/Noble Eagle
Current as of August 27, 2010

ØNew Developments

• Afghan Candidate’s Campaign Workers Abducted. Ten campaign workers for a female parliamentary candidate in western Afghanistan were abducted by gunmen Thursday and the Taliban claimed responsibility for two deadly attacks, one that killed eight Afghan police officers and another that killed two Spanish police trainers and a translator a day earlier. The campaign workers, all men, were in southern Herat Province traveling between remote districts when gunmen stopped them, said Fawzia Gilani, a current member of Parliament who is running for re-election. “I received a phone call and a person said, ‘We have your campaigners with us,’ ” she said. “I do not know who did it. I have political rivals and there are other armed groups, but I cannot blame anyone specifically because it is hard to know.” (New York Times – see attached)
• Afghan Troops Learn Rules Of The Road. Afghan Sgt. Maj. Barakatullah Kolistani, who trains army recruits, is confident that his fledgling soldiers are learning the discipline, strategic skills and marksmanship needed to defeat the Taliban. But Kolistani, one of the base's senior enlisted soldiers, is worried about their proficiency in another key skill: driving. Particularly when it comes to the 8,000-pound-plus U.S.-supplied Humvee, the vehicle of choice in the nascent Afghan army. He's not alone. Afghan and American trainers at the NATO-run Kabul Military Training Center, where 10,000 recruits receive instruction at any given time, are shocked to discover just how bad the Afghans drive. (Los Angeles Times – see attached)
• Afghan President Questions U.S. Timeline For Leaving. President Hamid Karzai on Thursday criticized the U.S. plan to begin withdrawing troops starting next July and said the war on terror cannot succeed as long as the Taliban and their allies maintain sanctuaries in Pakistan. Karzai's statements were made during a meeting with visiting U.S. congressmen and come at a time when the Obama administration is ratcheting up pressure on the Afghan leader to do more to stamp out corruption. The Afghan government maintains that the U.S. should be doing more on other fronts, including pressuring Pakistan to shut down the insurgent sanctuaries. A statement by Karzai's office said the Afghan leader told the U.S. delegation that significant progress had been made in rebuilding the country after decades of war. But he said the campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaida had faltered because of ongoing civilian casualties during NATO military operations and a lack of focus on "destroying the terrorists' refuge" across the border. (Boston Globe/AP)
• Bin Laden's Bodyguard Warns Of Escalation In Yemen. A former bodyguard of Osama bin Laden warned of an escalation in fighting between al-Qaida and Yemeni authorities and predicted the government would need outside intervention to stay in power. Nasser Ahmed al-Bahri told the Associated Press late Wednesday that recent attacks by al-Qaida in southern Yemen were an indication of its increasing strength. U.S. officials have said that the CIA now sees al-Qaida's branch in Yemen as a greater threat to the United States than its parent organization hiding out in Pakistan. "I expect that the confrontations will escalate and will reach an open war between the government and al-Qaida fighters," he said, adding that U.S. forces may have to intervene to keep the terror network from triumphing. The U.S. is already spending tens of millions of dollars to help the Yemeni government fight al-Qaida and on Wednesday U.S. officials said the CIA's deadly Predator drones may be added to the fight. (ABC News/AP)

ØMilitary Coverage

• Administration Halts Prosecution Of Alleged USS Cole Bomber. The Obama administration has shelved the planned prosecution of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged coordinator of the Oct. 2000 suicide attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, according to a court filing. The decision at least temporarily scuttles what was supposed to be the signature trial of a major al-Qaeda figure under a reformed system of military commissions. And it comes practically on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the attack, which killed 17 sailors and wounded dozens when a boat packed with explosives ripped a hole in the side of the warship in the port of Aden. (Washington Post – see attached)
• Pentagon To Seek Modest Budget Growth. The Pentagon's chief financial officer said Wednesday that he expected the Obama administration to seek modest growth in the next defense budget amid concerns in Washington about mounting deficits. Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale told reporters that the Defense Department would seek an increase of 1% over inflation in the White House's next budget request, for fiscal year 2012. While that figure represents slower overall growth for the defense budget, Mr. Hale's optimism reflects hopes that a cost-saving effort by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates may help shield the military from more substantial cuts. (Wall Street Journal – see attached)

ØHomeland Security

• FBI, ATF Squabbles Are Hurting Bombing Inquiries, Justice Official Says. A long-standing battle between the FBI and the ATF over who controls investigations of bombings is a serious problem that has caused law enforcement delays and duplication of effort, according to a top Justice Department official who is trying to resolve the dispute. Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary G. Grindler, in an internal memo, said it is "critically important" that the two agencies share information so key intelligence is not lost. He designated the FBI as the lead investigator for explosives cases linked to terrorism, while the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will control all other bombing inquiries. (Washington Post – see attached)

ØWorld Developments

• Carter Wins Release Of American In North Korea. Former President Jimmy Carter was expected to leave North Korea on Friday with Aijalon Mahli Gomes, an American who was sentenced to eight years of hard labor for illegally entering the country, the Carter Center said. Mr. Gomes was granted amnesty by the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, the Carter Center said in an e-mail. Mr. Carter had been visiting Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, on a private humanitarian mission to win the release of Mr. Gomes, who was sentenced in April to eight years in a North Korean prison and fined $700,000 for entering the country illegally. (New York Times – see attached)
• Grenade Explodes In Bangkok, Rattles Nerves. A grenade exploded in central Bangkok, seriously wounding a security guard, police said on Friday, the third such incident in a month during a state of emergency across Thailand's capital. The explosions threaten to undermine attempts to revive Thailand's huge tourism industry three months after the country's worst political violence in modern history in which 91 people were killed in clashes between troops and red-shirted anti-government protesters. The grenade was tossed into the headquarters of Thai duty-free giant King Power Group late on Thursday, on the same street where a grenade exploded on July 30, seriously wounding a garbage collector. Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban told reporters the incident showed Bangkok, where there is still emergency rule, remained volatile. (Reuters)
• UK Faces New Wave Of Homegrown Attacks: Report. Britain faces a new wave of attacks from poorly trained but highly motivated homegrown militants, as the al Qaeda threat shifts from big, sophisticated bomb plots to acts by individuals, a report said on Friday. A shift in al Qaeda tactics, the growing radicalization of Muslims in prisons and a foreign policy that "serves to focus alienation and resentment," was fuelling the threat, the study by the Royal United Services Institute think tank argued. There have been 20 significant Islamist plots against Britain since 2000. Only one has been successful, the July 2005 London bombings by four young Britons which killed 52 people. More than 230 people have been jailed for planning attacks. (Reuters)

ØPublic Opinion

• Iraq Seven Years Later: Was The War Worth It? In a USA Today poll, 60% of Americans say "No," when asked "Do you think the situation in Iraq was worth going to war over?" Similar majorities either felt that the war did not make the USA safer from terrorism or made no difference. The same was said of whether the political situation in the Middle East is more stable. At the same time, 52% of Americans say that Iraqis are better off as a result of the war; 20% believe they are not. (USA Today – see attached)

* AP = Associated Press UPI = United Press International KR = Knight Ridder

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Afghan Candidate’s Campaign Workers Abducted
New York Times
August 27, 2010

Ten campaign workers for a female parliamentary candidate in western Afghanistan were abducted by gunmen Thursday and the Taliban claimed responsibility for two deadly attacks, one that killed eight Afghan police officers and another that killed two Spanish police trainers and a translator a day earlier. The campaign workers, all men, were in southern Herat Province traveling between remote districts when gunmen stopped them, said Fawzia Gilani, a current member of Parliament who is running for re-election. “I received a phone call and a person said, ‘We have your campaigners with us,’ ” she said. “I do not know who did it. I have political rivals and there are other armed groups, but I cannot blame anyone specifically because it is hard to know.”

The area where the workers were captured is remote, and a number of villages in one of the districts, Adraskan, are dominated by the Taliban, said Qader Rahimi, the Herat regional program manager for the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. He said, however, that according to local officials in those districts, the abduction appeared to be related to a tribal dispute rather than Ms. Gilani’s election campaign. Ms. Gilani is a well-connected politician whose cousin is a leader of the border police in the province, and she has relatives in the national government in Kabul.

In the northern province of Kunduz, eight police officers were killed at dawn by Taliban gunmen who attacked their checkpoint on the main highway in the far north of the province, said Muhammad Omar, the provincial governor. A ninth officer was in critical condition in the provincial hospital. “We strongly condemn this cruel action by our enemies and we have started our investigation into the incident,” Mr. Omar said. A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, claimed responsibility for the attack. Local residents described a fierce fight that started at 4 a.m. “We heard heavy gunfire that went on and off for an hour,” said Nisar Ahmad, 50, who lives near the checkpoint. “We were scared to leave our house and then a rocket-propelled grenade hit one of our neighbors’ houses and killed a man and injured two other men,” he said.

The Taliban also took responsibility for killing the two Spanish police trainers and their translator in Badghis Province. The killings set off an angry demonstration by villagers. The facts of the shooting, by a disgruntled Afghan, were still emerging Thursday, with several versions of events circulating as NATO officials sent an Afghan-NATO investigative team. “While there has been much speculation and rumor regarding the incident and demonstration, the assessment team will review evidence, gather facts and talk with people who can provide details of what happened,” said NATO officials in a statement.

The officials said early reports indicated that during a training session a member of the Afghan National Police turned his gun on the two members of the Spanish Guardia Civil police force and their civilian translator, killing all three, but added that the cause of the shooting remained unclear. The Badghis provincial governor, Dilbar Jan Arman, said on Thursday that the attack on the Spaniards and the base was inspired by insurgents who also wanted to breach his office and the provincial prison. “There were four hundred or five hundred people, including some insurgents, who had hand grenades and weapons,” he said, adding that the man who killed the Spaniards was a relative of a well-known Taliban commander in Badghis.

Afghan Troops Learn Rules Of The Road
Los Angeles Times
August 27, 2010

Afghan Sgt. Maj. Barakatullah Kolistani, who trains army recruits, is confident that his fledgling soldiers are learning the discipline, strategic skills and marksmanship needed to defeat the Taliban. But Kolistani, one of the base's senior enlisted soldiers, is worried about their proficiency in another key skill: driving. Particularly when it comes to the 8,000-pound-plus U.S.-supplied Humvee, the vehicle of choice in the nascent Afghan army. He's not alone. Afghan and American trainers at the NATO-run Kabul Military Training Center, where 10,000 recruits receive instruction at any given time, are shocked to discover just how bad the Afghans drive.

"We're losing them faster from vehicle accidents than combat," said U.S. Army Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, commander of the 22,000-acre training center, a former Soviet base that still houses a graveyard for Soviet tanks. More than half of Afghan army injuries result from vehicular accidents. Since 2005, 141 soldiers and recruits have died in rollovers and collisions, many caused by excessive speed, inability to negotiate curves or an unwillingness to yield to other vehicles. In the next 14 months, Caldwell said, the training center plans to turn out as many graduates as it has in the last eight years. He knows that to reach that goal, he must emphasize driver education.

The center now has 10 instructors and provides 191 hours of classroom and on-the-road training. "Even then, it's been hard," Caldwell said. The instructors come from several coalition partners. Reconnaissance classes are taught by Romanian soldiers; troops from Turkey teach preventive maintenance; Afghans demonstrate how to prepare chow. U.S. Marines teach driver training. About 80% of the recruits are illiterate. Many are from rural villages and have never steered a vehicle more complex than a horse-drawn cart. Those who have driven a car have, in many cases, done so primarily in the clogged, chaotic streets of Kabul, the nation's capital, where traffic resembles a demolition derby.

Even for vehicle-savvy young Americans, the Humvee is a challenge. It is wide and top-heavy and difficult to drive around corners; the braking system is demanding and the ride jarring. Soon the U.S. will supply the Afghan army with 5,000 Humvees equipped with armored gun turrets and heavy plating meant to withstand the roadside bombs planted by insurgents. Pickup trucks, also supplied by the Americans, present their own problem: Many Afghan soldiers seem oblivious to their comrades riding in the open bed. A common accident involves a driver hitting a bump at high speed, ejecting the passengers in the back.

In Helmand province, American instructors appeal to the Afghans' sense of masculinity in urging them to be cautious. "They are very much a society of honor and shame," said retired Marine senior gunner Terry Walker, who runs the training camp. "Either one works for me." The Kabul center has an enclosed track where instructors in the passenger seats of Humvees make sure the trainees have learned their classroom lessons. Kolistani, who fought beside the legendary Ahmed Shah Massoud in his unsuccessful effort to keep the Taliban from taking power after Russian troops withdrew from Afghanistan more than two decades ago, knows that mastering the intricacies of the M-16 assault rifle is important. But he would like even more hours devoted to driver training. "To fight," he said, "you must drive."

Administration Halts Prosecution Of Alleged USS Cole Bomber
Washington Post
August 27, 2010

The Obama administration has shelved the planned prosecution of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged coordinator of the Oct. 2000 suicide attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, according to a court filing. The decision at least temporarily scuttles what was supposed to be the signature trial of a major al-Qaeda figure under a reformed system of military commissions. And it comes practically on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the attack, which killed 17 sailors and wounded dozens when a boat packed with explosives ripped a hole in the side of the warship in the port of Aden.

In a filing this week in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the Justice Department said that "no charges are either pending or contemplated with respect to al-Nashiri in the near future." The statement, tucked into a motion to dismiss a petition by Nashiri's attorneys, suggests that the prospect of further military trials for detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has all but ground to a halt, much as the administration's plan to try the accused plotters of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in federal court has stalled.

Only two cases are moving forward at Guantanamo Bay, and both were sworn and referred for trial by the time Obama took office. In January 2009, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates directed the Convening Authority for Military Commissions to stop referring cases for trial, an order that 20 months later has not been rescinded. Military officials said a team of prosecutors in the Nashiri case has been ready go to trial for some time. And several months ago, military officials seemed confident that Nashiri would be arraigned this summer.

"It's politics at this point," said one military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss policy. He said he thinks the administration does not want to proceed against a high-value detainee without some prospect of civilian trials for other major figures at Guantanamo Bay. A White House official disputed that. "We are confident that the reformed military commissions are a lawful, fair and effective prosecutorial forum and that the Department of Defense will handle the referrals in an appropriate manner consistent with the interests of justice," said the official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Defense Department issued a statement Thursday saying the case is not stalled. "Prosecutors in the Office of Military Commissions are actively investigating the case against Mr. al-Nashiri and are developing charges against him," the statement said. With the 10th anniversary of the Cole bombing approaching on Oct. 12, relatives of those killed in the attack expressed deep frustration with the delay. "After 10 years, it seems like nobody really cares," said Gloria Clodfelter, whose 21-year-old son, Kenneth, was killed on the Cole.

Military prosecutors allege that Nashiri, a Saudi national, was a senior al-Qaeda operative and close associate of Osama bin Laden, who orchestrated the suicide attack on the Cole. Nashiri was scheduled to be arraigned in February 2009 but the new administration instructed military prosecutors to suspend legal proceedings at Guantanamo Bay. The charges against Nashiri were withdrawn. In November 2009, however, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. appeared to revive the case when he announced that the military would prosecute Nashiri, one of at least 36 detainees who could be tired in federal court or a military commission. "With regard to the Cole bombing, that was an attack on a United States warship, and that, I think, is appropriately placed into the military commission setting," Holder said.

But critics of military commissions say the Nashiri case exemplifies the system's flaws, particularly the ability to introduce certain evidence such as hearsay statements that probably would not be admitted in federal court. The prosecution is expected to rely heavily on statements made to the FBI by two Yemenis who allegedly implicated Nashiri. Neither witness is expected at trial, but the FBI agents who interviewed them will testify, said Nashiri's military attorney, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Stephen C. Reyes. "Unlike in federal court, you don't have the right to confront the witnesses against you," he said. Such indirect testimony could be critical to a conviction because any incriminating statements Nashiri might have made are probably inadmissible under the 2009 Military Commissions Act, which bars the use of evidence obtained through torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

Nashiri, 45, was captured in the United Arab Emirates in November 2002, and immediately placed in CIA custody. He was among three detainees held by the agency who was water-boarded, and a report by the CIA's inspector general found that Nashiri was threatened with a gun and a power drill. "I am very confident, based upon what I have heard, that there is more than sufficient evidence linking him to the attack on Cole directly, and that they do not need any of the information that may have come from black site interviews and interrogations," said Kirk S. Lippold, who was commander of the Cole when it was attacked.

Reyes said Nashiri's treatment at the hands of the CIA will be part of any proceeding and will be relevant to any sentence he receives if he is found guilty. The government is expected to seek the death penalty. "I'm not admitting to guilty, but his treatment is absolutely relevant in a death case and can be used in mitigation to lessen the sentence," Reyes said.

Nashiri, who has been held at Camp 7 at Guantanamo Bay since September 2006, has never appeared in court. But according to the transcript of a 2007 Combatant Status Review Tribunal, he said that he had nothing to do with the Cole bombing and that his connections to those involved in the explosion, including the purchase of the suicide boat, were unwitting. "We were planning to be involved in a fishing project," he said.

Pentagon To Seek Modest Budget Growth
Wall Street Journal
August 27, 2010

The Pentagon's chief financial officer said Wednesday that he expected the Obama administration to seek modest growth in the next defense budget amid concerns in Washington about mounting deficits. Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale told reporters that the Defense Department would seek an increase of 1% over inflation in the White House's next budget request, for fiscal year 2012. "I think we have a shot at getting that," he said. While that figure represents slower overall growth for the defense budget, Mr. Hale's optimism reflects hopes that a cost-saving effort by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates may help shield the military from more substantial cuts. The success of that plan, however, isn't guaranteed.

Over the past decade, defense budgets have effectively doubled. For fiscal year 2011, which begins Oct. 1, the White House requested $548.9 billion for the Defense Department's base budget, a real increase – or an increase above inflation – of just less than 2% from the previous year. Factoring in supplemental funding to cover the cost of military operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, the total defense budget for fiscal year 2011 will climb to more than $700 billion. The comparable figure in fiscal year 2001 was $316 billion. In a key speech in May, Mr. Gates warned that the "gusher" of post-9/11 defense spending was being turned off.

This summer, the department launched an efficiency drive to trim overhead costs within the Pentagon. The idea was to find internal cost savings of around $100 billion over the next five years, funds that could be shifted to support troops, even as military budgets flatten. Mr. Hale's remarks were part of a media roundtable about cost reduction initiatives at a Defense Logistics Agency conference in Columbus, Ohio. The logistics agency, which buys consumable items like food, fuel and spare parts for the military, is the Defense Department's largest contracting agency.

In the same conference call, Navy Vice Adm. Alan Thompson, the agency's director, described the agency as "a $41 billion global enterprise that would be ranked in the top 60 of the Fortune 100 companies if in fact we were a private corporation." Adm. Thompson said the agency was looking to drive down costs by as much as 10% in some areas by consolidating purchases and negotiating more long-term contracts. The military is the biggest source of government spending after entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, and some lawmakers have called for reining in military spending. Later this year, the president's deficit-reduction panel is supposed to issue recommendations that may also include spending cuts. Mr. Gates has said he wants to stave off deeper cuts by Congress.

Winslow Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information, said Mr. Gates was "taking a first step" in the direction of controlling defense spending, but he said the secretary's plan for 1% real growth would be "dead on arrival" if it is submitted as part of the administration's budget request in February 2011. "Congress won't get its hands onto it until next winter," he said. "The deficit commission reports after the [midterm] elections, and all proposals that I have seen talk about very significant reductions from the Gates plan."

FBI, ATF Squabbles Are Hurting Bombing Inquiries, Justice Official Says
Washington Post
August 27, 2010

A long-standing battle between the FBI and the ATF over who controls investigations of bombings is a serious problem that has caused law enforcement delays and duplication of effort, according to a top Justice Department official who is trying to resolve the dispute. Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary G. Grindler, in an internal memo, said it is "critically important" that the two agencies share information so key intelligence is not lost. He designated the FBI as the lead investigator for explosives cases linked to terrorism, while the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will control all other bombing inquiries.

But the Aug. 3 memo – which highlights a rift in which FBI and ATF agents have occasionally battled over jurisdiction and evidence, and even threatened to arrest each other at crime scenes – has triggered new resistance within ATF. The memo creates broad categories of explosives cases presumed to have terrorist links, such as those targeting courthouses, schools, shopping malls or any "tourist attraction." The result, some ATF agents fear, is that the FBI will grab high-profile investigations by claiming a terrorism nexus and marginalize the ATF's explosives expertise.

"It's very disheartening," said one ATF agent, who was not authorized to speak publicly about internal matters. "They won't hesitate to throw that memo in our face." Other agents said there will be further delays as the FBI decides whether bombings are terrorism-related – and then hands over some cases weeks later to ATF agents who must retrace the FBI's steps. The agencies use different techniques to investigate bombings. "Everyone will have to wait for the FBI to make a decision," said one ATF agent. "This gives one agency – the FBI – the ability to control everything."

Top officials at both agencies said they supported Grindler's memo and are working together to implement it. They said relations have improved in recent years, especially since the Justice Department's inspector general found last year that agents were clashing at crime scenes "throughout the country." "ATF is diligently working with the FBI to implement the recommendations and requirements set forth in his memorandum," said ATF Deputy Director Kenneth E. Melson. He said Grindler's guidance "will enhance law enforcement's capabilities nationally, and ensure safer communities."

T.J. Harrington, the FBI's associate deputy director, praised Grindler's "leadership" and said "both the FBI and ATF are committed to providing their very best in service to the American public. The Deputy Attorney General recognized the unique strengths of our two organizations, and he has reaffirmed our common commitment and goal of 'One-Team One-Fight' – keeping the country safe."

The ATF will probably retain lead-agency jurisdiction over the vast majority of explosives incidents, officials said, since federal figures show that more than 90 percent are not related to terrorism. Such incidents can range from minor pipe bombings to the recent attempted terrorist bombing in New York's Times Square. Turf battles are nothing new in Washington. But FBI-ATF squabbling poses particular dangers in the post-Sept. 11 era, experts said, because cooperation is more vital than ever to prevent another terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

"It is absolutely critical that they get along, particularly in the terrorism context," said McGregor Scott, a former U.S. attorney in Sacramento who teaches national security law at McGeorge School of Law at the University of the Pacific. "If you're a local sheriff or police chief, the last thing you want to see is two agencies within the Justice Department fighting each other." Grindler makes similar points in his memo. Although the FBI and ATF work well together in most instances, he said, "there nonetheless have been disputes in some cases where both agencies have asserted lead jurisdiction" over bombing investigations.

