Monsters called Muslims

By Wajahat Ali

On July 22, a man planted a bomb in an Oslo government building that killed eight people. A few hours after the explosion, he shot and killed 68 people, mostly teenagers, at a Labor Party youth camp on Norway’s Utoya Island.

By midday, pundits were speculating as to who had perpetrated the greatest massacre in Norwegian history since World War II. Numerous mainstream media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic, speculated about an Al Qaeda connection and a “jihadist” motivation behind the attacks. But by the next morning it was clear that the attacker was a 32-year-old, white, blond-haired and blue-eyed Norwegian named Anders Breivik. He was not a Muslim, but rather a self-described Christian conservative.

According to his attorney, Breivik claimed responsibility for his self-described “gruesome but necessary” actions. On July 26, Breivik told the court that violence was “necessary” to save Europe from Marxism and “Muslimization.” In his 1,500-page manifesto, which meticulously details his attack methods and aims to inspire others to extremist violence, Breivik vows “brutal and breathtaking operations which will result in casualties” to fight the alleged “ongoing Islamic Colonization of Europe.”

Breivik’s manifesto contains numerous footnotes and in-text citations to American bloggers and pundits, quoting them as experts on Islam’s “war against the West.” This small group of anti-Muslim organizations and individuals in our nation is obscure to most Americans but wields great influence in shaping the national and international political debate. Their names are heralded within communities that are actively organizing against Islam and targeting Muslims in the United States.

Breivik, for example, cited Robert Spencer, one of the anti-Muslim misinformation scholars we profile in this report, and his blog, Jihad Watch, 162 times in his manifesto. Spencer’s website, which “tracks the attempts of radical Islam to subvert Western culture,” boasts another member of this Islamophobia network in America, David Horowitz, on his Freedom Center website. Pamela Geller, Spencer’s frequent collaborator, and her blog, Atlas Shrugs, was mentioned 12 times.

Geller and Spencer co-founded the organization Stop Islamization of America, a group whose actions and rhetoric the Anti-Defamation League concluded “promotes a conspiratorial anti-Muslim agenda under the guise of fighting radical Islam. The group seeks to rouse public fears by consistently vilifying the Islamic faith and asserting the existence of an Islamic conspiracy to destroy “American values.” Based on Breivik’s sheer number of citations and references to the writings of these individuals, it is clear that he read and relied on the hateful, anti-Muslim ideology of a number of men and women detailed in this report&a select handful of scholars and activists who work together to create and promote misinformation about Muslims.

While these bloggers and pundits were not responsible for Breivik’s deadly attacks, their writings on Islam and multiculturalism appear to have helped create a world view, held by this lone Norwegian gunman, that sees Islam as at war with the West and the West needing to be defended. According to former CIA officer and terrorism consultant Marc Sageman, just as religious extremism “is the infrastructure from which Al Qaeda emerged,” the writings of these anti-Muslim misinformation experts are “the infrastructure from which Breivik emerged.” Sageman adds that their rhetoric “is not cost-free.”

These pundits and bloggers, however, are not the only members of the Islamophobia infrastructure. Breivik’s manifesto also cites think tanks, such as the Center for Security Policy, the Middle East Forum, and the Investigative Project on Terrorism-three other organizations we profile in this report. Together, this core group of deeply intertwined individuals and organizations manufacture and exaggerate threats of “creeping Sharia,” Islamic domination of the West, and purported obligatory calls to violence against all non-Muslims by the Quran.

This network of hate is not a new presence in the United States. Indeed, its ability to organize, coordinate, and disseminate its ideology through grassroots organizations increased dramatically over the past 10 years. Furthermore, its ability to influence politicians’ talking points and wedge issues for the upcoming 2012 elections has mainstreamed what was once considered fringe, extremist rhetoric.

And it all starts with the money flowing from a select group of foundations. A small group of foundations and wealthy donors are the lifeblood of the Islamophobia network in America, providing critical funding to a clutch of right-wing think tanks that peddle hate and fear of Muslims and Islam-in the form of books, reports, websites, blogs, and carefully crafted talking points that anti-Islam grassroots organizations and some right-wing religious groups use as propaganda for their constituency.

Some of these foundations and wealthy donors also provide direct funding to anti-Islam grassroots groups. According to our extensive analysis, here are the top seven contributors to promoting Islamophobia in our country:

Donors Capital Fund
Richard Mellon Scaife foundations
Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
Newton D. & Rochelle F. Becker foundations and charitable trust
Russell Berrie Foundation
Anchorage Charitable Fund and William Rosenwald Family Fund
Fairbrook Foundation
Altogether, these seven charitable groups provided $42.6 million to Islamophobia think tanks between 2001 and 2009-funding that supports the scholars and experts that are the subject of our next chapter as well as some of the grassroots groups that are the subject of Chapter 3 of our report.

And what does this money fund? Well, here’s one of many cases in point: Last July, former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich warned a conservative audience at the American Enterprise Institute that the Islamic practice of Sharia was “a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world as we know it.” Gingrich went on to claim that “Sharia in its natural form has principles and punishments totally abhorrent to the Western world.”

Sharia, or Muslim religious code, includes practices such as charitable giving, prayer, and honoring one’s parents-precepts virtually identical to those of Christianity and Judaism. But Gingrich and other conservatives promote alarmist notions about a nearly 1,500-year-old religion for a variety of sinister political, financial, and ideological motives. In his remarks that day, Gingrich mimicked the language of conservative analyst Andrew McCarthy, who co-wrote a report calling Sharia “the preeminent totalitarian threat of our time.” Such similarities in language are no accident. Look no further than the organization that released McCarthy’s anti-Sharia report: the aforementioned Center for Security Policy, which is a central hub of the anti-Muslim network and an active promoter of anti- Sharia messaging and anti-Muslim rhetoric.

In fact, CSP is a key source for right-wing politicians, pundits, and grassroots organizations, providing them with a steady stream of reports mischaracterizing Islam and warnings about the dangers of Islam and American Muslims. Operating under the leadership of Frank Gaffney, the organization is funded by a small number of foundations and donors with a deep understanding of how to influence U.S. politics by promoting highly alarming threats to our national security. CSP is joined by other anti-Muslim organizations in this lucrative business, such as Stop Islamization of America and the Society of Americans for National Existence. Many of the leaders of these organizations are well-schooled in the art of getting attention in the press, particularly Fox News, The Wall Street Journal editorial pages, The Washington Times, and a variety of right-wing websites and radio outlets.

Misinformation experts such as Gaffney consult and work with such right-wing grassroots organizations as ACT! for America and the Eagle Forum, as well as religious right groups such as the Faith and Freedom Coalition and American Family Association, to spread their message. Speaking at their conferences, writing on their websites, and appearing on their radio shows, these experts rail against Islam and cast suspicion on American Muslims. Much of their propaganda gets churned into fundraising appeals by grassroots and religious right groups. The money they raise then enters the political process and helps fund ads supporting politicians who echo alarmist warnings and sponsor anti-Muslim attacks.

These efforts recall some of the darkest episodes in American history, in which religious, ethnic, and racial minorities were discriminated against and persecuted. From Catholics, Mormons, Japanese Americans, European immigrants, Jews, and African Americans, the story of America is one of struggle to achieve in practice our founding ideals. Unfortunately, American Muslims and Islam are the latest chapter in a long American struggle against scapegoating based on religion, race, or creed.

Due in part to the relentless efforts of this small group of individuals and organizations, Islam is now the most negatively viewed religion in America. Only 37 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of Islam: the lowest favorability rating since 2001, according to a 2010 ABC News/Washington Post poll. According to a 2010 Time magazine poll, 28 percent of voters do not believe Muslims should be eligible to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, and nearly one-third of the country thinks followers of Islam should be barred from running for president.

