A major humanitarian crisis, similar to that in Darfur, is looming in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia, according to the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) and some western diplomats and relief officials. They accuse Ethiopia of imposing a trade and aid blockade on the separatist region, in an attempt to starve the Somali-majority population into submission, as well as indiscriminate and extra-judicial destruction and killings by the Ethiopian security forces. The Somali people have been struggling for Ogaden’s separation from Ethiopia since the region was incorporated into Ethiopia in the last quarter of the 19th. century. top Reuters, 23-jul-2007 Multiple investigations are under way into the leaking of U.S. military secrets that have been shared with Japan’s “Maritime Self-Defence Force” (i.e. navy). Classified data found to be in wide circulation in Japan include: specifications of the SM-3 ship-to-air interceptor missiles due to be deployed on Japanese ships later this year; specifications of the high-tech Aegis ship-borne radar system, already installed on some Japanese ships; information about the “Link 16” system that enables data to be shared between U.S. and Japanese forces. In March a computer disc containing the classified information was found at the home of a Japanese naval officer with a Chinese wife. top washingtonpost.com, 22-may-2007 Claiming that the city of Quetta in Baluchistan, western Pakistan, has become Al-Qa’ida’s and the Taliban’s main base, British Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells has urged Pakistan’s President Musharraf to launch a major offensive against the city. Acknowledging that “it could turn into a very bloody battle indeed”, Howells claims the inevitably high cost in the lives of Quetta’s civilian population would be more than worth it to save a few NATO soldiers in Afghanistan. Anti-terrorism experts, on the other hand, have pointed out that Al-Qa’ida now has a global presence and is as big a threat as before 9/11, and is also producing and globally distributing training materials to encourage the rise of home-grown terrorist cells without obvious links to the Al-Qa’ida leadership. top Ottawa Citizen, 21-may-2007, & Newsweek, 21-may-2007 The U.S.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has accused Pakistan of diverting more than $5.6 billion of U.S. aid into weapons systems targetted against India. The funds, intended to compensate Pakistan for its efforts against Al-Qa’ida and the Taliban, are part of approximately $10 billion of aid given by the U.S. since 2002, but the CSIS claims that those efforts have reduced considerably in the tribal border areas of Waziristan, where Al-Qa’ida and the Taliban are believed to be most active, in the last eight months, while Pakistan has continued to improve and deploy large weapons sytems on its Indian border. top The Times of India, 21-may-2007 Israeli military experts are advocating a move away from conventional weapons and tactics and adopting guerilla methods to meet the challenges posed by Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups. They claim that incursions into Gaza using armoured vehicles and other trappings of conventional warfare merely risk becoming embroiled in the sort of insurgency faced by the U.S. army in Iraqi cities, with no lasting effect after the armoured force finally withdraws. Instead, they argue that the Israeli Army needs to be ready to send in numerous undercover teams to target militants and their leaders directly, as well as militant infrastructure such as bomb and rocket factories, weapons workshops, ammunition stores, etc. top DEBKAfile, 20-may-2007 The Nepalese government has decided to pay more than 30,000 former Maoist guerillas 3,000 rupees (about $46) per month each, and to improve the conditions of the camps in which they’re housed. Maoist leaders have declared an end to hostilities and joined an alliance of 8 parties pushing for early general elections. The Maoists are also demanding an end to the Nepalese monarchy. top Reuters, 21-may-2007 A roadside bomb that exploded this morning near a convoy carrying the Hawiye warlord “mayor” of Mogadishu, Mohammed Dheere, is believed to have been an assassination attempt. A similar bomb attack targetted the Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi’s convoy in another part of the city on Thurday, while 4 Ugandan peacekeepers died in a roadside bomb on Wednesday. top Reuters, 20-may-2007 11 Lebanese troops have been killed today in clashes with militants belonging to