The conflict is "a persistent problem" that has caused "unfortunate confusion" among local law enforcement officials and "duplication of effort between ATF and the FBI," Grindler wrote. He said the situation "must be remedied . . . so that there is never an incident where actionable intelligence does not get into the right hands because of concerns about which agency will be the lead." The FBI and ATF have distinctive cultures that have bred mutual suspicion. Some ATF agents, many of whom are former police or military officers, have long resented their FBI counterparts, who until the mid-1990s were usually higher paid.

The ATF's transfer from the Treasury Department to the FBI's home at the Justice Department after Sept. 11, 2001, was supposed to eliminate tension and coordinate the fight against terrorism. But it created more competition by expanding the ATF's role in domestic terrorism cases, bringing that agency into conflict with the core mission of the post-Sept. 11 FBI. It also added the word "explosives" to ATF's name, which had been the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Glenn A. Fine, the Justice Department's inspector general, reported last year that battles were flaring at crime scenes from Baltimore to Houston, delaying witness interviews and impairing the government's ability to spot trends in bombings.

Carter Wins Release Of American In North Korea
New York Times
August 27, 2010

Former President Jimmy Carter was expected to leave North Korea on Friday with Aijalon Mahli Gomes, an American who was sentenced to eight years of hard labor for illegally entering the country, the Carter Center said. Mr. Gomes was granted amnesty by the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, the Carter Center said in an e-mail. “It is expected that Mr. Gomes will be returned to Boston, Mass., early Friday afternoon, to be reunited with his mother and other members of his family,” the statement said. Mr. Carter had been visiting Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, on a private humanitarian mission to win the release of Mr. Gomes, who was sentenced in April to eight years in a North Korean prison and fined $700,000 for entering the country illegally.

There has also been speculation that North Korea might try to use Mr. Carter as a conduit to ease tensions with the United States. Mr. Carter had arrived on Wednesday at the invitation of the North Korean government, but it was not known whether he met with Mr. Kim, the North Korean leader. South Korean officials said Thursday that a special train believed to be carrying Mr. Kim had entered China around midnight on Wednesday, setting off speculation over what might have compelled him to travel to his isolated government’s closest ally while Mr. Carter was visiting.

After watching Mr. Kim’s movements for the past few days, the South Korean authorities said his train had crossed the border with China, traveling from the North Korean town of Manpo to Jian in China, according to an official at the presidential Blue House in Seoul. Two South Korean intelligence sources who, like the presidential aide, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the matter, said Mr. Kim might be taking his son with him to introduce him formally to Chinese leaders. South Korean news outlets raised the same possibility.

Mr. Kim is grooming his youngest son, Kim Jong-un, as successor, according to South Korean officials. North Korea is to convene a congress of its ruling Workers’ Party early next month, where Mr. Kim is expected to rally popular support for his succession plans. If confirmed, this would be Mr. Kim’s sixth trip to China, his impoverished country’s largest trading partner and aid provider. His last trip was in May, when he met President Hu Jintao during a five-day visit. North Korea and China usually do not confirm a trip by Mr. Kim until it is over.

News of the possible trip by Mr. Kim led to rampant speculation in South Korea. Possible motives cited by analysts in Seoul included the North’s need for Chinese aid because of flooding and the possibility of a decline in Mr. Kim’s health, which might have forced aides to take him to China for treatment. Many intelligence officials believe Mr. Kim had a stroke in 2008. Around the time that Mr. Kim’s train crossed the border, North Korean news media reported that China would provide emergency flood relief. With North Korea’s relations with the South and the United States at a low point, “China is the only one Kim Jong-il can go to to seek aid,” said Kim Keun-sik, an analyst at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. “He badly needs aid before the party meeting to make it a national festival, as it is meant to be.”

Even so, leaving North Korea without meeting Mr. Carter would be a notable breach of diplomatic etiquette, the analyst said. “A possible political message of this is that North Korea gives its priority to China over the United States,” he said. China’s Foreign Ministry had no comment on the visit. Two teachers told The Associated Press that Mr. Kim spent 20 minutes Thursday at Yuwen Middle School in Jilin, in the northeast, where his father, Kim Il-sung, attended classes from 1927 to 1930. A secretary who answered the phone Thursday afternoon said “an important person” had visited but said she did not know who it was.

Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at People’s University in Beijing, said a visit by Kim Jong-il could offer a diplomatic respite from the pressure being exerted by South Korea and the United States. John Delury, senior fellow of the Center on U.S.-China Relations of the Asia Society in New York, said Mr. Kim’s reported trip begged for explanation. Mr. Delury said he was skeptical that Mr. Kim would have gone to China in person to seek a breakthrough in the stalled six-nation talks on ending his country’s nuclear weapons programs. “That’s what diplomats are for,” he said.

Iraq Seven Years Later: Was The War Worth It?
USA Today
August 27, 2010

It was a way to show the government cared. About 100 families of slain policemen and other victims of insurgent attacks gathered in an auditorium to receive packages of food from the local government. "We don't want food," said Nooriya Khalaf, 39, pointing dismissively at the small bags with rice. "We want jobs." The shouting and gesturing continued until the ceremony collapsed into chaos. The women rushed the stage, gathering around a police chief and shouting complaints at him. Democracy is alive in Iraq. Under Saddam Hussein, Khalaf and others may have been visited by the secret police for their remarks and then never seen again. Today, a police chief is berated, and no one fears for their lives.

Yet many Iraqis are not pleased with life. Unemployment is 35%, according to Iraq's development ministry. Electricity is spotty. Terrorist bombings are almost a daily event. Sunni Arabs, Shiites and Kurds are still arguing over who should be prime minister nearly six months after parliamentary elections were held. Many are still mourning the thousands who died in the violence that followed the defeat of the Baathist regime; a number the Iraq health ministry estimates at 87,000. And although violence has declined from a peak in 2007, it is a constant threat. "We had hoped to remove Saddam," says Ahmed abu Risha, a tribal leader. "But this is a lot to pay."

Americans seem to agree. In a USA Today poll, 60% of Americans say "No," when asked "Do you think the situation in Iraq was worth going to war over?" Similar majorities either felt that the war did not make the USA safer from terrorism or made no difference. The same was said of whether the political situation in the Middle East is more stable. At the same time, 52% of Americans say that Iraqis are better off as a result of the war; 20% believe they are not. The results of the Aug. 21-22 poll come as the United States prepares to officially end combat operations in Iraq on Tuesday. President Obama will travel to Fort Bliss, Texas, on Tuesday to meet with troops and will deliver an address that evening from the Oval Office.

By the end of the month, troop levels will go from a high of more than 160,000 servicemembers in 2007 to fewer than 50,000. Most of those who remain will focus on training Iraqi police and soldiers to take over the nation's security. The seven years of fighting cost the lives of more than 4,400 Americans. The financial cost of the war for the United States has been more than $748 billion, making it the most expensive U.S. war apart from World War II in current dollars. As U.S. involvement winds down, and forces prepare for a full withdrawal in 2011, experts are asking, "Was it worth it?" "When asked if the French Revolution (1789-99) had been a good idea, Chinese premier Zhou Enlai supposedly said (two centuries later), 'It's too early to tell,' " says military scholar Max Boot. "The same might be said for the war in Iraq."

Scholars, former government officials, military experts as well as politicians agree it is too early to tell whether the terrible cost in lives and treasure will be worth an outcome that will not be fully know for years, even decades. Even so, many say they do not have to wait any longer to make up their minds. "We've lost so many of our young soldiers, and I feel pretty heartbroken about it," says Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., an opponent of the Iraq war from the beginning. "It couldn't possibly be worth it." Sen. Joe Lieberman, a former Connecticut Democrat who won re-election as an independent on a pro-Iraq war platform, disagrees. "We are significantly safer as a result of what I consider to be a victory in Iraq," he says. "It cost too much; it went on too long; mistakes were made along the way. But ultimately, if we had withdrawn, it would have had a devastating impact on the entire Middle East and our credibility in the world. I think it was worth it."

This moment in history is the culmination of a confrontation that goes back 20 years to the Gulf War of 1990. Following the al-Qaeda terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush and his Cabinet argued that Saddam was too much of a threat given the climate in the Middle East to remain in power. When Saddam refused to allow U.N. inspections of his weapons facilities, Bush argued that Saddam "needs to let inspectors back in his country, to show us that he is not developing weapons of mass destruction."

In October 2002, the House and Senate voted overwhelmingly to authorize force against Iraq. In November 2002, the United Nations Security Council adopted a unanimous resolution offering Saddam "a final opportunity" to comply with disarmament. Three months later, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said U.S. and European intelligence agencies believed Iraq was hiding its weaponry and seeking more. The final U.N. weapons inspection report stated that Iraq failed to account for chemical and biological stockpiles. Lead U.N. inspector Hans Blix stated he had "no confidence" that the weaponry had been destroyed.

In his State of the Union Address in January 2003, Bush said: "Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late." At 5:34 a.m., March 20, 2003, a U.S. force backed by 34 nations crossed into Iraq. The war was on.

In the ensuing years, the war saw failures and unforeseen consequences. No weapons of mass destruction were found, and a violent insurgency arose that shocked many. There were successes as well. Millions of Iraqis braved terrorist death threats to vote in free and fair elections in 2005. Saddam's regime was deposed, and democratic institutions moved into his palaces and ministries. Violence eventually plummeted. "The war has brought the Iraqi nation a hope for the future that didn't exist under Saddam's rule," says retired Army lieutenant general James Dubik of the Institute for the Study of War. "That's a huge thing."

Was it worth it? "The bottom line is that it's too soon to tell," Dubik says. "Wars are not won by just the fighting." Dubik says diplomatic and economic efforts will determine whether the war brings about another war or a better peace. He also says it will take 20 years to play out. Among the things Iraq needs to succeed are effective security forces, the creation of an independent judicial system and an improved economy. "I think it's completely doable," he says. "It's in our national interests, and they want our help."

Many Iraqis see only a war's aftermath in which the economy is sputtering and life remains hard. "What you see in Iraq is not victory," says abu Risha, the tribal leader, who says he gets only five hours of electricity a day. "Yes, we are victorious against al-Qaeda. But after seven years, the country still lacks power." Some Iraqis blame their government. When asked, they freely criticize their leaders, using hot-headed words among friends. "It isn't politics," says Qasim Sabti, a painter who sat in the courtyard of his gallery, drinking tea and smoking cigarettes with other artists. "It's looting." "We had one dictator," Sabti says. "Now we have hundreds of dictators."

Jasim al-Halbusi, chairman of the Anbar provincial council, says little has been gained and much made worse. "The Americans only left death and destruction – handicapped people, orphans, widows, an immature political system," he says. "This is what we get with U.S. liberation and democracy." Supporters say that seven years after the statue of Saddam Hussein in Firdos Square was toppled, the Iraqis have a freely elected government, are rid of a regime that murdered hundreds of thousands of their people, and are slowly but steadily rebuilding an oil industry that sits atop the world's third-largest oil reserves.

Salah al-Emari, 36, manager of an appliance shop in Baghdad, says people's frustrations will pass. "This is the problem with my people: They don't understand democracy yet," al-Emari says. Was the war worth it? "Yes," he says. "There has to be a price for anything," al-Emari says. "Democracy cannot be given. It has to be taken. We must heal eventually." Salman Hassan, a 63-year-old investor, sat with a group of men in the Iraqi Stock Exchange, which was recently computerized, and watched prices change on a large computer screen. Air conditioners offered a respite from temperatures in Baghdad that were climbing toward 110 degrees. "When the government settles everything else will settle," he says. "There is going to be stability."

Prices on the fledgling market, which only lists 84 companies, have been sluggish lately because of the political uncertainty and new central bank requirements that have diluted bank shares, says Laith al-Timeemi, a 33-year-old broker and member of the exchange's board of governors. Even so, he expects prices to rise as Iraq's government begins to focus on reconstruction projects and starts attracting foreign investment. The market shrugged off a wave of recent bombings: "We're used to it," Timeemi says.

Meanwhile in the United States, "we know that years of effort have toppled one of the world's most dangerous and unpredictable dictators and prevented a terrible defeat that would have occurred if al-Qaeda in Iraq and its Shiite counterparts had succeeded in chasing us out prematurely, " says Boot, the military scholar and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. If Iraq veers into chaos, "much of the effort we have expended will have been wasted."

John Bolton, U.N. ambassador under Bush, says there's no need to wait to determine whether the war was worth the price. Deposing Saddam's regime was "unquestionably correct" because it kept him from acquiring nuclear weaponry, which Bolton says he surely would have done given that the sanctions effort against him was about to crumble. "Achieving that objective was materially in the interests of the United States and the world is a better place," he says, adding that America's show of strength against Iraq is what persuaded Libya's Moammar Gadhafi to dismantle his atomic bomb program and destroyed much of al-Qaeda's operational capacity.

But Bolton says mistakes made after the invasion may blight other benefits of the war. "I would have turned over authority to the Iraqis as quickly as possible to try to put government in the business of politics instead of a different business. We're still playing out the consequences of not having done that." In Anbar province, what was once the heart of the Sunni insurgency that cost so many lives is now one of the most secure areas in Iraq. Today, America's greatest enemy is now Anbar's as well. "People of Anbar have issued a death warrant to al-Qaeda," abu Risha says.

War opponents in the USA say the true enemy of Iraq is the United States. "I don't think there's been any measurable thing that we could cite that this occupation of Iraq has made better. We achieved exactly nothing," says Cindy Sheehan, an antiwar activist. Sheehan says the war made things worse for Iraqis and others. "My work has gone from trying to stop these wars to trying to alert people to the problems of being subjects of a military empire," she says.

Howard Dean, who rode a wave of antiwar sentiment to come close to capturing the 2004 Democratic nomination for president, says no one knows yet whether the war was worth it. "If Iraq should, against the odds, turn into a liberal democracy, then we would say it was worth it," he says. "The problem is, the odds are against it." "I wish the Iraqis well. I hope they succeed and prove that I was wrong when I came out against the war in 2003." ]]> JFC GOM Summary CoopMGI http://www.trackpads.com/forum/jfc-gom-summary/943271-gcom-summary-2010-aug-27-a.html http://www.trackpads.com/forum/jfc-gom-summary/943270-gcom-summary-2010-aug-26-a.html Fri, 27 Aug 2010 19:31:34 GMT *U.S. Joint Forces Command* *Global Current... U.S. Joint Forces Command
Global Current Operations Media Summary
Operations Iraqi Freedom/Enduring Freedom/Noble Eagle
Current as of August 26, 2010



ØNew Developments

• Car Bombings, Other Attacks Kill 51 In Iraq. Insurgents struck across Iraq on Wednesday, killing more than 50 people in bombing and shooting attacks. The violence hit 11 towns and cities from north to south and appeared timed to undermine confidence in the Iraqi army and police as the U.S. military ends its formal combat mission in the country. The attacks pointed to the enduring capabilities of militant groups when the U.S. military and Iraqi forces have depicted Al Qaeda in Iraq and its brethren as no match for the Iraqi army. The bloodshed came amid Iraqis' frustration over the failure of political blocs to form a new government nearly six months after national elections. (Los Angeles Times – see attached)
• Key Karzai Aide In Corruption Inquiry Is Linked To C.I.A. The aide to President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan at the center of a politically sensitive corruption investigation is being paid by the Central Intelligence Agency, according to Afghan and American officials. Mohammed Zia Salehi, the chief of administration for the National Security Council, appears to have been on the payroll for many years, according to officials in Kabul and Washington. It is unclear exactly what Mr. Salehi does in exchange for his money, whether providing information to the spy agency, advancing American views inside the presidential palace, or both. Mr. Salehi’s relationship with the C.I.A. underscores deep contradictions at the heart of the Obama administration’s policy in Afghanistan, with American officials simultaneously demanding that Mr. Karzai root out the corruption that pervades his government while sometimes subsidizing the very people suspected of perpetrating it. (New York Times – see attached)
• 2 Spanish Soldiers In Afghanistan Killed. Two Spanish soldiers were shot dead by their Afghan driver while conducting training of local police forces Wednesday, a Spanish official said, raising fears that the Taliban is employing a new strategy of infiltration to kill Western troops. Spain's interior minister, Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, said at a news conference in Madrid that the driver had worked for the Spanish military for five months. But he also suggested that the attack was premeditated and that the driver, who was killed when Spanish troops returned fire at the scene, might be a member of the Taliban who had disguised his affiliation. (Washington Post – see attached)
• Taliban Kill Eight Police In Afghan North: Governor. Taliban rebels killed eight Afghan police officers on Thursday in northern Kunduz, an official said, stepping up strikes in what was once a relatively secure part of Afghanistan. The attack happened just before dawn when the police were asleep, Kunduz Governor Mohammad Omar told reporters. One policeman was wounded and one managed to escape, he said, lowering his earlier death toll of nine. Residents said there were some casualties among civilians, but details were not immediately available. The Taliban, largely active in their traditional bastion of support in the south and east, have increased attacks in recent months in some areas of the north despite the presence of some 150,000 foreign forces in the country. Kunduz has been the focus of attacks in the north and insurgents are increasingly using it as a base to launch attacks elsewhere in the region. (Reuters)
• Militants Plan Aid Worker Attacks In Pakistan: U.S. The Pakistani Taliban is planning attacks on foreigners offering assistance in the aftermath of devastating floods in Pakistan, a U.S. official has warned. "According to information available to the U.S. government, Tehreek-e-Taliban plans to conduct attacks against foreigners participating in the ongoing flood relief operations in Pakistan," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity. "Tehreek-e-Taliban also may be making plans to attack federal and provincial ministers in Islamabad," the official warned. The vast floods have affected an estimated 17.2 million people, at least eight million of whom are believed to need life-saving humanitarian assistance. The Pakistani Taliban have previously denounced all foreign aid for victims of the country's catastrophic flooding. The Tehreek-e-Taliban faction is a key architect of extremist violence that has killed more than 3,570 people across Pakistan in three years. (Google/AFP)

ØMilitary Coverage

• Navy Drone Violated Washington Airspace. The skies over the nation’s capital are crowded with presidential aircraft, military flyovers and the Delta shuttle, but this month a strange new bird was briefly among them: a United States Navy drone that wandered into the restricted airspace around Washington before operators could stop it. Navy spokesmen could not say Wednesday if anyone on the ground was alarmed by the drone – officially an MQ-8B Fire Scout Vertical Takeoff and Landing unmanned aerial vehicle – which looks like a small windowless helicopter and was flying at 2,000 feet. The Navy did say that the drone got within 40 miles of Washington before operators were able to re-establish communication and guide it back to its base in southern Maryland. (New York Times – see attached)

ØHomeland Security

• 'Secret' CIA Memo On WikiLeaks Is Not Very Revelatory. The latest U.S. government document posted by WikiLeaks is marked "secret," but it contains no new revelations, startling or otherwise. It's a CIA memo that reads like the musings of a Washington think tank, pondering what might happen if the United States began to be perceived as an "exporter of terrorism," as a result of attacks mounted abroad by homegrown radicals. The conclusion: It would not be a good thing. WikiLeaks won fame and notoriety after releasing gun-camera video of a U.S. helicopter attack in Iraq, and more recently about 75,000 classified military documents detailing operations in Afghanistan. (Los Angeles Times – see attached)
• FBI Agent Takes Stand In Bomb Case. The Federal Bureau of Investigation had never heard of James Cromitie before a confidential informant met him at a New York area mosque in 2007, an FBI agent testified Wednesday in the second day of the trial of Mr. Cromitie and three others charged with planning to blow up a synagogue in Riverdale and shoot down Air Force planes. Special agent Robert Fuller's testimony included showing the three inert explosive devices that the FBI built to give to the defendants, as well as two stinger missiles that the government said the defendants planned to use to shoot down Air Force planes. (Wall Street Journal – see attached)

ØWorld Developments

• Ottawa Terror Plot Had al-Qaeda Links: Police. An alleged al-Qaeda bomb plot hatched in Ottawa over the past two years has been dismantled by counter-terrorism police. Two people were arrested without incident Wednesday on undisclosed terrorism-related charges after RCMP and Ottawa police armed with a search warrant converged on a townhouse in Ottawa, at about 7 a.m. A simultaneous and similar low-key raid took place at a highrise apartment in the Bayshore area. There were indications Wednesday night that further searches might take place, including in Gatineau. The suspects’ identities and details about the alleged jihadist plot are to be released at an RCMP news conference Thursday afternoon. An RCMP spokesman would only say the accusations are “very serious.” (Ottawa Citizen – see attached)
• Seoul Says Kim Traveling To China. North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is traveling to China, South Korea's presidential office said Thursday, in what would be his second trip there this year. A presidential official who declined to be identified said it's unclear if Mr. Kim is accompanied by his third son, Kim Jong Eun. The official also said he's unaware of the route, destination and purpose of the trip. However, officials and business people in several large Chinese cities along the North Korean border said there were no signs of a train carrying Mr. Kim, who doesn't like to fly, on Thursday morning. News of Mr. Kim's trip to China comes just one day after former U.S. President Jimmy Carter arrived in North Korea on a humanitarian visit seeking the release of a U.S. citizen held in the country. (Wall Street Journal – see attached)
• Survivor Tells Story Of Migrants Massacred By Mexican Drug Gang. A survivor of a massacre in northern Mexico told investigators that the 72 people found dead at a ranch were undocumented migrants who were kidnapped by a drug gang on their way to the U.S. border. Mexican authorities discovered the bodies late Tuesday about 100 miles south of Brownsville, Texas, near the town of San Fernando. The surrounding state of Tamaulipas is the scene of a vicious struggle between rival drug mafias and Mexican forces that has left hundreds dead and important trade cities besieged by gun battles, kidnapping and extortion. The bodies of 58 men and 14 women were discovered after Mexican marines manning a checkpoint were approached by a wounded man who said he had been held hostage and shot by gang gunmen at a nearby ranch. (Washington Post – see attached)
• Gunmen Stop Bus In Southern Philippines, Kill 4. Gunmen wearing police uniforms stopped a passenger bus in the southern Philippines early Thursday and fatally shot four people, including two police marshals, officials said. The attack came just three days after a disgruntled ex-policeman took hostage a busload of Hong Kong tourists in Manila, killing eight of them before he was shot dead by a police sniper. Police said the bus attacked Thursday was traveling from Cagayan de Oro to Zamboanga city in the southern Philippines – where Muslim rebels and criminal gangs operate – when it was flagged down at a road checkpoint by gunmen in police uniforms. They ordered the passengers to get off and then fatally shot four people, including two uniformed police marshals, the driver and the bus conductor, said Orlando Vinas, the Lanao del Norte provincial police chief. The attackers set the bus on fire and fled. (NPR/AP)

ØPublic Opinion

• Public Remains Conflicted Over Islam. The public continues to express conflicted views of Islam. Favorable opinions of Islam have declined since 2005, but there has been virtually no change over the past year in the proportion of Americans saying that Islam is more likely than other religions to encourage violence. As was the case a year ago, slightly more people say the Islamic religion does not encourage violence more than other religions (42%) than say that it does (35%). (Pew Research Center)

* AP = Associated Press UPI = United Press International KR = Knight Ridder

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Car Bombings, Other Attacks Kill 51 In Iraq
Los Angeles Times
August 26, 2010

Insurgents struck across Iraq on Wednesday, killing more than 50 people in bombing and shooting attacks. The violence hit 11 towns and cities from north to south and appeared timed to undermine confidence in the Iraqi army and police as the U.S. military ends its formal combat mission in the country. The attacks pointed to the enduring capabilities of militant groups when the U.S. military and Iraqi forces have depicted Al Qaeda in Iraq and its brethren as no match for the Iraqi army. The bloodshed came amid Iraqis' frustration over the failure of political blocs to form a new government nearly six months after national elections.

