Al-Qaeda’s War of Villages – Omar Fadhil, Wall Street Journal
The latest chapter in al Qaeda's war manual in their war against the Iraqi people and the Coalition is this: raiding remote peaceful villages, burning down homes and slaughtering both man and beast. It's a campaign of self destruction.
For about a year al Qaeda has been trying to build a so called Islamic State in Iraq. On several occasions al Qaeda has even declared parts of Baghdad or other places in other provinces the capital of this Islamic State.
But now that they are losing one base after another, their objective seems to have changed from adding more towns and villages to the "state" to destroying the very same towns and villages. Obviously, it's all about making headlines regardless of the means to do that.
This change in plans began to take shape with the battle between al Qaeda and the joint forces on Sept. 6 and 7 in Hor Rijab and then the massacre that followed in the same spot a week later and finally the attacks on other villages north, south and east of Baghdad in the last week or so.
Actually first I'd like to recommend reading a good post by Jules Crittenden about the flawed timing of this "Little Tet".
Anyway, our interest today is more about the field situation and strategy than about timing since the latter seems to be not so friendly to al Qaeda. Well, actually timing is very important here too but at a rather different level. In my opinion al Qaeda found itself forced to start this villages war. It wasn't a choice as much as a last resort because villages are among the few fighting spaces that al Qaeda can still utilize as large cities become increasingly difficult for them to operate in. They know that without engaging the enemy--that's us by the way--their existence and influence would end and I'm almost positive that they feel bitter about having to fight this way…
Qaeda on the Run – Amir Taheri, New York Post
Unknown gunmen murdered Muhammad Gul Aghasi - one of the key "theologians" of al Qaeda - at a mosque in northern Syria last month. Candidates for the fiery preacher's killing include rivals within his own radical group, agents of the Americans - and his Syrian hosts. Whatever the truth, this is bad news for the already ailing al Qaeda.
Born in 1973, Aghasi, who was of mixed Kurdish-Turkmen ethnic stock, studied Islamic theology in Damascus in the 1990s before traveling to Pakistan, where he established contact with the Taliban and al Qaeda. In 2004, having returned to his Syrian hometown, he created the Ghuraba al-Shaam (Aliens of the Levant), with the declared aim of recruiting, training and arming jihadists to fight against the new Iraqi government and the U.S.-led Coalition forces…
The Reality in Iraq? Depends on Who’s Counting – Clark Hoyt, New York Times
A total of 1,654 Iraqi civilians were killed last month, according to a Times report that quoted an Interior Ministry official. Or the total was 1,280, according to the British group Iraq Body Count. Or 884 (Reuters), or 827 (The Washington Post, quoting the Health Ministry).
Welcome to the confusing world of statistics from Iraq, where news organizations disagree with one another, the news pages of The Times have disagreed with its Op-Ed page, and the Pentagon has appeared to disagree with its own top commander in Baghdad.
Even the most careful reader is left to wonder what the truth is — whether violence in Iraq is really decreasing and whether President Bush's surge of added American troops is working.
A debate over the numbers — and what they mean — has intensified since Gen. David H. Petraeus, the United States commander in Iraq, testified to Congress on Sept. 10 that civilian deaths had fallen by more than 45 percent since December. Civilian deaths are an especially important barometer, because when Bush announced the surge in January, he said it would reduce violence against ordinary Iraqis so that the country could begin to work out its political problems in relative security…
Ending Iraq’s Impasse – London Times leader
When Gordon Brown produces his statement on Iraq in the House of Commons this afternoon, there may be many looking for signs that he will end Britain’s military involvement in that country sooner rather than later. Developments on the ground, however, suggest that a more measured approach would be appropriate. The military benefits of the US surge are beginning to be matched by real internal political progress. This tentative advance would, though, be undermined by a premature British departure.
