Sarkozy’s Office Claims Libyan “Al-Qaeda” Leader Rehabilitated

French Taunt

France defends Libyan ex-jihadi rebel commander

President Nicolas Sarkozy’s office defended on Wednesday a Libyan rebel commander who once reportedly led a jihadi group with ties to Al Qaeda, insisting Libya’s revolution is not led by Islamists.

A senior official in the Elysee told AFP that Sarkozy’s senior own military aide had met Adbelhakim Belhadj, the rebel commander who led the assault on Moamer Kadhafi’s bunker complex, and had no concerns about his affiliations.

Previously, Belhadj was reportedly “emir” of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group — an Islamist guerrilla movement once allied to the Al Qaeda network — and he was arrested in Malaysia in 2004 on suspicion of extremist activity.

After his arrest he was said to have been interrogated by the US Central Intelligence Agency before being sent back to be jailed in Libya.

Belhadj renounced violence while a prisoner of Moamer Kadhafi’s government and was released in March 2010. This year he joined the revolution against the regime and is now commander of the rebel fighters in control of Tripoli.

His return to the frontline has raised concerns in some quarters that the revolution against Kadhafi, which was warmly supported by France and several other Western countries, might include un-democratic forces.

But the Elysee official, speaking on condition on anonymity, insisted France has no concerns about Belhadj nor about the National Transitional Council, the rebel political body now recognised as Libya’s interim government.

“As it happens, the head of the president’s military staff met him very recently, and was able to form the personal opinion of him that does not correspond at all to the accusations against him,” he said.

The official did not say where the meeting took place, but last week Belhadj attended a conference of the Libya contact group in Doha, Qatar, and Sarkozy’s military head of staff General Benoit Puga could have met him there.

“There is a very important distinction between practising Muslims and Islamists who want to lead a jihad,” the Elysee source said, insisting that the CNT was neither infiltrated nor controlled by extremist elements.

“There may be cells but we are certain of one thing: They neither represent a threat nor a large slice of Libyan public. We are not worried,” he said.

“There are a lot of fantasies. There are religious people in the NTC, but that doesn’t make them Islamists.”

When the Libya revolt erupted in March, Kadhafi and his son Saif Al-Islam branded the rebels Al-Qaeda operatives, an allegation firmly denied by the NTC and its supporters, who have promised to form a broad-based government.

A rebel spokesman in Tripoli has denied that Belhadj has a jihadi agenda, insisting that shares the NTC’s “moderate” vision of a democratic Libya.

Like Al-Qaeda, the LIFG was formed by former Muslim volunteers who fought the Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1990s. Its leadership split from that of Al-Qaeda, but its members have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.

NATO Propaganda Leaflets Found in Tripoli

The existence of the fliers, urging soldiers to give up, suggest greater Western involvement in the Libyan conflict

Marc Herman

TRIPOLI, Libya — These two fliers were provided by a member of the neighborhood militia in Gorji, in central Tripoli. Tripoli residents say they found them on the ground starting at least two months ago.

Though certainly less lethal than bombs, the leaflets, which bear NATO insignias, are only slightly subtler. The above leaflet shows an unmanned drone and an aerial view of a tank. The text takes a position of overwhelming force, declaring, in somewhat stilted Arabic, “Warning: You are neither a match nor an equivalent to the superior weapon systems and air force of NATO. Continuing to do what you are doing will result in your death.” The flip side shows the tank blown up and repeats the promise of death if they do not stop fighting.

The above translation is courtesy of Uri Horesh, former military translator and director of the Arabic Language Program at Franklin & Marshall College. “This was not written by skilled Arabic writers with good knowledge of how to write about military topics in idiomatic Arabic,” Horesh added. “NATO needs some training on this front, it seems.”

The second, white leaflet, pictured here, issues the following warning in legalistic language:

Dear officers and soldiers of the Libyan Army, the International Criminal Court has indicted Gaddafi for committing crimes against humanity in Libya. It is advisable that officers and soldiers of the Libyan Army refrain from carrying out Gaddafi’s orders and committing any military actions against the Libyan people. Any officer or soldier who commits crimes against humanity shall be in violation of International Law. Many officers and soldiers have chosen to stand against Gaddafi’s orders and refrain from fighting against innocent civilians. Do join these men for a prosperous, peaceful future for Libya.

The flip side depicts a collage of images depicting loyalist and anti-Qaddafi forces squaring off, and places Qaddafi opposite the image of Omar Muqtar, a Libyan independence hero. The text between them is a quotation attributed to Qaddafi. “He who kills another Libyan destroys Libya,” is a common translation. Below the quotation a man is sobbing. It looks a bit like a page from a junior high school history book.

Several native and non-native Arabic speakers were able to verify these translations, though giving slightly different versions of some phrases. If a native speaker would like to add their translation in the comments, we’d love to hear from you.

It’s not clear how widespread the propaganda effort was in the months that Qaddafi held Tripoli against protesters. The fliers are not common in Tripoli — you won’t casually encounter them in garbage piles, or blowing around in the street. NATO does not have a public representative in Tripoli and has not commented on the campaign in any overt way of which we are aware.

They do suggest that NATO’s role in the war may have been more complex than the coalition has acknowledged since its operations began in March. In addition to conducting propaganda operations, it is now tacitly acknowledged that NATO spotters and advisers were on the ground in Libya as early as April.

“Two French and an American,” said Khalid Azibah, a fighter from Nalut, in the Nafusa mountains. “They were three months in Nalut, just left a month ago.” It was about a month ago that NATO forces hit three targets near Nalut, precipitating the offensive that ended last week in Tripoli.

“I don’t have boots on the ground,” a NATO spokesman in Naples told me in an interview in early July. Unless the spotters were all wearing sneakers, that comment was, it appears, false.

Pakistan bans online encryption for the good of state security

by Steve Ragan

Pakistan bans online encryption. Image: Rpongsaj/Flickr.

A new order issued to ISPs from the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) directs them to block all encrypted traffic on their networks. A PTA spokesperson told local media the reasoning was to prevent militants from using VPN traffic to coordinate themselves.

According to a memo sent to ISPs, the PTA has ordered them to immediately block and prohibit the use of “…all such mechanisms including encrypted virtualprivate networks (EVPNs) which conceal communication to the extent that prohibits monitoring.”

The new order is in line with the Monitoring and Reconciliation of Telephony Traffic Regulations, which were established in 2010. In the letter to ISPs outlining the halt on encryption, they were told that the “…aforementioned directive has not been followed in true letter and spirit as EVPNs are heavily being used on the Licensees Network.”

According to the wording of the Monitoring and Reconciliation of Telephony Traffic Regulations, the licensee (ISP) is to ensure that, out of their own pocket, they install and maintain monitoring systems tied to the PTA. These systems are to monitor voice and data traffic in real-time, and the ISP cannot otherwise filter or block traffic, unless the Authority (PTA) orders it.

In addition, the ISP is to ensure that “…signaling information is uncompressed, unencrypted, and not formatted in a manner which the installed monitoring system is unable to decipher using installed capabilities.”

If that is not possible, the ISP will need to let the traffic pass and do whatever is necessary, including purchasing format conversion tools and hardware, so that the traffic is able to be properly monitored.

According to the PTA, the block on encryption is aimed at preventing militants from using secure communications when they coordinate. However, the PTA representative also noted that average citizens will be caught in the middle, unable to use VPNsoftware to surf the Web in private.

In the past, Pakistan has blocked Facebook and YouTube, over disputes with content, but news of the VPN blocks emerged as an insider at an Islamabad ISP admitted that they could not block a single URL on RollingStone.com. Instead, when one article was deemed offensive because of its author, they filtered the entire domain.

With competence like that, one has to wonder how effective the monitoring and VPN restrictions really are.

Car bomb blast kills 11 in Quetta

AFP

Local residents gather at the site of a car bomb blast in Quetta.—AFP

 

QUETTA: A suicide car bomb blast killed at least 11 people on Wednesday and wounded 22 others celebrating Eidul Fitr in the southwestern city of Quetta, police said.

The bomb exploded in a car park next to a mosque where prayers marking the festival were taking place, senior police official Mohammad Hashim told AFP.

Quetta police chief Ahsan Mehboob said a bomb disposal team had concluded that it was a suicide car bomb, as he raised the official toll from 10.

“The death toll is 11 now as one of the wounded men died at the hospital,” Mehboob said.