U.S. officials have insisted that Iraq is stable, even if the country is locked in a political stalemate and fears are mounting among Iraqis that their nation's stability is in fact eroding. Iraq's leaders, including Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, blamed Al Qaeda in Iraq and the late dictator Saddam Hussein's Baath Party for the attacks and vowed to apprehend the culprits. In one of the deadliest assaults Wednesday, a car bomb struck a police station in Kut, about 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, near the offices of the Wasit province governor. The attack killed 16 people and wounded 18, Gov. Latif Turfa said.

"I think terrorists and Baathists are trying to move the battle to Kut, which was calm all these years," Turfa said. "There is definitely a security breach and negligence by the security agencies." In Baghdad, a suicide car bomber exploded his vehicle at a police station in the northeastern neighborhood of Qahira, killing at least 18 people, including six police officers, police said. The blast left 60 people wounded. Four people were killed in other attacks in the capital. "Why are these attacks happening now after the U.S. withdrawal? Where are the security agencies? We can't live forever without security," said laborer Ahmed Fadhil, who was wounded in the Qahira bombing.

Explosions disrupted the east-central province of Diyala. At least six people were killed in bombings in the cities of Baqubah and Muqdadiya. Insurgents also blew up the homes of three police officers and one electoral commission employee in Buhriz, just south of Baqubah, police said. Five people were wounded and the attackers planted the black flag of the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group for militants that includes Al Qaeda in Iraq, police said. Six more bombs exploded in the town of Balad Ruz, about 45 miles east, injuring five people.

The strife also spread to Anbar province. The western region, once the symbol of the country's Sunni insurgency, had quieted after 2007 because of a local revolt against Al Qaeda in Iraq. But the last year has seen a return to violence. In the province's capital, Ramadi, a car bomb exploded at a bus station, killing two police officers and a civilian, police said. At least four people were killed in attacks elsewhere in the city and in nearby Fallouja. A car bombing in the northern city of Mosul left three soldiers and a civilian injured.

Insurgents also managed to cause mayhem across southern Iraq. Car bombs exploded in Basra and Karbala, injuring at least 30 people, according to police and medical sources. The attacks came after the announcement Tuesday by the U.S. military that American troop numbers had dropped to 49,700 as the military switched from a combat mission to the job of training the Iraqi army and police forces and assisting them when asked. Many Iraqis have expressed concern that the scaled-back American presence could help fuel violence.

Key Karzai Aide In Corruption Inquiry Is Linked To C.I.A.
New York Times
August 26, 2010

The aide to President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan at the center of a politically sensitive corruption investigation is being paid by the Central Intelligence Agency, according to Afghan and American officials. Mohammed Zia Salehi, the chief of administration for the National Security Council, appears to have been on the payroll for many years, according to officials in Kabul and Washington. It is unclear exactly what Mr. Salehi does in exchange for his money, whether providing information to the spy agency, advancing American views inside the presidential palace, or both.

Mr. Salehi’s relationship with the C.I.A. underscores deep contradictions at the heart of the Obama administration’s policy in Afghanistan, with American officials simultaneously demanding that Mr. Karzai root out the corruption that pervades his government while sometimes subsidizing the very people suspected of perpetrating it. Mr. Salehi was arrested in July and released after Mr. Karzai intervened. There has been no suggestion that Mr. Salehi’s ties to the C.I.A. played a role in his release; rather, officials say, it is the fear that Mr. Salehi knows about corrupt dealings inside the Karzai administration.

The ties underscore doubts about how seriously the Obama administration intends to fight corruption here. The anticorruption drive, though strongly backed by the United States, is still vigorously debated inside the administration. Some argue it should be a centerpiece of American strategy, and others say that attacking corrupt officials who are crucial to the war effort could destabilize the Karzai government.

The Obama administration is also racing to show progress in Afghanistan by December, when the White House will evaluate its mission there. Some administration officials argue that any comprehensive campaign to fight corruption inside Afghanistan is overly ambitious, with less than a year to go before the American military is set to begin withdrawing troops. “Fighting corruption is the very definition of mission creep,” one Obama administration official said.

Others in the administration view public corruption as the single greatest threat to the Afghan government and the American mission; it is the corrupt nature of the Karzai government, these officials say, that drives ordinary Afghans into the arms of the Taliban. Other prominent Afghans who American officials have said were on the C.I.A.’s payroll include the president’s half brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, suspected by investigators of playing a role in Afghanistan’s booming opium trade. Earlier this year, American officials did not press Mr. Karzai to remove his brother from his post as the chairman of the Kandahar provincial council. Mr. Karzai denies any monetary relationship with the C.I.A. and any links to the drug trade.

Mr. Salehi was arrested by the Afghan police after, investigators say, they wiretapped him soliciting a bribe – in the form of a car for his son – in exchange for impeding an American-backed investigation into a company suspected of shipping billions of dollars out of the country for Afghan officials, drug smugglers and insurgents. Mr. Salehi was released seven hours later, after telephoning Mr. Karzai from his jail cell to demand help, officials said, and after Mr. Karzai forcefully intervened on his behalf.

The president sent aides to get him and has since threatened to limit the power of the anticorruption unit that carried out the arrest. Mr. Salehi could not be reached for comment on Wednesday. A spokesman for President Karzai did not respond to a list of questions sent to his office, including whether Mr. Karzai knew that Mr. Salehi was a C.I.A. informant. A spokesman for the C.I.A. declined to comment on any relationship with Mr. Salehi. “The C.I.A. works hard to advance the full range of U.S. policy objectives in Afghanistan,” said Paul Gimigliano, a spokesman for the agency. “Reckless allegations from anonymous sources don’t change that reality in the slightest.”

An American official said the practice of paying government officials was sensible, even if they turn out to be corrupt or unsavory. “If we decide as a country that we’ll never deal with anyone in Afghanistan who might down the road – and certainly not at our behest – put his hand in the till, we can all come home right now,” the American official said. “If you want intelligence in a war zone, you’re not going to get it from Mother Teresa or Mary Poppins.”

Last week, Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat, flew to Kabul in part to discuss the Salehi case with Mr. Karzai. In an interview afterward, Mr. Kerry expressed concern about Mr. Salehi’s ties to the American government. Mr. Kerry appeared to allude to the C.I.A., though he did not mention it. “We are going to have to examine that relationship,” Mr. Kerry said. “We are going to have to look at that very carefully.” Mr. Kerry said he pressed Mr. Karzai to allow the anticorruption unit pursuing Mr. Salehi and others to move forward unhindered, and said he believed he had secured a commitment from him to do so.

“Corruption matters to us,” a senior Obama administration official said. “The fact that Salehi may have been on our payroll does not necessarily change any of the basic issues here.” Mr. Salehi is a political survivor, who, like many Afghans, navigated shifting alliances through 31 years of war. He is a former interpreter for Abdul Rashid Dostum, the ethnic Uzbek with perhaps the most ruthless reputation among all Afghan warlords. Mr. Dostum, a Karzai ally, was one of the C.I.A.’s leading allies on the ground in Afghanistan in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The agency employed his militia to help rout the Taliban from northern Afghanistan.

Over the course of the nine-year-old war, the C.I.A. has enmeshed itself in the inner workings of Afghanistan’s national security establishment. From 2002 until just last year, the C.I.A. paid the entire budget of Afghanistan’s spy service, the National Directorate of Security. Mr. Salehi often acts as a courier of money to other Afghans, according to an Afghan politician who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared retaliation. Among the targets of the continuing Afghan anticorruption investigation is a secret fund of cash from which payments were made to various individuals, officials here said.

Despite Mr. Salehi’s status as a low-level functionary, the Afghan politician predicted that Mr. Karzai would never allow his prosecution to go forward, whatever the pressure from the United States. Mr. Salehi knows too much about the inner workings of the palace, he said. “Karzai will protect him,” the politician said, “because by going after him, you are opening the gates.”

Mr. Salehi is a confidant of some of the most powerful people in the Afghan government, including Engineer Ibrahim, who until recently was the deputy chief of the Afghan intelligence service. Earlier this year, Mr. Salehi accompanied Mr. Ibrahim to Dubai to meet leaders of the Taliban to explore prospects for peace, according to a prominent Afghan with knowledge of the meeting. Mr. Salehi was arrested last month in the course of a sprawling investigation into New Ansari, a money transfer firm that relies on couriers and other rudimentary means to move cash in and out of Afghanistan.

New Ansari was founded in the 1990s when the Taliban ruled most of Afghanistan. In the years since 2001, New Ansari grew into one of the most important financial hubs in Afghanistan, transferring billions of dollars in cash for prominent Afghans out of the country, most of it to Dubai. New Ansari’s offices were raided by Afghan agents, with American backing, in January. An American official familiar with the investigation said New Ansari appeared to have been transferring money for wealthy Afghans of every sort, including politicians, insurgents and drug traffickers. “They were moving money for everybody,” the American official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The flow of capital out of Afghanistan is so large that it makes up a substantial portion of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product. In an interview, a United Arab Emirates customs official said it received about $1 billion from Afghanistan in 2009. But the American official said the amount might be closer to $2.5 billion – about a quarter of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product. Much of the New Ansari cash was carried by couriers flying from Kabul and Kandahar, usually to Dubai, where many Afghan officials maintain second homes and live in splendorous wealth. An American official familiar with the investigation said the examination of New Ansari’s books was providing rich insights into the culture of Afghan corruption. “It’s a gold mine,” the official said.

Following the arrest, Mr. Salehi called Mr. Karzai directly from his cell to demand that he be freed. Mr. Karzai twice sent delegations to the detention center where Mr. Salehi was held. After seven hours, Mr. Salehi was let go. Afterward, Gen. Nazar Mohammed Nikzad, the head of the Afghan unit investigating Mr. Salehi, was summoned to the Presidential Palace and asked by Mr. Karzai to explain his actions. “Everything is lawful and by the book,” a Western official said of the Afghan anticorruption investigators. “They gather the evidence, they get the warrant signed off – and then the plug gets pulled every time.”

This is not the first time that Afghan prosecutors have run into resistance when they have tried to pursue an Afghan official on corruption charges related to New Ansari. Sediq Chekari, the minister for Hajj and Religious Affairs, was allowed to flee the country as investigators prepared to charge him with accepting bribes in exchange for steering business to tour operators who ferry people to Saudi Arabia each year. Mr. Chekari fled to Britain, officials said. Afghanistan’s attorney general issued an arrest warrant through Interpol.

American officials say a key player in the scandal is Hajji Rafi Azimi, the vice chairman of Afghan United Bank. The bank’s chairman, Hajji Mohammed Jan, is a founder of New Ansari. According to American officials, Afghan prosecutors would like to arrest Mr. Azimi but so far have run into political interference they did not specify. He has not been formally charged. In the past, some Western officials have expressed frustration at the political resistance that Afghan prosecutors have encountered when they have tried to investigate Afghan officials.

Earlier this year, the American official said that the Obama administration was considering extraordinary measures to bring corrupt Afghan officials to justice, including extradition. “We are pushing some high-level public corruption cases right now, and they are just constantly stalling and stalling and stalling,” the American official said of the Karzai administration. Another Western official said he was growing increasingly concerned about the morale – and safety – of the Afghan anticorruption prosecutors.

So far, the Afghan prosecutors have not folded. The Salehi case is likely to resurface – and very soon. Under Afghan law, prosecutors have a maximum of 33 days to indict a person after his arrest. Mr. Salehi was arrested in late July. That means Afghan prosecutors may soon come before the Afghan attorney general, Mohammed Ishaq Aloko, to seek an indictment. It will be up to Mr. Aloko, who owes his job to Mr. Karzai, to sign it. “They are all just doing their jobs,” the Western official said. “They are scared for their lives. They are scared for their families. If it continues, they will eventually give up the fight.”

2 Spanish Soldiers In Afghanistan Killed
Washington Post
August 26, 2010

Two Spanish soldiers were shot dead by their Afghan driver while conducting training of local police forces Wednesday, a Spanish official said, raising fears that the Taliban is employing a new strategy of infiltration to kill Western troops. Spain's interior minister, Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, said at a news conference in Madrid that the driver had worked for the Spanish military for five months. But he also suggested that the attack was premeditated and that the driver, who was killed when Spanish troops returned fire at the scene, might be a member of the Taliban who had disguised his affiliation. "The person who opened fire knew exactly what he was doing. Therefore, this was a terrorist attack," Perez Rubalcaba told reporters.

The incident took place at a training center in Badghis province in the northwest, where Spanish forces are training police recruits as part of a broader NATO effort to turn over responsibility for security to the Afghan army and police. Initial reports suggested that the Afghan shooter was a police recruit who had been undergoing weapons training. Intentional shootings of foreign troops by Afghans have caused growing concern, as well as fear that Taliban members are secretly taking jobs that put them in proximity to foreigners. But evidence of such ploys has been largely unconfirmed, and it remains unclear whether the incidents are isolated or part of a coordinated strategy by insurgents.

Navy Drone Violated Washington Airspace
New York Times
August 26, 2010

The skies over the nation’s capital are crowded with presidential aircraft, military flyovers and the Delta shuttle, but this month a strange new bird was briefly among them: a United States Navy drone that wandered into the restricted airspace around Washington before operators could stop it. Navy spokesmen could not say Wednesday if anyone on the ground was alarmed by the drone – officially an MQ-8B Fire Scout Vertical Takeoff and Landing unmanned aerial vehicle – which looks like a small windowless helicopter and was flying at 2,000 feet. The Navy did say that the drone got within 40 miles of Washington before operators were able to re-establish communication and guide it back to its base in southern Maryland.

Still, the Aug. 2 incident resulted in the grounding of all six of the Navy’s Fire Scouts as well as an inquiry into what went wrong. The Navy is calling the problem a “software issue” that foiled the drone’s operators. Or, as Cmdr. Danny Hernandez, a Navy spokesman, put it: “When they lose contact with the Fire Scout, there’s a program that’s supposed to have it immediately return to the airfield to land safely. That did not happen as planned.”

Navy spokesmen said the Fire Scout, made by Northrop Grumman, was a little more than an hour into a test flight operating out of Naval Air Station Patuxent River on the Chesapeake Bay when operators lost its control link. The drone then flew 23 miles on a north-by-northwest course to enter Washington’s restricted airspace. A half-hour later, Navy spokesmen said, operators re-established control and the drone landed safely back at Patuxent. The Navy did not describe the scene inside the ground control station as operators sought to re-establish communication with the drone.

The Fire Scout, about 31 feet long and 10 feet high, is a surveillance aircraft that can take off from Navy warships. In April, a Fire Scout was part of a drug arrest in the waters off Central America. According to the Navy, the Fire Scout relayed video of a suspicious fishing vessel to the Coast Guard and law enforcement officials, who moved in and seized 60 kilos of cocaine.

'Secret' CIA Memo On WikiLeaks Is Not Very Revelatory
Los Angeles Times
August 26, 2010

The latest U.S. government document posted by WikiLeaks is marked "secret," but it contains no new revelations, startling or otherwise. It's a CIA memo that reads like the musings of a Washington think tank, pondering what might happen if the United States began to be perceived as an "exporter of terrorism," as a result of attacks mounted abroad by homegrown radicals. The conclusion: It would not be a good thing. WikiLeaks won fame and notoriety after releasing gun-camera video of a U.S. helicopter attack in Iraq, and more recently about 75,000 classified military documents detailing operations in Afghanistan.

The CIA report posted by WikiLeaks on Wednesday is something more mundane. It was written by the CIA's Red Cell, a unit created after the 9/11 attacks to offer "out-of-the-box" thinking and "produce memos intended to provoke thought rather than to provide authoritative assessment," according to the agency's website. he memo, dated February, notes the increasing threat that domestic radicals are posing to the U.S. homeland. It ponders what would happen if American residents or citizens began mounting terrorist attacks abroad.

"Much attention has been paid recently to the increasing occurrence of American-grown Islamic terrorists conducting attacks against U.S. targets, primarily in the homeland," the memo says. "Less attention has been paid to homegrown terrorism, not exclusively Muslim terrorists, exported overseas to target non-U.S. persons." It adds: "Contrary to common belief, the American export of terrorism or terrorists is not a recent phenomenon, nor has it been associated only with Islamic radicals or people of Middle Eastern, African or South Asian ethnic origin. This dynamic belies the American belief that our free, open and integrated multicultural society lessens the allure of radicalism and terrorism for U.S. citizens."

For example, it says, Pakistani American David Headley conducted surveillance in November 2008 to support a terrorist attack in Mumbai, India. And Irish Americans long supported the Irish Republican Army as it conducted bombings in Britain. If the U.S. were seen as an "exporter of terrorism," foreign governments may be less willing to cooperate in what has become an important CIA tool after 9/11, the memo says: "detention, transfer and interrogation of suspects in third-party countries." In extreme cases, foreign governments could mount intelligence operations on U.S. soil targeting extremists, the memo says.

It's difficult to imagine another country pursuing extremists with more fervor than the U.S., which kills insurgents on a regular basis with missiles from unmanned aircraft over Pakistan. But the U.S. does harbor people whom other countries consider enemies, such as Rebiya Kadeer, a Uighur businesswoman whom the Chinese government accused last year – wrongly, she says – of inciting deadly riots. She lives in Virginia. The CIA memo does not address how the U.S. would respond if China attempted the sort of action against Kadeer that the U.S. routinely takes in Pakistan against those it considers a threat.

FBI Agent Takes Stand In Bomb Case
Wall Street Journal
August 26, 2010

The Federal Bureau of Investigation had never heard of James Cromitie before a confidential informant met him at a New York area mosque in 2007, an FBI agent testified Wednesday in the second day of the trial of Mr. Cromitie and three others charged with planning to blow up a synagogue in Riverdale and shoot down Air Force planes. Special agent Robert Fuller's testimony included showing the three inert explosive devices that the FBI built to give to the defendants, as well as two stinger missiles that the government said the defendants planned to use to shoot down Air Force planes.

The weapons, which came from FBI laboratories, were created as duds and never meant to blow up. The defendants were arrested before the devices had been planted. The defendants – Mr. Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen – have denied wrongdoing, and in Tuesday's opening arguments, their lawyers said the defendants never would have committed a terrorist act without the confidential informant's pushing them into it.

Mr. Fuller testified that the case began in 2007, when Shaheed Hussain first became an informer for the FBI. Mr. Fuller said he and the FBI directed Mr. Hussain to visit the Masjid al-Ikhlas mosque in Newburgh, N.Y., where Mr. Hussain first met Mr. Cromitie. Mr. Fuller testified that he instructed Mr. Hussain to talk about Jaish-e-Mohammed, or JEM, a Pakistani terrorist group. In 2009, Mr. Hussain allegedly took the defendants to a warehouse in Connecticut to get the three explosive devices and missiles, which they kept in a self-storage unit in New York.

Ottawa Terror Plot Had al-Qaeda Links: Police
Ottawa Citizen
August 26, 2010

An alleged al-Qaeda bomb plot hatched in Ottawa over the past two years has been dismantled by counter-terrorism police. Two people were arrested without incident Wednesday on undisclosed terrorism-related charges after RCMP and Ottawa police armed with a search warrant converged on a townhouse at 91 Esterlawn Pvt., near the Carlingwood Mall in Ottawa, at about 7 a.m. A simultaneous and similar low-key raid took place at a highrise apartment at 220 Woodridge Cres. in the Bayshore area. There were indications Wednesday night that further searches might take place, including in Gatineau.

The suspects’ identities and details about the alleged jihadist plot are to be released at an RCMP news conference Thursday afternoon. An RCMP spokesman would only say the accusations are “very serious.” Sources close to the investigation, “Project Samosa,” said the suspected ringleader allegedly attended terrorist training camps in the Pakistan and Afghanistan region, leading investigators to believe the alleged plot may have links to al-Qaeda or one of its regional affiliates.