The understanding reached between Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and the renegade cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his supporters is of immense potential significance. It has been the bloody rivalry between these factions, supplemented by the activities of Iran and its sympathis-ers, that have made southern Iraq such challenging territory for the British Army. Much of the fighting between them has been clandestine but burst into the open spectacularly in August with a brutal battle in the holy Shia city of Karbala that left 52 dead, 300 injured and sites of reverence desecrated. In the aftermath, Hojatoleslam al-Sadr was compelled to place his al-Mahdi Army on ceasefire, a pact that applied to US forces as well as his Shia opponents…
A Decent Outcome for Iraq - Fouad Ajami, US News and World Report
Peace has not come to the streets of Baghdad, but the center holds. Our very American "benchmarks" for measuring the progress of Iraq can't capture the reality of that land. There is no "oil law," it is true, but the oil bounty is being shared equitably across the regions. The Iraqi government, through a relentless insurgency, maintains and meets a payroll for 3.4 million of its citizens. And in the provinces, there is a scramble for budgets and economic projects. "A year ago, we could not give money to the provincial governors; they could not use it. Now they are in competition for funds, and economic life stirs," Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh, who oversees the service sector of the government, said to me.
We ask of the Iraqis "national reconciliation" and bemoan their inability to offer it in ways we can recognize, but a broad, subtle national accord is settling upon the land. The Kurds want (and have) their autonomy but have no eagerness to break out on their own to face alone the schemes of the Iranians, the Turks, and the Syrians. The Shiites have prevailed in the war for Baghdad; primacy in the government is increasingly theirs. The Sunni Arabs know that they have lost their war against this new Iraq, that the bet they placed on al Qaeda and neighboring Sunni Arab nations has been lost…
Accountability on the Battlefield – New York Times editorial
It is clear by now that the Blackwater guards operating in Iraq have been allowed to run amok with no concern about being held accountable under the law. Congress has begun the process of revoking that dangerous immunity. It needs to quickly pass a strong law, and then it must ensure that contractors are held accountable for lawless actions in war zones.
On Thursday, the House of Representatives passed a bill introduced by David Price, Democrat of North Carolina, to rein in contractors like Blackwater USA. The vote was 389-30. The bill would ensure that all contractors working for the American government in a conflict zone are put under the jurisdiction of American criminal courts, and it would require the F.B.I. to deploy units in conflict areas to investigate contractor crimes…
Playing Politics with Blackwater – Robert Novak, Washington Post
A month after voters last year gave Democrats the control that would elevate Nancy Pelosi to speaker of the House, Pelosi received a letter from a trial lawyer in Santa Ana, Calif., named Daniel J. Callahan. "We look forward," he wrote, "to the New Direction of America, and to your dedication to putting an end to the fleecing of the American taxpayers and death to its citizens in the name of war profiteers such as Blackwater." That plea was answered last week with House hearings.
Callahan did not disguise his political orientation, requesting a full-scale investigation of an "extremely Republican" company: Blackwater Security Consulting, which provides security guards in Iraq. He asked Pelosi to investigate "now that there has been a shift in power in Congress." It took nearly a year for Chairman Henry Waxman to find a peg for holding a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing last Tuesday…
The Guards Run the Show in Iran - Abbas William Samii, Christian Science Monitor
In recent weeks, as Washington ratcheted up pressure to designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, officials throughout Iran sprang to its defense. The sermon by Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati last month was typical. The corps "is not separate from the people," Mr. Jannati told the congregation. "Are you introducing the 70 million people living in this country as terrorists?"
This public embrace makes devising effective sanctions against the corps problematic. Still, the United States must find a way to contain the Guards – they help run Iran's nuclear program, have a hand in killing US soldiers in Iraq, and are playing an increasingly prominent role in Iranian politics.
The corps was created shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution because the loyalty of the conventional armed forces was in doubt – the officers were suspected of harboring monarchist sympathies, and those who had undergone training in the US or Europe were viewed as potential foreign agents.
The result was two parallel military institutions with distinct responsibilities. The corps is responsible for protecting "the revolution and its achievements," according to Iran's constitution, whereas the conventional military is tasked with protecting the country's independence and territorial integrity…
The Stakes at the Mideast Summit – Boston Globe editorial
There are many reasons to be skeptical about next month's Mideast peace conference in Annapolis, Md. The political frailty of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government, the fractured condition of the Palestinian Authority, the six years President Bush wasted refusing to emulate Bill Clinton's attempts to broker an Israel-Palestinian agreement - these are only some of the most obvious grounds for doubting that anything of value will come from the conference.