“Remains of a badly mutilated body were found in the car. It appears that he was not wearing the explosives on his body but he had planted those in the car and detonated when he could not go beyond the parking lot,” Mehboob told AFP.

“Our security was alert, so he could not go beyond the parking, otherwise he might have caused a lot more casualties,” he said, adding that all the dead had been identified by relatives except the suicide bomber.

Quetta police official Hamid Shakil said two women and a seven-year-old boy were among the dead.

Several cars parked nearby caught fire from the blast and one house suffered blast damage, witnesses said.

Live television footage showed swirls of thick black smoke rising from the area as people ran into the street, some pushing their cars to safety, while ambulances carried away the wounded.

Hashim said there had been no immediate claim of responsibility and police could not speculate who might be behind the bombing.

Pakistan’s Balochistan province, of which Quetta is the capital, has seen a recent surge in violence linked to a separatist insurgency, sectarian clashes and Taliban militants.

Libyan Rebel Leaders Reject UN Peacekeeping Role

Libya’s interim leaders reject UN military personnel

Celebrations have been continuing in the capital Tripoli

Libya’s interim leadership has rejected the idea of deploying any kind of international military force, the UN envoy to the country has said.

Ian Martin said the UN had considered the deployment of military observers.

Earlier, the chairman of the National Transitional Council (NTC) said the country did not need outside help to maintain security.

The news came as fighters loyal to the council approached the pro-Gaddafi stronghold of Sirte from east and west.

The town’s defenders have been given until Saturday to surrender.

However, fugitive ex-leader Col Muammar Gaddafi’s spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, rejected the ultimatum, the Associated Press reports.

“No dignified honourable nation would accept an ultimatum from armed gangs,” he said in a telephone call to the AP on Monday night.

Mr Ibrahim reiterated Col Gaddafi’s offer to send his son Saadi to negotiate with rebels and form a transitional government, the agency said.

‘Special case’

Libya’s deputy representative to the UN, Ibrahim Dabbashi, told the BBC that the situation in Libya was unique.

“They [the UN] put the possibility of deploying peacekeepers on the ground but in fact the Libyan crisis is a special case.

“It is not a civil war, it is not a conflict between two parties, it is the people who are defending themselves against the dictatorship.”

However, Mr Martin said the UN did expect to be asked to help establish a police force.

“We don’t now expect military observers to be requested,” he said after a meeting of the UN Security Council.

“It’s very clear that the Libyans want to avoid any kind of military deployment of the UN or others,” he said.

Mr Martin added that one of the greatest challenges for the UN would be helping the country prepare for democratic elections.

“Let’s remember… there’s essentially no living memory of elections, there’s no electoral machinery, there’s no electoral commission, no history of political parties, no independent civil society, independent media are only beginning to emerge in the east in recent times.

“That’s going to be quite a challenge, sort of organisationally, and it’s clear that the NTC wish the UN to play a major role in that process.”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said that growing humanitarian shortages in Libya demand urgent action and appealed to the security council to be “responsive” to requests from the transitional authority for funding.

Though stockpiles of medical supplies and food stashed away by the government were found over the weekend, water supplies are short.

“An estimated 60% of Tripoli’s population is without water and sanitation,” he said. The EU’s humanitarian office says that pro-Gaddafi forces are responsible for cutting supplies.

Ultimatum

On Tuesday, the UN Security Council let Britain release 1.86bn dinars ($1.55bn; £950m) in frozen assets to buy aid for Libya but an attempt by France and Germany to release an additional $8.6bn remains blocked.

Diplomats said that Russia was holding up Germany’s request to release about 1bn euros ($1.4bn) in seized assets and France’s move to unfreeze about five billion euros ($7.2bn) to buy humanitarian aid, Agence France Presse reports.

As anti-Gaddafi fighters converge on his birthplace of Sirte, interim leaders gave the town’s defenders an ultimatum, telling them that they had until Saturday to surrender or face military force.

It has also emerged that Col Gaddafi’s wife and three of his adult children fled to neighbouring Algeria in the early hours of Monday morning.

Col Gaddafi’s whereabouts remain unknown, with suggestions he may be in Sabha, Sirte or Bani Walid. However, the deputy head of the NTC, Ali Tarhouni, said they had a good idea of where he was and were confident that they would catch him.

 

What “Combat Zone” In Central Asia?

[IRS.GOV names the following as combat zones in support of Afghanistan:  Pakistan, Tajikistan and Jordan - Sept. 19, 2001, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan - Oct. 1, 2001.  The reported Central Asian combat zone will be somewhere much more hostile than Kyrgyzstan.  This lets the cat out of the bag.  More proof that the Pentagon has big war plans for Central Asia (SEE: Smashing Greater Central Asia – Part One ).]

Group from Kingsley to deploy to Central Asia

Twenty-six airmen from Kingsley Field are preparing to deploy to a combat zone in Central Asia.

The Oregon Air National Guard’s 173rd Security Forces Squadron will ship out in early fall and be stationed overseas for at least six months, said Col. Curtis Waite, mission support group commander at Kingsley Field. The unit will provide security for Air Force personnel in a combat zone, he said.

The security forces squadron was stationed at a support base in Kyrgyzstan about four years ago. But this deployment will be the unit’s first to a combat zone, Waite said.

“They’re going to be in the middle of it,” he said.

Of those set to deploy, many are from the Klamath Basin, said Lt. Col. Martin Balakas, spokesman with the Oregon Air National Guard’s 173rd Fighter Wing, stationed at Kingsley. It’s an exciting an anxious time for those about to ship out.

“You’re excited to go and do what you’re trained for; you’re excited to undertake your mission,” Balakas said. “At the same time, it’s awful hard to leave family and friends behind.”

Multiple Chechen Suicide Bombers Target Police and Rescue Squads

Multiple Chechen Suicide Bombers Target Police …, posted with vodpod

Complexity Theorists Predict Food Crisis, Riots and Civil Unrest By April 2013

Mac Slavo
August 24th, 2011
SHTFplan.com

Forecasting isn’t an exact science, but researches at the New England Complex Systems Institute may have come up with a formulaic approach that can help them to identify risk factors that contribute to political instability which may lead to riots and civil unrest similar to what we saw in the Middle East this year.

Their model is so accurate that they reportedly wrote a letter to the United States warning of imminent danger just days before the mid east and north African riots broke out:

On 13 December last year, the group wrote to the US government pointing out that global food prices were about to cross the threshold they had identified. Four days later, Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in Tunisia in protest at government policies, an event that triggered a wave of social unrest that continues to spread throughout the middle east today. (source)

Using advanced complexity theory the researchers have come up with a number of indicators that can predict when a population reaches its breaking point. Specific details and assessments are provided in The Food Crises and Political Instability in North Africa and the Middle East [pdf]:

When the ability of the political system to provide security for the population breaks down, popular support disappears. Conditions of widespread threat to security are particularly present when food is inaccessible to the population at large. In this case, the underlying reason for support of the system is eliminated, and at the same time there is “nothing tolose,” i.e. even the threat of death does not deter actions that are taken in opposition to the political order. Any incident then triggers death-defying protests and other actions that disrupt the existing order.

Widespread and extreme actions that jeopardize the leadership of the political system, or the political system itself, take place. All support for the system and allowance for its failings are lost. The loss of support occurs even if the political system is not directly responsible for the food security failure, as is the case if the primary responsibilitylies in the global food supply system.

The following chart provides a visual guide:

(Larger Image)

Chart Explained: Time dependence of FAO Food Price Index from January 2004 to May 2011. Red dashed vertical lines correspond to beginning dates of “food riots” and protests associated with the major recent unrest in North Africa and the Middle East. The overall death toll is reported in parentheses. Blue vertical line indicates the date, December 13, 2010, on which we submitted a report tothe U.S. government, warning of the link between food prices, social unrest and political instability. Inset shows FAO Food Price Index from 1990 to 2011.

The group, led by researcher Marco Lagi, is now warning that their thresholds are about to be broken again. And, this time the implications may be much more serious than before:

The underlying trend of increasing prices will reach the threshold of instability in July 2012, if we consider current prices, and April 2013 if we correct prices for reported ination. Either way, the amount of time until the often warned global food crises appears to be very short. Indeed, consistent with our analysis, the current food price bubble is already subjecting large populations to reported distress, as described in a recent UN report warning of the growing crisis.