The National Post reports the bomb plot was described as not well defined, and the arrests were apparently made because one of the suspects was preparing to travel abroad. It is not clear if a specific target or targets had been selected or whether the alleged plot had matured to an operational stage. Police expect to make more arrests, suggesting a group or network, similar to the 2006 “Toronto 18” case, in which 11 people were eventually convicted for plotting to bomb major public and government sites and services in and around Toronto. That conspiracy was aimed at provoking Canada’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Questions now turn to the origin, scope and planning of the alleged plot. Also to be determined are the backgrounds and roles of the accused, whether they’re “homegrown,” self-radicalized extremists with little or no training, skilled operatives affiliated with and financed by the global terror network, or secondary players providing logistics and material support. Increasingly, the primary jihadist threat to the West emanates from regional Islamist groups and grassroots followers. Canada’s top national security officials have issued repeated, but purposely vague warnings over the past year about the threat violent extremism poses within Canada and from Canadian jihadists operating abroad. Public Safety Minister Vic Toews recently delivered a speech about his increasing concern over the radicalization taking place in Canada.

At the same time, persistent rumors have circulated for months about a major counter-terrorism operation centered on the nation’s capital and involving the RCMP’s Ottawa-based Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, including investigators from Ottawa police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. The spy agency recently revealed it is tracking more than 200 individuals in Canada with possible links to as many as 50 terrorist groups.

Police hauled several computer hard drives and what appeared to be a photo or document scanner from the Esterlawn home at about 2:15 p.m. Wednesday. Earlier, they removed a blue Mazda registered to Misbahuddin Ahmed, 36. Court records show he was ticketed for speeding in March 2009 on the Ottawa River Parkway. At the time, he was living at 220 Woodridge Cres. “He seemed like a nice young guy,” said Robert Farrell, who rents the Esterlawn property to Ahmed, his wife, and their daughter, about six months old. “They seemed to be more of a traditional Muslim family.” Farrell, a former Canadian diplomat who had been stationed in the Middle East, recalled Ahmed saying he was born in India, but had lived for a time in Saudi Arabia.

Ahmed, who works as an X-ray technician at the Civic campus of The Ottawa Hospital, rented the home about a year ago, after responding to an ad Farrell placed on an online rental site. Farrell said he carefully checked Ahmed’s references in the application and called the hospital to verify. “His immediate supervisor gave him a very high recommendation. She said he was a very stable and very steady and a reliable employee,” Farrell said.

Guy Morency, The Ottawa Hospital’s director of diagnostic imaging, said Ahmed started at the hospital in 2008 and worked as a general radiography technologist. As an employee, Morency said there was nothing bad to say about him. “He was a very good, reliable technologist,” said Morency. “As an employee, he did his job very well, got along well with his colleagues.” Farrell’s wife believes Ahmed, who appeared to be in his late 30s or early 40s, and thin with a full, long beard, had been in Canada for several years and previously lived in the Bayshore area. He said he also lived in Montreal for a time. Neighbor Janice Burtt said the man and woman who lived in the house were quiet and, “that nothing seemed too out of the ordinary.” Other people noted the woman wore a niqab or burqa.

At the highrise on Woodridge, one tenant said police entered Apt. 702. Another tenant said she was friends with a couple in their 20s or 30s, believed to be living in that unit. They “were really nice people. … They were really friendly.” The tenant would not offer additional details, or disclose her own name. One floor below, tenant Sean Norlock recalled that a few weeks ago his girlfriend saw men in robes, with beards and a type of “cone” hat, near the elevator. When she tried to enter the elevator, the men told her to take the stairs instead, he said. She returned to her apartment and informed Norlock, who went to the seventh floor to confront the group, then watched as five men exited an apartment on the seventh floor, near Apt. 702. “To me, they look suspicious. Something was up,” he said, explaining the men wouldn’t look him in the eye or tell him what they had been doing on the sixth floor.

Coming on the heels of a failed Times Square bombing in New York City and a shooting at the U.S. military base in Fort Hood, Texas, experts speculate this latest alleged plot may have been an attempt by western affiliates of al-Qaeda or a homegrown cell inspired by its jihadist ideology to strike at targets in North America. “There is substantial evidence from cases in the U.K. and the E.U. that various so-called homegrown groups do demonstrate a connection to an al-Qaeda centre in areas of doctrine, strategy, tactics and target selection,” said Prof. Martin Rudner, a retired Carleton University terrorism expert. And it will be no surprise if Ottawa is revealed to have been an intended target.

“There’s a tradition on the jihadist side of seeking a presence in Ottawa,” Rudner said, referring to suspected terrorists held under security certificates and to the case involving Momin Khawaja, an Ottawa man convicted of a role in plotting to bomb public sites in and around London, England. “We know from operational history that capital cities tend to get targeted.” The police project is said to have placed an enormous strain on RCMP surveillance and technological resources at a time when the federal police were coping with the Vancouver Winter Olympics and the G8 and G20 summits of world leaders. Case managers were supposedly told funding for surveillance and electronic eavesdropping would end around June.

Around the same time, two federal prosecutors who specialize in terrorism cases were seen at a site used by the investigators, fuelling speculation the probe was moving into a new phase. Anthony Seaboyer, head of the proliferation security research group at Queen’s University’s Centre for International Relations, called the arrests “a great success” for Canadian anti-terrorism forces. “It shows that the RCMP, Ottawa police and CSIS can actually co-operate effectively,” Seaboyer said. Given the scathing criticism of how authorities handled the Air India bombing, “this is a good sign,” he said. “Canada is moving more and more away from being a safe haven for terrorist organizations.”

It is impossible to know how many terrorism cells are active in Canada, Seaboyer said. He said Canada is becoming more of a target for terrorists who want to use attacks on Canadian facilities, such as Quebec’s hydro-electric plants and transmission lines, to harm the U.S. “There are ways of attacking the U.S. through Canada. The whole energy (supply) for New York comes from Quebec, for example.” Ottawa defence lawyer Samir Adam met for more than half an hour with one of the accused at Ottawa police headquarters on Elgin Street early Wednesday, but had not been officially retained as counsel as of late Wednesday afternoon. Adam would not disclose what the two discussed but said the accused are to appear in court Thursday.

Seoul Says Kim Traveling To China
Wall Street Journal
August 26, 2010

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is traveling to China, South Korea's presidential office said Thursday, in what would be his second trip there this year. "We have detected moves that Kim is traveling to China. But we're not sure whether he's already arrived there or still on the way," said a presidential official who declined to be identified. He said it's unclear if Mr. Kim is accompanied by his third son, Kim Jong Eun. The official also said he's unaware of the route, destination and purpose of the trip. However, officials and business people in several large Chinese cities along the North Korean border said there were no signs of a train carrying Mr. Kim, who doesn't like to fly, on Thursday morning.

In Dandong, where Mr. Kim's train passed on a trip earlier this year, police and traders at the Chinese border crossing said there were no special trains, or out of the ordinary security precautions, on the route. In Yanji, a border city in Jilin, the province adjacent to the one where Dandong sits, railroad officials said no special preparations or actions took place that might suggest Mr. Kim passed by train. Local cable television news channel YTN quoted an unnamed senior government official as saying Kim Jong Il appears to have entered China early Thursday, and that his third son, Kim Jong Eun, is likely to have accompanied him. Kim Jong Eun is widely seen as Kim Jong Il's potential successor.

Yonhap, the South Korean news agency, quoted an unnamed source as saying Kim Jong Il's visit is likely related to succession planning. Other unnamed sources told Yonhap the purpose of the visit may be about resuming six-party talks related to North Korea's nuclear program, as well as for economic aid. News of Mr. Kim's trip to China comes just one day after former U.S. President Jimmy Carter arrived in North Korea on a humanitarian visit seeking the release of a U.S. citizen held in the country. Kim last visited China in May and met with Chinese President Hu Jintao.

Survivor Tells Story Of Migrants Massacred By Mexican Drug Gang
Washington Post
August 26, 2010

A survivor of a massacre in northern Mexico told investigators that the 72 people found dead at a ranch were undocumented migrants who were kidnapped by a drug gang on their way to the U.S. border. Mexican authorities discovered the bodies late Tuesday about 100 miles south of Brownsville, Texas, near the town of San Fernando. The surrounding state of Tamaulipas is the scene of a vicious struggle between rival drug mafias and Mexican forces that has left hundreds dead and important trade cities besieged by gun battles, kidnapping and extortion.

The bodies of 58 men and 14 women were discovered after Mexican marines manning a checkpoint were approached by a wounded man who said he had been held hostage and shot by gang gunmen at a nearby ranch. The survivor, who has been hospitalized and said he was originally from Ecuador, told his story to state prosecutors, according to a report Wednesday on the Web site of the newspaper Reforma. The witness said about 75 migrants from Central and South America were traveling together toward the Texas border when they were kidnapped by armed men, who authorities suspect may work for the paramilitary drug cartel known as the Zetas.

The survivor said that when the migrants refused to pay money, their captors began shooting them. When Mexican forces arrived at the scene, the assailants scattered and fled. No arrests have been announced. It was unclear whether the dead had been shot all at once or over several days. Illegal migrants traveling through Mexico on their way to the United States often face a harrowing journey – robbed, raped and sometimes murdered by smugglers and crime gangs, who often work alongside corrupt police.

Mexico detained and deported more than 64,000 illegal migrants last year, according to the National Migration Institute. Many more make it across the U.S. border. The National Commission on Human Rights, a government agency, estimates that 20,000 are kidnapped in Mexico each year. While they are held for ransom, migrants are routinely tortured - threatened with execution, beaten with clubs and shocked with electricity.

As Mexico's U.S.-backed, military-led war against criminal organizations rages on, leaving more than 28,000 dead, authorities are discovering mass graves. In July, investigators found 51 corpses near a trash dump outside the northern city of Monterrey. Many of their identities remain unknown. In May, authorities discovered as many as 64 bodies in a ventilation shaft for a shuttered mining operation near the tourist town of Taxco. Many of the bound and gagged victims were alive when they were thrown down the hole. ]]> JFC GOM Summary CoopMGI http://www.trackpads.com/forum/jfc-gom-summary/943270-gcom-summary-2010-aug-26-a.html http://www.trackpads.com/forum/jfc-gom-summary/943079-gcom-summary-2010-aug-25-a.html Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:27:11 GMT *U.S. Joint Forces Command* *Global Current... U.S. Joint Forces Command
Global Current Operations Media Summary
Operations Iraqi Freedom/Enduring Freedom/Noble Eagle
Current as of August 25, 2010

ØNew Developments

• Taliban May Be Misleading Its Forces On U.S. Timetable, U.S. General Says. The commandant of the Marine Corps said Tuesday that Taliban leaders may be misleading their own forces into believing that they only have to keep fighting through the middle of next year, when U.S. troops are slated to begin pulling out of Afghanistan. President Obama has said that troops will begin withdrawing in July 2011, but it will be months before the administration determines the size of the drawdown. On Tuesday, Gen. James T. Conway said that he thinks the Taliban has misinterpreted U.S. intentions. "We think right now it's probably giving our enemy sustenance. . . . We've intercepted communications that say, hey, you know, we only have to hold out for so long," he said. But if it turns out the Marines are still in Afghanistan after mid-2011, Conway said, insurgent leaders based in Pakistan could be hard pressed to explain themselves to their foot soldiers. (Washington Post – see attached)
• U.S. Troop Count Dips Below 50,000 In Iraq. The American military said Tuesday that the number of troops in Iraq had dropped below 50,000, in line with the Obama administration’s deadline of Aug. 31 for what it describes as the end of combat operations in the country. Both the administration and the military have promoted the date as a turning point in the tumultuous seven years of America’s presence in Iraq that followed its invasion in March 2003. The American commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno, said about 49,700 troops remained in Iraq, and roughly that number would stay through next summer. (New York Times – see attached)
• U.S. Weighs Expanded Strikes In Yemen. U.S. officials believe al Qaeda in Yemen is now collaborating more closely with allies in Pakistan and Somalia to plot attacks against the U.S., spurring the prospect that the administration will mount a more intense targeted killing program in Yemen. Such a move would give the Central Intelligence Agency a far larger role in what has until now been mainly a secret U.S. military campaign against militant targets in Yemen and across the Horn of Africa. It would likely be modeled after the CIA's covert drone campaign in Pakistan. The U.S. military's Special Operation Forces and the CIA have been positioning surveillance equipment, drones and personnel in Yemen, Djibouti, Kenya and Ethiopia to step up targeting of al Qaeda's Yemen affiliate, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, known as AQAP, and Somalia's al Shabaab – Arabic for The Youth. (Wall Street Journal – see attached)

ØMilitary Coverage

• Defense Official Discloses Cyberattack. Now it is official: The most significant breach of U.S. military computers was caused by a flash drive inserted into a U.S. military laptop on a post in the Middle East in 2008. In an article to be published Wednesday discussing the Pentagon's cyberstrategy, Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III says malicious code placed on the drive by a foreign intelligence agency uploaded itself onto a network run by the U.S. military's Central Command. Lynn's decision to declassify an incident that Defense officials had kept secret reflects the Pentagon's desire to raise congressional and public concern over the threats facing U.S. computer systems, experts said. (Washington Post – see attached)

ØHomeland Security

• Trial Opens In Synagogue Bomb Plot. Four Newburgh, N.Y., men piled into a sport-utility vehicle in May 2009 and planted what they believed were working explosives outside a Bronx synagogue in hopes of committing a terrorist attack in the U.S., a federal prosecutor said Tuesday. What they didn't know at the time was that a fifth man in the vehicle was a paid FBI informant who had been watching them for some time, and they were arrested moments later, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Hickey in his opening statement. "They were prepared to go all the way through with their destructive and murderous plan," Mr. Hickey said. However, Vincent L. Briccetti, a lawyer for one of the alleged plotters, James Cromitie, and other defense lawyers said the men never would have engaged in the plot if not for the informant, Shaheed Hussain. (Wall Street Journal – see attached)

ØWorld Developments

• At Least 30 Killed In Somalia Hotel Attack. Somali insurgents disguised in government military uniforms stormed a Mogadishu hotel on Tuesday and killed at least 30 people, including 6 lawmakers, laying bare how vulnerable Somalia’s government is, even in an area it claims to control. The insurgents methodically moved room to room, killing hotel guests who tried to bolt their doors shut, Somali officials said. When government forces finally cornered the insurgents, two blew themselves up with suicide vests. The attack shows that “operational momentum has shifted to the insurgents, who can go anywhere they want except where the African peacekeepers are deployed,” said J. Peter Pham, senior vice president at the National Committee on American Foreign Policy. Several Somali politicians said that the government was so thoroughly under siege that it could work only from behind fortified, sandbagged positions, and that the shrinking government enclave in Mogadishu, the capital, could soon vanish altogether. (New York Times – see attached)
• Northern Ireland Flares, But Will It Ignite? The bombers were nothing if not audacious. First they gleaned intelligence that a British army major would be spending the night at a friend's place in the seaside town of Bangor. Then they crept into "enemy" territory – republican militants in a loyalist neighborhood – and booby-trapped the soldier's car as it sat in a suburban housing tract with a single small road leading in and out. The plan went awry only when the bomb fell off the belly of the officer's car as he drove away the next day, clattering to the ground without exploding. It was one of three assassination attempts within a single week this month on people connected to the British and Northern Irish security forces. Together with other recent incidents, the failed attacks are part of an upswing of activity by republican rebels intent on disrupting the peace process that formally ended decades of heavy sectarian bloodshed in this divided territory. (Los Angeles Times – see attached)
• Church And Officials ‘Colluded’ To Protect Priest. Northern Ireland police colluded with the then British government and the Roman Catholic church in Ireland to protect a priest suspected of involvement in the 1972 bombing of a village in county Londonderry, an official investigation has found. Al Hutchinson, Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman, said in a report delivered on Tuesday to relatives of the nine people killed in Claudy that the police decision to seek the assistance of Catholic bishops and the British authorities had failed those who were murdered, injured and bereaved. The ombudsman said the actions of the old Royal Ulster Constabulary amounted to a “collusive act” in not investigating Father James Chesney who police intelligence records suggested was director of operations in south Derry for the IRA. Father Chesney died in 1980 without ever having been questioned by police about the atrocity. (London Financial Times)
• Suicide Bomber Killed In Foiled Mauritania Attack. Mauritanian troops early Wednesday killed a suicide bomber trying to ram a vehicle crammed with explosives into a military barrack at Nema in the country's east, a senior military official told AFP. The bomber refused to heed warnings and tried to drive his 4X4 vehicle into the main military barracks in Nema, about 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) east of Nouakchott, shortly after midnight, the official said. Nema is near the frontier with Mali. Soldiers fired on the vehicle, sparking a "big explosion", he said, attributing the foiled attack to an Al-Qaeda offshoot in North Africa, the Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The explosion caused heavy damage but no other deaths, he added. However, witnesses said three people suffered light injuries. (Google/AFP)
• Calderon Says More Drug War Violence Likely Ahead. Mexican President Felipe Calderon warned on Tuesday that more bloodshed will likely occur as his government continues its campaign to defeat violent drug cartels. More than 28,000 people in Mexico have died in drug violence since Calderon launched his drug fight when he took office in late 2006, and gruesome attacks are on the rise. Over the weekend, four decapitated bodies, their genitals and index fingers cut off, were hung upside down from a bridge in a popular getaway outside Mexico City. Another two bodies were dumped near the same bridge on Tuesday, police said. But Calderon told a local radio station that escalating bloodshed was a sign that the cartels were on the run. "I don't rule out that there might be more bouts of the violence we're witnessing, and what's more, the victory we are seeking and will gain is unthinkable without more violence," Calderon said. "This is a process of self-destruction for the criminals," he added. (Reuters)
• Hezbollah, Sunni Group Clash In Beirut, Killing 3. Lebanese Shiite and Sunni groups fought street battles using machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades for more than four hours Tuesday, killing three people and wounding several others just blocks from a busy downtown packed with summer tourists. The dead included a Hezbollah official and his aide, security officials said. Lebanese soldiers cordoned off the area during the worst of the fighting, but the crackle of sniper fire and blasts from rocket-propelled grenades were audible for hours. Gunmen stood on corners and peering down alleyways while families ran for cover during lulls in the fighting. Ambulances rushed to the scene; an elderly man was loaded into a stretcher clutching his neck, while another man was covered in blood and not moving. It was the worst clash in Beirut since May 2008, when Hezbollah gunmen swept through Sunni neighborhoods after the pro-Western government tried to dismantle the group's telecommunications network. (Oakland Tribune/AP)

ØPublic Opinion

• Americans Nix War Against North Korea. Many adults in the United States are not in favor of a military invasion of North Korea in the event of a war in the Korean Peninsula, according to a poll by Angus Reid Public Opinion. 46% of respondents oppose this course of action. Diplomatic relations between the North and South have been strained since the end of the Korean War. A one-mile demilitarized zone has separated the two countries since 1953. About 28,000 American troops are currently stationed in South Korea. (Angus Reid Global Monitor)

* AP = Associated Press UPI = United Press International KR = Knight Ridder

Please contact the U.S. Joint Forces Command (J00P) Public Affairs Office (757) 836-6554 ~ fax: (757) 836-6561 to report non-receipt of this product or to change your e-mail address.

Taliban May Be Misleading Its Forces On U.S. Timetable, U.S. General Says
Washington Post
August 25, 2010

The commandant of the Marine Corps said Tuesday that Taliban leaders may be misleading their own forces into believing that they only have to keep fighting through the middle of next year, when U.S. troops are slated to begin pulling out of Afghanistan. President Obama has said that troops will begin withdrawing in July 2011, but it will be months before the administration determines the size of the drawdown.

On Tuesday, Gen. James T. Conway said in a Pentagon briefing that he thinks the Taliban has misinterpreted U.S. intentions. "We think right now it's probably giving our enemy sustenance. . . . We've intercepted communications that say, hey, you know, we only have to hold out for so long," he said. But if it turns out the Marines are still in Afghanistan after mid-2011, Conway said, insurgent leaders based in Pakistan could be hard pressed to explain themselves to their foot soldiers.

Conway, who just returned from a visit to Afghanistan, said that decisions on withdrawals next year would be made by Obama and Conway's superiors but that he did not think U.S. forces in southern Afghanistan would be able to turn over Helmand province, the birthplace of the Taliban, to Afghan forces. He added that interrogations of Taliban prisoners have shown that they are getting tired of the war. "They're getting hammered, to a much greater degree than we are," Conway said. "And they're asking themselves, 'Hey, is this all worth it?' And they're asking themselves that now."

In a separate Pentagon briefing Tuesday, the Italian general heading up NATO training of Afghan National Police said that the police force could benefit from President Hamid Karzai's plan to ban private security firms. Brig. Gen. Carmelo Burgio told reporters that Karzai's move "could slow down attrition and increase retention" in the Afghan police program.

In seeking to recruit new police, the Afghan government has struggled to compete with private contractors, who pay employees far more. The Afghan police have also been plagued by attrition levels running near 40 percent. Recently salaries for Afghan police have been raised, but the banning of private security firms could help provide an incentive for Afghans to work for the government instead, Burgio said.

One thing both Conway and Burgio agreed upon was that the Afghan operation was going to take time. Conway, as have other military leaders, reminded reporters that the last of the last 30,000 troops are still arriving. "I think it will be a few years before conditions on the ground are such that we would expect to be able to turn over to Afghan forces," he said. One of his regimental commanders, he said, has pointed out that "we can either lose fast or win slow." Burgio also said more time was needed for police training. "I always say to my bosses I need time," Burgio told reporters. "We cannot solve this problem in one year. . . . The main challenge is the changing of the mind-set, which means working for years."

U.S. Troop Count Dips Below 50,000 In Iraq
New York Times
August 25, 2010

The American military said Tuesday that the number of troops in Iraq had dropped below 50,000, in line with the Obama administration’s deadline of Aug. 31 for what it describes as the end of combat operations in the country. Both the administration and the military have promoted the date as a turning point in the tumultuous seven years of America’s presence in Iraq that followed its invasion in March 2003. To an unprecedented degree, the military has provided access to bases and commanders to commemorate the moment ahead of Sept. 1, when the mission will formally become what the military has called “advise and assist.”

The American commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno, said about 49,700 troops remained in Iraq, and roughly that number would stay through next summer. That is less than a third that were here during the American military buildup in 2007. Under an agreement between Iraq and the United States, those remaining troops are supposed to leave the country by 2011, though some Iraqi and American officials say they believe that the agreement may be renegotiated to allow for a longer American military presence here. The withdrawal comes at a precarious time in Iraq, where popular frustration is mounting at shoddy public services, namely a lack of electricity, and the inability of the country’s leaders to form a government more than five months after elections in March.