The terrorist attacks on 9/11 alone did not drive Americans’ perceptions of Muslims and Islam. President George W. Bush reflected the general opinion of the American public at the time when he went to great lengths to make clear that Islam and Muslims are not the enemy. Speaking to a roundtable of Arab and Muslim American leaders at the Afghanistan embassy in 2002, for example, President Bush said, “All Americans must recognize that the face of terror is not the true faith-face of Islam. Islam is a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world. It’s a faith that has made brothers and sisters of every race. It’s a faith based upon love, not hate.”

Unfortunately, President Bush’s words were soon eclipsed by an organized escalation of hateful statements about Muslims and Islam from the members of the Islamophobia network profiled in this report. This is as sad as it is dangerous. It is enormously important to understand that alienating the Muslim American community not only threatens our fundamental promise of religious freedom, it also hurts our efforts to combat terrorism. Since 9/11, the Muslim American community has helped security and law enforcement officials prevent more than 40 percent of Al Qaeda terrorist plots threatening America. The largest single source of initial information to authorities about the few Muslim American plots has come from the Muslim American community.

Around the world, there are people killing people in the name of Islam, with which most Muslims disagree. Indeed, in most cases of radicalized neighbors, family members, or friends, the Muslim American community is as baffled, disturbed, and surprised by their appearance as the general public. Treating Muslim American citizens and neighbors as part of the problem, rather than part of the solution, is not only offensive to America’s core values, it is utterly ineffective in combating terrorism and violent extremism.

The White House recently released the national strategy for combating violent extremism, “Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States.” One of the top focal points of the effort is to “counter al-Qa’ida’s propaganda that the United States is somehow at war with Islam.” Yet orchestrated efforts by the individuals and organizations detailed in this report make it easy for al-Qa’ida to assert that America hates Muslims and that Muslims around the world are persecuted for the simple crime of being Muslims and practicing their religion.

Sadly, the current isolation of American Muslims echoes past witch hunts in our history-from the divisive McCarthyite purges of the 1950s to the sometimes violent anti-immigrant campaigns in the 19th and 20th centuries. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has compared the fear-mongering of Muslims with anti-Catholic sentiment of the past. In response to the fabricated “Ground Zero mosque” controversy in New York last summer, Mayor Bloomberg said:

In the 1700s, even as religious freedom took hold in America, Catholics in New York were effectively prohibited from practicing their religion, and priests could be arrested. Largely as a result, the first Catholic parish in New York City was not established until the 1780s, St. Peter’s on Barclay Street, which still stands just one block north of the World Trade Center site, and one block south of the proposed mosque and community center. … We would betray our values and play into our enemies’ hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else.

This report shines a light on the Islamophobia network of so-called experts, academics, institutions, grassroots organizations, media outlets, and donors who manufacture, produce, distribute, and mainstream an irrational fear of Islam and Muslims. Let us learn the proper lesson from the past, and rise above fear-mongering to public awareness, acceptance, and respect for our fellow Americans. In doing so, let us prevent hatred from infecting and endangering our country again.

In the pages that follow, we profile the small number of funders, organizations, and individuals who have contributed to the discourse on Islamophobia in this country. We begin with the money trail in Chapter 1-our analysis of the funding streams that support anti-Muslim activities. Chapter 2 identifies the intellectual nexus of the Islamophobia network. Chapter 3 highlights the key grassroots players and organizations that help spread the messages of hate. Chapter 4 aggregates the key media amplifiers of Islamophobia. And Chapter 5 brings attention to the elected officials who frequently support the causes of anti- Muslim organizing.

Before we begin, a word about the term “Islamophobia.” We don’t use this term lightly. We define it as an exaggerated fear, hatred, and hostility toward Islam and Muslims that is perpetuated by negative stereotypes resulting in bias, discrimination, and the marginalization and exclusion of Muslims from America’s social, political, and civic life.

It is our view that in order to safeguard our national security and uphold America’s core values, we must return to a fact-based civil discourse regarding the challenges we face as a nation and world. This discourse must be frank and honest, but also consistent with American values of religious liberty, equal justice under the law, and respect for pluralism. A first step toward the goal of honest, civil discourse is to expose-and marginalize-the influence of the individuals and groups who make up the Islamophobia network in America by actively working to divide Americans against one another through misinformation.

Six Killed in Pakistan as Drone Strikes Continue

A US double drone strike has killed 12 suspected militants in South Waziristan on the Afghan-Pakistan border.

The attacks targeted a compound and a seminary near Wana, the main town in the tribal district, officials said.

It came days after al-Qaeda operative Ilyas Kashmiri was reported to have been killed in a US strike in the area.

Militants in Pakistan have vowed to avenge his reported killing, as well as the death of al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden last month.

On Sunday, at least 18 people died in a bomb blast at a bakery in the garrison town of Nowshera in northwest Pakistan.

Earlier, another bomb explosion at a bus stop on the outskirts of Peshawar killed six people. Both attacks are being blamed on the Pakistani Taliban.

Monday’s drone attacks targeted a compound and a religious seminary in the mountains near Wana, according to reports.

There were “foreigners” among those killed, say reports, though their identities were not immediately known.

United States officials do not routinely confirm that they have carried out drone attacks, but analysts say that only US forces have the capacity to carry out such strikes in the region.

More than 100 raids were reported last year in the troubled tribal areas along the Afghan border.

Many militants, some of them senior, have been killed in the drone strikes, but hundreds of civilians have also died.

Correspondents say that in the past the drone strikes have had the tacit approval of the Pakistani authorities, although Pakistani leaders always denied secretly supporting them.

In recent months, senior Pakistani security officials have reportedly been pressing for a limit to such operations.

How to Tell if Your Neighbor is a Bombmaker

By Scott Stewart

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) released the fifth edition of its English-language jihadist magazine “Inspire” on March 30. AQAP publishes this magazine with the stated intent of radicalizing English-speaking Muslims and encouraging them to engage in jihadist militant activity. Since its inception, Inspire magazine has also advocated the concept that jihadists living in the West should conduct attacks there, rather than traveling to places like Pakistan or Yemen, since such travel can bring them to the attention of the authorities before they can conduct attacks, and AQAP views attacking in the West as “striking at the heart of the unbelievers.”

To further promote this concept, each edition of Inspire magazine has a section called “Open Source Jihad,” which is intended to equip aspiring jihadist attackers with the tools they need to conduct attacks without traveling to jihadist training camps. The Open Source Jihad sections in past editions have contained articles such as the pictorial guide with instructions titled “Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom” that appeared in the first edition.

In this latest edition of Inspire there are at least three places where AQAP encourages jihadists to conduct “lone wolf” attacks rather than coordinate with others due to the security risks inherent in such collaboration (several jihadist plots have been thwarted when would-be attackers have approached government informants looking for assistance). In recent years there have been a number of lone wolf attacks inside the United States, such as the June 2009 shooting at an armed forces recruiting center in Little Rock, Ark.; the November 2009 Fort Hood shooting; and the failed bombing attack in New York’s Times Square in May 2010. Of course, the lone wolf phenomena is not just confined to the United States, as evidenced by such incidents as the March 2 shooting attack against U.S. military personnel in Frankfurt, Germany.

In the past, STRATFOR has examined the challenges that lone wolf assailants and small, insulated cells – what we call grassroots jihadists – present to law enforcement and intelligence agencies. We have also discussed the fact that, in many cases, grassroots defenders such as local police officers can be a more effective defense against grassroots attackers than centralized federal agencies.

But local federal agents and local police officers are not the only grassroots defenders who can be effective in detecting lone wolves and small cells before they are able to launch an attack. Many of the steps required to conduct a terrorist attack are undertaken in a manner that makes the actions visible to any outside observer. It is at these junctures in the terrorist attack cycle that people practicing good situational awareness can detect these attack steps – not only to avoid the danger themselves, but also to alert the authorities to the suspicious activity.