…

We identify a specic food price threshold above which protests become likely. These observations suggest that protests may reect not only long-standing political failings of governments, but also the sudden desperate straits of vulnerable populations. If food prices remain high, there is likely to be persistent and increasing global social disruption. Underlying the food price peaks we also find an ongoing trend of increasing prices. We extrapolate these trends and identify a crossing point to the domain of high impacts, even without price peaks, in 2012-2013. This implies that avoiding global food crises and associated social unrest requires rapid and concerted action.

It’s clear that Lagi and his colleagues have done the work, and their data make sense, especially given what we’ve seen geo-politically over the last year. Given the way government has thus far attempted to mitigate this economic crisis – which is to make it worse – we are pessimistic about their ability to stop the rising food price trend, and the loss of confidence that will be sure to follow.

As such, the analysis provided suggests that instability due, in large part, to rising food prices is imminent and we have, at best, twenty months before riots and civil unrest come to the streets of America.

Now would be a good time to speed up your SHTF Plans.

References: Cornell University Library, What Really Happened

Author: Mac Slavo
Date: August 24th, 2011
Website: www.SHTFplan.com

 

Kremlin’s Fear of China Drives Its Foreign Policy

ByAlejandro Sueldo

Russia is very concerned about China, but this is driven more by fears about China’s capabilities than any real threats.

Russia perceives China as being highly unpredictable and worries about Beijing’s technological dominance, growing military strength and demographic and economic expansion into Siberia, which is sparsely populated but resource-rich.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin’s saber-rattling in the Far East, while purportedly aimed at protecting the Kuril Islands from a weak Japan, is Moscow’s subtle signal to Beijing.

The real threat for Russia is China’s capabilities. Beijing’s ability to expand its nuclear arsenal is worrisome because at parity levels, Russia’s nuclear deterrent loses credibility in relation to China’s greater counterstrike potential. Thus, fear, which is the dominant factor behind the Kremlin’s policy of maintaining nuclear superiority over China, hinders global efforts to decrease Russia’s nuclear arsenal — in particular, its tactical weapons.

Moscow’s appeals to engage other nuclear states in arms control are implicitly driven by fears of China. But Russia does not fully understand how to engage China and needs the United States to pressure Beijing to talk and for political cover should talks fail. But engaging China on arms control is not practical yet, given the disparities in size and type of each country’s arsenals.

Russia’s urgency to set its foot down amid China’s rise is also driven by unsuccessful attempts to assert itself on many European security issues, namely NATO and U.S. missile defense systems. Moscow has learned its lesson and wants to assure that it has a voice on Asian security matters.

Shared concern over China offers Russia and the United States an opportunity to deepen relations with a strategy to engage and help contain China. Assuaging their concerns will require, among other initiatives, pressuring China to be more transparent about its military, eventually engaging China on arms control, and demonstrating that U.S. and Russian missile defense systems do not undermine China’s strategic weapons.

Such a strategy, however, is wishful thinking for the time being. Historic distrust between Moscow and Washington, as well as the Kremlin’s fear of provoking China, have shaped their dialogue for the past decade or so. But Russia’s and the United States’ place in the global arena will depend largely upon their ability to find the right balance between each other and China.

Alejandro Sueldo is a scholar with the Project on Nuclear Issues of the Center for Strategic & International Studies and author of “Engaging and Contextualizing Russian Nuclear Policy.”

NATO faces ‘catastrophic success’ in Libya

By An Huihou (Jiefang Daily)

Edited and Translated by People’s Daily Online

The Libya war situation recently underwent dramatic changes. French and Britishdefense ministers stressed at the end of July that the Libyan opposition could notdefeat the government forces or capture Tripoli, the capital of Libya, on its own.However, certain media outlets revealed in mid-August that the Libyan opposition wasexpected to capture the capital before the end of August, according to a NATOschedule.

As it turned out, the opposition forces entered Tripoli on Aug. 21. There are two mainreasons for the sudden victory of the opposition forces. First, Western countries notonly launched air strikes and provided a large amount of weapons to the oppositionforces but also sent ground troops to Libya. According to recent media reports, France,the United Kingdom and Italy had dispatched Special Forces to Libya to help theopposition troops finally win the ground war. Second, Western countries reportedlybought over almost all senior officials of the Qaddafi regime. In brief, Western countriesplanned and directed the opposition forces’ capture of Tripoli.

However, the NATO’s victory in Libya is just a miserable victory. First, in order toreduce civilian casualties, the United Nations Security Council authorized NATO toestablish a no-fly zone in Libya. However, the military operations of NATO haveenlarged the civil war, led to tens of thousands of casualties of innocent civilians, madecountless people homeless, and caused severe property damages and a hugehumanitarian disaster.

NATO’s arming of the Libyan Rebels and use of land forces in Libya both violated theSecurity Council’s resolution, which prohibited both actions. In order to overthrow theQadafi’s administration, foster a pro-West government and further control Libya,western countries will use any methods. Fair or foul, they do not care. Therefore, theyhave already failed in morality and justice.

Second, several of the strongest Western countries joined forces, spent a lot of moneyand manpower, and bombed Libya for five months, but they ultimately still had to adoptillegal actions and commanded the Libyan Rebels to take the capital. It could fullyreflect the rudeness, brutality and selfishness of the Western countries. In addition,their actions not only failed to demonstrate their powerful strengths but also revealedtheir weakness, fragility and incapacity.

U.K.-based The Times reported that NATO is generally using the term ”catastrophicsuccess” to describe the opposition’s victory. The relationship among various factionsof Libya’s opposition is indeed complicated. Although they have made collective actionsto achieve the goal of overthrowing Qaddafi’s regime, it is very difficult for them toremain united in the post-Qaddafi era. Instead, they are very likely to divide and evencause new conflicts to arise. Furthermore, it is very difficult for Qaddafi’s tribes toaccept the cruel facts, including the losses of their dominant position, authority andinterests.

The international community is universally worried that Libya will likely become thesecond Iraq or Somalia, and some even forecasted that Libya would likely be dividedinto three parts. The war and the inevitable future chaos caused by war will make theLibyan People the biggest victim and affect the regional and global peace and stability.The Western countries will unlikely obtain the rewards that they are coveting.

Western countries have launched the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq over the pastdecade and have participated in the Libyan war in 2011. Although they have all met thegoals of regime changes, have they really achieved victories? The Iraq war waged bythe United States is not worth the costs and has become one of the major reasonsbehind the fall of the United States from its hegemonic position, which is already aconsensus in the international community.

The Afghan war has lasted as long as 10 years, putting those who launched the warinto a dilemma. The Libyan war is no exception and can never become a model forWestern powers’ successful interference in the internal affairs of other countries. The”gunboat diplomacy” era has long passed, and resolving political differences throughnegotiations has become the trend of the times.

Going against the trend of the times, maintaining blind faith in the use of force,imposing the threat of force and even interfering militarily have not only becomeincreasingly difficult but also do harm to others and themselves. As Western countrieshave repeatedly failed to take lessons from their blind moves, it is no wonder they hasembarked on the path of decline.

（Editor：韩莎莎）

The CIA’s Islamist Cover Up

Ian Johnson

AP Photo/Ben Curtis

Members of the Muslim Brotherhood outside a Cairo court, February 2007. Internal CIA documents describe the movement as a potential ally against Islamist terrorism.

The tenth anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington will be accompanied by the usual solemn political pronouncements and predictable media retrospectives. Pundits will point out that the West’s own economic mismanagement of the past decade has done more to weaken Europe and North America than the Islamists’ attacks. Some others will note how radical Islamists are still strong in Afghanistan and point to the recent downing of a military helicopter with dozens of US troops dead. Still others will use the anniversary to pontificate on how our concerns about Islamism have given racists an excuse to tarnish an entire religion. We will also hear about how the democratic uprisings in the Arab world—Libya being the latest—have undermined Islamists (by providing the region’s disgruntled masses with examples of positive, instead of destructive change).

All of these points are well and good and worth hearing again. But they shouldn’t distract us from a very precise and practical problem that hasn’t been addressed: the refusal of the CIA to disclose the details of its involvement with Islamist groups. In recent weeks, the agency has tried to block sections of a new book that deals with its handling of al-Qaeda before and after September 11. But this is only one part of a large-scale cover-up that Western governments have been perpetrating about decades of ties to Islamist organizations. Until we clarify ourmurky history with radical Islam, we won’t be able to understand the background of the September 11 attacks and whether our strategies today to engage the Muslim world are likely to succeed.