For most Iraqis, the resentment has largely overshadowed the withdrawal itself. Insurgents have vowed to increase attacks, and while American officials say Iraqi security forces are prepared to accept a bigger role, they have been plagued by bombings and drive-by shootings. A rash of assassinations and attempted killings have been reported in Baghdad. On Tuesday, a municipal official was shot dead, and a booby-trapped car killed a leader of an American-allied militia that helped fight the insurgency in 2007 and 2008. In northern Iraq a day earlier, near the town of Sayniyah, gunmen disguised as Iraqi soldiers killed five oil workers who were transporting salaries and stole almost $400,000.

U.S. Weighs Expanded Strikes In Yemen
Wall Street Journal
August 25, 2010

U.S. officials believe al Qaeda in Yemen is now collaborating more closely with allies in Pakistan and Somalia to plot attacks against the U.S., spurring the prospect that the administration will mount a more intense targeted killing program in Yemen. Such a move would give the Central Intelligence Agency a far larger role in what has until now been mainly a secret U.S. military campaign against militant targets in Yemen and across the Horn of Africa. It would likely be modeled after the CIA's covert drone campaign in Pakistan. The U.S. military's Special Operation Forces and the CIA have been positioning surveillance equipment, drones and personnel in Yemen, Djibouti, Kenya and Ethiopia to step up targeting of al Qaeda's Yemen affiliate, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, known as AQAP, and Somalia's al Shabaab – Arabic for The Youth.

U.S. counterterrorism officials believe the two groups are working more closely together than ever. "The trajectory is pointing in that direction," a U.S. counterterrorism official said of a growing nexus between the Islamist groups. He said the close proximity between Yemen and Somalia "allows for exchanges, training." But he said the extent to which AQAP and al Shabaab are working together is "hard to measure in an absolute way." Authorizing covert CIA operations would further consolidate control of future strikes in the hands of the White House, which has enthusiastically embraced the agency's covert drone program in Pakistan's tribal areas.

Congressional officials briefed on the matter compared the growing relationships to partnerships forged between al Qaeda's leadership in Quetta, Pakistan, and increasingly capable groups like Taliban factions and the Haqqani network, a group based in the tribal areas of Pakistan that has been battling U.S. forces in neighboring Afghanistan. "You're looking at AQAP. You're looking at al Qaeda in Somalia. You're looking at al Qaeda even in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and you see a whole bunch of folks and a whole bunch of activity, as ineffective as it may be right now, talking about and planning attacks in the U.S.," said Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, who is the top Republican on the House intelligence committee. White House officials had no immediate comment.

Defense officials have long seen links between al Shabaab and al Qaeda as an emerging threat, but some in the CIA were more skeptical. Those disparate views appear to have converged during a recent White House review of the threat posed by the Somali group. Some lawmakers and intelligence officials now think AQAP and al Shabaab could pose a more immediate threat to the U.S. than al Qaeda leaders now believed to be in Pakistan who were behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but have largely gone into hiding. AQAP and al Shabaab have increasingly sophisticated recruitment techniques and are focused on less spectacular attacks that are harder for U.S. intelligence agencies to detect and to stop.

"It's very possible the next terrorist attack will see its origins coming out of Yemen and Somalia rather than out of Pakistan," Mr. Hoekstra said. AQAP was behind the failed bombing of a U.S.-bound jetliner last Christmas Day, and has gained in stature in Islamist militant circles in large part because of the appeal of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born, Internet-savvy cleric who some officials see as the group's leader-in-waiting. U.S. officials have seen indications that al Qaeda leadership is discussing with AQAP an expanded role for Mr. Awlaki, who was allegedly involved in the Christmas bombing attempt and had communicated with Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan.

"They are moving people in who understand the U.S.," a U.S. official said, adding that such people have a unique ability to inspire extremist sympathizers in the U.S. "They know what their vulnerabilities may be. It concerns me a lot." Al Qaeda's central leadership and affiliates in Yemen and Somalia are increasingly strengthening their ties and have even discussed efforts to attack U.S. interests, U.S. officials say. Mr. Hoekstra said he was particularly concerned about communications between al Qaeda in Yemen and Shabaab in Somalia. "We get indications their goals are more in alignment in terms of attacking American and western interests and doing it in Europe and the [U.S.] homeland," he said.

This increasing alignment has spawned a debate within the administration over whether to try to replicate the type of drone campaign the CIA has mounted with success in Pakistan. The CIA has rapidly stepped up its drone hits in Pakistan under the Obama administration and is now conducting strikes at an average rate of two or three a week – which amount to about 50 so far this year. Since the beginning of the Obama administration the strikes have killed at least 650 militants, according to a U.S. official. Earlier this year, a U.S. counterterrorism official said around 20 noncombatants have been killed in the CIA campaign in Pakistan, and the number isn't believed to have grown much since then.

Such a move would likely find bipartisan support on Capitol Hill. Mr. Hoekstra said he would support a more aggressive effort like that in Yemen. "The more pressure we can keep putting on al Qaeda whether it's in Yemen, Pakistan, or Afghanistan, the better off we will be," he said. "If they asked for the funds, Congress would provide them with it." Rep. Adam Smith, a Washington Democrat who serves both on the House intelligence and armed services committees, also said it would be helpful to take similar measures in Yemen. "The intelligence community, broadly speaking will need to increase its focus on Yemen," he said, adding that the efforts needed aren't just CIA operations but also counterterrorism efforts of other agencies, including the U.S. military.

Giving the CIA greater control of counterterrorism efforts in Yemen could run into resistance from some in the Pentagon who feel a sense of ownership of a campaign against extremists that began last year. The military's Central Command under Gen. David Petraeus had lobbied aggressively to sharply increase military assistance to Yemen. The military has carried out several strikes against al Qaeda militants in coordination with Yemen's government. One in May killed a deputy governor, angering Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Defense Official Discloses Cyberattack
Washington Post
August 25, 2010

Now it is official: The most significant breach of U.S. military computers was caused by a flash drive inserted into a U.S. military laptop on a post in the Middle East in 2008. In an article to be published Wednesday discussing the Pentagon's cyberstrategy, Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III says malicious code placed on the drive by a foreign intelligence agency uploaded itself onto a network run by the U.S. military's Central Command.

"That code spread undetected on both classified and unclassified systems, establishing what amounted to a digital beachhead, from which data could be transferred to servers under foreign control," he says in the Foreign Affairs article. "It was a network administrator's worst fear: a rogue program operating silently, poised to deliver operational plans into the hands of an unknown adversary."

Lynn's decision to declassify an incident that Defense officials had kept secret reflects the Pentagon's desire to raise congressional and public concern over the threats facing U.S. computer systems, experts said. Much of what Lynn writes in Foreign Affairs has been said before: that the Pentagon's 15,000 networks and 7 million computing devices are being probed thousands of times daily; that cyberwar is asymmetric; and that traditional Cold War deterrence models of assured retaliation do not apply to cyberspace, where it is difficult to identify the instigator of an attack.

But he also presents new details about the Defense Department's cyberstrategy, including the development of ways to find intruders inside the network. That is part of what is called "active defense." Counterfeit hardware has been detected in systems that the Pentagon has bought. Such hardware could expose the network to manipulation from adversaries. He puts the Homeland Security Department on notice that although it has the "lead" in protecting the dot.gov and dot.com domains, the Pentagon – which includes the ultra-secret National Security Agency – should support efforts to protect critical industry networks.

Lynn's declassification of the 2008 incident has prompted concern among cyberexperts that he gave adversaries useful information. The Foreign Affairs article, Pentagon officials said, is the first on-the-record disclosure that a foreign intelligence agency had penetrated the U.S. military's classified systems. In 2008, The Los Angeles Times reported, citing anonymous Defense officials, that the incursion might have originated in Russia. The Pentagon operation to counter the attack, known as Operation Buckshot Yankee, marked a turning point in U.S. cyberdefense strategy, Lynn said. In November 2008, the Defense Department banned the use of flash drives, a ban it has since modified.

Infiltrating the military's command and control system is significant, said one former intelligence official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. "This is how we order people to go to war. If you're on the inside, you can change orders. You can say, 'turn left' instead of 'turn right.' You can say 'go up' instead of 'go down.' " In a nutshell, he said, the "Pentagon has begun to recognize its vulnerability and is making a case for how you've got to deal with it."

Trial Opens In Synagogue Bomb Plot
Wall Street Journal
August 25, 2010

Four Newburgh, N.Y., men piled into a sport-utility vehicle in May 2009 and planted what they believed were working explosives outside a Bronx synagogue in hopes of committing a terrorist attack in the U.S., a federal prosecutor said Tuesday. What they didn't know at the time was that a fifth man in the vehicle was a paid FBI informant who had been watching them for some time, and they were arrested moments later, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Hickey in his opening statement. "They were prepared to go all the way through with their destructive and murderous plan," Mr. Hickey said. However, Vincent L. Briccetti, a lawyer for one of the alleged plotters, James Cromitie, and other defense lawyers said the men never would have engaged in the plot if not for the informant, Shaheed Hussain.

Mr. Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen are on trial in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan on charges of attempting to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiracy and other crimes. (David and Onta Williams aren't related.) The case is expected to last about six weeks. Prosecutors alleged the men planted explosives outside a synagogue and Jewish community center in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. They also hoped to use Stinger missiles to shoot down military aircraft at Stewart Airport in Newburgh later that night, prosecutors said. Inert explosives and nonworking missiles were provided by the informant as part of the sting, prosecutors said.

Mr. Cromitie was the alleged leader of the plot and recruited the other men, said Mr. Hickey, the prosecutor. "This was their chance and the evidence will show the defendants leapt at it," Mr. Hickey said. Mr. Hickey said prosecutors expect to play video and audio recordings of the men at trial, including a recording of the men "praying for success" prior to the attack. Mr. Hussain, the government informant, also is expected to testify. In his opening statement, Mr. Briccetti, Mr. Cromitie's lawyer, countered the plot was engineered solely by the informant. Mr. Briccetti said Mr. Hussain bought Mr. Cromitie food, paid his rent and chauffeured him around in fancy cars. He egged Mr. Cromitie on to say "vile" and "hateful" things about Jews and the U.S., Mr. Briccetti said.

He also promised financial rewards, Mr. Briccetti said. "But for his lies, his tactics, his financial inducements, his relentless pressure – I choose my words carefully – James Cromitie and his co-defendants would not and could not have been involved in any of this activity," he said. Theodore Green, a lawyer for David Williams, said Mr. Hussain and his FBI handlers came up with a strategy in 2009 to pay potential lookouts in order to induce them to join the scheme and entrap them. Susanne Brody, a lawyer for Onta Williams, said there's no evidence her client was predisposed to join a jihad. "Onta is not a radical. He is not a terrorist," Ms. Brody said.

At Least 30 Killed In Somalia Hotel Attack
New York Times
August 25, 2010

Somali insurgents disguised in government military uniforms stormed a Mogadishu hotel on Tuesday and killed at least 30 people, including 6 lawmakers, laying bare how vulnerable Somalia’s government is, even in an area it claims to control. The insurgents methodically moved room to room, killing hotel guests who tried to bolt their doors shut, Somali officials said. When government forces finally cornered the insurgents, two blew themselves up with suicide vests. The attack shows that “operational momentum has shifted to the insurgents, who can go anywhere they want except where the African peacekeepers are deployed,” said J. Peter Pham, senior vice president at the National Committee on American Foreign Policy.

Several Somali politicians said that the government was so thoroughly under siege that it could work only from behind fortified, sandbagged positions, and that the shrinking government enclave in Mogadishu, the capital, could soon vanish altogether. “The problem is the government is not working hard on security; it’s the same old thing,” said Asha A. Abdalla, a member of Parliament who was in Nairobi during the attack. Like many others in the 550-member Somali Parliament, Mrs. Asha often stays in Kenya because of the dangers in Somalia. “But I don’t know what the A.U. is doing, either,” she said, referring to the more than 6,000 African Union troops in Mogadishu. “If they are not protecting M.P.’s, who are they protecting?”

The most powerful insurgents are the Shabab, a militant Islamist group that has stoned civilians to death and pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda. The Shabab seem to be constantly two steps ahead of Somalia’s transitional government, analysts say, even though the government receives tens of millions of dollars in security aid from the United States and other Western countries. American officials have said the government, however weak and disorganized, is the best bulwark against a Shabab-ruled Somalia, though the Shabab already rule much of Somalia. The battle now seems to be turning to Mogadishu, specifically the few neighborhoods that the government still marginally controls, like the areas around the presidential palace, seaport and airport. This year, Somali government officials promised to sweep the Shabab out of the capital and expand their zone.

But government forces have been plagued by defections and apathy, Somali commanders concede, and it seems that the Shabab are the ones on the offensive. The hotel raid followed intense shelling against government positions on Monday, which killed dozens of people and sent shells crashing into camps for internally displaced people. “There’s been fierce fighting and the government is getting pushed back,” said Abdirizak Farah, a shopkeeper who fled his home at 4 a.m. Tuesday to seek shelter closer to government troops. The three-story hotel that was attacked, the Muna, was popular among Somali lawmakers because it was thought to be secure and was located less than a mile away from the presidential palace in a breezy seaside neighborhood.

Witnesses said that a group of about three to five insurgents appeared at the gate at 10:30 a.m. wearing government military uniforms, and that as soon as the hotel guards opened the way for them, the gunmen opened fire. They then rushed into the hotel corridors, shooting everyone in sight. Government forces arrived a few minutes later and battled the insurgents room by room, eventually pushing the gunmen to the upper floor. According to witnesses, several lawmakers tried to lock themselves in their rooms, but they were hunted down and shot at close range with assault rifles. “They killed everyone they saw inside the hotel and then blew themselves up,” said Abdirahman Omar Osman, Somalia’s information minister. He called the attack “murder” and said it was “against Islamic religion,” especially during the holy month of Ramadan.

Another Somali official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said the Shabab were “using all tactics.” “They don’t care about Ramadan,” the official said. “They are criminals. They are terrorists.” An 11-year-old shoeshine boy and a woman selling tea near the hotel were also killed, African Union officials said. The hotel raid seemed to have been planned well in advance, and several residents living near the hotel said that Shabab fighters had been renting rooms for weeks in their neighborhood, leading them to expect a major attack. A Shabab spokesman on Tuesday said that Shabab “special forces” were the ones who stormed the hotel. Earlier on Tuesday, the government claimed to have captured one of the attackers.

The last time the government was dealt such a deadly blow was in December, when the Shabab killed four government ministers in a suicide bombing at a medical school graduation in another hotel in the government zone. Then in July, the Shabab claimed responsibility for killing dozens of World Cup fans in coordinated bombings in Uganda, saying it was revenge against Ugandan peacekeepers. Analysts said that Tuesday’s raid on the hotel, though, was something different, with gunmen going toe-to-toe against government forces in an area teeming with government troops, which seemed to be a sign of increasingly brazen and confident insurgents. Somalia has lurched from crisis to crisis since 1991, when the central government collapsed. Several Somali officials have conceded that if it were not for the African Union peacekeepers, the government would fall, most likely in hours.

Northern Ireland Flares, But Will It Ignite?
Los Angeles Times
August 25, 2010

The bombers were nothing if not audacious. First they gleaned intelligence that a British army major would be spending the night at a friend's place in the seaside town of Bangor. Then they crept into "enemy" territory – republican militants in a loyalist neighborhood – and booby-trapped the soldier's car as it sat in a suburban housing tract with a single small road leading in and out. The plan went awry only when the bomb fell off the belly of the officer's car as he drove away the next day, clattering to the ground without exploding. It was one of three assassination attempts within a single week this month on people connected to the British and Northern Irish security forces. Together with other recent incidents, the failed attacks are part of an upswing of activity by republican rebels intent on disrupting the peace process that formally ended decades of heavy sectarian bloodshed in this divided territory.

The surge comes at a delicate moment. Tensions always run high in Northern Ireland in the summer, when parades by Protestant groups emphasizing their loyalty to the British crown create friction with their Roman Catholic, republican-minded neighbors. But in addition, the province's power-sharing Assembly is grappling with the difficult task of assuming responsibility for justice and policing from the British government in London, a transfer of power aimed at cementing the peace process but one that is fraught with controversy. For extremists hoping to undermine progress, now may seem like a good time to strike, in order to harass the security forces during a period of transition and to exploit Catholic anger over the parade season, analysts say. The flare-up in violence has put residents on edge, particularly in areas where Catholic and Protestant communities rub up against each other in a close and uneasy coexistence.

"There's an eerie tension here," said Winston Irvine, a community development worker who lives in a loyalist stronghold of Belfast, Northern Ireland's capital. "All we citizens are asking ourselves, what's next?" The escalation in violence has mostly been blamed on dissident republican groups that never accepted the Irish Republican Army's decision to lay down arms in favor of pursuing the dream of a united Ireland through peaceful means. They particularly despise Northern Ireland's police force, once a Protestant bastion whose name, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, declared its support of the British crown.

Rebranded as the Police Service of Northern Ireland, or PSNI, the force is now 25% Catholic and is touted as a symbol of integration and hope. But many republicans remain suspicious of the police; it's not unusual to see tattoos telling the PSNI to stuff it, in less polite terms. For dissident groups such as the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA, the police service is still a hated instrument of British power, like the military, and members of both forces are prime targets for attack. Besides the army major's car here in Bangor, the vehicles of a Catholic policewoman in the small town of Kilkeel and a civilian security guard at a police station in Cookstown were booby-trapped this month. In only the latter incident did the bomb detonate; the man escaped unhurt.

On Aug. 3, suspected republican dissidents hijacked a taxi, packed the car with 200 pounds of explosives and forced the driver at gunpoint to park the cab outside a police station in Londonderry. Though the heavily fortified station was largely unscathed, the predawn blast blew out windows of office and apartment buildings and badly damaged nearby businesses. Adrian Guelke, a political scientist at Queen's University in Belfast, traces the upsurge in dissident activity to March of last year, when militants fatally shot two British soldiers and a policeman in the space of a few days. Even though politicians of all stripes condemned the killings and declared their commitment to the peace process, the ensuing news coverage gave the dissidents a morale boost, and a recruiting tool.

"The adjective used the most to describe dissident violence before last year was 'futile.' It was just a waste of time," Guelke said. "We're seeing the harvest of what happened in March [2009] and the enhancement of their credibility as a threat." Pessimists fear it's only a matter of time before a major attack finds its mark. Though the dissident groups have so far trained their fire on the security forces, Northern Ireland's police chief warned this month that the violence could broaden and result in a repeat of a 1998 bomb attack in the town of Omagh that killed more than two dozen civilians.

This week, a senior member of a republican splinter organization called Oglaigh na hEireann (roughly "Soldiers of Ireland"), which claimed responsibility for the blast outside the Londonderry police station, told the Irish News that it intended to widen its campaign of violence beyond Northern Ireland to anywhere "the British apparatus" operated, whether "in Belfast, Birmingham or London." The militant leader added that the group had no wish to inflict civilian casualties or to start a tit-for-tat cycle of killings with loyalist diehards.

But that is scant reassurance for Irvine, the community development worker. Irvine lives in the working-class Shankill Road area of Belfast, a neighborhood targeted by republican militants but notorious for its association with loyalist paramilitary groups that meted out violence in return. Gone are the days when gun-toting British soldiers patrolled the streets, as was the case during the height of the "Troubles"; now, shoppers go about their business unmolested, and Catholic cabdrivers travel the area with little thought, at least in the daytime. But there is a fear among residents, Irvine said, that republican extremists could shift from attacking police officers and soldiers back to targeting loyalists.

"Obviously, people will brace themselves and hope that whoever it is behind these attacks do not take it into a very deeply sectarian nature," Irvine said. "In my own view, the peace process was and probably is only ever one horrific bad mistake away from shaking the foundations." In recent years, loyalist paramilitaries have on the whole been less active than the republican splinter groups suspected in the recent spate of violence. Lawmakers who appealed for calm in the aftermath of the killings of the two soldiers last year were encouraged by the lack of retaliation by hard-line unionist groups. Yet potential flashpoints remain.

Last month, riots broke out in the heavily republican Ardoyne district of north Belfast over a loyalist march. Police blame dissident factions for fomenting the unrest and recruiting young people to their cause. "They haven't gone away, you know," cried the front-page headline of the staunchly loyalist Shankill Mirror. But community activist Joe Marley said that although some young people could "get sucked into those agendas," the threat ought not to be exaggerated. "I don't think areas like Ardoyne … have any desire to let things go back to what we saw on the streets in the '70s and '80s. People have suffered enough," said Marley, whose father was shot to death by loyalist paramilitaries in 1987.

More important, he said, is to address the deep-seated economic problems in areas like Ardoyne, where unemployment is high and complaints are rife that Northern Ireland's "peace dividend" has passed the place by. But the economic picture could be about to get worse. The British government's looming austerity plan is expected to cut especially deep in Northern Ireland, which relies on public funding more than any other region of the United Kingdom. A further increase in unemployment and a decline in living standards could deepen disenchantment with the peace process and swell the ranks of angry, jobless young men susceptible to recruitment by shadowy fringe outfits.