Detecting grassroots operatives can be difficult, but it is possible if observers focus not only on the “who” aspect of a terrorist attack but also the “how” – that is, those activities that indicate an attack is in the works. In the past we’ve talked in some detail about detecting preoperational surveillance as part of this focus on the “how.” Now, we would like to focus on detecting another element of the “how” of terrorism and discuss the ways one can detect signs of improvised-explosives preparation – in other words, how to tell if your neighbor is a bombmaker.

IEDs and Explosive Mixtures
In the 11th edition of “Sada al-Malahim,” AQAP’s Arabic-language online jihadist magazine, Nasir al-Wahayshi noted that jihadists “don’t need to conduct a big effort or spend a lot of money to manufacture 10 grams of explosive material” and that they should not “waste a long time finding the materials, because you can find all these in your mother’s kitchen, or readily at hand or in any city you are in.” Al-Wahayshi is right. It truly is not difficult for a knowledgeable individual to construct improvised explosives from a wide range of household chemicals like peroxide and acetone or chlorine and brake fluid.

It is important to recognize that when we say an explosive mixture or an explosive device is “improvised,” the improvised nature of that mixture or device does not automatically mean that the end product is going to be ineffective or amateurish. Like an improvised John Coltrane saxophone solo, some improvised explosive devices can be highly-crafted and very deadly works of art. Now, that said, even proficient bombmakers are going to conduct certain activities that will allow their intent to be discerned by an outside observer – and amateurish bombmakers are even easier to spot if one knows what to look for.

In an effort to make bombmaking activity clandestine, explosive mixtures and device components are often manufactured in rented houses, apartments or hotel rooms. We have seen this behavior in past cases, like the December 1999 incident in which the so-called “Millennium Bomber” Ahmed Ressam and an accomplice set up a crude bombmaking factory in a hotel room in Vancouver, British Colombia. More recently, Najibullah Zazi, who was arrested in September 2009, was charged with attempting to manufacture the improvised explosive mixture tri-acetone tri-peroxide (TATP) in a Denver hotel room. In September 2010, a suspected lone wolf assailant in Copenhagen, accidentally detonated an explosive device he was constructing in a hotel. Danish authorities believe the device was intended for an attack on the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, which was targeted because of its involvement in publishing the controversial cartoons featuring the Prophet Mohammed.

Similar to clandestine methamphetamine labs (which are also frequently set up in rental properties or hotel rooms), makeshift bombmaking operations frequently utilize volatile substances that are used in everyday life. Chemicals such as acetone, a common nail polish remover, and peroxide, commonly used in bleaching hair, can be found in most grocery, beauty, drug and convenience stores. Fertilizers, the main component of the bombs used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 1993 World Trade Center attack, can be found in large volumes on farms or in farm supply stores in rural communities.

However, the quantities of these chemicals required to manufacture explosives is far in excess of that required to remove nail polish or bleach hair. Because of this, hotel staff, landlords and neighbors can fairly easily notice signs that someone in their midst is operating a makeshift bombmaking laboratory. They should be suspicious, for example, if a new tenant moves several bags of fertilizer into an apartment in the middle of a city, or if a person brings in gallons of acetone, peroxide or sulfuric or nitric acid. Furthermore, in addition to chemicals, bombmakers also utilize laboratory implements such as beakers, scales, protective gloves and masks – things not normally found in a hotel room or residence.

Additionally, although electronic devices such as cell phones or wristwatches may not seem unusual in the context of a hotel room or apartment, signs that such devices have been disassembled or modified should raise a red flag, as these devices are commonly used as initiators for improvised explosive devices. There are also certain items that are less commonly used in household applications but that are frequently used in bombmaking, things like nitric or sulfuric acid, metal powders such as aluminum, magnesium and ferric oxide, and large quantities of sodium carbonate – commonly purchased in 25-pound bags. Large containers of methyl alcohol, used to stabilize nitroglycerine, is another item that is unusual in a residential or hotel setting and that is a likely signal that a bombmaker is present.

Fumes from the chemical reactions are another telltale sign of bombmaking activity. Depending on the size of the batch being concocted, the noxious fumes from an improvised explosive mixture can bleach walls and curtains and, as was the case for the July 2005 London attackers, even the bombmakers’ hair. The fumes can even waft outside of the lab and be detected by neighbors in the vicinity. Spatter from the mixing of ingredients like nitric acid leaves distinctive marks, which are another way for hotel staff or landlords to recognize that something is amiss. Additionally, rented properties used for such activity rarely look as if they are lived in. They frequently lack furniture and have makeshift window coverings instead of drapes. Properties where bomb laboratories are found also usually have no mail delivery, sit for long periods without being occupied and are occupied by people who come and go erratically at odd hours and are often seen carrying strange things such as containers of chemicals.

The perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing manufactured the components for the truck bomb used in that attack in a rented apartment in Jersey City, N.J. The process of cooking the nitroglycerine used in the booster charges and the urea nitrate used in the main explosive charge created such strong chemical fumes that some of the paint on the walls was changed from white to blue and metal doorknobs and hinges inside of the apartment were visibly corroded. The bombmakers also flushed some of the excess chemicals down the toilet, spilling some of them on the bathroom floor and leaving acidic burn marks. The conspirators also spilled chemicals on the floor in other places, on the walls of the apartment, on their clothing and on other items, leaving plenty of trace evidence for investigators to find after the attack.

Given the caustic nature of the ingredients used to make homemade explosive mixtures – chemicals that can burn floors and corrode metal – and the very touchy chemical reactions required to make things like nitroglycerin and TATP, making homemade explosives can be one of the most dangerous aspects of planning an attack. Indeed, Hamas militants refer to TATP as “the Mother of Satan” because of its volatility and propensity to either severely burn or kill bombmakers if they lose control of the chemical reaction required to manufacture it.

In January 1995, an apartment in Manila, Philippines, caught fire when the bombmaker in the 1993 World Trade Center attack, Abdel Basit (aka Ramzi Yousef), lost control of the reaction in a batch of TATP he was brewing for his planned attack against a number of U.S. airliners flying over the Pacific Ocean – an operation he had nicknamed Bojinka. Because of the fire, authorities were able to arrest two of Basit’s co-conspirators and unravel Bojinka and several other attack plots against targets like Pope John Paul II and U.S. President Bill Clinton. Basit himself fled to Pakistan, where he was apprehended a short time later. This case serves to highlight the dangers presented by these labs to people in the vicinity – especially in a hotel or apartment building.

Another form of behavior that provides an opportunity to spot a bombmaker is testing. A professional bombmaker will try out his improvised mixtures and components, like improvised blasting caps, to ensure that they are functioning properly and that the completed device will therefore be viable. Such testing will involve burning or detonating small quantities of the explosive mixture, or actually exploding the blasting cap. The testing of small components may happen in a backyard, but the testing of larger quantities will often be done at a more remote place. Therefore, any signs of explosions in remote places like parks and national forests should be immediately reported to authorities.

Obviously, not every container of nitric acid spotted or small explosion heard will be absolute confirmation of bombmaking activity, but reporting such incidents to the authorities will give them an opportunity to investigate and determine whether the incidents are indeed innocuous. In an era when the threat of attack comes from increasingly diffuse sources, a good defense requires more eyes and ears than the authorities possess. As the New York Police Department has so aptly said, if you see something, say something.

How to Tell if Your Neighbor is a Bombmaker

By Scott Stewart

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) released the fifth edition of its English-language jihadist magazine “Inspire” on March 30. AQAP publishes this magazine with the stated intent of radicalizing English-speaking Muslims and encouraging them to engage in jihadist militant activity. Since its inception, Inspire magazine has also advocated the concept that jihadists living in the West should conduct attacks there, rather than traveling to places like Pakistan or Yemen, since such travel can bring them to the attention of the authorities before they can conduct attacks, and AQAP views attacking in the West as “striking at the heart of the unbelievers.”

