CI CENTRE
Due to the major winter snow storms, all CI Centre courses are CANCELED this week, 8-12 February 2010.
US Government operating status in the Washington, DC area
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BBC, 8 Feb 10: Two young British Muslims who have served short prison sentences for terrorism offences have spoken frankly about their views to a new BBC documentary investigation into the extent of the radicalisation of Muslims in the UK. The views of Rizwan Ditta and Bilal Mohammed, two young Muslims born and brought up in Halifax, West Yorkshire, UK, will be anathema to the vast majority of the British people including many British Muslims.
Ditta claims: “You can go to any [Muslim] youth on the street and say, ‘Do you believe in Jihad?’ and he’ll say ‘Yes’. ‘Do you believe that al-Qaeda is a terrorist movement?’ He’ll say, ‘No’.” . . . They were released last year and are now out on licence with strict conditions. Both are unrepentant. Mohammed says that he was welcomed home with flowers and presents. He claims that none of the Muslim community views him as a terrorist. “They gave me support and comfort, saying everything is alright. Don’t worry, you didn’t do anything.” . . . .
. . . . “I believe that my loyalties and priorities, even though I’ve been born and bred in England, lie with the Muslims,” Mohammed said. Ditta also expressed a similar view. “For me to say I’ve allegiance to UK or I’m a British citizen is to spit in a lot of people’s face because the blood has not even dried in Iraq or Afghanistan.” . . . . (VIDEOS)
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AP, 8 Feb 10: An elderly Chinese-born engineer convicted of economic espionage for hoarding sensitive documents that included space shuttle details faces sentencing Monday, and prosecutors are seeking a 20-year term. A judge found Dongfan “Greg” Chung, 74, guilty in July of six federal counts of economic espionage and other charges for keeping 300,000 pages of sensitive papers in his home. The documents also included information about the fueling system for a booster rocket.
Despite Chung’s age, prosecutors have requested a 20-year sentence, in part to send a message to other would-be spies. Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Staples noted in sentencing papers that Chung amassed a personal wealth of more than $3 million while betraying his adopted country. “The (People’s Republic of China) is bent on stealing sensitive information from the United States and shows no sign of relenting,” Staples wrote. “Only strong sentences offer any hope of dissuading others from helping the PRC get that technology.” . . .
. . . . The government accused Chung, a stress analyst with high-level clearance, of using his 30-year career at Boeing Co. and Rockwell International to steal the documents. They said investigators found papers stacked throughout Chung’s house that included sensitive information about the booster rocket — documents that employees were ordered to lock away at the end of each day. They said Boeing invested $50 million in the technology over a five-year period. . . .
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The first sentence in this AP story is misleading. It portrays an “elderly” man who was just “hoarding” documents. Chung began spying for China in 1979, when he was 43 years old. He spied for 27 years. In various letters to his handlers in the PRC, Chung referenced engineering manuals he had collected and sent to the PRC, including 24 manuals relating to the B-1 Bomber that Rockwell had prohibited from disclosure outside of the company. In addition to space shuttle documents, his “hoarding” included sensitive information on Delta IV rocket, F-15 fighter, B-52 bomber, CH-46/47 Chinook helicopter and other aerospace and military technologies–all given to the PRC. Chung indicated to his PRC handlers a desire to contribute to the “motherland:”
“I don’t know what I can do for the country. Having been a Chinese compatriot for over thirty years and being proud of the achievements by the people’s efforts for the motherland, I am regretful for not contributing anything…..I would like to make an effort to contribute to the Four Modernizations of China.”–undated (probably 1979) letter from Chung to Professor Chen Lung Ku at Harbin Institute of Technology in the PRC
9 September 1979 letter from Chen Lung Ku: “We are all moved by your patriotism. You have spent so much time to reorganize the notes from several years ago; copying and finding the information that could be needed by us, and you have actively put in your efforts towards the Four Modernizations of the Motherland. Your spirit is an encouragement and driving force to us. We’d like to join our hands together with the overseas compatriots in the endeavor for the construction of our great socialist motherland.”