Of course some of this history is well known. The blowback story—how the USarmed the mujahedeen, some of whom morphed into al-Qaeda—has been told inbook and film. We are also getting a sense now of how parts of the US-backed Pakistani military-intelligence complex have actively supported radical Islamists. Collusion between Britain and Islamist movements over the past century has also been explored. And of course, Israel’s support for Hamas as a counterweight to the Palestinian Liberation Organization has gone down as one of the great diplomatic miscalculations of recent history.

But compared to the full scope of the issue, these insights are meager. To date, the Central Intelligence Agency continues to block access to its archives relating to radical Islam or cooperation with Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. In the course of researching my book on the Brotherhood’s expansion into the West, I applied numerous times under the Freedom of Information Act to see documents concerning events in the 1950s, some of which had been confirmed by already declassified State Department cables. Inevitably the CIA responded with the blanket exception of “national security” to justify denying access to any files.

Said Ramadan

Despite the CIA’s information blockade, it is clear from interviews with CIA operatives and other countries’ intelligence archives that the CIA was courting groups like the Brotherhood as allies in theUS’s global battle against communism. In Egypt, the charge was often made by the government of Gamel Abdel Nasser that the Muslim Brotherhood was in theCIA’s pay. This was also a view of some Western intelligence agencies, which flatly declared that Said Ramadan, the Swiss-based son-in-law of the group’s founder, was a US agent. The agency may have—but for this we need access to its archives—colluded with Ramadan in attempting a coup against Nasser.

The CIA certainly did help the Brotherhood establish itself in Europe, helping to create the milieu that led to the September 11 attacks. The mosque in Munich that Ramadan helped found, for example, became a hotbed of anti-US activity. The man convicted as a key perpetrator of the 1993 attack against the World Trade Center had sought spiritual counseling at the mosque before leaving to carry out his attacks. And in 1998, the man believed to be al-Qaeda’s chief financial officer was arrested near the mosque and also sought spiritual counseling from the mosque’s imam. An investigation based on this arrest traced radical Islamists right to a second mosque—the al-Quds mosque in Hamburg—where three of the four 9/11 pilots worshipped, it but failed to make the final link. This isn’t to say that theCIA was behind the September 11 attacks but that US collusion with Islamists in the Cold War bore bitter fruit in later years—making it imperative that we understand exactly what happened in those seemingly distant years of the 50s, 60s and 70s of the last century.

More recently, despite Washington’s sometimes hostile public rhetoric toward to the Brotherhood, it is clear that the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama have tried to court the movement. Internal CIA analyses from 2006 and 2008, which I obtained, show that the Brotherhood was viewed as a positive force and potential ally—this time not against communism but Islamist terrorism: the Brotherhood was considered a moderate Islamist group and thus able to channel grievances away from violence toward the United States (even if Brotherhood theoreticians did not renounce violence against Israel or US soldiers). The State Department also used US Muslims close to the Brotherhood to reach out to Islamists in Europe. Such support has given these groups legitimacy in the United States and Europe.

The CIA is blocking the release of information because the subject remains sensitive—both for the West and the Muslim world. In Washington, the CIA could come under fire if its own archives would confirm and fill out the current sketch view of history. For the Brotherhood, amid its current re-emergence as a major political force in Egypt and other countries, it would be extremely damaging to know that illustrious figures in its history were working for the country that most exemplifies the decadent, imperialist forces it has struggled against for decades.

Revealing this history could be painful but necessary to strip away the doublespeak that both sides have used to describe their dealings with each other. This isn’t to say that releasing information should be used to bash cooperation with Islamists. Clearly the United States and other Western countries need to deal with groups like the Brotherhood, and perhaps in some situations even to support them: for example if the Brotherhood really were to come to power democratically in Egypt, the United States would be obliged to deal with such a government. For the Brotherhood a case could be made that in past decades, when its members were so badly repressed by authorities in the Middle East, that some sort of help from the West was necessary to avoid destruction by the authoritarian governments that persecute it.

These are legitimate arguments. But they can only be made if the full history of these relationships is made known rather than kept hidden. To do this will require action from Congress. The CIA did not release documents concerning USintelligence dealings with Nazi officials, for example, until it was forced to by the passage of the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act of 1998. This piece of legislation compelled US government agencies to release all files on their dealings with the Nazis during and after the war. It lead to an incredible flood of information on the topic, helping us understand, for example, US collaboration with ex-Nazis after the war.

We need a similar law today. This is not to draw a parallel between Islamism and Nazism—an argument that is tendentious and counter-productive. The only parallel is that the US government has dealt with these questionable organizations and is so unwilling to admit this that it will take specific instructions from Congress to make these dealings public. Whatever the merits of these policies they are based on a long-standing, but still mostly secret, strategy. As Western governments seek to distinguish between “good” and “bad” Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, or between the Muslim Brotherhood and more radical groups in the Middle East, understanding this strategy—and its efficacy—has never been more urgent.

Who Controls Kyrgyz Drug Running?

The question of questions: Who sits on the Kyrgyz drug trafficking?

Nicholas Levine

Fergana.ru

Kyrgyzstan has announced that seriously begins to fight Afghan drug trafficking. How justified this claim? How long shall continue the struggle? And, as perceived efforts by their colleagues Kyrgyz Russian intelligence services? About this columnist “Fergana” Nikolay Levin spoke in Moscow with a senior representative of one of the Russian security services who wish not to publicize his name.

- This year you have visited in the Kyrgyz Republic on a business trip. How to assess the situation, which they formed?

- Well, if very brief, as was drug trafficking, and goes through Kyrgyzstan. The most serious danger, as you know, is the smuggling of opiates, primarily heroin. According to our estimates, through Kyrgyzstan from Afghanistan, annually receives about 20-25 tons of heroin and opium. In 2010, shipments grew up with traffic as the total lack of power prevented the fight in the country. Now its value is governed not so much the efforts of law enforcement, as the limited need for markets: Russia so much heroin to “digest” simply can not. Schemes, in general, are well known, the key organizers of this “business” too. I can not say that the intelligence agencies of this country just do nothing. In particular, the reconstituted Committee on Drug Control, which was eliminated under Bakiyev. This year, in cooperation with the Committee there have been several arrests, the latest hands-free operation was a joint near Ekaterinburg a few days ago. But the main stream of poison still passes narkobortsev.

- Why?

- I do not think it will reveal a great secret if I say that this “business” of the roof of the big men of force and other government agencies. Therefore, the local drug lords do not then they do not want to arrest, they can not even kick in, say, from the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

- You said that traffic patterns do not represent a singular mystery.

- Of course. Heroin comes first in the Gorno-Badakhshan, Tajikistan. Then it different ways, including by foot and horse-drawn vehicles, brought to Kyrgyzstan, in Chon-Alai. From there, the road already, a white powder (in fact the Afghan heroin, more likely, cream-colored) vehicles delivered in the base in Osh and Jalal-Abad. Next shipment is sent by one of two routes.The first – in neighboring Uzbekistan. It’s only for ordinary people to the border is closed and the traffic – no. The second route – along the motorway and through the mountains in the Chui region. There again, there are two possibilities: either the heroin is sent to Kara-Balta, and from there to Kazakhstan and on to Russia, or warehoused in Bishkek, where a small portion is taken to various Russian cities by passenger flights, but the bulk is again being moved through Kazakh border for onward carriage to Russia.   (read HERE)

North Africa: Libya – the Criminal Face of Imperialism

 

NATO’s assault on Libya, a criminal imperialist war from the outset more than five months ago, has descended into an exercise in out-and-out murder as special forces operatives and intelligence agents hunt down Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

From the beginning, the central objectives of this war have been to seize control of Libya’s oil reserves, the largest on the African continent, and carry out an imperialist show of force as a means of suppressing and diverting the mass popular movements that only months earlier had toppled the US and NATO-backed regimes of Mubarak in Egypt and Ben Ali in Tunisia.

“Operation United Protector,” as NATO dubbed its military onslaught, would have been more accurately described as “Operation Imperialist Gang Rape.” The US, Britain, France and Italy, each pursuing its own interests in Libya and the broader region, managed to unite for the common purpose of “regime-change.”