To further promote this concept, each edition of Inspire magazine has a section called “Open Source Jihad,” which is intended to equip aspiring jihadist attackers with the tools they need to conduct attacks without traveling to jihadist training camps. The Open Source Jihad sections in past editions have contained articles such as the pictorial guide with instructions titled “Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom” that appeared in the first edition.

In this latest edition of Inspire there are at least three places where AQAP encourages jihadists to conduct “lone wolf” attacks rather than coordinate with others due to the security risks inherent in such collaboration (several jihadist plots have been thwarted when would-be attackers have approached government informants looking for assistance). In recent years there have been a number of lone wolf attacks inside the United States, such as the June 2009 shooting at an armed forces recruiting center in Little Rock, Ark.; the November 2009 Fort Hood shooting; and the failed bombing attack in New York’s Times Square in May 2010. Of course, the lone wolf phenomena is not just confined to the United States, as evidenced by such incidents as the March 2 shooting attack against U.S. military personnel in Frankfurt, Germany.

In the past, STRATFOR has examined the challenges that lone wolf assailants and small, insulated cells – what we call grassroots jihadists – present to law enforcement and intelligence agencies. We have also discussed the fact that, in many cases, grassroots defenders such as local police officers can be a more effective defense against grassroots attackers than centralized federal agencies.

But local federal agents and local police officers are not the only grassroots defenders who can be effective in detecting lone wolves and small cells before they are able to launch an attack. Many of the steps required to conduct a terrorist attack are undertaken in a manner that makes the actions visible to any outside observer. It is at these junctures in the terrorist attack cycle that people practicing good situational awareness can detect these attack steps – not only to avoid the danger themselves, but also to alert the authorities to the suspicious activity.

Detecting grassroots operatives can be difficult, but it is possible if observers focus not only on the “who” aspect of a terrorist attack but also the “how” – that is, those activities that indicate an attack is in the works. In the past we’ve talked in some detail about detecting preoperational surveillance as part of this focus on the “how.” Now, we would like to focus on detecting another element of the “how” of terrorism and discuss the ways one can detect signs of improvised-explosives preparation – in other words, how to tell if your neighbor is a bombmaker.

IEDs and Explosive Mixtures
In the 11th edition of “Sada al-Malahim,” AQAP’s Arabic-language online jihadist magazine, Nasir al-Wahayshi noted that jihadists “don’t need to conduct a big effort or spend a lot of money to manufacture 10 grams of explosive material” and that they should not “waste a long time finding the materials, because you can find all these in your mother’s kitchen, or readily at hand or in any city you are in.” Al-Wahayshi is right. It truly is not difficult for a knowledgeable individual to construct improvised explosives from a wide range of household chemicals like peroxide and acetone or chlorine and brake fluid.

It is important to recognize that when we say an explosive mixture or an explosive device is “improvised,” the improvised nature of that mixture or device does not automatically mean that the end product is going to be ineffective or amateurish. Like an improvised John Coltrane saxophone solo, some improvised explosive devices can be highly-crafted and very deadly works of art. Now, that said, even proficient bombmakers are going to conduct certain activities that will allow their intent to be discerned by an outside observer – and amateurish bombmakers are even easier to spot if one knows what to look for.

In an effort to make bombmaking activity clandestine, explosive mixtures and device components are often manufactured in rented houses, apartments or hotel rooms. We have seen this behavior in past cases, like the December 1999 incident in which the so-called “Millennium Bomber” Ahmed Ressam and an accomplice set up a crude bombmaking factory in a hotel room in Vancouver, British Colombia. More recently, Najibullah Zazi, who was arrested in September 2009, was charged with attempting to manufacture the improvised explosive mixture tri-acetone tri-peroxide (TATP) in a Denver hotel room. In September 2010, a suspected lone wolf assailant in Copenhagen, accidentally detonated an explosive device he was constructing in a hotel. Danish authorities believe the device was intended for an attack on the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, which was targeted because of its involvement in publishing the controversial cartoons featuring the Prophet Mohammed.

Similar to clandestine methamphetamine labs (which are also frequently set up in rental properties or hotel rooms), makeshift bombmaking operations frequently utilize volatile substances that are used in everyday life. Chemicals such as acetone, a common nail polish remover, and peroxide, commonly used in bleaching hair, can be found in most grocery, beauty, drug and convenience stores. Fertilizers, the main component of the bombs used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 1993 World Trade Center attack, can be found in large volumes on farms or in farm supply stores in rural communities.

However, the quantities of these chemicals required to manufacture explosives is far in excess of that required to remove nail polish or bleach hair. Because of this, hotel staff, landlords and neighbors can fairly easily notice signs that someone in their midst is operating a makeshift bombmaking laboratory. They should be suspicious, for example, if a new tenant moves several bags of fertilizer into an apartment in the middle of a city, or if a person brings in gallons of acetone, peroxide or sulfuric or nitric acid. Furthermore, in addition to chemicals, bombmakers also utilize laboratory implements such as beakers, scales, protective gloves and masks – things not normally found in a hotel room or residence.

Additionally, although electronic devices such as cell phones or wristwatches may not seem unusual in the context of a hotel room or apartment, signs that such devices have been disassembled or modified should raise a red flag, as these devices are commonly used as initiators for improvised explosive devices. There are also certain items that are less commonly used in household applications but that are frequently used in bombmaking, things like nitric or sulfuric acid, metal powders such as aluminum, magnesium and ferric oxide, and large quantities of sodium carbonate – commonly purchased in 25-pound bags. Large containers of methyl alcohol, used to stabilize nitroglycerine, is another item that is unusual in a residential or hotel setting and that is a likely signal that a bombmaker is present.

Fumes from the chemical reactions are another telltale sign of bombmaking activity. Depending on the size of the batch being concocted, the noxious fumes from an improvised explosive mixture can bleach walls and curtains and, as was the case for the July 2005 London attackers, even the bombmakers’ hair. The fumes can even waft outside of the lab and be detected by neighbors in the vicinity. Spatter from the mixing of ingredients like nitric acid leaves distinctive marks, which are another way for hotel staff or landlords to recognize that something is amiss. Additionally, rented properties used for such activity rarely look as if they are lived in. They frequently lack furniture and have makeshift window coverings instead of drapes. Properties where bomb laboratories are found also usually have no mail delivery, sit for long periods without being occupied and are occupied by people who come and go erratically at odd hours and are often seen carrying strange things such as containers of chemicals.

The perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing manufactured the components for the truck bomb used in that attack in a rented apartment in Jersey City, N.J. The process of cooking the nitroglycerine used in the booster charges and the urea nitrate used in the main explosive charge created such strong chemical fumes that some of the paint on the walls was changed from white to blue and metal doorknobs and hinges inside of the apartment were visibly corroded. The bombmakers also flushed some of the excess chemicals down the toilet, spilling some of them on the bathroom floor and leaving acidic burn marks. The conspirators also spilled chemicals on the floor in other places, on the walls of the apartment, on their clothing and on other items, leaving plenty of trace evidence for investigators to find after the attack.

Given the caustic nature of the ingredients used to make homemade explosive mixtures – chemicals that can burn floors and corrode metal – and the very touchy chemical reactions required to make things like nitroglycerin and TATP, making homemade explosives can be one of the most dangerous aspects of planning an attack. Indeed, Hamas militants refer to TATP as “the Mother of Satan” because of its volatility and propensity to either severely burn or kill bombmakers if they lose control of the chemical reaction required to manufacture it.

In January 1995, an apartment in Manila, Philippines, caught fire when the bombmaker in the 1993 World Trade Center attack, Abdel Basit (aka Ramzi Yousef), lost control of the reaction in a batch of TATP he was brewing for his planned attack against a number of U.S. airliners flying over the Pacific Ocean – an operation he had nicknamed Bojinka. Because of the fire, authorities were able to arrest two of Basit’s co-conspirators and unravel Bojinka and several other attack plots against targets like Pope John Paul II and U.S. President Bill Clinton. Basit himself fled to Pakistan, where he was apprehended a short time later. This case serves to highlight the dangers presented by these labs to people in the vicinity – especially in a hotel or apartment building.