"Low unemployment was important for sustaining the peace process," said Guelke, the political scientist. "The dissidents will really go to town over that." For now, residents are left to rely on the repeated declarations by their political leaders that there is no turning back on the peace process. Martin McGuinness, a onetime IRA commander who now serves as deputy first minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly, has been especially praised for reiterating his commitment to peace and denouncing violent incidents of the kind he once espoused. "Those public utterances are important," said Irvine. "However, if they become only words without any real action or real deed behind the statements, then we are in danger of treading our way into something much more dangerous." ]]> JFC GOM Summary CoopMGI http://www.trackpads.com/forum/jfc-gom-summary/943079-gcom-summary-2010-aug-25-a.html http://www.trackpads.com/forum/jfc-gom-summary/943059-gcom-summary-2010-aug-24-a.html Wed, 25 Aug 2010 02:02:56 GMT *U.S. Joint Forces Command* *Global Current... U.S. Joint Forces Command
Global Current Operations Media Summary
Operations Iraqi Freedom/Enduring Freedom/Noble Eagle
Current as of August 24, 2010

ØNew Developments

• 34 Killed In Pakistan Bombings. Three bomb blasts killed 34 people Monday in northwestern Pakistan, authorities said. Though no one claimed responsibility for the attacks, they came at a time when government officials have been warning that Islamic militants might try to exploit the strain that this summer's catastrophic floods have put on the country's military and government by unleashing a new wave of violence. One of the attacks occurred in South Waziristan, a tribal area along the Afghan border long regarded as a stronghold for the Pakistani Taliban. A teenage suicide bomber appeared at a mosque in the town of Wana where 200 worshipers were praying and detonated explosives strapped to his body, witnesses said. The blast killed 25 people and injured 36, hospital officials said. (Los Angeles Times – see attached)
• U.S. General Cites Goals To Train Afghan Forces. The American commander in charge of building up Afghanistan’s security forces said Monday that in the next 15 months he would have to recruit and train 141,000 new soldiers and police officers – more than the current size of the Afghan Army – to meet President Obama’s ambitious goals for getting Afghan forces to fight the war on their own. The commander, Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, said the large recruiting number was to allow for attrition rates in some units of nearly 50 percent. Over all, General Caldwell said it would not be until October 2011 – three months after the deadline for the start of American withdrawals set by Mr. Obama – that he will have finished building the Afghan security forces to their full capacity. For now, he said, “they cannot operate independently.” (New York Times – see attached)
• Afghan Officials Challenge U.S. On Aid Contract Abuses. A spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai challenged the United States on Monday to clean up fraud and corruption within the hundreds of millions of dollars of aid contracts it distributes to Afghan companies each year, saying that abuse is far worse than any irregularities in the Karzai administration. Waheed Omer used his weekly news conference to take the offensive in the ongoing political battle between the Karzai government and U.S. officials over the mismanagement of international money. Of every $100 million of aid coming into the country, Omer said, 80 percent is controlled by the United States and NATO. Therefore, he said, it is up to international officials to enact safeguards and root out illegal practices. (Washington Post – see attached)
• CIA Man Is Key To U.S. Relations With Karzai. The Obama administration has turned to the Central Intelligence Agency's station chief in Afghanistan to troubleshoot Washington's precarious relationship with President Hamid Karzai, propelling the undercover officer into a critical role normally reserved for diplomats and military chiefs. The station chief has become a pivotal behind-the-scenes power broker in Kabul, according to U.S. officials as well as current and former diplomats and military figures. In April, when Mr. Karzai lashed out against his Western partners, it was the station chief who was tapped by the White House to calm the Afghan president. The station chief's position became more crucial following the June firing of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, perhaps the only other senior American who had a close relationship with Mr. Karzai, U.S. officials say. (Wall Street Journal – see attached)

ØMilitary Coverage

• Arms Dealer Faces New Charges. Efraim E. Diveroli, the brash young Miami Beach arms dealer who landed a $300 million contract with the Pentagon to buy and ship munitions to Afghanistan only to have it unravel in a sprawling criminal case, was in custody again in Florida on Monday, facing new federal charges. Mr. Diveroli, 24, was arrested Friday in Brevard County, Fla., and charged with possession of firearms as a convicted felon and with possession of firearms while under indictment for a felony offense. After a brief appearance at a detention hearing on Monday in Federal District Court in Orlando, he was ordered held without bail in the Orange County Corrections Department. (New York Times – see attached)

ØWorld Developments

• Ayatollah Rebukes Warring Factions. Iran’s supreme leader has taken the unprecedented step of publicly rebuking his political allies after cracks emerged between the conservative and radical fundamentalists who dominate the government. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who wields ultimate power, issued a “serious warning” to the country’s senior politicians, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to stop the infighting rocking the regime. After the defeat of reformist opponents, whose protests against last year’s disputed election have been suppressed, the fundamentalists have turned on each other to settle old scores. (London Financial Times – see attached)
• Africa Sends More Troops To Stem Somali Militancy. Two African nations are sending fresh troops to Somalia, in an effort to turn the tide against an insurgency that poses a growing threat to the region. The troop increases come a month after Somali militant group al Shabaab launched a bloody attack on the Ugandan capital, which the militants said was retaliation for Ugandan involvement in Mogadishu. The majority of African Union troops in Somalia – currently about 6,000 – come from Uganda and Burundi. On Monday, Wafula Wamunyinyi, deputy head of the AU mission in Somalia, known as Amisom, said that Uganda had begun to send more troops to Mogadishu, and that the first group of new soldiers had arrived on Friday. Burundi also plans to send a battalion, he said, which is around 1,000 troops. (Wall Street Journal – see attached)
• Philippines Defends Handling Of Bus Hostage Crisis. Philippine authorities defended on Tuesday their handling of a bus hostage crisis in which eight Hong Kong tourists were killed, but missteps were seen as signs of deeper deficiencies in a country beset by security problems. Eight hostages and their disgruntled ex-policemen kidnapper were killed at the end of a day-long siege in the capital after signs earlier that the crisis would be resolved peacefully. Hong Kong advised residents against travel to the Philippines, a blow to the poor Southeast Asian nation's hopes to double tourist numbers to six million a year to help lift economic growth. Philippine President Benigno Aquino III admitted there were deficiencies in the operation, but said the gunman's access to TV and radio made it hard for police to launch a rescue mission on a bus that was parked some distance from cover. (Reuters)
• Spanish Hostages Freed By Al-Qaida Arrive In Spain. Two Spanish aid workers kidnapped almost nine months ago by an al-Qaida affiliate arrived Tuesday in Barcelona after a multi-million-dollar ransom was reportedly paid for their freedom – a sign of the terrorist group's growing sophistication in bankrolling operations through kidnappings, experts said. Aid workers Roque Pascual and Albert Vilalta were abducted last November when their convoy of 4-by-4s was attacked by gunmen on a stretch of road in Mauritania. They were whisked away to Mali, whose northern half is now one of the many stretches of remote desert where al-Qaida of Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, has stretched its tentacles. Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported that Spain had paid €3.8 million in ransom to secure the aid workers' release. (NPR/AP)
• Carter Heading To N. Korea To Free American. Former President Jimmy Carter was preparing to leave for North Korea on Tuesday to try to gain the freedom of an American imprisoned for illegally entering the communist nation, U.S. officials said Monday night. North Korea agreed to release Aijalon Mahli Gomes if Carter were to come to bring him home, a senior U.S. official told AP. Gomes, of Boston, who was arrested on Jan. 25 after entering North Korea, was sentenced in April to eight years in prison and fined $700,000. Carter was expected to spend a single night in North Korea and return with Gomes on Thursday, a second U.S. official said. As was the case when former President Bill Clinton went to North Korea last summer to win the release of two detained American reporters, no U.S. officials will travel with Carter, the senior official said. (Chicago Daily Herald/AP)

ØPublic Opinion

• 6 In 10 Oppose Afghan Fighting. A majority of Americans see no end in sight in Afghanistan, and nearly six in 10 oppose the nine-year-old war as President Barack Obama sends tens of thousands more troops to the fight, according to a new AP-GfK poll. With just more than 10 weeks before elections that could define the remainder of Obama’s first term, only 38% say they support his expanded war effort in Afghanistan – a drop from 46% in March. Just 19% expect the situation to improve during the next year, while 29% think it will get worse. Some 49% think it will remain the same. Strong dissent – 58% oppose the war – could depress Democratic turnout when the party desperately needs to energize its supporters for midterm congressional elections. (Worcester Telegram/AP)

* AP = Associated Press UPI = United Press International KR = Knight Ridder

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34 Killed In Pakistan Bombings
Los Angeles Times
August 24, 2010

Three bomb blasts killed 34 people Monday in northwestern Pakistan, authorities said. Though no one claimed responsibility for the attacks, they came at a time when government officials have been warning that Islamic militants might try to exploit the strain that this summer's catastrophic floods have put on the country's military and government by unleashing a new wave of violence. One of the attacks occurred in South Waziristan, a tribal area along the Afghan border long regarded as a stronghold for the Pakistani Taliban. A teenage suicide bomber appeared at a mosque in the town of Wana where 200 worshipers were praying and detonated explosives strapped to his body, witnesses said. The blast killed 25 people and injured 36, hospital officials said.

Among the dead was Maulana Noor Muhammad, a former lawmaker and head of the Islamic school where the mosque was located. He had just finished translating verses from the Koran when the blast occurred. Muhammad was a member of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Fazlur Rehman) party, which historically has been sympathetic to the Taliban movement. "I saw a teenager who shook hands with Maulana Noor Muhammad before detonating the explosives," said Ayub Wazir, a worshiper who survived the blast. The motive of the attack was unclear. At times, violence in the tribal areas occurs between rival tribal and militant factions. A second attack occurred in the Kurram tribal district when a remote-controlled bomb exploded in a school where tribal elders had been meeting in the village of Parachamkani. The blast killed six people and injured seven, authorities said.

In the third attack, a bomb planted in a pushcart exploded in the early evening in the town of Mattani, killing three people and injuring six, police said. Dilawar Khan, head of a local anti-Taliban militia, said his group was the target of the attack on the outskirts of northwestern Pakistan's largest city, Peshawar. Two of the dead were members of the militia. In both South Waziristan and Kurram, Pakistani troops have launched offensives in the last year to flush out Taliban militants and reestablish governmental control. Despite the offensives, pockets of militants remain active in many parts of the tribal areas.

Last week, Mian Iftikhar Hussain, information minister for northwestern Pakistan's Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, warned that militants had been regrouping in the tribal areas to take advantage of a period in which the state has had to deploy thousands of Pakistani soldiers and police to cope with the ongoing flood crisis, which has killed more than 1,600 people and submerged vast areas of the country. On Monday in the tribal district of North Waziristan, two U.S. drone missile strikes killed 12 people and injured 15, intelligence sources said. One of the missiles targeted Dandy Darpakhel, an area known as a stronghold of the Haqqani network, a wing of the Afghan Taliban. Among the seven killed were four women, the sources said. The other strike killed five people in the village of Derga Mandai, sources said.

U.S. General Cites Goals To Train Afghan Forces
New York Times
August 24, 2010

The American commander in charge of building up Afghanistan’s security forces said Monday that in the next 15 months he would have to recruit and train 141,000 new soldiers and police officers – more than the current size of the Afghan Army – to meet President Obama’s ambitious goals for getting Afghan forces to fight the war on their own. The commander, Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, said the large recruiting number was to allow for attrition rates in some units of nearly 50 percent. Over all, General Caldwell said it would not be until October 2011 – three months after the deadline for the start of American withdrawals set by Mr. Obama – that he will have finished building the Afghan security forces to their full capacity. For now, he said, “they cannot operate independently.”

General Caldwell’s remarks, made by video feed from Kabul, the Afghan capital, to reporters at the Pentagon, underscored the challenge the Obama administration faces in trying to turn around the nine-year-old war, which has deteriorated on the ground and become increasingly unpopular among Americans. Training Afghan security forces to defend their own country remains at the heart of Mr. Obama’s strategy for ending the United States’ involvement in the war. Despite the challenges, General Caldwell said he had made progress and had so far met his recruiting targets. Currently, the Afghan Army numbers 134,000, with a goal of 171,600 by October 2011. The Afghan National Police has 115,500 officers, with a goal of 134,000 by October 2011.

Desertions and resignations continue to be a problem. “In the Afghan National Police, the attrition rate is unacceptable,” General Caldwell said, citing a current rate of 47 percent, down from a peak of 70 percent. Another major problem, he said, is illiteracy. The vast majority of Afghan recruits cannot read and write in their own language, meaning that basic tasks, like knowing the serial numbers of their weapons, are impossible. As a result, the United States has started a basic literacy program, with 27,000 recruits currently enrolled and an expectation that 100,000 will be in the program by next summer. “We’re not trying to make high school graduates,” General Caldwell said. “Our intent is to give them enough to have the ability to do certain key things for the professionalization of the force.”

For example, he said, “if they’re issued equipment and told that they’re supposed to have four shirts, three pairs of pants and two pairs of boots on a piece of paper, they can actually read that and then look at the equipment instead of being reliant on somebody else to do that for them.” General Caldwell said illiteracy had created a problem among Afghan soldiers in the north last week, when 90 out of a group of 100 soldiers told American commanders they had not been properly paid by electronic funds transfer, the system now used for most of the Afghan Army payroll. “The money was in fact in their accounts – they just had no ability to, in fact, look at a bank statement or read the A.T.M. machine to understand they had been paid,” General Caldwell said. “Had they had some basic literacy training, they would have known that.”

One factor that has helped recruiting this year, the general said, is a raise. Base pay for an Afghan soldier or police officer is now $165 a month, and in a high-combat area like Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan a soldier can make a starting salary of $240 a month, up from $180. General Caldwell has said in the past that the Taliban often pays insurgents $250 to $300 a month. James M. Dubik, an author of a recent report on Afghan military training and a retired Army three-star general who oversaw the training of Iraqi security forces in 2007 and 2008, said he was optimistic about General Caldwell’s mission. General Dubik said General Caldwell had greatly expanded the capacity to train Afghans by increasing the number of instructors and training locations and changing the training week from five 8-hour days to six 12-hour days.

General Caldwell said drug abuse remained a problem, particularly among the police. He said drug use on average in the police was found to be 9 percent, although in certain areas it was much higher. He did not specify the type of drug abuse. At an Afghan police training facility outside Camp Leatherneck in Helmand Province, the American Marine commander, Lt. Col. Gerard Wynn, said in April that American trainers had immediately rejected 10 percent of Afghan recruits because of opium use. But the trainers did not turn away recruits who showed evidence of marijuana use because, he said, “it’s so prevalent in society that we’d be kicking everybody out.”

Afghan Officials Challenge U.S. On Aid Contract Abuses
Washington Post
August 24, 2010

A spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai challenged the United States on Monday to clean up fraud and corruption within the hundreds of millions of dollars of aid contracts it distributes to Afghan companies each year, saying that abuse is far worse than any irregularities in the Karzai administration. Waheed Omer used his weekly news conference to take the offensive in the ongoing political battle between the Karzai government and U.S. officials over the mismanagement of international money. Of every $100 million of aid coming into the country, Omer said, 80 percent is controlled by the United States and NATO. Therefore, he said, it is up to international officials to enact safeguards and root out illegal practices.

"Corruption is widely affecting the multimillion-dollar contracts going to Afghans, who are becoming terribly rich out of those contracts," Omer said. "We want the international community to work with the government of Afghanistan to eliminate these sources of corruption and target the roots and sources of corruption. A major part are these international contracts." Omer's remarks came just days after Karzai finished a series of meetings with Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who had flown to Kabul to push Karzai to crack down on corruption within his administration. Questions sent to Kerry through aides were not immediately answered.

Last month, Mohammad Zia Salehi, a high-level Karzai aide, was arrested by Afghanistan's Major Crimes Task Force after allegedly being overheard in a wire-tap soliciting a bribe of an automobile worth $10,000. Salehi was released from jail within hours after Karzai personally intervened, according to Afghan officials familiar with the case. Karzai has said he acted because Salehi's human rights were violated and the wire-tap was against Afghan rules. The Washington Post reported last week that Salehi was also being investigated for doling out luxury automobiles and cash to Karzai allies and talking regularly with Taliban insurgents.

Asked to respond to those new allegations, Omer said: "In terms of the official information this office has received, this arrest was specifically for an alleged case of soliciting a bribe purported to be in the shape of a car. . . . All details of those other allegations are not part of this case as described to the government of Afghanistan."

Karzai has been particularly critical of the private security forces, which number more than 30,000 armed guards working primarily with western organizations, including the U.S. military. "We will take steps to stop corruption, whether it be in customs or in services. But the government wants also to look into the wide-ranging corruption in the international forces contracts. One area is the private security companies, which are making billions of dollars and threaten the security," Omer said.

The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), NATO's force in Afghanistan, has already established two task forces to examine corruption – one on international contracts and another on private security firms. "ISAF will soon issue comprehensive contracting guidance that will ensure our contracting dollars best serve the Afghan people as well as ISAF's mission," said a spokesman, Maj. Joel Harper. Meanwhile, the federal Commission on Wartime Contracting announced Monday that it will undertake a week-long examination of U.S. construction contracts in Afghanistan. Co-Chairman Michael Thibault said in a statement that $4 billion was wasted on construction in Iraq, and similar problems could be found in Afghanistan.

CIA Man Is Key To U.S. Relations With Karzai
Wall Street Journal
August 24, 2010

The Obama administration has turned to the Central Intelligence Agency's station chief in Afghanistan to troubleshoot Washington's precarious relationship with President Hamid Karzai, propelling the undercover officer into a critical role normally reserved for diplomats and military chiefs. The station chief has become a pivotal behind-the-scenes power broker in Kabul, according to U.S. officials as well as current and former diplomats and military figures. In April, when Mr. Karzai lashed out against his Western partners, it was the station chief who was tapped by the White House to calm the Afghan president.

The station chief's position became more crucial following the June firing of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, perhaps the only other senior American who had a close relationship with Mr. Karzai, U.S. officials say. The unusual diplomatic channel is in part a measure of how fragile U.S. relations with the mercurial Afghan president are. "Karzai needs constant reassurance," said one former colleague of the station chief, and the chief is his "security blanket." The CIA's prominent role in Afghanistan is fraught, the spy agency having clashed at times with the official diplomatic mission. That has complicated the civilian component of the U.S. military surge.

In particular, the station chief's role has led to tensions with the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry. Officials said the ambassador objected last fall to the return to Kabul of the station chief, who had held the same post earlier in the war. Mr. Eikenberry declined to comment, as did the State Department. The relationship with Mr. Karzai isn't handled on a daily basis by the station chief; rather, he is called on at critical times. With the administration trying to get all of its leaders in Afghanistan on the same page following Gen. McChrystal's dismissal, others including Mr. Eikenberry and new Allied commander Gen. David Petraeus, as well as senior North Atlantic Treaty Organization officials, also are working to build closer relations with Mr. Karzai.

Some officials worry the U.S. dependence on personal relationships to deal with Kabul is insufficient. It's "becoming a substitute for a political approach to the Afghan government that is really missing," said one former military official. The Obama administration said that it isn't overly reliant on personal relationships, and that its focus is on establishing broad shared policy goals. "If we have agreement about the strategic direction and the goals we're trying to achieve, we can weather those periods of tension," a senior administration official said. The CIA said it doesn't discuss individual officers serving overseas. "Our chiefs are chosen for their operational skill, leadership ability, and area knowledge," said George Little, a CIA spokesman.

The station chief, a former Marine in his 50s, is known to some colleagues by his nickname, "Spider." The CIA didn't make him available for an interview. Besides his relationship with Mr. Karzai, he serves the more traditional role of running CIA operations in Afghanistan, a growing component of the war. The CIA is expanding its presence there by 20% to 25%, in its largest surge since Vietnam. The several hundred officers assigned to Afghanistan outnumber those in Iraq at the height of that war. The station chief has had a close relationship with his military counterparts. He and Gen. McChrystal forged ties in Iraq and Afghanistan, colleagues say.

The chief met Mr. Karzai before the Afghan war, when U.S. officials were working with Mr. Karzai and other Afghan tribal leaders against the Taliban. Mr. Karzai was in Pakistan, where the chief and his intelligence colleagues were trying to hunt down Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. After Sept. 11, 2001, as the CIA prepared for the U.S. invasion to rout al Qaeda's Taliban protectors, the chief was assigned the job of working with Mr. Karzai. "He's spent time with Karzai like no one else has," said a former senior intelligence official. In the chaos of battle in December 2001, a U.S. military officer accidentally ordered a bomb drop on a meeting between Mr. Karzai and other tribal leaders. The chief leapt on Mr. Karzai to shield him, U.S. and Afghan officials say. He was credited with saving the soon-to-be Afghan president, cementing their relationship.

A senior Afghan official said Mr. Karzai and his staff appreciate the chief's straightforward approach. The official recalled frank early discussions between Afghan and CIA officials about complicated issues such as the need to work with criminals and warlords who wielded power. The chief was part of a team that launched Operation Anaconda, a 2002 offensive against al Qaeda involving CIA operatives, U.S. Special Forces and Afghan fighters. When Afghan forces came under fire, the chief led them to safety, said former colleagues, earning an agency award for heroism. That operation also bolstered the relationship with Mr. Karzai.

Earlier in life, the chief left the Marines in the 1970s to join the CIA's paramilitary operations unit, known as the Ground Branch of the Special Activities Division. Agency veterans say the unit was active in the 1980s in Central America and helped train Afghans then fighting Soviet forces. He served as a base chief in Bosnia and later spent time in Iraq. In 2004 he began his first stint as station chief in Kabul, where the focus was hunting down high-value targets. He also began his role of smoothing out rough patches with Afghanistan's president. "Karzai goes through these moods, and [the station chief] was one of the people who could get through to him," said a former Western military official.

The CIA rotates station chiefs frequently. When Kabul was due for a new one last fall, the leading candidate didn't pass muster with the State Department or Mr. Karzai, people familiar with the matter said. Mr. Karzai pushed for the return of the former station chief, then in the U.S. and considering retirement. The CIA's appointment went through despite the opposition of Ambassador Eikenberry, officials said. The station chief returned to Afghanistan for an unusual second tour in late 2009 just before a CIA disaster – seven officers killed by a Jordanian informant who turned out to be a double agent and suicide bomber. The chief isn't considered responsible for missteps in handling the agent, say people familiar with the CIA's review of the incident.

Winning Mr. Karzai's cooperation is central to U.S. strategy, especially when controversies arise over issues such as corruption and handling reconciliation with Taliban members. The Afghan president doesn't trust many of the U.S. officials assigned to his nation. Mr. Karzai unleashed a round of anti-Western invective this spring. He complained of meddling in the Afghan elections and later went so far as to suggest he might be compelled to join the Taliban if he didn't succeed in wresting control of election oversight from the United Nations. Mr. Eikenberry had barred CIA station chiefs from direct outreach to the Afghan president. But the chief's relationship with Mr. Karzai rose to the attention of the White House, which overruled the ambassador's directive and sought the chief's help to calm Mr. Karzai, people familiar with the matter said.