To achieve this aim, NATO warplanes carried out over 20 000 sorties, destroying schools, hospitals and homes and slaughtering untold numbers of Libyan soldiers, many of them young conscripts.

Flouting the terms of the United Nations resolution authorising “all means necessary” to protect civilians, NATO powers, including the US, France and Britain, sent in special forces troops, military contractor mercenaries and intelligence agents to arm, organize and lead the so-called “rebels,” whose primary function was to draw out Libyan government forces so they could be annihilated from the air.

The pretense that this was a war to protect civilians has been exposed as a moral obscenity, with the death toll in Tripoli alone climbing into the thousands and NATO bombs and missiles continuing to fall in heavily populated areas.

One has to go back to the 1930s when, as today, world capitalism was gripped by a desperate economic crisis to find fitting parallels. Then, mankind was stunned by the savage aggression unleashed in the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, Hitler’s backing of the Sudeten Germans to achieve the carve-up of Czechoslovakia, and the dispatch of the German Condor Legion to bomb Spain on behalf of Franco’s fascist insurgency.

At that time, these violent acts of aggression were seen as part of world capitalism’s descent into barbarism. Today in Libya, similar acts are proclaimed to be a flowering of “humanitarianism” and “democracy.”

During that period, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt appealed to the democratic sensibilities of the American people-while no doubt positioning the US for the pursuit of its own imperialist aims-by demanding a “quarantine” of fascist aggression.

He declared in 1937, “Without a declaration of war and without warning or justification of any kind, civilians, including vast numbers of women and children, are being ruthlessly murdered with bombs from the air.

Nations are fomenting and taking sides in civil warfare in nations that have never done them any harm. Nations claiming freedom for themselves deny it to others. Innocent peoples, innocent nations, are being cruelly sacrificed to a greed for power and supremacy which is devoid of all sense of justice and humane consideration.”

Those words from three quarters of a century ago read like an indictment of the Obama administration and the governments of Cameron, Sarkozy and Berlusconi.

The Nuremberg trials after the Second World War established aggressive war as the “supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

This conception was incorporated into the United Nations, which barred “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”

Yet today within the political establishment there is virtually no criticism of the aggressive war carried out by the NATO allies. The scoundrels of the media have fully integrated themselves into the imperialist war machine, literally stepping over corpses and concealing the camera-shy Western dogs of war to better fashion their propaganda about “revolution” and “liberation” in Libya.

The driving force behind the Libyan war is imperialism, aptly described by Lenin as reaction all down the line. It is a war that has been pursued in the predatory interests of finance capital.

It is designed to produce what is being referred to widely in the financial press as a “bonanza,” not only for the major energy conglomerates, but for the banks and corporations, while underpinning the vast fortunes accumulated by the ruling elite by means of financial speculation, the driving down of labor costs in America and Europe, and the exploitation of low-wage labor the world over.

International gangsterism goes hand-in-hand with economic and political criminality at home. Aggression abroad is inseparable from the merciless assault on the living standards and basic rights of broad masses of working people in Europe, America and virtually every major country.

While workers are everywhere being told that there is no money to pay for jobs, education, health care, pensions or vital social services, billions are expended to bomb and invade Libya with no questions asked.

A striking feature of the Libya war is the way it has mobilized behind it a social-political layer of middle class ex-lefts, liberal academics and former protesters.

Taliban Leader Mullah Omar Allegedly Issues Afghan Victory Manifesto

source

Taliban issues Afghan victory manifesto

• Amanda Hodge, South Asia correspondent
• From:The Australian
  

AFGHAN Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar has confirmed talks between the insurgency and the US, and laid out a manifesto for a Taliban government that protects private business, exploits the country’s mineral wealth and maintains good foreign relations.

An internet message purportedly written by the one-eyed militant to mark the Islamic festival of Eid al-Fitr claims the Afghan insurgency is close to victory, citing recent foreign troop casualties, Taliban expansionism and the killing of a string of high-level Afghan officials. “All these give us good news of an imminent victory and a bright future,” it said.

This month was the deadliest for US forces in the nearly decade-long conflict, with 66 troops killed, 30 of them when a helicopter was shot down on August 6.

The message appeared to acknowledge mistakes of the former Taliban regime overthrown in October 2001, and seemed aimed at projecting a more mature face to an international community hoping to negotiate an exit from the war in Afghanistan. “The future transformations and developments would not resemble the developments following the collapse of communism, when everything of the country was plundered and the state apparatus damaged entirely,”it said.

“Contrarily, strict measures will be taken to safeguard all national installations, government departments and the advancements that have occurred in the private sector. Professional cadres and national businessmen will be further encouraged, without any discrimination, to serve their religion and their country.”

It confirmed talks between the US and the Taliban, although negotiations were restricted to prisoner release and did not represent “comprehensive negotiation for the solution of the current imbroglio of the country”.

Afghan and US officials this week confirmed secret direct talks between Taliban and US representatives collapsed after Afghan officials leaked details for fear President Hamid Karzai was being sidelined.

On three occasions US officials met Taliban negotiator Tayyab Aga, primarily to discuss the release of US army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, who was captured more than two years ago, in return for Afghan prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Bagram Air Field near Kabul.

But Omar warned in his message there could be no negotiated end to the conflict without the full withdrawal of all foreign troops. A “limited withdrawal” that left behind US military bases would “in no way solve the issue of Afghanistan”, he said.

In what appeared a softening toward the Karzai administration, he insisted the Taliban did not seek to monopolise power. He called on Taliban fighters to pursue self-improvement through daily exercise, reading and religion, and to avoid extortion, kidnapping or random bans that hurt the common man. Intelligence analysts Stratfor said Omar’s message, and recent willingness to negotiate, suggested the Taliban leader was attempting to build support within and outside of Afghanistan in preparation for the 2014 withdrawal of foreign troops and the inevitable civil war.

“By opting for negotiations the Taliban, who remain the single largest political force in the country, hope to dominate a post-NATO political dispensation and avoid international isolation,” Stratfor said. “This tactic does not mean the Taliban are moderating; rather they are adjusting to constraints that limit their ability to achieve their goals of resurging to power.”

Ma`a as-salaamah Mohammad….. May Allah protect you!

 

Franklin Lamb

 

Tripoli

 

My roommate left our hotel and hopefully Libya last night for his village near Arlit, Niger thanks to the assistance of one of Tripoli’s Christian Churches.  I shall miss him a lot.

It was a recently formed human rights group from the Coptic Orthodox (Egyptian) Church in Tripoli, working to protect blacks from the still lawless Tripoli streets that enabled my roommate to depart this hotel.  The Coptic Church, according to their Prelate here, has the largest Christian communion in Libya with normally 60,000 parishioners and has roots in Libya going back hundreds of years before the Arabs spread westward from Egypt.

Mohammad departed none too soon since “security personnel” arrived at the Corinthia Hotel close to 1 p.m. this afternoon (8/28/11) with gunmen and two “Generals” in fine new uniforms complete with epaulets. Their surprise visit was to check the hotel rooms for Kaddafi supporters. They claimed they had received “reports.”

The Copts did a good job in getting Mohammad to safety.  Most observers here agree that for the immediate future there will be a whirlwind of wild speculation, accusations and even some serious examination of Moammar Kaddafi’s leadership of Libya these past four decades. One fact however is incontrovertible to this observer and it is that under Kaddafi, Christians, whether Roman Catholic, Anglican Catholic, Russian Orthodox, Serbian Orthodox or Greek Orthodox, the main Christian sects here, have been well treated and allowed virtually complete freedom to practice their beliefs and to celebrate their traditions with some restrictions placed on campaigns to proselytize Muslims of which they have not been any since the Mormons and the “Way of the Cross” evangelicals  left some years back.

Most of the churches here currently have volunteers working to help their Muslim sisters and brothers during this cataclysmic period. My friend Mohammad is one whose life they may have saved.

Mohammad and I have been secretly sharing my room for more than a week since I accidently discovered him hiding and trembling in the hotel’s garden bushes shortly after the rebel entrance into Tripoli.  It was easy to calm Mohammad down and I brought him a shirt from my room, as his was filthy.