Another form of behavior that provides an opportunity to spot a bombmaker is testing. A professional bombmaker will try out his improvised mixtures and components, like improvised blasting caps, to ensure that they are functioning properly and that the completed device will therefore be viable. Such testing will involve burning or detonating small quantities of the explosive mixture, or actually exploding the blasting cap. The testing of small components may happen in a backyard, but the testing of larger quantities will often be done at a more remote place. Therefore, any signs of explosions in remote places like parks and national forests should be immediately reported to authorities.

Obviously, not every container of nitric acid spotted or small explosion heard will be absolute confirmation of bombmaking activity, but reporting such incidents to the authorities will give them an opportunity to investigate and determine whether the incidents are indeed innocuous. In an era when the threat of attack comes from increasingly diffuse sources, a good defense requires more eyes and ears than the authorities possess. As the New York Police Department has so aptly said, if you see something, say something.

Hollow promises of Barack Obama

By Brig Asif Haroon Raja

In September 2001, the whole world comity was behind USA. The UN had authorized US call to invade Afghanistan and combat terrorism so as to make the world peaceful. The world response to invasion of Iraq in March 2003 was different. Millions came out in the western world to dissuade George W. Bush and Tony Blair from undertaking the venture. Today very few support US imperial pursuits and majority wish termination of war on terror at the earliest. Desire for peaceful resolution of the conflict through political settlement among all stake holders has overshadowed the voices of those wishing continuation of war. This change in perceptions has occurred on account of the belated realization that neither Taliban can be defeated nor terrorism curbed. The world instead of becoming peaceful has become more insecure.

George W Bush the crusading son of cautious father of Bush senior and his team of neo-conservatives like Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Armitage, Donald Rumsfeld, Robert Kagan, Lewis Scooter Libby, John R Bolton, Eliot Abrams, James Woolsey, Douglas J Feith, Richard Perle are responsible for waging crusade against the Muslims under phony charges and giving false hopes that the world will be made free of the curse of terrorism. Tony Blair, the poodle of Bush was most vocal among the crusading bunch.

When the neo-cons managed to enter the corridors of power in January 2001, they actuated their long drawn plans. Although war against terrorism was named as global war on terror so as to entice greater number of allies, counter terrorism was Muslim specific. Bush had described the war as ‘the struggle against Islamic radicalism…the great ideological conflict of the early 21st century’. To weaken the citadel of Islam, Islamists in Afghanistan and Iraq were targeted. Attacks on sovereign states were justified under the pretexts of teaching virtues of democracy, freedom and human rights to the uncivilized and uncouth.

Massive military force was applied to capture Afghanistan, one of the most impoverished states of the world where it was alleged that the mastermind of 9/11 Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda were located and where women were being tyrannized by monstrous Taliban. Iraq was also invaded and occupied under fake charges of WMDs. Pakistan also became victim of terrorism because of fallout effect of Afghanistan and covert war launched by CIA and its allied intelligence agencies. Bigoted key figures of Republican Party led by Bush stand accountable for initiating clash of civilizations and are fit cases for trial on charges of war crimes for committing immense crimes against humanity. .

Mindful of the deep rooted revulsion evoked against USA in the Muslim world in particular and the world in general, a black half Muslim Barack Obama was pushed into White House for the first time. His selection was a strategic deception to mislead the Muslims and make them hate al-Qaeda instead of USA. Obama made many alluring promises during the presidential campaign in 2008 in his bid to washout the ill-effects of reviled Bush era and to win the confidence of Muslims. He promised to put an end to US interventionist policy, wrap up war in Iraq that was being condemned by all and sundry, find a democratic solution to Afghanistan, help in energizing Middle East peace process towards settlement of chronic Palestinian dispute, and in finding amicable solution to Kashmir issue.

He also made a commitment to close down dreadful prison in Guantanamo Bay and stressed that the US would abide by international law. In his bid to reach out to the Muslims and remove their sense of alienation, he stated in Cairo in June 2009 that the US did not have any enmity with the Muslim world. Efforts were made to de-link al-Qaeda from the folds of Islam terming it both terrorist and criminal. Hearing him, it was wishfully assumed that Obama would put a stop or at least scale down atrocious policies of his predecessor against Muslim countries.

It is over two years since he took over reins of power; so far all his tall promises have proved hollow. His words have not matched his actions. Though he has deceptively changed the title of ‘global war on terror with war against al-Qaeda, and terms like Islamic radicalism are avoided, in practical terms nothing has changed on ground. Since the Muslims continue to remain the main targets, the old phrase of ‘war on terror’ remains in common use by affected countries including Pakistan. Instead of curbing he has accelerated practice of death and destruction. He considers use of drones legal and morally just.

Although he has scaled down US troop level in Iraq to 50,000 only, the occupied country remains messy. Prospect of withdrawal of left over troops by end 2011 is uncertain due to fragile political situation under government of Maliki installed by Washington. Afghanistan is being continuously brutalized with a vengeance where the situation has become more volatile. He intensified covert operations and sprinkled more oil on the raging war on terror to make it ominous. Afghanistan provides an excellent base to CIA-Mosad-RAW-MI6 nexus to unleash clandestine operations all over Middle East, Horn of Africa and Central Asia as well as Philippines, Colombia, Pakistan and Iran. Latter was constantly threatened to be invaded. Guantanamo Bay is still functional and so are several CIA run detention centres infamous for torture.

As a sequel to his Af-Pak policy, the US military and its allies got heavily involved in Afghanistan and Pakistan, turning Pak-Afghan border region into single war zone. Purpose was to accelerate ground operations in Pashtun inhabited regions in Afghanistan and to step up invisible covert war in Pakistan. Clandestine operations were padded up with aerial violations, hot pursuits and intensified drone attacks against suspected targets in FATA. Brutalization of Afghanistan and Pakistan together with ruthless persecution of Kashmiris by Indian security forces in Indian occupied Kashmir has given rise to extremism and has made the whole region unstable and explosive. Things have gone from bad to worse for occupation forces in the last two years. In their desperate bid to arrest the resurgence of power of Taliban and regain initiative, ISAF has stepped up air blitz which in turn has increased casualty rate of civilians.

Middle East process instead of making progress has retrogressed due to Israeli intransigence and Obama’s visible inclination towards Tel Aviv. Like his predecessors he remains subservient to Israel and beholden to American Jews who were instrumental in his victory in elections. Obama feel no compunction in openly supporting Israel’s aggressive and unjust policies in the region. He not only looked the other way to Israeli invasion of Gaza in December 2008-January 2009 but justified it. He refused to condemn Israeli raid on Peace Flotilla off Gazan Coast and its illegal settlements in occupied territories.

Obamahas distanced himself from Kashmir under Indian pressure and his conspicuoustilt towards India is no secret. Gross human rights abuses by Indian security forces against hapless unarmed Kashmiris in disputed occupied Kashmir are being ignored by Washington but it is quick to point fingers at a Muslim country at the sound of a single bullet fired. The US dubs counter actions by security forces against separatist elements in Balochistan or against terrorists in Swat as violation of human rights, but anti-separatist operations of Indian security forces in several parts of India for over fifty years and application of inhuman laws and using rape as a weapon to suppress freedom movement evoke no response.

Concerted efforts were made by Christian powers to separate oil-rich southern Sudan from the mainland. For all practical purposes, Sudan stands divided but its woes are not over. In oil producing Darfur region of Sudan, rebellious forces are being supported by foreign powers. Besides the oil factor, application of Sharia laws by President Bashir and his softness towards Islamists are the main reasons of concern for the western world. While Sudanese President is demonised through media war and International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared him a war criminal, the ICJ, the UN and the civilized western world are tight lipped about the war crimes of George Bush and his squad of neo-cons. No voice is raised on use of drones by CIA against US ally Pakistan killing maximum innocent civilians and very few militants.