"What the president really was focused on in April," said the senior administration official, "was: Let's not allow a period of tension to spiral; let's not allow a bad week to derail the fundamental partnership." By the time Mr. Karzai was set to visit Washington in May, he was again speaking of a "genuine partnership" between his nation and the U.S. Officials said Mr. Karzai asked that two U.S. officials accompany him for the trip – Gen. McChrystal and the station chief. In recent months, the chief has stepped up cooperation between the CIA and the military in preparation for the planned Kandahar offensive, said a U.S. military official. The agency, Special Forces and the military are swapping intelligence on clan power brokers and Taliban sanctuaries. The station chief now is expected to play a key role smoothing the way for Gen. Petraeus. The general hasn't served in Afghanistan before, but worked with the station chief when both were in Iraq.

Arms Dealer Faces New Charges
New York Times
August 24, 2010

Efraim E. Diveroli, the brash young Miami Beach arms dealer who landed a $300 million contract with the Pentagon to buy and ship munitions to Afghanistan only to have it unravel in a sprawling criminal case, was in custody again in Florida on Monday, facing new federal charges. Mr. Diveroli, 24, was arrested Friday in Brevard County, Fla., and charged with possession of firearms as a convicted felon and with possession of firearms while under indictment for a felony offense. After a brief appearance at a detention hearing on Monday in Federal District Court in Orlando, he was ordered held without bail in the Orange County Corrections Department.

The two criminal counts appeared to be initial charges intended to detain Mr. Diveroli pending the results of an investigation into a more extensive criminal enterprise. An 18-page affidavit filed late last week by Kevin McCann, a special agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, described Mr. Diveroli as operating a front company, Advanced Munitions, to solicit business as an arms dealer. Mr. Diveroli has no federal license for arms brokering and is forbidden as a convicted felon from handling firearms.

According to the complaint, on July 14, Mr. Diveroli solicited business from an unnamed licensed dealer to trade in ammunition, magazines and machine guns, which he hoped the other dealer might provide him for “resale in the Miami area.” The dealer notified the authorities, who opened an investigation. Mr. Diveroli was later recorded in conversations with undercover A.T.F. agents in which he said he was a consultant for a company that needed help “with the importation of 100-round ammunition drums” from a South Korean factory, and he hoped to ship these items into the United States at the rate of 120,000 pieces a year.

In other conversations, Mr. Diveroli, who later identified himself as “a private equity company” and did business under the company names of “LOW LLC, “AmmoWorks,” “Advanced Munitions,” and “Pinnacle Minerals Corporation,” also offered rifle cartridges for sale, including a “trial order” to sample an available inventory of five million or six million rounds. Mr. Diveroli was barely old enough in to legally drink in 2007 when the Pentagon entered a huge contract with him to buy munitions from former Eastern Bloc depots and ship them to Kabul, Afghanistan.

The munitions he sold under his company name, AEY Inc. – including hand- and rocket-propelled grenades, mortar and artillery rounds, and tens of millions of Kalashnikov rifle and machine-gun cartridges – were to be distributed to the fledgling Afghan security forces for the fight against the Taliban. In 2008, as The New York Times investigated accusations that he was shipping decades-old Kalashnikov ammunition in corroded packaging to the war, and repackaging and obscuring the origins of Chinese cartridges procured from Albania, the United States Army abruptly suspended its contract with Mr. Diveroli and his firm.

The Pentagon and federal prosecutors later accused Mr. Diveroli of a criminal scheme to sell banned Chinese munitions to the Pentagon, and he was indicted on federal fraud and conspiracy charges. He pleaded guilty in 2009 to a single conspiracy count. He had been awaiting sentencing, which was scheduled for November. The latest criminal complaint claimed that Mr. Diveroli, whose arms dealing once seemed to have ended with his conviction, was recorded by undercover agents on Aug. 4 saying that “he has a large stock of ammunition in the United States” and “has been unloading his ammunition the last couple of years.” “Once a gun runner, always a gun runner,” the complaint said Mr. Diveroli told the agent.

In other recorded conversations, Mr. Diveroli appeared to boast of violations of his status as a felon awaiting sentencing. On Aug. 11, he said that “earlier in the day he was shooting at the range” and a few days later, he was recorded saying that “he and a friend were recently hunting alligators, white tail deer and hogs in the Everglades” with a .50-caliber black-powder rifle. That trip seemed to have been as ill-fated as his latest business venture.

After “they got a couple of decent shots at an alligator,” Mr. Diveroli was recorded saying, their “vehicle got stuck in the mud” and they had to wait for a tow truck to retrieve them. He was arrested Friday after driving to Brevard County to meet undercover agents. Brevard County is outside the federal Southern District of Florida, where Mr. Diveroli had agreed to remain while free as part of his presentencing conditions.

Mr. Diveroli examined and handled firearms brought to the meeting by the agents, including a Glock Model 17 semiautomatic pistol and a 7.62-millimeter semiautomatic rifle. Mr. Diveroli, the affidavit said, was so enthused by the weapons that he suggested to companions traveling with him that they go to Wal-Mart and buy ammunition so they might go shooting. At the Wal-Mart, Mr. Diveroli and his friends quickly bought several hundred rounds of ammunition and then drove back to meet the undercover agents again and presumably go to a shooting range. He was promptly arrested, the complaint said, while sitting in a silver Audi convertible with the ammunition in the back seat.

Ayatollah Rebukes Warring Factions
London Financial Times
August 24, 2010

Iran’s supreme leader has taken the unprecedented step of publicly rebuking his political allies after cracks emerged between the conservative and radical fundamentalists who dominate the government. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who wields ultimate power, issued a “serious warning” to the country’s senior politicians, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to stop the infighting rocking the regime. After the defeat of reformist opponents, whose protests against last year’s disputed election have been suppressed, the fundamentalists have turned on each other to settle old scores.

Ali Larijani, the parliament speaker and a veteran opponent of the president, has criticized Mr. Ahmadinejad for allegedly failing to implement laws passed by parliament. Fundamentalists have attacked the government’s economic policies. Meanwhile, the president’s chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei, infuriated the clergy by urging the introduction of an “Iranian school of Islam”, apparently questioning the universal nature of the faith. Mr. Khamenei has generally sided with the president in any internal disputes. But this time he responded by calling together senior leaders, including Mr. Ahmadinejad and Mr. Larijani. Afterwards he told state television: “I gave a serious warning to the officials not to make their differences public.”

Earlier, the supreme leader told senior figures from the government and parliament that “turning differences in tastes into irremediable gaps and incurable wounds was a gross mistake”. He added: “Unity and solidarity among the country’s officials is a religious duty and the intentional rejection [of unity] is, especially in the upper echelon, against religious teachings.” International pressure on Iran is intensifying, with the UN imposing a fourth round of economic sanctions in June because of the regime’s enrichment of uranium.

Mr. Khamenei is trying to rally his followers after a year in which Iran’s divisions have been on display, first between the regime and the reformist opposition and lately within the ruling fundamentalist group. Both parliament and the government sought to give the impression they were ready to bury the hatchet. After meeting senior MPs, Mr. Ahmadinejad said: “We are a family and we have one mission. The majlis [parliament] and the government should move in coordination.”

Africa Sends More Troops To Stem Somali Militancy
Wall Street Journal
August 24, 2010

Two African nations are sending fresh troops to Somalia, in an effort to turn the tide against an insurgency that poses a growing threat to the region. The troop increases come a month after Somali militant group al Shabaab launched a bloody attack on the Ugandan capital, which the militants said was retaliation for Ugandan involvement in Mogadishu. The majority of African Union troops in Somalia – currently about 6,000 – come from Uganda and Burundi. On Monday, Wafula Wamunyinyi, deputy head of the African Union mission in Somalia, known as Amisom, said that Uganda had begun to send more troops to Mogadishu, and that the first group of new soldiers had arrived on Friday. Burundi also plans to send a battalion, he said, which is around 1,000 troops.

Mr. Wamunyinyi declined to offer a total figure for the new troops, or their arrival dates, citing security reasons. But the African Union hopes to boost its forces by about 2,000 to fulfill the original mandate of 8,000 troops that was set when Amisom first deployed in 2007. The move to bolster troop levels comes as the government appears to be under serious threat from the militants. On Monday night, al Shabaab attacked all major Amisom positions in Mogadishu – the government's main defense – in what it declared was a "final war" to overthrow the government and oust the Amisom troops, which it has branded as occupiers. The militants had pledged to step up their attacks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began this month. This is the first major outbreak of fighting.

The new Amisom troops are expected to bolster the mission's plan to take back Mogadishu from al Shabaab, which controls swaths of the city. "We are going to expand and move the insurgents out of Mogadishu," said Mr. Wamunyinyi. "We will make major, major strides with the 2000" additional troops. Amisom officials have long expressed frustration that the mission has struggled to accomplish its goals without enough troops. After the July bombing in Uganda, African Union officials hoped more nations would be encouraged to contribute. The west African nation of Guinea, and Somalia's tiny neighbor, Djibouti have both promised troops, but no date has yet been set for their deployment.

The mission has become more difficult this year because foreign fighters – about 2,000, according to Amisom – have flooded the country to aid al Shabaab. According to African Union officials, the militants have established training camps in the city for foreign fighters. Over the weekend, at least seven foreign militiamen were killed when a bomb they were building exploded prematurely in a Mogadishu house, the Somali government said.

Among them were three Pakistanis, two Indians, an Afghan and an Algerian, the government statement said. Al Shabaab's proximity to Amisom posts has also allowed the militants to draw African Union fighters into retaliatory shelling that has killed civilians. The killing of civilians, in turn, has fueled debate about whether more African troops are actually stirring public resentment toward their mission and the Somali government they have been sent to support.

Al Shabaab said that it had planned the July attacks in Uganda, which killed 76 people, to avenge Somali civilian casualties. Amisom says more troops could push al Shabaab out of the city and move the fighting away from residential areas. The additions would also allow troops to hold territory while battling for new ground – something they struggle to do now. On Monday, Mr. Wamunyinyi said that Amisom troops were being given additional training on the rules of engagement, and ordered not to shell civilian areas in an attempt to minimize casualties. In recent weeks, Ugandan officials arrested four men, all Ugandans, for their alleged involvement in the July attack. The men have confessed to participating in the plot and face trial. Kenyan authorities have extradited four other suspects to Uganda for their alleged involvement in the attack.
]]> JFC GOM Summary CoopMGI http://www.trackpads.com/forum/jfc-gom-summary/943059-gcom-summary-2010-aug-24-a.html http://www.trackpads.com/forum/jfc-gom-summary/942987-gcom-summary-2010-aug-23-a.html Tue, 24 Aug 2010 01:20:28 GMT *U.S. Joint Forces Command* *Global Current... U.S. Joint Forces Command
Global Current Operations Media Summary
Operations Iraqi Freedom/Enduring Freedom/Noble Eagle
Current as of August 23, 2010

ØNew Developments

• U.S. Troops In Iraq Could Do Battle, But It's Very Unlikely, Says Top Official. The top American military commander in Iraq, seeking to reassure those concerned about the completed withdrawal of U.S. combat units, expressed confidence Sunday in Iraqi security forces and said 50,000 American troops would remain in Iraq in a mentoring role with the capability of resuming battle operations if necessary. Army Gen. Ray T. Odierno said it would take something like a "complete failure of the security forces" for the U.S. to step back into combat mode in Iraq. "But we don't see that happening," he said during an interview broadcast Sunday on CNN. "They've been doing so well for so long now that we really believe we're beyond that point." (Los Angeles Times – see attached)
• Pakistanis Say Taliban Arrest Was Meant To Hurt Peace Bid. When American and Pakistani agents captured Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s operational commander, in the chaotic port city of Karachi last January, both countries hailed the arrest as a breakthrough in their often difficult partnership in fighting terrorism. But the arrest of Mr. Baradar, the second-ranking Taliban leader after Mullah Muhammad Omar, came with a beguiling twist: both American and Pakistani officials claimed that Mr. Baradar’s capture had been a lucky break. It was only days later, the officials said, that they finally figured out who they had. Now, seven months later, Pakistani officials are telling a very different story. They say they set out to capture Mr. Baradar, and used the C.I.A. to help them do it, because they wanted to shut down secret peace talks that Mr. Baradar had been conducting with the Afghan government that excluded Pakistan, the Taliban’s longtime backer. (New York Times – see attached)
• Facing Afghan Mistrust, al-Qaeda Fighters Take Limited Role In Insurgency. On Aug. 14, a U.S. airstrike in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz killed a Taliban commander known as Abu Baqir. In a country where insurgents are killed daily, this attack was notable for one unusual detail: Abu Baqir, the military said afterward, was also a member of al-Qaeda. Although U.S. officials have often said that al-Qaeda is a marginal player on the Afghan battlefield, an analysis of 76,000 classified U.S. military reports posted by the Web site WikiLeaks underscores the extent to which Osama bin Laden and his network have become an afterthought in the war. The reports, which cover the escalation of the insurgency between 2004 and the end of 2009, mention al-Qaeda only a few dozen times and even then just in passing. Most are vague references to people with unspecified al-Qaeda contacts or sympathies, or as shorthand for an amorphous ideological enemy. (Washington Post – see attached)
• 4 U.S. Soldiers Killed In Afghanistan. Three separate incidents Sunday left four U.S. troops dead in Afghanistan, officials said. The International Security Assistance Force said two Americans were killed fighting insurgents in eastern Afghanistan, another was killed in an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan – a traditional Taliban stronghold – and a fourth died when an improvised explosive device was detonated in the south, CNN reported. Three American soldiers and a Briton were among 21 people killed Friday and Saturday, officials said. The violence took place despite observance of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday. American deaths are rising at a slower rate than for July, which was the deadliest month of the eight-year war for U.S. troops. The death rate for civilian casualties continues to rise; the United Nations said there was a 31 percent jump in civilian deaths and injuries in the first six months of 2010. (UPI)
• Yemen Forces Kill 7 Militants After Qaeda Attacks. Yemeni troops killed seven militants on Sunday, a day after seven suspected al Qaeda fighters were shot dead following a string of attacks in south Yemen, a security official said. The seven militants were killed in Lawdar, where seven others died in clashes with government forces on Saturday, the official told Reuters. Officials earlier said the seven militants killed on Saturday included three foreigners, without giving their nationality. State media has blamed the fighting, including the killing of at least eight soldiers in Lawdar on Friday, on al Qaeda's regional wing and "outlaw elements," a reference to separatists who are behind some of the unrest in southern Yemen. Most of the assaults since June have been claimed by al Qaeda, which has stepped up attacks on security forces in recent months, marking a shift in tactics for the global militant group's Yemen arm, which previously focused on foreign targets. (Reuters)

ØMilitary Coverage

• Air Base Expansion Plans Reflect Long-Term Investment In Afghanistan. Three $100 million air base expansions in southern and northern Afghanistan illustrate Pentagon plans to continue building multimillion-dollar facilities in that country to support increased U.S. military operations well into the future. Despite growing public unhappiness with the Afghan war -- and President Obama's pledge that he will begin withdrawing troops in July 2011 -- many of the installations being built in Afghanistan have extended time horizons. None of the three projects in southern and northern Afghanistan is expected to be completed until the latter half of 2011. All of them are for use by U.S. forces rather than by their Afghan counterparts. (Washington Post – see attached)

ØHomeland Security

• Protests, Rhetoric Feed Jihadists' Fire. Islamic radicals are seizing on protests against a planned Islamic community center near Manhattan's Ground Zero and anti-Muslim rhetoric elsewhere as a propaganda opportunity and are stepping up anti-U.S. chatter and threats on their websites. One jihadist site vowed to conduct suicide bombings in Florida to avenge a threatened Koran burning, while others predicted an increase in terrorist recruits as a result of such actions. "By Allah, the wars are heated and you Americans are the ones who…enflamed it," says one such posting. "By Allah you will be the first to taste its flames." (Wall Street Journal – see attached)
• Informant Is Key To NY Synagogues Bomb Plot Case. Four Muslim men charged with trying to blow up New York synagogues and shoot down military planes will be reunited at their trial with someone who was in on the plot every step of the way: a wire-wearing FBI informant named Shaheed Hussain. The government credits Hussain with rooting out radical Muslims at a mosque in Newburgh, a small town north of New York. The defense has sought to portray him as a "fraudster" who lured down-and-out dupes into a phony scheme by offering them a pile of cash. Hussain’s credibility will be tested as the government’s star witness at the trial, which is set to begin with opening statements this week in federal court in Manhattan. James Cromitie, Onta Williams, David Williams and Laguerre Payen have pleaded not guilty to charges that they engaged in a conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and conspiracy to acquire and use anti-aircraft missiles to kill U.S. officers and employees. They face possible life prison terms if convicted. (Boston Herald/AP)

ØWorld Developments

• Iran Unveils Bomber Drone. Two days after it launched a new missile, Iran on Sunday unveiled its first domestically produced drone in a show of military strength to the country’s “enemies”. Dubbed Karrar or Attacker, the drone can fly at speed of up to 900kmh with a range of 1,000km and can conduct strike and other missions, according to state television. In footage of the launch of the bomber, the television reported that it could carry four cruise missiles, two 250-pound or one 500-pound guided bomb. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president, said at the unveiling ceremony that the drone was “a messenger of peace and friendship” rather than “an ambassador of death for enemies of humanity”. “Our defence industry should be reaching a point that cuts the hands of invaders before any action,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said. (London Financial Times – see attached)
• Netanyahu Says Talks Must Lead To Palestinian Recognition Of Jewish State. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said direct peace talks with the Palestinians, announced Aug. 20, should lead to a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes Israel as the Jewish homeland. “Security, recognition of the national state of the Jewish people and the end of the conflict -- these are the three components that will ensure us a real and lasting peace agreement,” Netanyahu told his Cabinet at a meeting Saturday. Reaching an accord will “be difficult, but possible,” he said. Wassel Abu Yousef, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee, said Netanyahu was setting preconditions for the talks that would be impossible to meet. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced Friday that she and President Barack Obama have invited Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to Washington to meet face-to-face and formally open a fresh round of talks with the goal of achieving an accord within a year. Israeli ministers, including Avishay Braverman, minister of minorities from Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s Labor party, have voiced doubt about whether the talks can succeed. (Bloomberg)
• Spain Working For Happy End To Qaeda Kidnapping. The Spanish government said it was working for the release of two hostages held by al Qaeda's north African wing after al Arabiya television said the pair had been freed. Al Arabiya said the release of the hostages was linked to Mauritania's repatriation to Mali of a militant who had been convicted of the kidnapping of the two Spanish aid workers, along with a third who was freed in March. A Spanish government official declined to confirm that the two hostages had already been released, but said: "The government is exploring all possibilities to obtain a happy ending to this kidnapping." A Malian official said the two Spaniards, working for the Barcelona-Accio Solidario aid group, had been freed. Albert Vilalta and Roque Pascual were taken hostage by al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), responsible for a string of kidnappings, while on an aid convoy through Mauritania in November. The third hostage, Alicia Gamez, was freed in March. (Reuters)

ØPublic Opinion

• In U.S., Slim Majority Says Iraq War Will Be Judged A Failure. More Americans believe history will judge the Iraq war as a failure (53%) rather than a success (42%). To a large degree, Americans' predictions on how history will judge the war mirror their basic support for the war – 55% say the U.S. made a mistake in sending troops to Iraq, while 41% disagree. War opposition has eased only slightly in recent years from a high of 63% in April 2008. Despite their more negative than positive evaluations of the war effort, Americans think Iraq is better off now than it was before the war started. 64% percent hold this view, though this is down from prior Gallup measurements. These results are based on an Aug. 5-8 Gallup poll, conducted as the U.S. was in the process of transferring responsibility for combat operations to the Iraqi military. Americans are not optimistic that Iraqi security forces are up to their new task. By 61% to 34%, the public believes Iraqi security forces will be unable to limit insurgent attacks and generally maintain peace and security in Iraq. (Gallup)

* AP = Associated Press UPI = United Press International KR = Knight Ridder

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U.S. Troops In Iraq Could Do Battle, But It's Very Unlikely, Says Top Official
Los Angeles Times
August 23, 2010

The top American military commander in Iraq, seeking to reassure those concerned about the completed withdrawal of U.S. combat units, expressed confidence Sunday in Iraqi security forces and said 50,000 American troops would remain in Iraq in a mentoring role with the capability of resuming battle operations if necessary. Army Gen. Ray T. Odierno said it would take something like a "complete failure of the security forces" for the U.S. to step back into combat mode in Iraq. "But we don't see that happening," he said during an interview broadcast Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." "They've been doing so well for so long now that we really believe we're beyond that point."

His comments came amid a groundswell of worries among Iraqis and others about the stability of the country in the wake of the final pullout of U.S. combat brigades last week, especially with continued insurgent attacks and the inability by Iraqi political leaders to select a new national government after an inconclusive March election. More than seven years after leading an invasion of Iraq, the U.S. military will officially change its function on Sept. 1 to one of advising, training and assisting Iraqi forces. The number of U.S. troops in Iraq is already down to 52,000, from more than 165,000 at the height of a 2007 buildup. By the end of this month, that number will drop to 50,000 troops, who will remain until the end of next year.

On Sunday, a senior White House official said President Obama will deliver a major speech on Iraq after his 10-day vacation in Martha's Vineyard. In the address, Obama will discuss the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces and the administration's plans to continue the troop drawdown. Last week, Obama made a passing mention of the withdrawal during a couple of fundraising speeches, noting that he was fulfilling a campaign promise in seeing that the combat mission in that country ended by month's end. Obama is due to visit New Orleans on Aug. 29 to mark the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. He will then return to Washington.

Odierno said Sunday that Iraqi forces were ready to provide an adequate level of internal security, despite criticisms of recent failures to protect citizens against attacks – such as the suicide bombing at an army recruitment center in central Baghdad last week that killed 48 people, for which the militant group Al Qaeda in Iraq has claimed responsibility. "There's still terrorism that is occurring here, but I will tell you that the country is moving forward," he said. "It is moving forward along every line. It's moving forward a little bit economically. Its security forces are improving. Its diplomatic efforts are improving. Its governmental functions are improving."