“It is your honor and China’s fortune that you are able to realize your wish of dedicating yourself to the service of your country.”–May 2, 1987 letter to Chung from Gu Weihao, an official in the Ministry of Aviation and China Aviation Industry Corporation
Chung was NOT just an elderly man who hoarded documents.
♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 207–An Introduction to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) Intelligence and Counterintelligence Methodologies
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Times of London, 8 Feb 10: The head of Britain’s special forces has been trying to stop the publication of a book by a senior BBC journalist which describes in “tactical detail” operations carried out by the SAS in Iraq from 2003 to 2009. The major-general, who cannot be identified for security reasons, is concerned about the impact of Task Force Black on the elite regiment’s operational effectiveness because of the contents, which are understood to be based on interviews with members and former members of the SAS.
Negotiations with lawyers representing the book’s author, Mark Urban, Newsnight’s diplomatic and defence editor, and the Ministry of Defence, have been going on for months, and a compromise had been reached. However, the Director Special Forces (DSF) remains unhappy with the publication. The DSF is in command of all the special forces: the SAS, the Special Boat Service, the Special Forces Support Group (formerly the 1st Battalion The Parachute Regiment), and the Special Reconnaissance Regiment. “As far as DSF is concerned, when he saw the manuscript, all he wanted to survive was about three lines,” one defence source said. “All DSFs would prefer nothing to be written about the SAS. In fact their ideal situation would be if neither the word ‘special’ nor ‘forces’ ever appeared in print,” he added. . . .
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VOA, 7 Feb 10: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says trans-national Islamic extremist networks pose greater threats to the United States than the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea. . . .
♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 361–The Global Jihadist Threat Doctrine
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Japan Focus, 7 Feb 10: The Sorge espionage case concerns one of the most spectacular instances of clandestine influence in the history of international relations.
In the mid-1930s, the former Soviet Union enlisted the German national, Dr. Richard Sorge and four others in Tokyo, secretly to collect information on the likely policies of the Japanese government and to do what it could to alter them in favor of peace. This concerned above all whether Japan would join Nazi Germany in an attack on the U.S.S.R. Since Germany had already virtually defeated Russia in the summer of 1941, had Japan joined Germany it would have meant the probable victory of the Axis powers over Russia.
As it was Russia and Japan maintained their neutrality vis-à-vis each other until the final months of World War II, one of the most amazing achievements of Soviet espionage and secret operations in history. Sorge did not survive the defeat of Nazi Germany, but the Soviet Union and its successors have celebrated his achievements ever since. . . .
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Dalls Morning News, 7 Feb 10: After the worst military base massacre in U.S. history, officials acknowledged that they failed to “connect the dots” – the shooter had been corresponding with an imam tied to al-Qaeda and had condemned the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as a war against Islam.
But Fort Hood gunman Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan wasn’t the only one working on a Texas Army base the day of the shooting who had links to radical Islamists. At Fort Bliss, an experienced military trainer was teaching soldiers about his Muslim faith. He, too, had denounced government counterterrorism efforts, and public records show he and some of his closest associates had ties to terrorism suspects.
But when The Dallas Morning News first inquired about the instructor, Louay Safi, military officials praised him. Only later did they say that Safi had been suspended from working on military bases pending a continuing criminal inquiry. The Safi affair reveals the deep divisions within the U.S. government over how to combat terrorism and over what constitutes moderate Islam. . . .
. . . . Safi is a senior official of the Islamic Society of North America, the country’s largest Muslim organization. ISNA has been consulted for years by Washington and is described as a partner in the fight against terrorism. In addition to serving as ISNA’s communications director, Safi runs its program certifying Muslim chaplains for work in the U.S. military and prison system. He publicly denounces terrorism and advocates peace.