Fatah al-Islam, an Al-Qa’ida linked group formed last year among Palestinian refugees in the Nahr Al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon. 4 Lebanese troops were also wounded in the nearby Lebanese city of Tripoli as they tried to arrest members of the same group in connection with a bank robbery on Saturday. top Reuters, 20-may-2007 The president of Chad, Idriss Deby, will visit Khartoum, Sudan, next month in the ongoing search for peace over the western Sudanese province of Darfur. Sudanese and Chadian troops have clashed on their remote Saharan border over mutual claims of support for rebel movements, and ethnic cleansing by Janjaweed militia in Darfur that has killed about 200,000 people and displaced more than 2 million refugees since 2003. Libya and Saudi Arabia are leading efforts to bring peace to the region, where 7,000 African Union peacekeepers have so far had little impact. top Reuters, 18-may-2007 Intelligence and political commentators in the U.S. are already writing the obituary of Pakistani dictator, and close U.S. ally, General Pervez Musharraf. Claiming that even his closest military allies feel that “growing unrest and violence” in Pakistan has “gotten out of hand” and that the U.S. government “has begun to gradually move away from the embattled Pakistani leader”, they conclude that “the current political crisis will lead to the ouster of Musharraf”. Senate Chairman Muhammadmian Soomro is being tipped for acting president, while Musharraf’s deputy, General Ahsan Saleem Hayat, is tipped to become head of the armed forces. top Daily Times, 18-may-2007 3 bombs targetted worshippers in mosques in Hyderabad, southern India, on Friday. One exploded, killing 5 and injuring at least 35, while the other two were defused. In the last year, at least 4 bombs have exploded in mosques in various parts of India, where 140 million Muslims face increasing attacks from Hindu nationalists, and complain that the police and army not only fail to protect them but often participate in attacks against them. The police have blamed at least one recent mosque attack on Muslim militants trying to start inter-communal fighting. top Reuters, 18-may-2007 The Taliban in Afghanistan have announced that they’re holding a close aide of Mullah Dadullah, their senior commander who was killed with about 10 of his men by NATO troops last Friday. The man, Din Mohammed, who faces execution, is accused of informing his U.S. intelligence contacts at the airbase in Kandahar where Dadullah would be, then to have hidden Dadullah’s artificial left leg to prevent his escape as troops closed in. He then informed where and when Dadullah’s body was to be buried, enabling a helicopter strike that killed several of the burial party and led to the capture of the body. top M&C, 17-may-2007 Residents of Sderot, in south-western Israeli, have been offered voluntary “evacuation” after Palestinian militants launched a barrage of about 60 Qassam rockets across the border from Gaza. Israeli has launched air attacks against Hamas offices and vehicles during intense Palestinian factional fighting between Hamas and Fatah, prompting fears of more rocket barrages. top Reuters, 17-may-2007 Egyptian nuclear engineer Mohammed Sayed Saber, who has been charged with spying for Israel, expressed his admiration for Israel at the start of his trial in Cairo on Tuesday. He praised Israel’s scientific and technological achievements, its organisation and its goal-orientation, “unlike chaotic societies” - assumed to be a criticism of Israel’s Arab rivals. He also claimed that the secret documents he sold to Israel’s Mossad were too old to pose any risk to Egyptian security, and that he’d been “oppressed” when Egyptian intelligence forced him to abandon his attempt to get Israeli funding to study a Ph.D., denying him his chance to “change the face of history”. top Haaretz.com, 15-may-2007 Fighting in Gaza between the rival Palestinian groups, Hamas and Fatah, escalated on Tuesday, despite a truce organised by Egypt. 