Mohammad is a black African devout Muslim and one fine man. When I saw him looking up at me and trembling my thoughts instantly turned to 21-year-old black Mississippian, James Chaney, and the date could have been June 21, 1964. That was when Neshoba County’s law enforcement and the Ku Klux Klan hunted blacks to kill and did kill James and his white companions Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner

The reason Mohammad was hiding outside the Corinthia hotel is that he feared for his life as so many, if not most, black Africans and black Libyans (roughly one third of Libya’s population) do these days. Bands of young rebel “freedom fighters” are still roaming some of Tripoli’s streets, itching it seems, to kill some “African mercenaries”, meaning, it appears, any black man they can find. Although the apparently politically contrived rumors of African mercenaries raping Libyan women which helped NATO get the UN Security Council to green light its bombing and regime change campaign, have been debunked as fake by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and a UN fact finding group, some of the macho young rebels in Libya still insist the smear campaign is true.

Mohammad explained to me that he was never a fighter for anyone in Libya but rather that his employment background, like his father, uncles and brothers, was in Niger’s uranium mines which only the past few years have begun to recover from the late 1980’s collapse. Mohammad’s brother Said was killed in the Tuareg Rebellion of the 1990’s and his father sent Mohammad to Libya to work in construction.

I agreed with Mohammad that he could stay secretly with me until we could get him into safe hands.  The hotel has never been the wiser to my knowledge although my friend Ismail, who works behind the front desk when he is not doing a dozen other jobs during his frequent 16 hour shifts, probably suspected something was going on because he would give me knowing glances as I disappeared toward the elevator with a table cloth covering a big plate of food and contrary to hotel rules of no hotel kitchen food in the rooms.  Luckily Ismail is a black Libyan and, if he knew, he did not rat us out.

With no security at our hotel until the day before yesterday and now packed with journalists, Mohammad took extra precautions and never left room # 1185 except for one night when someone from the Coptic Church came to meet with him in another room and I gave his floor spot to a French activist from Beirut whose boat to Alexandria was delayed again.

Housekeeping, no longer exists at this hotel, and so no one has entered my room for almost two weeks since the staff fled.  In any case Mohammad and I had a good cover story ready in case events demanded one.  Mohammad, we would explain if caught, was a driver for the Italian Embassy before the Italians temporarily pulled up stakes back in March.

I got pretty good at fixing plates of food for Mohammad from the nightly “Iftar buffet.” Because we are both fasting for Ramadan, smuggling Mohammad food only once a day was easy enough, especially as some of the new hotel guests, being journalists from the Rixos Hotel or rushing here to cover the “Fall of Tripoli” from around Libya, are now in the habit of fixing their dinner plates and sitting around the abandoned hotel restaurants. This way they have more space and privacy from the cramped conditions in the rapidly deteriorating “dining room” or their working area.

Personally, this Ramadan, the Iftar feast no longer has appeal for me because we have the very same food every Iftar which now comes almost entirely from cans. At noon today, the Hotel Front Desk posted the most recent Dear Guest Notice. It reads:  “Dear Guests:  Please be advised that there will be no lunch today due to absence of water supply in the Hotel.   We hope for a water delivery this afternoon and hope to serve dinner tonight at 18:30.  Thank you.  The Corinthia Hotel Management.”  No water arrived and when I and an American lady who works for the Sunday Times returned from driving thru Tripoli’s center,  at 7:50 p.m. just in time for Iftar, mine consisted of walking through the dining area picking leftover food bits from  plates where diners had eaten and left.

Before Mohammad left, he helped me with my infected leg and told me about a nearby Dr. which made me happy since no others have been available this past week.  But as dear reader may come to understand, I soon became reluctant to seek treatment from the Dr. who Mohammad recommended although by very great coincidence I have known her wonderful granddaughter, an Arabic-English language interpreter named Aya, for several weeks.

My most recent best bet for immediate medical assistance was my new friend Dr. XX, “Consultant Urological Surgeon” from the British Medical Center here in Tripoli (formerly the Swiss Medical Center until Hannibal Kaddafi had that unfortunate problem with Swiss authorities last winter and his Dad wanted to abolish Switzerland and all things Swiss), hence the fast name change on the Clinic building.   Dr. XX is from New Delhi but studied in England and now normally resides in Sheffield, England.  He spent the past year working here in Libya, loves the people and the country and was most willing to help me.  The problem was that he had to rush to catch the boat out of here for Malta yesterday.  Anyhow, he said I had a couple of days left before I would possibly have major leg problems and he  gave me the phone numbers of two of his colleagues, one an Indian dentist.  So far the phones still don’t work well in Tripoli.

Just a word of background about  Dr. Fatima, recommended by Mohammad now that I am resigned to get treatment late today, come what may, following my brief meeting with the good Dr. this morning.

Dr.  Fatima is very thin, quite tall, has an unusually large head and a red scarf covers part of her face which is stained blue.  Aya explained that while Dr. Fatima is by background Muslim, her Saharan tribe retains some pre-Islamic rites and customs and is genealogically connected with the Delvar Nar. Yet  Aya also told me that Fatma’s tribe claims that they are linked with the Angels mentioned in Luke 24:4 where Christ’s apostle  describes the scene at Jesus’s tomb when two angels appeared to Mary. Anyhow….

Aya says Dr.  Fatima is capable of teleportation, telekinesis and ESP and while I don’t need any of that stuff just now, but could later, Dr. Fatima fortunately is also expert in Saharan medicine including leg infections.  So the good news is that I am very soon to be in experienced medical hands. I have no doubt about that and I shall always be grateful to my friend Mohammad for the referral.

The down side may be what Aya told me about what her grandmother must do to make me well. This may be the tough part for someone who nearly collapses if some nurse even hints that she wants to stick a needle in me.  Aspirin is about the only medicine I have ever taken because my half German sainted Mother did not believe in her large brood getting sick and we all minded her over the years.

Dr. Fatima’s “clinic” is in the Medina not far from my Hotel and the area is coming back to life as some citizens are beginning to peak out and emerge from their homes.  Hundreds of shops and outdoor tables with all kinds of new and used goods have been closed for more than a week. Even the lovely Chadian hospitality ladies who I have good reason to believe rent themselves from dirt floor rooms off the ancient streets of the medina for ten Libyan dinars an hour (about $8) or 16 dinar ($ 12.80)  for two hostesses, (three additional dinars per hour for air conditioning in the room –highly recommended!) have vanished.    This sad fact alone, according to one of the guys from the UN delegation that ten days ago got permission from NATO to fly from Tripoli airport to Tunis for R & R and to assess their “findings,” is reason enough for the UNSC to immediately end NATO’s carnage in Libya.

I admit to being a little apprehensive because Aya told me one of the Chadian ladies, who recently returned and works as a nurse for Dr. Fatima, must first slice my  wound in narrow lines and then rub and wash it thoroughly with Saharan sand and some nasty looking green paste of Sarahan vegetation and insect fluids.

While I sat thinking how that is going to feel, Aya seems to have read my expression and assures me that everything will be ok because her granny also makes a strong alcoholic drink out of Saharan cactus and I will drink some and feel fine.

 “Well, why not we just use that drink rather than sand to cleanse the wound”? I ask.

  Aya gave me one of her, “You stupid American!” glances that communicates, “Please don’t bother to question we who know what’s best for you!”

Aya also promises me that after my “treatment” the now returning Chadian ladies will take care of me for the expected three day recovery period. I immediately feel better.

 If fate rules that these next few days in fact comprise my last chapter, and never having had much interest in being with virgins, the company of these angels will certainly be as close to Heaven as this hayseed from rural Oregon will likely get.

 

US Senator Lindsay Graham Meets with Uzbek President Karimov

Uzbekistan: US Senator Meets with President Karimov

Presidential Press Service of Uzbekistan

Sen. Lindsey Graham and Amb. George Krol at President Karimov’s residence, August 27, 2011

Sen. Graham’s last attempt to see President Karimov after Uzbek riots in 2005

US Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina was received by President Islam Karimov at his residence in Tashkent on August 27, Uzbek state media reported. Ambassador George Krol, the new US envoy to Tashkent, also attended the meeting. Uzbek TVquoted Karimov as saying Uzbekistan “highly values relations” with the US and has seen “great positive things in our relations, especially most recently.“ According to the typically filtered government reports, the American senator was said to discuss resolution of the conflict in neighboring Afghanistan and ways to stabilize the region.