Safi was also named by government prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator in one terrorism case in 2005. His last two employers were implicated in other government terrorism investigations while he worked for them. He was never charged, nor included among the targets of those investigations. But Safi has called the widespread raids on Muslim organizations after 9/11 “a campaign against Islam” – a term that 9/11 Commission director Philip Zelikow says is part of “the jihadi narrative.” . . . “You have a schizophrenic government and a schizophrenic institution,” Zelikow said, referring to ISNA. “The schizophrenia cuts right into how the government views the whole Fort Hood affair. We don’t know whether to treat him [Hasan] as part of an international conspiracy or as a lone wolf who happened to have gotten solace from a radical imam.”
Safi, a 54-year-old native of Syria, is a military subcontractor who has lectured on Islam for the Army since 2005. His relationship with the Pentagon began a year earlier, when he became ISNA’s leadership development director, providing Muslim chaplains the religious endorsement they need to work in the military and prison system.
He is one of seven lecturers in the Army’s Islamic education program, overseen by the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. Much of the work is contracted out to Huntsville, Ala.-based Camber Corp., the privately held firm that hired Safi. The training on Islam is part of a broader military educational program for which Camber is paid about $17.7 million annually, Navy Commander Brenda Malone said. Camber spokeswoman Rivka Tadjer declined to comment, citing instruction from the military. . . .
. . . . In January, military officials told the newspaper that Safi was under investigation and that his lectures had been suspended. The investigation, begun by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, was recently referred to the Army, said Ed Buice, an NCIS spokesman. He would not elaborate, but other military officials said the inquiry began after a Dec. 3 complaint about ISNA. The complaint came in as Safi concluded three days of lectures at Fort Hood, which is still traumatized by the Nov. 5 massacre. . . . .
. . . . Prosecutors put ISNA on a long list of unindicted co-conspirators, contending it was among groups that “are and/or were members of the US Muslim Brotherhood.” The Brotherhood aimed to take over the United States, according to a document from the group used as evidence in the Holy Land trial. Brotherhood members “must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within,” and they “must possess a mastery of the art of ‘coalitions,’ the art of ‘absorption’ and the principles of ‘cooperation,’ ” the 1991 document said.
Hamilton, the former FBI counterterrorism expert, said that document reflects ISNA’s current thinking. “They’re trying to portray themselves as moderate in the West when they are not,” Hamilton said, referring to ISNA and several other large Muslim groups. . . . .
Background on ISNA (Discover the Networks)
BETTER TRAINING for the US Army:
♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 361–The Global Jihadist Threat Doctrine
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TIME, 6 Feb 10: In the three years since allying itself with Osama bin Laden, North Africa’s al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) militant group has worked hard to align its terror activities and communications with those of its radical parent organization. Topping the list of the techniques AQIM has borrowed from its brothers in the Middle East and South Asia is kidnapping Westerners to net big-money ransoms — or carefully choreographing their executions to shock the world. . . .
. . . . Apart from a one-off abduction of 32 Europeans trekking in the Algerian desert in 2003, North African militants never showed much of an interest in kidnapping until they linked up with al-Qaeda in 2007. Since then, it’s become a veritable habit. Hard figures are hard to come by, but analysts believe some 15 to 30 Westerners have been abducted by AQIM in North Africa in the last three years. While the group has unleashed many of its most violent terrorist acts (bombings and shootings) in cities like Algiers, its kidnappings have all taken place in the vast Sahel region stretching across Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Mali, Niger, Libya and Tunisia. According to experts, the number of insurgents roaming the desert area in four-wheel vehicles has increased from a few score to perhaps 200 in the past two years. . . .
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Times of London, 7 Feb 10: A FORMER Palestinian intelligence officer has become the first woman to be appointed governor of Ramallah, the unofficial capital of the West Bank, by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas as part of a crackdown on Hamas, the hardline Islamist faction.
Leila Ghannam, 35, who has a doctorate in psychology but rose to be a captain in the Palestinian intelligence service, has been personally charged by the president with ensuring that Hamas is unable to seize power from Abbas’s ruling Fatah party on the West Bank as they did in Gaza in 2007. “Any attempt to mount an uprising by Hamas, any slightly illegal act will be met with an iron fist,” she said at her modest fifth floor office overlooking Ramallah. As governor she is in command of all the armed forces in the region. . . .