16 Palestinians died on Tuesday, most of them in a series of incidents around the Karni Crossing, Gaza’s main commercial crossing point into Israel. The violence continued at dawn on Wednesday, with a grenade attack on a Hamas position, followed by mortar attacks near President Abbas’s compound and on the Fatah-dominated preventive security services. top Reuters, 16-may-2007 Communist guerillas ambushed and killed 7 Philippine soldiers at dawn on Wednesday in Abra, a province in the north of the main Philippine island of Luzon. They were also blamed for an arson attack on Tuesday that killed 2 teachers. The communist New People’s Army has been waging a militant campaign in the region since 1969. top Reuters, 16-may-2007 Gunmen in Somali government uniforms attacked the United Nations’ World Health Organisation compound in Mogadishu, Somalia, on Monday. On Saturday, bombs planted near another U.N. compound in the city killed 3 people. A recent attack on Mogadishu’s famous Bakara Market also involved gunmen in Somali uniforms. U.N. and African Union security sources have spoken of their worry at the escalating insurgency in Somalia since Ethiopian allies of the Somali interim government pounded Mogadishu with artillery in the last month. top Reuters, 15-may-2007 Chinese-born engineer Chi Mak has been found guilty of conspiring to pass secret U.S. submarine, and other defence, technology to China over a period of more than 20 years. Chi, his brother and his sister-in-law were arrested in October 2005 with encrypted CD-ROM’s containing information about new, almost undetectable, submarine propulsion technology and other naval engineering secrets. Investigators also found a “wish-list” of U.S. technology secrets that Chinese intelligence wanted to obtain. 67-year-old Chi faces a prison sentence of up to 45 years. The FBI says that Chinese spies are the most active in the United States, with 400 investigations into unauthorised export of secret information since the year 2000. top The Australian, 14-may-2007 Troops from Pakistan and Afghanistan have traded fire over their disputed border (see below). Afghan officials accuse Pakistani soldiers of invading some areas near the south-east border of Paktia province on Sunday, provoking Afghan forces to open fire on them, and that local civilians joined the effort to repel the “infiltration”. Pakistan sources claim that Afghan troops started firing on existing border posts without provocation, and that its paramilitary border force returned fire, killing up to seven Afghan soldiers. Afghanistan has said only minor injuries were sustained by its troops, but two children were killed by Pakistani fire. The fighting is reported to have continued on Monday. top Reuters, 14-may-2007 Opium production in Afghanistan rose 49% in 2006, to 6,100 tonnes, providing about $755 million to the Afghan producers and traffickers, compared with only $350 million in 2006 government revenues. Since the U.S. invasion in October 2001, opium production has soared, from only 185 tonnes in 2001, under the Taliban regime which worked hard to eradicate the trade, then 3,400 tonnes in 2002 after the Taliban were removed from power. top The Jamestown Foundation, 10-may-2007, & bbc.co.uk, 3-mar-2003 Amid a gang war between rival drug smugglers in Mexico, that’s killed over 800 people since the beginning of this year, one drug gang has taken time out to warn the Mexican army not to interfere by dumping a severed head outside a Veracruz military base. After 4 policemen protecting the family of a senior politician were killed by gangsters on Thursday, the Mexican president sent hundreds of troops and federal police to Veracruz. Many politicians and public officials in Mexico are suspected of colluding with the drug gangs. top Reuters, 12-may-2007 Yemen has accused Libya and Iran of providing unspecified support to a Shi’a rebel group in the northern province of Saada. The rebellion has rumbled on since 2004, killing hundreds and displacing thousands. The rebels blame government aggression and oppression in the province and deny receiving any support from Libya or Iran, a position confirmed by both of those countries. top Reuters, 12-may-2007 Jordan is believed to have launched a bid for influence over the Palestinians in the wake of the revived 2002 Saudi peace plan, reaffirmed by the Arab League at the end of March this year. Jordan is considered something of a loose cannon in the Arab world, fluctuating from being a close ally of Britain after gaining independence in 1946, to perceived abandonment of the Palestinians in 1967, when Jordan lost Jerusalem and the West Bank to Israel, and again in 1988 as the late king Hussein rushed to make peace with Israel, to support for Saddam Hussein in the 1990-91 Gulf War. The Hashemite royal family were also the losing rivals to the Saud family for power in Arabia in 1920. top DEBKAfile, 12-may-2007, & bbc.co.uk, 30-mar-2007 Insurgents in Iraq have launched a truck-bomb offensive against road bridges in an apparent bid to reduce the ability of U.S. forces to move around on the ground. 