Gov.uz quoted Graham as stressing the importance of economic renewal and solving social problems in Afghanistan. While official reports didn’t specifically mention the Northern Distribution Network (NDN) which supplies NATO soldiers in Afghanistan, no doubt the senator discussed Tashkent’s crucial role in helping the NDN. Uzbekistan is known to serve as a key transit air hub through Termez and has supplied food and fuel by train as well. The US has been actively involved in promoting business and economic opportunities around the NDN, seeing it as important to security of the region and an evenutal “Silk Road” to prosperity.

Sen. Graham is not a member of the Central Asian Caucus in Congress. Yet he is on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and could have a role in deciding whether and how much US assistance is given to the Uzbek government. Under legislation passed in 2004, US military assistance is banned until progress is certified in Uzbekistan on human rights and economic reforms.

Graham, a military lawyer who actually performed an active-duty stint in Afghanistan last year, appears mainly concerned over South Carolina’s failure last year to obtain federal funds for public school jobs and a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study to deepen the Charleston port,McClatchy reports. Yet his position on a powerful Senate committee means he will also have a say in funding the Pentagon, the war in Afghanistan and other related projects like helping Uzbekistan.

Following the Andijan massacre in May 2005, the conservative Sen. Graham accompanied Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and other US senators to meet with Uzbek opposition members and eyewitnesses, and called for a complete investigation in the atrocities, saying at that time that continuation of the relationship was “very difficult, if not impossible, if a government continues to repress its people,” airforce-magazine.com reported. Uzbek officials refused to meet with the senators, and ultimately served an eviction notice on the US, which left the Karshi-Khanabad (K2) airbase it had been leasing.

The question is whether the US needs Uzbekistan so much that it will start waffling on the aid certification. While the State Department is likely to continue to name Uzbekistan a “country of particular concern” (CPC) for its violation of religious freedom, it failed to downgrade Uzbekistanon its annual assessment of global trafficking in persons, despite Tashkent’s lack of progress.

Uzbekistan has not done anything substantive to improve its human rights record , but it has done the next best thing, shy of actual change: created a commission to monitor allegations of the use of forced child labor — which it continues to deny despite reports — and drafted a national human rights action plan .

The “action plan” is a creature of multilateral institutions as well as bilateral relations, where foreign interlocutors try to devise “benchmarks” or incremental steps towards eventual human rights compliance by urging the drafting of plans, training seminars, and progress reports. Like other massive abusers of human rights, Tashkent has learned that just the gesture of drafting a plan, without at all putting it into practice, is enough to keep its foreign critics happy. The new plan contains easy giveaways like a pledge to honor international legal standards over local law — but not release from prison or registration of the activists who actually ensure such rights are protected. Even so, some human rights lawyers are hoping to take the government at its word to push for reforms, and the State Department can now point to this “progress.”

While a few political prisoners have been released from imprisonment in a token gesture, other human rights activists and religious believers continue to be harassed and imprisoned, making certification hard to envision.

Turkmenistan – Telecoms, Mobile and Internet

 

Paul Budde Communication Pty Ltd

Executive summary
Turkmenistan’s telecommunications services are considered to be the least developed of all the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries. Poor growth in telecom services can be attributed to a large extent to the slow development of the private sector and state control over most economic activities.
Overall, the telecom market in this poor and predominantly rural country is relatively small but has been trying boldly to expand in recent years. The state-owned Turkmen Telecom has been the primary provider of public telephone, email and Internet services, and through a subsidiary has also been operating a GSM mobile network in competition with a private mobile operator, BCT (BCT became MTS Turkmenistan in 2005). Combined fixed-line and mobile teledensity was around 40% in early 2010. Not surprisingly it has been the mobile services that have been dominating the expansion activity. In 2008 the country saw annual subscription growth in excess of 140%, although growth slowed significantly to about 33% in 2009. As a consequence, in a two-year period Turkmenistan, one of the smallest markets in the region, saw its mobile penetration jump from 8% to 30%.
It had certainly not been smooth sailing over the 2008/09 period as the mobile operators felt the impact of the global financial crisis on their revenues. The monthly ARPU recorded by BCT in Turkmenistan fell more than 70% to less than €10 by the fourth quarter of 2008. The fall was mainly due to the Central Bank of Turkmenistan changing the exchange rate for the Turkmenistani manat (TMM) from 5,200 to the US dollar in December 2007 to 14,250 in mid-2008. By May 2010 the exchange was still 14,250TMT to one US dollar. In local currency terms, BCT’s ARPU fell 24%, from TMM250 in the fourth quarter of 2007 to TMM189 in the fourth quarter of 2008, because of the further dilution of its customer base with the increased level of subscriptions.
Growth of the Internet sector had been seriously stifled back in 2000 when the four existing independent ISPs were forced out of business due to the government’s decision to grant Turkmen Telecom a monopoly over data services. The abrupt closure of the ISPs was consistent with government policy, which required tight control over all communications in the country. Internet access continued to be severely restricted, and the few Internet cafes that existed in Ashgabat were closed down in 2002.
After two decades of repression, the incoming president, Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov, announced in early 2007 that the government had re-opened Internet cafes in the capital Ashgabat and was set to follow this move in regional centres. One hour of computer time cost about US$4, however, a high price in a country where two-thirds of the population live below the poverty line and the average monthly income was less than US$100. It was not immediately clear how far these reforms would go. By 2010 it was evident that the new president was keeping his promise about keeping the Internet cafes open. There were still considerable restrictions on the use of Internet, however.
Market highlights:

By early 2010 mobile subscribers in Turkmenistan were still relatively low in number, having just passed the 1.5 million mark, being a penetration of almost 30%;
For a number of previous years, growth had been outstanding; mobile subscriber numbers increased by almost 300% in the two year period 2008/09;
The country’s mobile subscriber base was still expanding but the rate had slowed in the second half of 2009 and into 2010;
Fixed-line penetration in Turkmenistan was struggling to break through the 10% penetration barrier, and 2009 had seen the fixed market virtually stagnating and it was not clear where further growth would come from;
Although no updated official figures were available, progress on converting the country’s fixed network from analogue to digital was slow; by 2010 the conversion program still had a long way to go;
Internet growth in the country had been hindered by severe government controls until 2007 when there was an apparent easing of restrictions; this has not, however, seen the expected lift in Turkmenistan’s Internet usage; again, it was hard to confirm the precise situation with the limited official figures available;
There were early signs of broadband Internet access being made available in the country; but a low broadband penetration of 0.05% in 2009 did not look promising.Turkmenistan – key telecom parameters – 2009 – 2010
Category20092010 (e)
Fixed-line services:
Total number of subscribers478,000488,000
Annual change0%2%
Fixed-line penetration (population)9.4%9.4%
Mobile services:
Total number of subscribers (million)1.52.0
Annual change32%33%
Mobile penetration (population)29%38%
(Source: BuddeComm)
This report provides an overview of the trends and developments in the telecommunications markets in Turkmenistan. Subjects covered include:

Key statistics;
Market and industry overviews;
Major operators (mobile and fixed);
Regulatory environment;
Infrastructure;
Mobile market;
Internet market.

Web and Mobile Status Report, Central Asia

Kazakhstan & Central Asia Telecommunications Report Q3 2011 

Business Monitor International

Business Monitor International’s Central Asia Telecommunications Report provides industry professionals and strategists, corporate analysts, telecommunication associations, government departments and regulatory bodies with independent forecasts and competitive intelligence on Central Asia’s telecommunications industry.

BMI’s Q311 update on the telecoms markets of Kazakhstan and its four Central Asian neighbours is built on new mobile subscriber data for Q111, ending March 31 2011, regulatory data and local press reports. Using this data, we have revised our five-year growth forecasts for the development of the region’s five mobile markets. In addition, we have reviewed our five-year forecasts for the development of Central Asia’s fixed and mobile broadband subscriber markets this quarter. Therefore, we include customers who use devices such as netbooks and USB sticks to connect to the internet wirelessly through a high-speed (3G/HSPA) network; however, we do not include smartphone users, only dedicated mobile data subscriptions. In the past few months, operators in countries such as Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have been have been introducing various promotions, to encourage greater data customer growth and service usage.
In December 2010 Kyrgyzstan became the latest Central Asian republic to introduce third-generation (3G) mobile services, although LTE networks had already been launched in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in 2010 by Kazakh mobile market leader K-Cell, which is owned by the Nordic carrier TeliaSonera, and Uzdunrobita operating as MTS Uzbekistan. BMI forecasts that mobile broadband services based on UMTS/HSPA and LTE technology will make a strong contribution to the growth of internet services in Central Asia because of the limited scope of fixed broadband growth due to a lack of existing infrastructure, income-constrained demand and challenging geography. Our new broadband forecasts for Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan envisage stronger growth as a result of the impact of mobile broadband services. In the long term, BMI believes the spread of mobile broadband services have the potential to stifle the success of competing wireless technologies such as WiMAX and satellite. Meanwhile, in November 2010 3G services were launched in Turkmenistan when MTS Turkmenistan launched a 3G network in the capital Ashgabat. However, the following month it was announced that MTS’ operating licence had been suspended by the Turkmen government. At the time of writing, MTS remained offline and was proceeding with its lawsuit against two state-owned operators Turkmentelecom and mobile subsidiary Altyn Asyr, regarding the termination of interconnection agreements. BMI believes the revocation of MTS’ licence will be to the detriment of the Turkmen market in terms of a loss of competition and international expertise.