Somalia’s pirates were purposely instigated to make Somali coast and Gulf of Aden prone to sea piracy so as to provide an excuse for international naval force to fish in troubled waters. Drone war was extended to Yemen to fight rebellious forces in south and in the north of the country as well as Al-Qaeda so as to save its ally President Saleh. AFRICOM was created with mala fide intentions against African continent rich in mineral resources. Congo is a victim of US intrigues where insurrectional war is raging in the mineral heavy eastern region.

It is suspected that ongoing turbulence within the Arab world was engineered by CIA to get rid of aging puppets and replace them with younger ones more subservient to Washington so that oil could be monopolised. The US-UK-French forces have now physically intervened in Libya thus activating third battlefront. The latest intervention is in line with his predecessor’s plan to reconfigure the map of Middle East. Ignoring the killing spree of US-NATO forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama hypocritically justifies air strikes in Libya on the false pretext of saving Libyans from the wrath of Qaddafi’s forces trying to quell foreign inspired rebellion.

USA and western powers have their eyes transfixed on Libyan oil and are least concerned with the safety of Muslims in Libya. Aerial attacks and cruise missiles have caused more deaths and destruction in Libya than what forces loyal to Qaddafi have incurred. If we take into account the massacres in Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen, the figure of deaths come to well over two millions. Paul Craig Roberts rightly says that the sole super power prefers to murder Muslims in order to enhance profits of its defence industrial complex.

In line with US policy of subjugating Southern America, a coup was engineered in Honduras in 2009 to overthrow popularly elected ruler and to replace him with vicious dictator. Korean Peninsula was made turbulent and made into a flashpoint. Iran was subjected to heavy sanctions and repeatedly threatened to desist from pursuing nuclear program. CIA poured in million of dollars and indulged in subversive activities to affect a regime change. It patronised Jundullah terrorist group to destabilize Siestan Balochistan.

Obama is in his third year of rule but his popularity at home has sunk down substantially since his achievements on the domestic front are far from satisfactory. His external policies are widely criticized since he has neither been able to culminate the unpopular war on terror nor defeated al-Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan. He has so far not been able to spell out a clear cut strategy as to how he intends to play the endgame which enables safe and honorable return of foreign troops from Afghanistan. He has taken no steps to win the shattered confidence of the aggrieved Muslims and to bring down the rising graph of anti-Americanism and restore the lost image and credibility of USA. The US economy is in the melting pot while its chief rival China’s economy is surging. He has been unable to curtail debts and fiscal deficit due to ever rising expenditure on defence, security and covert war. With these minuses, his chances of re-election are getting slim, but who so ever returns to power in January 2013, he will also pursue old policies favoring the west, Israel and India and disfavoring the Muslims world.

Harrowing tale of Pakistani policemen lynched in Bahrain

KARACHI: Kashif Mehmood joined the Bahraini police force soon after he graduated from the Pakistani school in Bahrain.

Bahraini protesters wave their national flag.

He wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps who joined the Bahraini police after migrating from Gujranwala’s Mandi Bahauddin area, some 30 years ago.

No one from Kashif’s family of four siblings and parents could imagine that one day the 20-year-old’s life would be cut short as brutally as it was last Wednesday.

Kashif was lynched and murdered by an angry mob when a police unit, which Kashif was a part of, was ordered to move in against protesters gathered at Pearl Square in Manama.

The nightmare for Kashif’s family, however, did not end at his death. Gruesome images and videos of his death have appeared all over the internet. Many have also posted hateful and racist slogans under them, against the Pakistani community in Bahrain.

“I haven’t slept in days,” says Ali, Kashif’s 18-year-old brother, while speaking over the phone as he emailed video links of his brother’s murder.

He sounded horrified when he said that houses of Pakistanis, especially those employed with the security forces, were being marked by protesters, to be attacked later.

Kashif, and another Bahraini policeman of Pakistani origin, Farooq Baloch, were on duty together on Wednesday, when an operation against the protesters was launched. Amid the chaos, the two young policemen, armed just with sticks, broke away from their unit and sought help from an approaching ambulance. Little did they know that the rescue van was actually loaded with protestors.

The ambulance ran them over, killing Baloch who had married three months ago and the sole breadwinner for his family.

Kashif, who barely survived the first onslaught, was kidnapped and taken to an empty ground.

Videos posted online show that groups of young men then took turns in kicking and clobbering with sticks Kashif’s lifeless body.

Even though it was apparent that he was dead, the protesters proceeded to mutilate his body, with groups of young men in their SUVs repeatedly running over the corpse.

The incident bore an eerie resemblance to the Sialkot lynching incident, where the onlookers cheered on as the victim was tortured.

Ali says his father sent his mother back to Gujranwala a few days ago. They have yet to tell her that her son died in such a horrific manner.

Both Kashif and Farooq were buried in Bahrain.

Another victim of the protestors’ wrath was the 54-year-old Saifullah Mohammad Ibrahim, who remains in critical condition after being severely injured in the attacks.

He worked in the police department and moved from Punjab decades ago, to settle in Bahrain.

“When [the protestors] took my uncle to the Lulu roundabout, they not only tortured him, but also heckled him for being a Pakistani,” said Maheen, a relative of Saifullah.

While humiliating him, the protesters chanted “Down down Pakistan, go back to your country,” Maheen added.

At least four Bahrainis of Pakistani origin have been reportedly killed and several dozens injured in the on-going crisis.

The security situation in the country remains volatile even though the state claimed that the protest was successfully being put down by Arab League-backed troops.

The main worry, however, for the Pakistani expatriates, is that the friction that this crisis has created in the Bahraini society will take years to repair.

When asked whether his family was considering leaving Bahrain for good, Ali said that although they were in shock, no one is thinking about leaving Bahrain or going back to Pakistan.

We were born and brought up in Bahrain, how could we just leave our home like that, he said.

“I’m going nowhere. I will join the police force like Kashif,” he added.

U.S.-Pakistan relations better than they look

Given the high-decibel volume of the row over Raymond Davis, the CIA contractor who shot dead two Pakistanis in Lahore in January, it would be tempting to assume that overall relations between Pakistan and the United States are the worst they have been in years.

At a strategic level, however, there’s actually rather greater convergence of views than there has been for a very long time.

In a speech last month, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took a step closer towards meeting Pakistan’s own call for a political settlement in Afghanistan through negotiations with Taliban insurgents which would force al Qaeda to leave the region. It was time, she said, “to get serious about a responsible reconciliation process, led by Afghans and supported by intense regional diplomacy and strong U.S.-backing.”

“Now, I know that reconciling with an adversary that can be as brutal as the Taliban sounds distasteful, even unimaginable. And diplomacy would be easy if we only had to talk to our friends. But that is not how one makes peace,” she said.

Her speech coincided with a report that the United States had begun secret face-to-face talks with representatives of the Taliban for the first time since the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

Clinton also acknowledged Pakistan’s concerns about Indian influence in Afghanistan. “We look to them – and all of Afghanistan’s neighbours – to respect Afghanistan’s sovereignty, which means agreeing not to play out their rivalries within its borders, and to support reconciliation and efforts to ensure that al-Qaida and the syndicate of terrorism is denied safe haven everywhere. Afghanistan, in turn, must not allow its territory to be used against others.” Her choice of language was unusual in that it equated both India and Pakistan – traditionally Islamabad has been condemned for unhelpful interference in Afghanistan, while New Delhi has insisted it is interested only in helping Afghan development.

Western officials also say they believe Pakistan, which once looked to use Afghanistan for “strategic depth” against India, has scaled back its ambitions into seeing stability there as an end itself. Pakistani officials have been saying for a while they would settle for a “stable” rather than “friendly” Afghanistan.

At a senior level, Pakistan and the United States have also built good working relations among their top officials – U.S. commanders met Pakistan Army chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani in Oman last week in the latest of a series of meetings to build understanding between the two militaries.