3 key bridges north and south of Baghdad were hit on Friday, killing 26 and wounding about 60 people. 2 Baghdad bridges were attacked towards the end of April. top Reuters, 12-may-2007 Thai-Muslim militants have killed 9 members of the security services in the last 48 hours - 7 soldiers, in a roadside bombing on Wednesday, and 2 policemen at a checkpoint on Friday. The Muslims are fighting for freedom for their homelands in the deep south of the country, which were annexed by Thailand in 1909. top Reuters, 11-may-2007 Pakistan has completed the first, 20km./12 mile, stretch of barbed wire fence on its North Waziristan border with Afghanistan. Another 15km./10 mile stretch in South Waziristan is nearing completion. The fences are intended to block the main crossing points between the two countries believed to be used by Taliban and Al-Qa’ida fighters (see below), however the Afghan government has objected to the fences as they don’t recognise the border, drawn up by the British in 1893. top AFP, 10-may-2007 FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) bombs have killed 19 members of the Colombian security services in 24 hours. 9 police officers were killed Wednesday during a counter-narcotics operation in the northern province of Santander, and 10 soldiers - 2 officers and 8 other ranks - were killed on Thursday while on a rural patrol in the south-west of the country. FARC has been active since 1964 and has been involved in the cocaine trade since the early 1980’s. top Reuters, 10-may-2007 Iranian-American academic Haleh Esfandiari has been jailed in Tehran after being under house arrest since 30 December 2006. Two other American citizens have also had their passports confiscated by Iranian authorities since the U.S. began detaining Iranian diplomats and their staff in Iraq in December last year, including 5 arrested in Irbil on 11 January this year and still held, despite confirmation from the Iraqi government of their diplomatic status. top washingtonpost.com, 9-may-2007, & bbc.co.uk, 17-jan-2007 Eritrea has rejected U.N. calls to withdraw newly-deployed troops from its disputed border region with Ethiopia. The two countries fought a bloody war 1998-2000, after which a U.N. border commission took 2 years to demarcate the border between them. However, Ethiopia refused to accept the commission’s findings and has clung on to large areas ruled to be Eritrean territory. top Reuters, 9-may-2007 A bomb explosion in a billiard hall on Tuesday, that has killed 8 and wounded 25, indicates that Jemaah Islamiyah is getting stronger in the Philippines, according to Major-General Raymundo Ferrer. The Philippines army, backed by U.S. Special Forces, has been hunting down Al-Qa’Ida-linked Abu Sayyaf militants in the south-western island of Jolo since 2001, with some success. However, in the last couple of years, Indonesian-based Jemaah Islamiyah is believed to have been recruiting and organising in the Muslim-majority areas of the southern Philippines. top Reuters, 9-may-2007 The former head of the British Metropolitan Police, Lord Stevens, claims that there are as many as 4,000 terrorism suspects and their supporters active in the United Kingdom, twice as many as suggested recently by MI5, the British domestic intelligence agency. Lord Stevens also claims that “dozens” of people with links to Al-Qa’ida have been weeded out attempting to infiltrate the British police and security services. top Telegraph.co.uk, 7-may-2007 In what they term a reminder to the incoming government that the Niger Delta question hasn’t gone away, militants from the Movement for Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) claimed responsibility for bombing three major oil pipelines in Bayelsa State, southern Nigeria. In the past, MEND, who operate in the Christian and animist south of the country, has often attacked oil installations and kidnapped oil workers, succeeding last year in cutting Nigeria’s oil production by more than a quarter. top bbc.co.uk, 8-may-2007 Human rights groups in Israel have accused the security services there of systematic ill-treatment and torture of Palestinian prisoners. They cite the testimony of 73 detainees to a catalogue of abuse in contravention of international law, and charge that, despite more than 500 official complaints, not a single official investigation has been launched. Israeli High Court rulings in 1998/99 decreed that torture could be used if the interrogators believed the detainee had information about an imminent terrorist attack, however, the Israeli Ministry of Justice claims that no torture takes place anyway. top bbc.co.uk, 