Still, there is a chance to make the conference a success. The weakness of Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas could be converted into an incentive to accept the historic compromises needed for peace. And something similar is true of Bush, whose blunders in the Middle East have empowered Iran, brought Al Qaeda into the heartland of the Arab world, and identified the United States with torture, Guantanamo, and scorn for the rule of law. All three leaders need a peacemaking achievement…
There is No Defence Against These Children of Death – Robert Baer, London Times
… I used to work for the CIA in the Middle East. In the CIA I saw terrible things but Farman’s indoctrination was a new twist in the depths of human depravity; recruiting an ignorant child for his own remotely-controlled death. In the CIA my job was to stop terrorist organisations from attacking the United States and its interests. I used to recruit agents inside those terrorist organisations to gain intelligence.
And I know personally about the cost of intelligence failures. Six of my CIA colleagues died in the first suicide-bomb attack on a Western target in the bombing of our Beirut embassy in April 1983.
I’ve left the CIA but for the past three years I’ve gone back on the intelligence trail to investigate the cult of the suicide bomber. That journey has taken me through Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and on to the grim back streets of Leeds, where the suicide bombers of July 7, 2005, came from. Along the way I have interviewed dozens of members of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Western intelligence chiefs and failed suicide bombers and their families…
Storm Clouds Over Pakistan – Washington Times editorial
President Pervez Musharraf's landslide victory in Saturday's election should also remind Americans of the difficult political predicament faced by the general — a relatively moderate, pro-U.S. authoritarian attempting to lead a nation that is an international nerve center of al Qaeda activity. Gen. Musharraf's win resulted in part from the unexpected boycott of the vote by politicians loyal to former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Although Gen. Musharraf on Friday signed an amnesty agreement permitting her to return to Pakistan without facing corruption charges, Mrs. Bhutto failed to win her other demands, including her insistence that the general resign as army chief before the vote. (Gen. Musharraf has pledged to retire from the army by Nov. 15 if he is sworn in as president.) The election results will not become official until Pakistan's Supreme Court issues its ruling on challenges to the balloting, which is expected to happen Oct. 17…
Benazir Bhutto Can Help Deliver Long-overdue Border Deals - Bronwen Maddox, London Times
Pakistan’s courts have hardly made its political crisis clearer, but the one person who has gained most from their latest decision is probably Benazir Bhutto. Such an outcome still has the support of Britain and the US, for one bad reason — that it represents stability even if not democracy; and one good reason — that it offers a chance to settle the Kashmir dispute with India and agree a formal border with Afghanistan.
This weekend was to have marked President Musharraf’s re-election — seen widely as a formality, given the majority his supporters command in the national Parliament and provincial assemblies. His opponents have long denounced the vote as a charade, because he has insisted he remain head of the army through the election, and because he would not submit himself to the verdict of the new assemblies that will be elected next year, and which may be less under his thumb than the current ones…
As Lebanon Goes… - Jackson Diehl, Washington Post
Lebanon has long been described as a theater where the larger tensions and conflicts of the Middle East are played out in miniature, and in the past three years its drama has seemed particularly representative. When the Bush administration's push for democracy appeared to be gaining momentum in 2005, Lebanese responded to the assassination of their prime minister with a classic "people power" revolution, and a relatively democratic election installed a pro-Western government. When Syria and Iran launched their own offensive in 2006, Lebanon became both a staging point and a strategic target: After starting a summer war with Israel, the Hezbollah movement tried using its own street revolt to topple the government in Beirut.
For the past year, Lebanon, like the Middle East, has endured a tense and dangerous stalemate between the forces of Damascus and Tehran, spearheaded by Hezbollah, and those of the United States, Europe and Sunni-ruled Arab states such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which are backing the government of Fouad Siniora. Middle East analysts and many Lebanese tend to shruggingly conclude that nothing can be resolved until the larger regional standoff is settled -- or one side decisively gains the upper hand…
The Shell Game – James Zumwalt, Washington Times
The "Shell Game" has been around for centuries. Using three empty half-shells and a pea, a con artist places the pea under one of them, in full view of the audience. With lightning speed, he shuffles the order of the shells, pausing to ask a gullible bettor under which shell the pea could be found. The con artist's sleight of hand always is quicker than the bettor's eye. Only after the duped bettor chooses a shell that always turns up empty does the con artist then effect the pea's reappearance under a different one.
Interestingly, an international shell game of sorts, played by nations unfriendly to the U.S. and Israel, may well have prompted the latter's attack early last month against Syria. And, if true, it raises the specter that a similar shell game, played four years earlier, may have duped an unwitting U.S. as well.