I’m told that neither country wants the relationship to be completely derailed by the row over Davis, who Washington insists has diplomatic immunity from prosecution in Pakistan, an assertion contested by Islamabad.

That does not mean the row is not serious. For the United States, any refusal to recognise what it sees as diplomatic immunity touches a raw nerve, evoking bad memories of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, which continues to sour relations with Tehran to this day. For Pakistan, the idea that an American CIA contractor might kill two Pakistanis with impunity (Davis says it was in self-defence) adds to its sense of being a bullied and subservient ally, rather than a respected partner.

In Pakistan, the media has whipped up anti-Americanism to fever pitch over the Davis case. The military establishment, and in particular the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, has been accused in the past of using the media to bolster its position in arguments with the United States. And the ISI has been unusually public this time around in expressing its frustration with what has always been a tetchy relationship with the CIA.

In the United States, the row has intensifies doubts about Pakistan as a strategic partner – a relationship which many already find hard to understand.

But it does mean that both are keen to find a solution. One idea doing the rounds would be for Pakistan to release Davis in return for a commitment that he be tried in the United States. Various other ideas are also being floated in the media, including payment of compensation to the families of the Pakistanis killed. “The idea is to find a solution whereby the Davis incident does not hijack the U.S.-Pakistan relationship,” The Cable quoted a senior Pakistani official as saying.

Brainwashing drives young Pakistan suicide bombers

A boy who killed 31 army cadets probably had all the characteristics that make Pakistan’s young suicide bombers so dangerous — they are thoroughly brainwashed, poor, disciplined and hard to detect.

Police survey the site of a railway line which is destroyed in an explosion in Karachi February 11, 2011.

Police officials are running DNA tests on what is left of the young holy warrior’s legs and scalp to determine his background and age, but they suspect he could be between 12 and 15.

Pakistan, a strategic U.S. ally, faces ruthless and cunning Taliban militants determined to destabilize the government. Young suicide bombers are one of their most chilling weapons.

“We are alarmed. We plan to beef up our security even more to avert such attacks,” said Zeeshan Khan, a senior police official in Mardan, the town where the cadets were killed on Thursday.

“If incidents like this happen — involving a child who is clad in a school uniform — the implications are wider now. We have to look into this aspect.”

Pakistan’s al Qaeda-linked Taliban movement, which remains a major threat to Pakistan’s security despite military offensives against it, wasted no time in claiming responsibility for the attack on an army recruitment center.

What makes a Pakistani child trade in his school books for a suicide vest? Experts say it’s a combination of factors but the common denominator is poverty in the South Asian country.

Many can’t afford to send their children to good schools.

So they are enrolled in extremist religious seminaries that first began churning out youngsters eager for jihad in the 1980s to help the Afghan mujahideen fight Soviet occupation.

They are instilled with the discipline of a soldier in the schools, known as madrassas, and guided by shrewd clerics who persuade them they are on a glorious path to heaven.

“The 12-year-old boy (suicide bomber) was probably inducted into a madrassa for the last five to 10 years,” said psychiatrist Razwan Taj, who has treated young boys militants tried to recruit.

“That means he (a cleric) has plenty of time to mold him to his way of thinking. The child sees no life outside the madrassa. It is everything. It is the provider of food, of an education, of social security. It’s the world he knows.”

More and more young Pakistanis will study at those seminaries unless the government invests in the country’s crumbling education system and creates more jobs.

That is unlikely to happen anytime soon because the government has limited resources. The stagnant economy is being kept afloat by an $11 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) emergency loan.

The stakes are high. The United States sees nuclear-armed Pakistan as a critical ally in its global war on terror, so a growing threat from young suicide bombers is alarming for policy-makers in Washington.

Once children graduate from the seminaries, they are mentally primed to join militant groups, who give them rigorous training.

“They keep them in isolation, secluded from other people like foot soldiers. Only three to four people are allowed to meet them,” said Abdul Basit, an expert on suicide bombings at the Pak Institute for Peace Studies in Islamabad.

“They are told they are God’s chosen people who have been selected to this holy and sacred job of waging a holy war for the glory of the religion.”

Most Pakistanis reject the Taliban’s version of Islam which allows for public beheadings and lashings for those deemed immoral. The Taliban often blow up girls’ schools.

But Pakistanis understand that openly challenging their ideology can be risky. Parents who oppose recruitment of their children for jihad sometimes pay a heavy price.

“If someone does not send their child for training, jihad, then they would be reprimanded. They are forced to leave the region or their houses are bombed or one of their relatives is killed,” said Basit.

“They can also bomb their homes.”

After years of indoctrination, carrying out the actual suicide attack seems like the easy part. The Mardan bomber was likely pretending to be student on his way to class at a school located in the military compound.

To get a uniform, all he had to do was walk through the bustle of the main market past fish vendors, restaurants and electronics joints and purchase the outfit at a shop.

Until the government offers impoverished Pakistanis a brighter future, the cycle that leads some young people to blow themselves up won’t let up.

“A lot of girls and boys tend to want to leave (madrassas) and when their families refuse to take them back or can’t afford to take them back then they react in different ways,” said Taj.

“We are presented with odd behavior such as strange talking or they become mute. Or they start to have histrionic fits which appear like epilepsy but are not.”

Davis’ is the missing link of US support for ‘TTP’ terror in Pakistan

RUPEE NEWS

Undoubtedly this is the biggest scandal in US Foreign relations since the US was shot down by the Soviets in the sixties. Then, as now, both sides played out the drama in an iterative manner-neither side letting the other know how much they know.

‘Davis’ is the missing link to US support for ‘TTP’ terror in Pakistan

There are clear indications that there is much more to the “Raymond Davis” affair than the Pakistanis are letting on. THis isn’t about murder and diplomatic immunity. This is mush bigger. Something is very wrong with this picture, and Islamabad is tight lipped because it now has concrete evidence that Mr “Raymond Davis” is linked with the Tehrik e Taliban e Pakistan (TTP) and some of the terror activities that have been happening in Pakistan. The Pakistanis are not stupid. Americans stick out like sore thumbs in Pakistan. When they go running around in their black SUVs laced with Satellite equipment they are tracked, traced and followed. In a cat and mouse game, the contractors can sometimes shake their “tails”. On other occasions they cannot. In fact the ISI gives them enough rope to hang themselves with. In this case, it seems Mr. Davis fell into a trap and his situation is now fully compromised. In panic Mr. “Davis” used the Nuclear option and killed the two Pakistanis who were trailing him-knowing full well that killing Pakistani spies or those who knew his identity would blow up in this face. He doesn’t have to say much-the equipment he carried tells a long and bloody story. All this is irrefutable evidence in a Pakistani court of law. The Pakistanis have already released the pictures of the equipment and the evidence that they have gathered. Of course they are still holding on to the juiciest details.

The US has postponed the Afghan-Pakistan-US Trilateral meeting, dropped hints about postponing the date of Mr. Zardari’s visit to the US, and floated all sorts of other threats. Normally Islamabad would have been cognizant of the the problems of spoiling its relationship with the sole Superpower. However the smirking Pakistanis are so confident in the validity of their cause, that they are letting the US escalate the issue.

Pakistan has ignored some of the US pressure and has not buckled under intense US pressure. Both General Kayani and Former Foreign Minister Mahmood Qureshi were not very impressed by US posturing. In fact right after their threatening phone calls and messages Islamabad formally charged Davis with pre-meditated murder in the Lahore High Court. The Court promptly remanded Mr. “Davis” to prison for another 14 days of interrogation. There were stories that if Mr. “Davis” does not cooperate, the interrogation would have been upgraded to level 3 (a euphemism for torture). There are reports that despite admonitions from the US Embassy, Mr. Davis is singing like a bird, and has already given enough information to the Pakistanis to get him convicted in any court of law.