6-may-2007 Separatists in the north-east Indian state of Assam, have stepped up their bombing campaign that has killed more than 80 Hindi-speaking migrants since the beginning of the year. Under pressure from an intensified Indian Army offensive against them since last month, to which they’ve lost over 30 of their fighters including several field commanders, the rebels seem to have opted to strike back at the migrants as soft targets. top bbc.co.uk, 4-may-2007 The warlord of the Hawiye clan based in Mogadishu, Somalia, has been appointed mayor of the city by the interim president Abdullahi Yusuf (see below also). Mohammed Dheere is the successor, as the Hawiye warlord, to the infamous Mohammed Farah Aideed, whom U.S. Special Forces tried repeatedly to capture or kill in the 1993 Operation Gothic Serpent. Now, U.S. money and CIA agents are believed to be supporting Dheere and his Hawiye militia as allies in the U.S. War On Terror. top washingtonpost.com, 2-may-2007, & SSRC, 27-mar-2007 Anti-terrorist teams from U.S. Special Forces have arrived in Algeria to assist and train local security forces to combat the new threat that’s arisen there from Al-Qa’ida (see below). According to sources in the U.S. Special Forces community, such teams are being deployed in every country where an Al-Qa’ida presence is detected. top examiner.com, 30-apr-2007 The nuclear weapons proliferation network run by Pakistan’s “rogue scientist”, A.Q. Khan, is still operating, according to a new report from the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS). Khan’s nuclear black market was exposed by Pakistan in 2004, but he and many of his colleagues in Pakistan escaped with little or no penalty. According to the IISS, their contact information has been sold through the proliferation network, enabling it to repair itself. top IISS, 3-may-2007 U.S. military and intelligence sources and Sunni members of the Iraqi army claim that Iraqi PM Nouri Al-Maliki has formed a secretive, special committee to push an extreme Shi’ite agenda. Known only as “The Office”, the committee is said to have 24 members, all Shi’a, who are actively working to remove Sunnis from senior positions in the army and police and instate, or reinstate, Shi’as in their place. Since the Office was set up earlier this year, “several” Sunni officers, and even Shi’a commanders who had moved against Shi’a militias (including Moqtada As-Sadr’s Mahdi Army), have been sacked. top CNN, 1-may-2007 Ultra-Nationalists in Serbia have announced that they’ve formed a new “Christian” paramilitary group ready to take up arms and rush to the breakaway, overwhelmingly Muslim, province of Kosova. They claim their “Guard of Prince Lazar” group already has about 5,000 members. Kosova has been under United Nations’ control since NATO air forces intervened in 1999 to expel the Serbian army, after their brutal campaign against Kosovan Muslims. The United Nations are currently considering a plan to grant independence to Kosova under European Union supervision. Serb paramilitary groups such as “Arkan’s Tigers” and the “Scorpions”, with the encouragement of the Serbian Orthodox Church, committed innumerable atrocities and massacres in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina during the break-up of Yugoslavia, 1991-95. top Reuters, 30-apr-2007 Azmi Bishara, until 26 April the leader of the Israeli-Arab Balad party in the Knesset, has been accused of espionage and treason by Israel’s Shin Bet. The allegations relate to “prolonged contact” he is said to have had with Hezbollah during the 2006 Lebanon War. During a press conference, Shin Bet officials outlined information Bishara is accused of passing to Hezbollah, including: the advisability of firing at targets south of Haifa; the possibility of an Israeli attempt to assassinate Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah; and advice on psychological warfare against Israel. The officials rejected suggestions that such information was already being widely debated in the public domain at the time. They also accused Bishara of passing large sums of foreign money to Palestinians in the West Bank - again, it was unclear if any illegality was involved. Bishara is currently in Jordan. top Haaretz, 2-may-2007 Adding to the massive build-up of medium and long-range surface-to-surface rockets, reported in our spring2007 issue (AFP, 9-mar-2007, “Syria deploys thousands of rockets on Israel border”), Syria is reported to have moved an infantry brigade from its eastern border with Iraq, to reinforce its 14th. Commando Division opposite Mount