Some analysts said the key question about the readiness of Iraqi security forces would come at the end of next year when the remaining 50,000 U.S. troops are slated to leave. Odierno said that, in his view, the Iraqis would be ready for that transition, but others remained skeptical. Zalmay Khalilzad, former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq, on Sunday said being ready was "a tall order" for Iraq. "The politics is extremely important now," he said on "State of the Union." "And this government formation is very important. This has the potential to re-polarize the situation in Iraq.... If politics doesn't go well, if the Iraqis don't come together to form a government … the security gains we have made could be put at risk."

After delays, Iraqi elections took place in March, but divisions over top jobs in the new government have led to a stalemate. Other analysts have raised concerns that the political uncertainties in Iraq have created more openings for Iran to exert its influence in Baghdad with funds and other means to promote its political agenda in the region.

Pakistanis Say Taliban Arrest Was Meant To Hurt Peace Bid
New York Times
August 23, 2010

When American and Pakistani agents captured Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s operational commander, in the chaotic port city of Karachi last January, both countries hailed the arrest as a breakthrough in their often difficult partnership in fighting terrorism. But the arrest of Mr. Baradar, the second-ranking Taliban leader after Mullah Muhammad Omar, came with a beguiling twist: both American and Pakistani officials claimed that Mr. Baradar’s capture had been a lucky break. It was only days later, the officials said, that they finally figured out who they had. Now, seven months later, Pakistani officials are telling a very different story. They say they set out to capture Mr. Baradar, and used the C.I.A. to help them do it, because they wanted to shut down secret peace talks that Mr. Baradar had been conducting with the Afghan government that excluded Pakistan, the Taliban’s longtime backer.

In the weeks after Mr. Baradar’s capture, Pakistani security officials detained as many as 23 Taliban leaders, many of whom had been enjoying the protection of the Pakistani government for years. The talks came to an end. The events surrounding Mr. Baradar’s arrest have been the subject of debate inside military and intelligence circles for months. Some details are still murky – and others vigorously denied by some American intelligence officials in Washington. But the account offered in Islamabad highlights Pakistan’s policy in Afghanistan: retaining decisive influence over the Taliban, thwarting archenemy India, and putting Pakistan in a position to shape Afghanistan’s postwar political order.

“We picked up Baradar and the others because they were trying to make a deal without us,” said a Pakistani security official, who, like numerous people interviewed about the operation, spoke anonymously because of the delicacy of relations between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States. “We protect the Taliban. They are dependent on us. We are not going to allow them to make a deal with Karzai and the Indians.” Some American officials still insist that Pakistan-American cooperation is improving, and deny a central Pakistani role in Mr. Baradar’s arrest. They say the Pakistanis may now be trying to rewrite history to make themselves appear more influential.

“These are self-serving fairy tales,” an American official said. “The people involved in the operation on the ground didn’t know exactly who would be there when they themselves arrived. But it certainly became clear, to Pakistanis and Americans alike, who we’d gotten.” Other American officials suspect the C.I.A. may have been unwittingly used by the Pakistanis for the larger aims of slowing the pace of any peace talks. At a minimum, the arrest of Mr. Baradar offers a glimpse of the multilayered challenges the United States faces as it tries to prevail in Afghanistan. It is battling a resilient insurgency, supporting a weak central government and trying to manage Pakistan’s leaders, who simultaneously support the Taliban and accept billions in American aid.

A senior NATO officer in Kabul said that in arresting Mr. Baradar and the other Taliban leaders, the Pakistanis may have been trying to buy time to see if President Obama’s strategy begins to prevail. If it does, the Pakistanis may eventually decide to let the Taliban make a deal. But if the Americans fail – and if they begin to pull out – then the Pakistanis may decide to retain the Taliban as their allies. “We have been played before,” a senior NATO official said. “That the Pakistanis picked up Baradar to control the tempo of the negotiations is absolutely plausible.” As for Mr. Baradar, he is now living comfortably in a safe house of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Pakistani official said. “He’s relaxing,” the official said. Many of the other Taliban leaders, after receiving lectures against freelancing peace deals, have been released to fight again.

Exactly why the Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, became so alarmed at the Afghan peace talks is unclear. In retrospect, paranoia seems to have figured as much as national self-interest. A senior Afghan official said that beginning late last year, his government had reached out to a number of Taliban leaders to explore the prospect of a deal. Among them were Mr. Baradar and another Taliban leader named Tayyib Agha. The Afghan official declined to say who met the Taliban leaders, but reports of such meetings have since surfaced. Ahmed Wali Karzai, the president’s brother, reportedly met Mr. Baradar in January, according to a former Afghan official and a former NATO official. Mr. Karzai’s brother denies it.

In another overture, Engineer Ibrahim, then the deputy chief of the Afghan intelligence service, met with a group of Taliban leaders in Dubai, according to a prominent Afghan with knowledge of the meeting. Mr. Ibrahim, now with the National Security Council, could not be reached for comment on Sunday. A Pakistani spiritual leader close to the Taliban leadership said that, earlier this year, he had received a message through an intermediary that Mr. Karzai wanted to talk peace. “We rejected it,” he said. The discussions with Mr. Baradar and the other Taliban were in their early phases, but they seemed promising, the Afghan official said. Their aim was to establish conditions under which formal talks could begin. “It was the beginning of a negotiation, so both sides staked out extreme positions,” the Afghan official said. “But we sensed a readiness for peace.”

When Pakistani intelligence officials learned of the overtures, they became unnerved by what they saw as an attempt by the Afghans to strike a peace deal without them. In particular, the ISI suspected the Americans were orchestrating the talks. In January, days before Mr. Baradar’s capture, a senior ISI official told The New York Times that his agency was hunting the Taliban leader because he was in contact with the Americans. The ISI official accused the Americans of disregarding Pakistan’s legitimate security interests. “We are after Mullah Baradar,” the senior ISI official said. “We strongly believe the Americans are in touch with him.”

A second ISI official confirmed that the Pakistanis had decided to go after Mr. Baradar to shut down what they feared were blossoming peace talks. “This is a national secret,” he said. “The Americans and the British were going behind our backs, and we couldn’t allow that.” American and British officials denied they were directly involved in talks with the Taliban. Once the decision was made to detain Mr. Baradar, the Taliban leader was tracked to Karachi, a sprawling, violent city of nearly 20 million people. There, the Pakistani official said, ISI agents waited for him to activate his cellphone. After several days, the alarm went off, and the agency narrowed Mr. Baradar’s whereabouts to a densely populated area of about two square miles.

That was as far as the intelligence agency’s technology would go, the Pakistani official said. To pinpoint Mr. Baradar’s location, ISI agents turned to the C.I.A. Since 2001, the C.I.A. and the ISI have maintained an uneasy relationship. They have cooperated on hundreds of operations and detained dozens of militants, but they have clashed over the ISI’s support for the Taliban. Within minutes of Mr. Baradar’s cellphone activation, the C.I.A. sent two unarmed American technicians to join the Pakistani intelligence agency’s team, the Pakistani official said. Activating a portable tracking device, the C.I.A. team quickly led the ISI to Mr. Baradar’s home. Only four hours after his cellphone went on, Mr. Baradar was in Pakistani custody, the Pakistani official said. According to the Pakistani official, the ISI did not inform the Americans of the identity of the target.

American officials disputed this account, saying the intelligence indicated that the target was related to Mr. Baradar. But they conceded that they did not know the identity of Mr. Baradar until after the arrest. The Pakistanis refused to allow the C.I.A. to interrogate Mr. Baradar or even to be present when they spoke. Another Pakistani official said Mr. Baradar was taken to a safe house in Islamabad, where he was debriefed. It was only several days later that the C.I.A. learned of his identity and were allowed to question him. The Pakistani official even joked about the C.I.A.’s naïveté. “They are so innocent,” he said.

Some American officials insist that while the C.I.A. may not have known whom the Pakistanis were capturing, the Pakistanis did not know either. They speculated that once the Pakistanis had Mr. Baradar, they may have decided to hold him to scuttle the peace talks. It was then, some American officials say, that the Pakistanis may have decided to detain the other Taliban leaders. “We are not convinced that that was why Baradar was picked up,” an American official in the region said, referring to the Afghan talks. “But maybe that was why he was held.” Yet other American officials said the Pakistani version seemed more credible than the C.I.A.’s. “Baradar is too high-profile for them not to have known who it was,” the senior NATO official said.

Within days of Mr. Baradar’s arrest, Pakistani agents picked up as many as 22 other Taliban leaders across Pakistan, according to an official with the United Nations in Kabul. The detentions included some of the most senior Taliban commanders, including Mullah Qayoom Zakir, Abdul Kabeer and Abdul Rauf Khadem. “We know where the shadow government is,” the Pakistani security official said. The official said the detained Taliban leaders were warned against carrying out future negotiations without their permission. A former Western diplomat, with long experience in the region, confirmed that the ISI sent a warning to its Taliban protégés. “The message from the ISI was: no flirting,” he said.

Afghans close to the Taliban said the arrests of Mr. Baradar and the others illustrated the strained relationship between the Taliban and their benefactors in Pakistani intelligence. The ISI may protect the Taliban’s leaders, they said, but they also limit their freedom. “When we try to act on our own, they stop us,” the Pakistani spiritual leader said. Since then, many of the Taliban leaders who were detained have been set free, officials said. Principal among them is Mr. Zakir, a Taliban commander who was released from the American prison at Guantánamo Bay in 2006. Mr. Zakir, who took over for Mr. Baradar, is regarded as more brutal than his predecessor, unconcerned about civilian casualties – and less inclined to do a deal with the Karzai government.

Facing Afghan Mistrust, al-Qaeda Fighters Take Limited Role In Insurgency
Washington Post
August 23, 2010

On Aug. 14, a U.S. airstrike in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz killed a Taliban commander known as Abu Baqir. In a country where insurgents are killed daily, this attack was notable for one unusual detail: Abu Baqir, the military said afterward, was also a member of al-Qaeda. Although U.S. officials have often said that al-Qaeda is a marginal player on the Afghan battlefield, an analysis of 76,000 classified U.S. military reports posted by the Web site WikiLeaks underscores the extent to which Osama bin Laden and his network have become an afterthought in the war.

The reports, which cover the escalation of the insurgency between 2004 and the end of 2009, mention al-Qaeda only a few dozen times and even then just in passing. Most are vague references to people with unspecified al-Qaeda contacts or sympathies, or as shorthand for an amorphous ideological enemy. Bin Laden, thought to be hiding across the border in Pakistan, is scarcely mentioned in the reports. One recounts how his picture was found on the walls of a couple of houses near Khost, in eastern Afghanistan, in 2004. A year later, U.S. forces also saw his likeness on a jihadist propaganda poster near the Pakistan border. In 2007, a district subgovernor in Nangarhar province informed U.S. officials that a local newspaper would print "names of personnel working for bin Laden."

Other al-Qaeda leaders are similarly invisible figures. One report describes a botched June 2007 attempt to capture or kill Abu Laith al-Libi, a senior al-Qaeda military commander. U.S. Special Forces missed their target, instead accidentally killing seven children in a religious school in Paktika province. There are also fleeting references to Abu Ikhlas al-Misri, the nom de guerre of an Egyptian who serves as an al-Qaeda commander in Kunar province. In 2008, an Afghan district official confirmed to U.S. officers that he had heard a rumor that Abu Ikhlas was suffering from a "sprained ankle." But otherwise, at least in the WikiLeaks reports, the Egyptian remains in the shadows.

Change In Strategy

In June, CIA Director Leon Panetta estimated that, "at most," only 50 to 100 al-Qaeda operatives were present in Afghanistan. His assessment echoed those given by other senior U.S. officials. In October, national security adviser James L. Jones said the U.S. government's "maximum estimate" was that al-Qaeda had fewer than 100 members in Afghanistan, with no bases and "no ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies." Since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, al-Qaeda's leadership and fighters have largely sought refuge across the border in Pakistan. There they have been targeted by U.S. drone attacks from the skies as they try to remain beyond the reach of U.S. forces.

The evasion marks a departure from al-Qaeda's approach in previous conflicts. Bin Laden and other jihadist leaders recruited thousands of Arabs and other foreign fighters to combat the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Al-Qaeda also persuaded hundreds, if not thousands, of followers to travel to Iraq after the 2003 U.S. invasion, where they played a significant role in fueling the insurgency and sectarian violence. This time, U.S. military officials and analysts say, al-Qaeda has changed its strategy, mostly limiting its role in the Taliban-led insurgency to assisting with training, intelligence and propaganda. Although the terrorist network still considers the "liberation" of Afghanistan its primary strategic objective, it is biding its time until the infidels lose patience and leave.

"The numbers aren't large, but their ability to help local forces punch above their weight acts as a multiplier," said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert and Georgetown University professor. "They've learned from their previous experiences, when their foreign fighters were front and center." In Iraq, he noted, al-Qaeda figures from elsewhere alienated the locals by trying to hijack that insurgency. U.S. military officials say al-Qaeda recognizes the same risk in Afghanistan. Taliban leaders often see al-Qaeda, their erstwhile ally, as "a handicap," according to an unclassified briefing presented in December by Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn, the top U.S. military intelligence officer in Afghanistan.

Although Taliban commanders want support from al-Qaeda and jihadists around the world, according to Flynn, they are sensitive to the idea that ordinary Afghans might view it as foreign interference. That balancing act has resulted in a limited, if steady, flow of foreign fighters. Most are Uzbeks and Chechens who join networks affiliated with, but not formally part of, al-Qaeda, U.S. military officials said. Less common are Arabs and European Muslims who answer al-Qaeda's direct call to join the jihad in Afghanistan. One indicator of the presence of foreign fighters can be found at the U.S. military's new Parwan prison at Bagram air base. Vice Admiral Robert S. Harward, commander of U.S. detention operations in Afghanistan, said fewer than 50 of the 950 prisoners come from outside the country. Of those, about three-quarters are Pakistanis. He said fighters from outside Central Asia are rare: "This is a very local fight."

Concentrated In The East

A review of the leaked U.S. military reports suggests that Arab fighters – those most likely to be affiliated with al-Qaeda – generally confine their activities to a handful of Afghan provinces along the Pakistan border. When they cross the line, the Arabs usually do so in small numbers and as part of larger Taliban units. In June 2007, for example, a U.S. Army brigade combat team reported receiving information about a band of 60 Taliban insurgents, including six Arabs and two Iranians, massing on a mountaintop in Khost province. Also that month, in Paktika province, one Arab and two Pakistan fighters were killed after a larger Taliban group attacked a U.S. outpost in the Bermal district.

In November 2009, a patrol of Afghan soldiers and police led by U.S. forces reported an early evening ambush in Kunar province. A small group of insurgents planted a roadside bomb and attacked the patrol with small-arms fire. The patrol did not suffer casualties in the firefight, but they killed one of the enemy and recovered his cellphone. The patrol's report highlighted how their interpreter turned on the phone and found that "everything was in Arabic." Analysts said other evidence confirms that al-Qaeda's presence in Afghanistan is concentrated in the east, just across the border from where the network's leadership is based in Pakistan's tribal areas.

Between 2005 and 2009, al-Qaeda's online propaganda arm produced a series called "Pyre for the Americans in the Land of Khurasan." (Khurasan is an ancient term referring to Afghanistan and other territory in Central Asia.) Of the 90 videos in the series, which contained purported scenes of Afghan battles and ambushes, 56 were filmed in three eastern provinces – Kunar, Paktika and Khost – that border the Pakistani tribal areas, according to Anne Stenersen, a researcher on Islamic radicalism for the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment. The database of 76,000 reports posted by WikiLeaks covers the period from January 2004 to December 2009. Although extensive in number, they consist mostly of low-level military field reports, many of them unconfirmable, and are not a complete account of U.S. efforts to combat al-Qaeda. For example, the reports do not shed light on longstanding efforts to track or kill al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan.

Some reports, however, provide secondary glimpses of the secretive campaign by U.S. Special Operations forces and the CIA to hunt insurgent leaders in Afghanistan. The records reveal the existence of one such unit, Task Force 373, which searches for targets on the U.S. military's "kill or capture" list, known as the Joint Prioritized Effects List. Based on its numbering system, more than 2,000 targets have been added to the list, the reports suggest. There are many accounts of attempts to capture Taliban commanders on the list, but only one is clearly identified as a leader of al-Qaeda: Abu Laith al-Libi, who evaded the botched June 2007 raid in Paktika province. The Libyan al-Qaeda military commander did meet his end in another U.S. operation seven months later – in next-door Pakistan.

Air Base Expansion Plans Reflect Long-Term Investment In Afghanistan
Washington Post
August 23, 2010

Three $100 million air base expansions in southern and northern Afghanistan illustrate Pentagon plans to continue building multimillion-dollar facilities in that country to support increased U.S. military operations well into the future. Despite growing public unhappiness with the Afghan war – and President Obama's pledge that he will begin withdrawing troops in July 2011 – many of the installations being built in Afghanistan have extended time horizons. None of the three projects in southern and northern Afghanistan is expected to be completed until the latter half of 2011. All of them are for use by U.S. forces rather than by their Afghan counterparts.

Overall, requests for $1.3 billion in additional fiscal 2011 funds for multiyear construction of military facilities in Afghanistan are pending before Congress. The House has approved the money, as has the Senate Appropriations Committee. The full Senate has yet to vote on the measure. In addition, the United States has already allocated about $5.3 billion to construct facilities for the Afghan army and the national police, with most of the "enduring facilities . . . scheduled for construction over the next three to four years," according to a Pentagon news release this month.

For example, a $30 million contract was recently awarded to build a regional military training center in Mazar-e Sharif, according to Col. Mike Wehr, engineer director of the combined NATO training mission. That facility, too, will not be completed until late 2011, and then it will be used to train Afghans in various military specialties, including engineering. "We're only about 25 percent complete in our construction [for Afghan security forces], and there is quite a bit more to go over the next three years," Wehr told a defense bloggers roundtable last week. One goal of the NATO transition program is to have Afghans ready to maintain these facilities by 2013, Wehr added.

The three bases being expanded for U.S. use after 2011 reflect the expectation of continued combat operations, but they are just part of a broader expansion of U.S. facilities across the country. North of Kabul, the Pentagon is planning to build a $100 million area at Shindand Air Base for Special Operations helicopters and unmanned intelligence and surveillance aircraft, along with office, ground and maintenance facilities, plus barracks for 60 new personnel, according to a notice posted last week.

"The force increase in Afghanistan will require additional ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] and airlift aircraft at the base," reads Pentagon material sent to Congress to justify the expense. It notes that roughly 800,000 gallons of jet fuel are needed to be stored "in near proximity to planned U.S. air operations at the base." The cost alone for constructing the temporary storage facility for that fuel and facilities for parking and operation of 14 refueling vehicles is put at $2.5 million. Another $100 million project is planned for the air field at Camp Dwyer, a Marine base in Helmand province, where expansion is needed to accommodate fixed-wing and helicopter aircraft.

Dwyer's airfield is described as "a key hub" to support Special Operations forces operations in southern Afghanistan, according to the congressional presentation. Currently, there is not enough parking and runway space to handle the number of Special Operations aircraft required, it adds. Contractor proposals were also due last week for a third $100 million project, this one at Mazar-e Sharif, where increased operations and incoming supplies for northern Afghanistan require more taxiways and parking space for both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, plus three or more maintenance hangars. Part of the reason for expansion is to be able to handle up to six helicopter and two fixed-wing aircraft. According to the material sent to Congress, the two aircraft could be C-5 or equivalent strategic transports "in order to expand major logistical and combat support operations into the region."

Protests, Rhetoric Feed Jihadists' Fire
Wall Street Journal
August 23, 2010

Islamic radicals are seizing on protests against a planned Islamic community center near Manhattan's Ground Zero and anti-Muslim rhetoric elsewhere as a propaganda opportunity and are stepping up anti-U.S. chatter and threats on their websites. One jihadist site vowed to conduct suicide bombings in Florida to avenge a threatened Koran burning, while others predicted an increase in terrorist recruits as a result of such actions. "By Allah, the wars are heated and you Americans are the ones who…enflamed it," says one such posting. "By Allah you will be the first to taste its flames."

White House homeland security adviser John Brennan told reporters Friday that he had seen no evidence that the debate over the proposed Islamic center in Lower Manhattan, other mosque protests or the planned Koran burning had affected U.S. counterterrorism efforts. A White House official on Sunday stressed that Mr. Brennan was addressing the narrow question of whether the debates in the U.S. over Islam were having an impact on U.S. counterterrorism efforts, and that Mr. Brennan specifically declined to address whether those debates were energizing the jihadists.

A U.S. official on Sunday said the administration was taking the upswing in anti-U.S. chatter seriously. "Terrorists like al-Qaeda and its violent allies are motivated already to try to attack the United States, but when it comes to propaganda, extremists are pure opportunists. They'll use whatever they can," the official said. Many opponents of the planned Muslim community center say they have no bias against Muslims but that putting the building so close to Ground Zero shows an insensitivity toward the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Controversy over the community center, which will contain a mosque and other facilities, has helped fan anti-Muslim rhetoric in the U.S. far from Lower Manhattan in recent weeks.

Jarret Brachman, director of Cronus Global, a security consulting firm, and author of the book Global Jihadism, said al Qaeda and other groups have long used imagery from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to recruit new members. But the U.S. position has been that those wars are not against Islam and that the U.S. has Muslim allies in the fight. Anti-Muslim rhetoric in the U.S is different, since jihadists can use Americans' words to make the case that the U.S. is indeed at war with Islam. The violent postings are not just on al Qaeda-linked websites but on prominent, mainstream Muslim chat forums, Mr. Brachman said.

"We are handing al Qaeda a propaganda coup, an absolute propaganda coup," with the Islamic-center controversy, said Evan Kohlmann, an independent terrorism consultant at Flashpoint Partners who monitors jihadist websites. Critics of the proposed Islamic center said their right to speak out shouldn't be influenced by the possibility of jihadist threats. "We will never win a war when we are afraid to even name our enemies," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said in an e-mail Sunday.

The most violent threats stem not from the debate over the I