The Former Foreign Minister Qureshi publicly confirmed that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pressured him to “publicly confirm diplomatic immunity of Davis. However, I refused to do so because it was against the factual position in the case.” FM Qureshi’s confirmation that Mr “Davis” is not a diplomat was repeatedly discussed on all 80 TV channels with copies of his passports and visas prominently displayed for the audience. Mr. Quresh said that
“The kind of blanket immunity Washington is pressing for Davis is not endorsed by the official record of the Foreign Ministry,” adding that Washington even “threatened that Hillary Clinton would not meet me at the Munich conference on February 6 if the request was not granted.”

The situation is so polarized that even traditional US allies in Pakistan have condemned the intrusive murders. Mr. Pervez Hoodbhoy who almost never criticizes the US has condemned the “Davis” affair. The PMLN is of course threatened the PPP with a vote of no-confidence.

It is clear that Mr. “Davis” shot the Pakistani operatives knowing full well who they were. The Pakistani authorities have informed the the media that they are very well aware that Mr. Davis was in touch with the “Pakistani Taliban” (TTP). There is conjecture that Mr. “Davis” walked into a trap laid out by the ISI. In fact his contacts were actually ISI agents. All that he said and did is in the hands of the Pakistanis. Mr. “Davis” thought that by shooting the two operatives, he would eliminate the evidence against him. In fact, it made matters worse. Other operatives who were in the vicinity had already taken the necessary precautions. The ISI has leaked information to the media that Mr. “Davis” had crossed a “red line”.

Clearly, the Americans have panicked because the know that the Pakistani side knows much more than it is prepared to admit in public. This is typical behavior when spies are caught with their thumbs up their noses. There are clear indications that Mr. “Davis” has broken down after sustained interrogation in police custody, and has spilled his guts-making the Pakistanis aware of explosive stuff. Its not that this stuff has surprised the Pakistanis. When you have 3000 of these guys running around the country-something gives. The ISI is one of the world’s most powerful spy organizations in the world. It has deep roots in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Nothing that crawls or walks in Pakistan is hidden from the ISI and other agencies. On top of this there is a million man Pakistani army. 180 million Pakistanis are also watching the Americans and reporting on them. The panicked Americans have continually given highly contradictory versions about Mr. “Davis’s” identity and the nature of his assignment in Pakistan.

It is very clear that Mr. “Davis’s” discovery and detention has sent alarm bells ringing all the way to President Obama’s White House. In a way the Pakistanis are amused. They know they have the Americans where they want them-right up against the wall. The Americans are fully aware that the “Davis” case is shaking the very foundations of the transactional relationship with Pakistan. While the CIA, the State Department and the White House think that this is a new discovery-the Pakistanis point to a long trail of evidence that directly points to the US consultants and their hirelings in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The ISI and the Army believe that at the right time, the details of what the Pakistanis know will be revealed to President Obama and the world.

Pakistan and Pakistanis have known for a long time who is behind the TTP (Tehrik e Taliban e Pakistani). Its not that hard to guess. What surprised the Pakistanis was their ability to inflict bloody attacks on the Pakistani military in order to destabilize Pakistani. Mr. Davis is not an isolated incident-there is a history behind much of what is happening in Pakistan-most of which can be correlated to the rise of the US “consultants” and “contractors” in Pakistan. It is pedagogical to note that last year when the ISI put in requests for deep security checks on those coming into Pakistan-the US put up a hissy fit and forced about 500 of these “Davis types” through without any background checks. Is is noted that the ISI became very suspicious of the insistence of the US in getting these guys into Pakistan at short notice. These guys got very special attention-and that has paid off in the arrest and detention of Mr. Davis. This points to the fact that this incident was not just an accident-it was an incident waiting to happen. The ISI was ready to pounce on the situation once it happened.

Pakistan has been very suspicious of these “contractors” especially when Pakistani state institutions were attacked. The attacks on the the Army HQ, and the ISI sent alarm bells among the rank and file of the Pakistani government. The vibrant Pakistani press has also been on the trail and has repeatedly pointed out the facts about the former Afghan intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh (who was eventually fired by Mr. Karzai). However the US security establishment was in cahoots with him.

The Pakistani military and its highly efficient intelligence set-up had concluded a very long time ago that the TTP was being aided by the very sort of free-wheeling “contractors” that Mr. Davis represents. It was just a matter of time when things came to a boil. It is amazing that the Americans are surprised they have finally be caught red-handed. This has happened in the past, but during the reign of President Musharraf, the Americans got away with it and escaped. This time Mr. “Davis” was caught with his hands in the cookie jar.

Over 100,000 American troops in Afghanistan facing the new Taliban “Spring Offensive” are totally dependent on supplies running through Pakistan. The last time Pakistan shut off the spigot, the Americans ran out of toilet paper and had to cut down on food rations. It must have been hard eating food with dirty hands! If the tiff between the US and Pakistan is not resolved the US may face the consequences in Afghanistan. Failure in the Hindu Kush will certainly impact the presidential elections in 2012.

Dubious Doings

By Ghalib Sultan
ZoneAsia-Pk

A consequence of the Lahore incident (in which a US national shot two Pakistanis dead and then unidentified, possibly US nationals, killed another Pakistani while trying to take away the one who had done the killing) is the firm media and public focus on US activities in Pakistan and questions about their intentions. Such doubts, misgivings, suspicions and rumors had been on the periphery but now they are center stage. At first they were based on police-US nationals’ encounters on the streets with the US nationals refusing to come out of their fortified vehicles as they disregarded local laws, now there is a serious incident and the proverbial cat is out of the bag.

The first ambiguity under discussion is the US policy to employ Drones for targeted killings in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The general perception is that these are being carried out under a US-Pakistan agreement that is best described as ‘accept and facilitate but deny and condemn’ on the Pakistan side and ‘continue but downplay and do not discuss’ on the US side. Reports of such attacks are now reported as a routine by the media and the public has been conditioned to accept them as unavoidable, even helpful in the fight against terror. Criticism is muted and there are reports from the US that technological improvements have made collateral damage minimal. There has been no denial of media reports that such a policy exists. Perhaps it is time to reevaluate the policy and then remove ambiguities and state the facts.

The next widely held perception is that US Special Forces and CIA personnel have been given access to locate and take out terrorists within Pakistan. The exact extent of this access and how it is being used by the US is not clear. A report in the media indicating such an arrangement has not been denied. There have been many incidents in the past of US personnel stopped by police at check points refusing to submit to local laws. The ‘Davis’ incident was simply waiting to happen and there is no doubt that ‘Davis’ is a trained operative on a special mission under cover. The problem is that for the US he is a hero-someone operating behind ‘enemy’ lines in most hazardous circumstances. For Pakistanis he is a killer who was up to no good and the same goes for his ‘accomplices’. The fact that those killed may have been robbers or his contacts or intelligence personnel tailing him have all become secondary-he has become the symbol of US high handedness and tyranny against which Pakistan must stand up. The chance to nip the problem right at the outset has passed because the US representation in Pakistan flip flopped and did not cooperate. Public opinion and media power were grossly under rated and are still not being acknowledged because pressures and threats are aggravating the situation.

Finally there are the questions that will not go away and are now center stage; whose war are we fighting in FATA? Would there have been a conflict in FATA and urban violence if we were not seen as US allies? Is the rise of religious extremism and polarization in society linked to our alliance with the US in Afghanistan? Can we manage without a partnership with the US and aid? Should ‘Davis’ be handed over to the US if diplomatic immunity is proved or even if it is not proved? These questions are being asked and debated. Answers have to be found and a comprehensive and factual narrative should emerge. On this depends the future of the US-Pakistan relationship and internal harmony within Pakistan.

The ‘Davis’ affair has highlighted the fragility of Pakistan’s predicament. This should be a wake-up call. Pakistan needs to mobilize its resources to break free of the aid trap and learn to stand on its own feet. Till that happens we need to prepare for the worst and be ready to face hardship. Already the pressures are mounting and the first target seems to be our nuclear energy plans.