Hermon and the Shebaa Farms in the northern Golan Heights. The deployments seem designed to enable Syria to fight a limited war against Israel very similar to the 2006 Lebanon War - potentially including initial commando raids to capture Israeli troops. top DEBKAfile, 30-apr-2007 The U.S. will launch a pair of satellites on 14 June from Cape Canaveral designed specifically to monitor the movements, radar and communications, and tactics of the Chinese and Iranian navies. The 6.5 ton satellites will also be capable of monitoring ships that may be targeted by terrorists or become involved in terrorist incidents. top Aviation Week, 30-apr-2007 A Russian Mi-8 transport helicopter was shot down on 27 April during a fierce firefight with Chechen separatists, killing 3 crew and 14 Russian soldiers. 3 helicopters were taking part in an anti-insurgency operation in the south of Chechnya, where guerillas have been fighting Russian troops ever since they quashed Chechen de facto independence - achieved in August 1996 after a bloody 20-month war - by re-invading in 1999. top Reuters, 27-apr-2007 The insurgency, that’s been rumbling in Muslim-majority southern Thailand since January 2004, looks set to heat up amidst reports that the Thai military junta is arming and organising the Buddhist minority in the south. A series of retaliatory attacks by both communities in the second half of March killed and injured dozens of people, and tensions in the region are at breaking point. A comment by the revered Queen Sirikit, in 2004, that “If they” (Thai-Buddhists) “need to be armed, arm them”, and her arms training programmes for Buddhists only, make it clear that the Thai Royal Family, at least, favour their Buddhist subjects over their Muslim subjects. top Associated Press, 26-apr-2007 Separatists in Muslim-majority Kashmir, the disputed province between India and Pakistan, have always maintained that their cause is just because the Indian government and army are biased against Muslims - a charge vigorously refuted by the Indians. Yet when, in mid-April, the Indian army vacated the 16th. century fort in the heart of the capital Srinagar, that they’d occupied since the start of the Kahmiri insurgency, 17 years ago, a Hindu temple and a Sikh gurdwara on the site were found to be in perfect condition, while an historic Muslim mosque had been destroyed. The Indians claim the mosque collapsed due to neglect - an excuse that is unlikely to assuage Muslim fears. top Asian Age, 28-apr-2007, & bbc.co.uk, 27-apr-2007 The Tamil Tigers, in Sri Lanka, launched their first air raid against the main government air base near Colombo on 25 March, taking the Sri Lankan armed forces, by surprise - a feat they’ve repeated twice in the last week. Added to their remarkably effective naval wing (the “Sea Tigers”), their suicide bombers, and their numerous female and child soldiers, the Tigers have proved a ruthless and innovative opponent. They claim to have 2 squadrons of light aircraft adapted as bombers - observers believe they may have as many as 5 Czech-built Zlin 143 2-seater trainers, each with a potential bombload of about 200kg./440lbs. (with only 1 pilot on-board) - smuggled in since they signed an officially current, but increasingly irrelevant, 2002 ceasefire. top bbc.co.uk, 29-apr-2007, & Moravan Aviation Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, deputy commander of the U.S. 3rd. Armored Cavalry Regiment, has launched a scathing attack on America’s generals and the nation’s leaders in Congress. He criticises the generals’ failure to prepare the armed forces for insurgency war, their failure to give realistic assessments of developing situations to their political masters, their failure to make realistic plans to tackle the insurgency in Iraq, and their lack of vision at every stage. He accuses Congress of failing to exercise responsible custodianship over the armed forces and especially over the selection of generals. He warns that unless radical changes occur quickly, the U.S. faces a defeat in Iraq as severe as that suffered in Vietnam. top Armed Forces Journal, may-2007 U.S. intelligence analysts have brought forward their estimate of when Iran might be able to make a nuclear warhead. They believe accelerated progress on its nuclear programme means Iran could obtain enough weapons grade uranium for its first warhead by 2010, rather than 2015 as previously thought. However, significant obstacles are still believed to remain before a viable warhead could be built, including technological developments and equipment acquisitions. The Iranian