After 34 years of peace with Syria, what kind of threat would have prompted Israel to take military action against Damascus? The attack by Israeli aircraft on a target in northern Syria has been followed by unusual silence. The normal tendency is for an aggrieved state to muster international criticism against the attacking state, unless the former has something to hide. But Damascus remains eerily silent while Israel — the constant target of international criticism — receives no condemnation. (Apparently, what happens in Syria, stays in Syria)…
Peace Seekers in the Koreas – Christian Science Monitor editorial
Kim Jong Il once penned a book for journalists that offered such silly advice as "how to keep one's notebook dry during a rainstorm." With North Korea's "Dear Leader" now inking agreements with the US and South Korea, journalists may want a new book that will reveal if Mr. Kim really seeks peace, come rain or come shine.
The separate agreements that Kim endorsed this week look very good on paper, two in particular:
1) North Korea promised to quickly dismantle key portions of its nuclear program and publicly account for all past nuclear activities, including bombs like the one it tested underground a year ago;
2) Kim declared jointly with South Korea's president that a peace treaty should be negotiated soon to end the no-war-no-peace armistice that has kept the Korean Peninsula in its own little cold war for 54 years.
The first agreement will likely receive the most attention in Washington. Legitimate US concerns remain that North Korea might sell nuclear advice and technology to other countries or terrorist groups. In fact, a Sept. 6 Israeli air attack on a building in Syria was reportedly in response to intelligence that North Korea was sharing nuclear know-how with the Arab state…
Kim Jong-Il’s Last Card - Jason Shaplen and James Laney, New York Times
One year ago tomorrow, North Korea conducted its first nuclear test, a small explosion that established it as the newest member of the world’s nuclear club. Strangely, since then, the prospects for peace and stability in northeastern Asia have never been better. North Korea’s agreement, last week, to disable all its nuclear facilities by year’s end is the biggest step so far in the right direction.
The nuclear test seemed to give President Bush focus. He took control of his administration’s policy toward the North, ending a six-year feud between hard-line conservatives who favor the collapse of Kim Jong-il’s regime and others who favor negotiation. Eager for a foreign policy success before leaving office, Mr. Bush granted substantial negotiating power to Christopher R. Hill, the State Department’s point person on North Korea, and instructed him to reach a deal…
E-war Rules of Engagement – Duncan Hollis, Los Angeles Times
Estonia claimed to be under attack last spring, but not by guns or bombs. This assault came in the form of data requests from more than a million computers. It overwhelmed the Baltic nation's computer networks, crashing e-mail for its parliament, taking down emergency phone lines and freezing online services of government offices, banks, universities and hospitals. Estonia accused Russia of conducting a cyberwar in retaliation for a decision to move a Soviet-era war memorial. The Russian government denied involvement.
Likewise, last month when hackers somewhere in China infiltrated a U.S. Defense Department network, Chinese officials denied its army had any role. (British, French, German and New Zealand officials have complained of similar China-based hacking.) Though no one accused China of acts of war, both events revealed how the Internet is reshaping warfare.
The Internet creates real risks for societies dependent on information networks. Just last March, in an experimental cyberattack, researchers at the Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory managed to make a generator self-destruct. So computer attacks don't just threaten other computers but the larger infrastructure. Viruses could become as dangerous as missiles. At the same time, cyberattacks have the potential to minimize the costs of conflict in lives and dollars. Instead of demolishing an electrical grid, cyberattacks offer militaries the option of disabling it temporarily…
A Dutch Retreat on Speech? – Anne Applebaum, Washington Post
And now we come to what may be a truly fundamental test, maybe even a turning point, for that part of the world generally known as the West.
The test is this: Are prominent, articulate critics of radical Islam, critics who happen to be citizens of European countries or the United States, entitled to the same free speech rights enjoyed by other citizens of European countries and the United States?
Legally, of course they are. In practice, they can say what they want -- and then they can be murdered for doing so. That means that Western governments have a special and unusual responsibility to them, as many have long acknowledged. It is no accident that the writer Salman Rushdie, upon whom the Ayatollah Khomeini declared a fatwa on Feb. 14, 1989, is still very much alive. Though the details have not been publicized, it is assumed that Rushdie remains, one way or another, under the protection of the British police and secret services, both in Britain and abroad. This protection is completely uncontroversial -- in June, the queen even gave Rushdie a knighthood-- and as a result the fatwa has not prevented him from speaking, writing, publishing, even divorcing and remarrying several times over the past 18 years…
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