The Russian foreign ministry announced on March 7 2011 that it will protect the interests of local telecoms operator Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) in its dispute with Turkmenistan. MTS has itself responded by writing to international firms with the aim of discouraging them from investing in Turkmenistan. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Turkmenistan has expressed its interest in initiating negotiations with the Russian operator on the buyout of its assets in the country.

The situation became a political issue beyond telecoms after the military were called in to control crowds in early April 2011, after hundreds of customers stormed Altyn Asyr stores when it suspended the distribution of SIM cards due to network congestion problems. The operator began offering vouchers that could be used to acquire a SIM card from May 2011. Only public officials or foreign nationals are currently being issued SIM cards. One positive ramification from the SIM issuance suspension is the political pressure it applies to the Turkmen leadership. Earlier in April, the President of Turkmenistan, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, was forced to respond to the political implications of the SIM shortage by criticising the operator’s poor service. He argued poor work organisation is the cause of the low efficiency. He demanded measures be taken immediately to guarantee the high quality of mobile services across the country and obliged the government to establish private companies and joint ventures with foreign businesses. Huawei Technologies and Nokia Siemens Networks have since won contracts for an urgent upgrade of the Altyn Asyr network, according to local reports.

Iran’s Role in Curtailing Afghan Opium

 Khaama

By Brad L. Brasseur

The recent resurgence of opium production in Afghanistan, notably in Balkh and Badakhshan provinces (as reported by Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit) represents a frightening development for Afghanistan and its neighbors. The ineffectiveness of opium poppy eradication in Afghanistan can be attributed to the Obama administration stopping a military drive to wipe out opium poppy crops in Afghan fields.

Although opium poppies economically sustain thousands of Afghan families, opium production has had serious consequences on the stability of Afghanistan’s regional countries, notably Iran, and Russia. If opium production is increasing today, while the international community is heavily involved in Afghanistan then the potential threat of opium production post-2014 will be even more alarming for Afghanistan’s neighbors.

Iran, with its serious domestic drug problems, is in a strong position to further build up its image in the region and take charge of a process aimed at curtailing the regional opium trade. With its close relationship to the Karzai government, such an engagement could not only potentially alleviate Iran’s drug problems but could also help increase their credibility in the region, including with Russia. In order for Tehran to successfully combat the opium trade, they need to build on the momentum from recent agreements and take the lead on regional approach with other countries that are facing similar challenges.

In light of the withdrawal of international forces in Afghanistan, President Karzai badly needs to increase cooperation and trust building among his neighbors. Iran is one of the few regional countries that have a fairly stable relationship with the Karzai government based on strong economic and trade relations (also helps Karzai receives cash from Tehran). Tehran can use their influence in Kabul to push for increased measures on curtailing opium production.

While it is widely known that Afghanistan is an opium hub, accounting for around 90 percent of global illicit opium production. According to UNDOC 2010 report, 37% of all Afghan heroine travels through Iran before reaching its final markets. Tehran believes that the international community’s efforts in Afghanistan have ignored the drug trade and have allowed drug traffickers to roam free. Moreover, Tehran believes that they have not received gratitude for their strong efforts in fighting the Afghan drug trade whose destination is usually Europe.

Iran has almost done everything in its power to combat its serious drug problem as it threatens the stability of their country and exhausts its military and financial resources. National efforts have been undertaken to hold back the flow of drugs and Tehran has spent millions of dollars, simply constructing trenches, concrete dams, planting minefields, and deploying thousands of troops to secure its border with Afghanistan and Pakistan. Despite some achievements in obstructing smugglers, Tehran’s measures, like other regional countries, have been relatively ineffective, mainly due to the vast organized network of the drug traffickers and their advanced technological equipment.

The bottom-line is that success depends on increasing regional cooperation as there are significant limits to what any state can achieve through fighting the Afghan drug trade alone. Moving forward Iran will need to further increase its cooperation and intelligence sharing with the other regional neighbors under threat, most notably Russia.

The UNDOC points to Russia being the country that has experienced the worst effects from the Afghan drug trade. Recently, the head of Russia’s federal drug control agency Victor Ivanov lashed out at NATO for not doing enough to curtail the production of drugs in Afghanistan. He stated that around 90% of the 30,000 heroine deaths each year come from Afghanistan. In order to combat the drug trade, Iran and Russia have initially teamed up with the three other Caspian Sea states (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan) and agreed to form ‘a Caspian Anti-Drug Information Center”.

While, this represents an important step as it includes two regional powers Russia and Iran using their common interest in a similar manner to their strategy in Tajikistan, where they stopped Turkey and the United States from expanding their influence in the region. The pressing need for addition cooperation among regional countries is needed before true steps in combating the opium trade can take place as the United States has shown no signs in changing their position on eradicating opium in Afghanistan(despite recent joint drug patrols with Russia troops).

In light of the transfer of security in Afghanistan from international troops to Afghan National Security Forces, increased cooperation through a multi lateral approach will be vital moving forward in the fight against the illicit Afghan drug trade. Such an approach can be successful with Iran is in the lead with close cooperation from Russia and other regional countries, including the Caspian Sea states and the Central Asian states.

Brad L. Brasseur works on Afghanistan-Pakistan at the EastWest Institute in Brussels. The views of the above article are not attributed to the EastWest Institute but rather to the individual himself.

Afghanistan invites bids for Hajigak iron deposit

Posted by Khaama

 

source

Jan 19 (Reuters) – Afghanistan on Wednesday invited 22 companies, including 15 from India, to bid for its giant Hajigak iron ore deposit despite concerns over a worsening insurgency.

The country’s Mines Ministry set Aug. 3, 2011 as the deadline for bids for what it says is the largest unmined iron deposit in Asia. It said it expected exploration to begin in 2012, pressing ahead with the project despite security concerns weighing on investors.

The Hajigak deposit straddles Bamiyan, Parwan and Wardak provinces, with only Bamiyan relatively peaceful. The ministry estimates the worth of its reserves at as much as $350 billion.

The United States has trumpeted Afghanistan’s rich mineral deposits as the key to future prosperity, but experts say the bounty is years, even decades away and point to massive security and infrastructure challenges for potential investors.

Violence in Afghanistan is at it worst since U.S-backed forces overthrew the Taliban in late 2001 with record casualties on all sides and a raging insurgency spreading to once-peaceful areas of the country.

The government has a specially trained force to protect mines and other infrastructure, with many of its members drawn from villages surrounding the asset under guard.

The ministry said the interested companies included India’s Jindal Steel and Power Ltd , JSW Steel , Tata Steel , NMDC , Steel Authority of India and Ispat Industries . UK-based Stemcor was also named, as well as Canadian-based Kilo Goldmines Ltd .

“The development of Hajigak will involve major infrastructure improvements and will stimulate the local economy and improve and lives of the citizens of Bamiyan province and beyond,” Mines Minister Wahidullah Shahrani said in a statement.

United Mining and Minerals Co. was the only Chinese company on the list, the ministry said.

China’s top integrated copper producer, Jiangxi Copper Co , and Metallurgical Corp of China are developing the vast Aynak copper mine south of Kabul after they were handed the contract in 2007. The $4 billion project is the biggest non-military investment in the country so far.

Metallurgical Corp pulled out of an earlier tender for Hajigak in 2009 following accusations it had won the Aynak contract by giving bribes. The firm denied the charges.

The Mines Ministry cancelled the tender, blaming the cancellation on the global recession and changes in the world market structure for iron. (Reporting by Matt Robinson, additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi, editing by Miral Fahmy)