government has also consistently maintained that it is not seeking nuclear weapons capability. top DEBKAfile, 27-apr-2007 U.S. News intelligence service Stratfor has accused Pakistan’s Inter Service Intelligence of working, with Bangladeshi intelligence agencies, to support and coordinate the activities of separatist groups all over India, from Islamic and Assamese separatists in the north to the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. top The Times of India, 23-apr-2007 A major poll in four of the largest Muslim countries has found that large majorities of Muslims believe the U.S. is deliberately waging war on Islam and trying to spread Christianity. The poll was held in Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt and Morocco (with a combined population of nearly 500 million) from Dec2006 to Feb2007 by WorldPublicOpinion.org. 79% believe that the U.S. seeks to “weaken and divide the Islamic world”, 74% want the U.S. to “remove its bases and military forces from all Islamic countries”, 64% believe that the U.S. is trying to “spread Christianity in the region”. Most Muslims also favour increasing the role of Islam in their country, as well as democracy, freedom of religion and globalisation, while 70% agree that violence against civilians is against the principles of Islam. top Daily Times, 24-apr-2007 Ethiopian troops’ apparent victory over the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) in Somalia, in their rapid sweep through the country at the end of 2006, seems to be turning into a bloody insurgency centred on the capital Mogadishu. Ethiopia, is the main backer of the interim president, Abdullahi Yusuf, whose 2004 government is supported by the African Union and the United Nations but has so far failed to demonstrate significant Somali support outside the city of Baidoa. The UIC, which has been widely accused of having links to Al-Qa’ida (a charge its leaders strenuously deny), had obtained popular support for bringing peace and security to Mogadishu before the Ethiopian attack. top bbc.co.uk, 24-apr-2007 U.S. Government computer networks are being bombarded by hackers attempting to break into them, and the problem is growing fast. Recent breeches at the State and Commerce departments are believed to be just the tip of a growing iceberg. Although security officials from both departments assured the Homeland Security Committee of the House of Representatives that no classified information had been compromised, the committee’s chairman and computer-security industry experts questioned whether such assurances were possible as it’s almost impossible to know what has been accessed after a breech has occurred. top washingtonpost.com, 19-apr-2007 China has jailed a Canadian-Uighur for life, accusing him of involvement in separatism and terrorism. The Uighurs are a non-Chinese Muslim people who make up much of the population of the province of Xinjiang in the far west of China. China invaded East Turkestan in 1759, were expelled by the Uighur population in 1864 after almost constant revolt, but re-invaded in 1876, with British backing, annexing the country and renaming it Xinjiang (“New Territory”). Further bids for freedom for East Turkestan in 1933 and 1944 were snuffed out by Stalin’s Soviet Union. Since the beginning of the 1990’s, Uighurs have accused China of colonising the region, with ethnic Chinese given land and grants to settle there. top Reuters Canada, 19-apr-2007 Israeli military sources have accused Iran of training and equipping Lebanon’s Hezbollah with an array of surface-to-air missiles since the 2006 Lebanon War. According to the Israelis, as many as 500 Hezbollah fighters have been trained on 3 SAM types, including one, based on the Chinese Feimeng-80, designed specifically to attack ground-hugging aircraft and helicopters. If true, the Israeli Air Force could lose its hitherto unchallenged freedom to operate in the skies above Lebanon in any future conflict, or even in any punitive operation against Hezbollah positions. top DEBKAfile, 17-apr-2007 NATO, Afghan and Pakistani forces are fighting a losing battle to stem the flow of Taliban fighters and supplies entering Afghanistan across the porous 1,470m./2,400km. border with Pakistan. As well as the seemingly infinite number of tracks and trails that criss-cross the border, the Taliban have a highly effective early-warning system based in towns and villages near the border. With relatively safe havens in the tribal border areas of Pakistan, and alleged support by elements of Pakistan’s ISI intelligence agency, the Taliban have little difficulty evading NATO patrols and strikes. top washingtonpost.com, 15-apr-2007 Andersen U.S. Air Force Base, on the strategically important western Pacific island of Guam, continues its build-up of forces to deter any Chinese move against Taiwan. In the last 5 years, 3 nuclear-powered attack submarines, 6 B-52’s with Air-Launched Cruise Missiles, and B-2 stealth bombers have been added to the base’s inventory, while F-15 fighters have boosted the defences. Later this year, work will begin on a base on the island for 4-6 Global Hawk unmanned spy drones, and 8,000 U.S. Marines are expected to start relocating to Guam from Okinawa. Admiral Timothy Keating, the new U.S. commander in the Pacific, warned the Chinese on Sunday against any move to an “offensive posture”. top canada.com, 16-apr-2007 The spate of suicide bombings in Casablanca, the capital of Morocco, on 11-mar, 10-apr and 14-apr, and in Algiers, the capital of Algeria, on 11-apr, coupled with a surge in attacks on Algerian security forces since the beginning of 2007 and clashes between Islamic militants and security forces in neighbouring Morocco and Tunisia, have marked the opening of a new front in North Africa by Al-Qa’ida. A French and U.S.-backed army coup in Algeria in 1992, aimed at cancelling elections that moderate Islamic parties were poised to win, followed by the ruthless suppression of those parties, led to a decade-long civil war that killed about 200,000 Algerians. Along with the “soft coup” that removed the moderate Islamic “Welfare” party from power in Turkey in 1997, it also provided one of the main justifications for terrorism used by Al-Qa’ida and its sympathisers, who argue that the West will never allow even moderate democratic Islamic parties to gain power, so political violence, especially against Western targets, is the only alternative. top washingtonpost.com, 13-apr-2007, & bbc.co.uk, 14-apr-2007
Behind the war of words between the Turkish government and Iraqi Kurdish politicians, a renewed Kurdish insurgency in south-eastern Turkey is gathering momentum. In just the first 2 weeks of April, 10 Turkish soldiers, 2 Kurdish government-backed militiamen and about 14 Kurdish separatist (PKK) guerillas died in a series of clashes and landmine attacks in Bingöl, Bitlis and Sirnak provinces. A Kurdish separatist insurgency from 1984 was largely crushed by repeated incursions by the Turkish army into the Kurdish “safe haven” of northern Iraq, between the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91 and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Since mid-2004, and emboldened by their protected status as allies of the U.S. in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime, the Iraq-based PKK have been increasing their activities across the border in Turkey. Now, the Turkish army is lobbying strongly to be allowed to renew its incursions into northern Iraq to attack the PKK in its bases. top Strategy Page & bbc.co.uk, 12-apr-2007 The U.S. is waging a covert proxy war against Lebanon’s Hezbollah, according to the group’s deputy secretary-general, Sheikh Naim Qasim. U.S. and British media have reported that the Bush administration recently set aside “significant funds” for “non-lethal” anti-Hezbollah activities and groups. However, Sheikh Qasim alleges that much of this money is being used to arm rival militias in Lebanon, reviving the spectre of the civil war that convulsed the country 1975-90 and killed about 150,000 people (out of a population of only about 3 million). top YaLibnan & Telegraph.co.uk, 10-apr-2007 U.S. Air Force Predator drones in Iraq and Afghanistan can only meet about a third of the demand for surveillance missions from field commanders, according to Lt. Col. Matthew Bannon, chief of unmanned aerial systems at Langley AFB, VA. Also, the extreme heat of Iraq damages the vehicles, contributing to the loss of 53 (38%) of the 139 Predators delivered to the Air Force. In 2007, Bannon expects Predator flight hours to exceed 70,000, more than triple the total for 2003 - an annual supply growth rate of about 33%, with demand growing at about 75%. With the Air Force turning out about 105 trained crews in 2006, 120 in 2007 and 148 in 2008, and Predators being delivered at about 30 per year but being lost at a rate of about 5 per year (an annual supply growth rate of only about 28%), the mathematics seem to point to an inexorably widening gap for the foreseeable future, between demand for Predators and the Air Force’s ability to supply. top USA Today, 28-mar-2007, & SignOnSanDiego.com, 19-mar-2005