. . . . During her earlier position with Fatah she worked closely with overseas intelligence services, including MI6. “My intelligence experience, like my degree in psychology, helps me to carry out my job,” she said. . . . .
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Canadian Press, 7 Feb 10: Johnny X is Canada’s spy who came in from the cold. An enigmatic secret agent, he spent a lifetime covertly battling Nazis and Communists on several continents while living under a death sentence.
Johnny X, one of his many shadowy aliases, appears only sporadically in the historical record of 20th-century espionage. And he ended his days in obscurity in Brockville, Ont., as a proud new Canadian running a shabby waterfront hotel to earn a modest retirement income. His remarkable life, which included dangerous undercover work in wartime Canada, has eluded historians partly because espionage archives have remained largely under lock and key. But a new book for the first time lays bare the story of Johann Heinrich Amadeus de Graaf, as he was christened at his birth in 1894 in Nordenham, Germany.
“The tale you are about to read is an incredible one,” authors Gordon D. Scott and R.S. (Bob) Rose write in their introduction to Johnny: A Spy’s Life
. . . Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service MI6, for whom Johnny X worked as a double-agent beginning in 1933, refused to open its archives for the project. The government of Argentina, the scene of some of Johnny’s exploits, was similarly unhelpful. Even so, Rose extracted much compelling material from the FBI, the RCMP and others to put meat on the bones of the memoir, often using freedom-of-information laws.
The result is a sweeping tale of a courageous agent who pretended to work for the Russian intelligence service, which trained him in Moscow in 1930, and even for the Nazis, while actually serving Britain and Canada. His globe-trotting operations took him to Britain, Germany, the Far East, South America and Canada. Canadian readers will be especially drawn to the final chapters, as Johnny is hired by the RCMP to infiltrate Nazi groups in Montreal during the Second World War. . . .
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MEMRI, 4 Feb 10: A discussion thread begun on February 2, 2010 on the Al-Falluja jihadist forum discussed which sites in the U.S. would make the most effective targets for a terror attack – or, as the initiator of the thread put it, “how we can hasten getting rid of America, Allah willing.” . . .
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Big Journalism, 6 Feb 10: A blast from the past, and a warning for the future. There’s some typical KGB boasting here — and remember that, in the end, they lost — but it’s worth watching and paying heed to:
Maybe it’s also time we brought ourselves up to speed on the Soviet illegals program, the results of which are still with us. The Soviets spent a great deal of time and money identifying possible collaborators (whether witting or unwitting) in the homeland of the Principal Enemy — that was their name for the United States — and then gliding the recruits along their support networks of fellow travelers and sympathetic “useful idiots” (especially journalists) through the elite universities and into high governmental positions. . . .
♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 205–National Security Policy and Counterintelligence Implications of Denial and Deception Practices
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The Atlantic, 6 Feb 10: Fred Chang has a theory about how hackers affiliated with the Chinese government hacked into Google and at least two dozen other major American companies. Chang is a professor of computer science at the University of Texas — so we should listen to him. But he is also the former director of research for the National Security Agency, so he has a pretty good idea of what hackers can do — and whether these things can be picked up by the government or industry.
Chang says he has no inside or special knowledge, but here is his theory: the hack was much more of a sophisticated intelligence operation than many believed. The first step was espionage and data collection.
The second step was the hack itself. Chang believes that the Chinese hackers figured out the identities of the system administrators for various computer networks. Then, the hackers figured out, using publicly availably Facebook data, the social networks that these systems administrators were part of.
Then, masquerading as these friends, they sent e-mails to the targets with compromised links. E-mails from a trusted source? Ah, but they were spoofed, using a vulnerability in an outdated version of Internet Explorer.
Unbeknownst to the system administrator, once they clicked on the link, the malware deposited an SSL — a secure sockets layer — essentially an encrypted tunnel — between the host computer and a computer controlled by the hackers. From that point, searching around for passwords and proprietary information was easy. . . .
♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 101–Elicitation Techniques and the Recruitment Process from the Intelligence and Counterintelligence Perspective (Counterelicitation)
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Washington Post, 6 Feb 10: Interagency interrogation teams have started to question key terrorism suspects under a classified charter approved last week, but authorities have been slower to resolve pressing issues that emerged since Christmas — including how to draw the line between gathering intelligence and building a legal case, according to federal officials and experts following the process.
The High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, announced to fanfare by White House officials last summer, was not formally authorized until Jan. 28, under a previously unreported 14-page memo signed by the president’s national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones. The delay became a matter of political debate last month after members of Congress asked why the group had been not deployed to interrogate Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who is accused of trying to detonate an explosive Dec. 25 on an airliner about to land in Detroit.
Authorities, with help from the National Counterterrorism Center, are developing a list of terrorism suspects who represent critical intelligence targets. Each suspect will be assigned to an FBI-led interagency mobile interrogation team that will be ready in the event of a capture, several officials said. . . . Interrogators from the CIA, the FBI and the Defense Department, with expertise in a particular country and jidahist group, will assemble background information on each suspect on the list even before he or she is apprehended, two officials said. The teams will create a preauthorized strategy for each target. . . . .
♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 515–Interviewing and Interrogation Techniques: Basic to Advanced
♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 362–Informant Development for Law Enforcement to Fight Terrorism
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The Independent, 6 Feb 10: Western governments are facing a potent and ill-understood new threat from terrorists and hostile powers in the shape of cyber warfare, military and security experts have warned. . . . US and British officials say what is at stake goes far beyond attempted state censorship, with military infrastructure and financial markets becoming vulnerable.
To overcome that risk, the Green Paper just published by the British Government has stated that part of the forthcoming Strategic Defence Review will focus on the risks posed by technology in enemy hands. At the moment, it is believed that insurgents with the right electronic capability could jam weapons systems and intercept classified communications during military missions.
“Cyber space, in particular, poses serious and complex challenges for UK security and for the armed forces’ operations… Cyber attacks are already an important element of the security environment and are growing in seriousness and frequency,” says the report. “The most sophisticated threat is from established and capable states but cyber eliminates the importance of distance, is low cost and anonymous in nature, making it an important domain not just for hostile states, but terrorists and criminals.” The result of losing a “technological edge”, said the Paper, would mean “operations would be more hazardous. Our casualty rates, in particular, could be expected to increase markedly.” . . . .
Adaptability and partnership: issues for the strategic defence review (UK Government, 3 Feb 10)
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We Love DC, 5 Feb 10: Every Friday for the next six weeks, the International Spy Museum (ISM) will be debuting a new exhibit within the museum, including the addition of several new rare artifacts from the shadowy world of espionage. These new additions (some for a limited time only) join the already-extensive collection regarding the world’s “second-oldest profession” and the new gallery dedicated to espionage in the 21st Century. Several of these exhibits will tie into special programs occurring at the museum over the next few months, covering not only the secret history of spying but also exploring today’s hottest topics that daily impact the world of intelligence. . . . .
. . . . Richard Welch Exhibit. CIA Station Chief Richard Welch was assassinated in Greece in 1975 by the radical Marxist organization Revolutionary Organization 17 November (17N). Welch had previously been outed as a CIA operative in the East German publication Who’s Who in CIA. His assassination eventually led to the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. On loan from the Welch family, the Museum will display the wristwatch Welch was wearing at the time of his assassination, copies of Who’s Who in CIA and the Senate Hearing leading to the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, and a reproduction 17N terrorist flag. . . .
. . . . Cambridge Five. Disillusioned by capitalism and British imperialism, Kim Philby was ready to explore any new idea; communism became particularly attractive to him. A member of a group of students from Cambridge University united by their beliefs Philby forged one of the most successful spy operations in history. On loan from H. Keith Melton, one of ISM’s board members, the Museum will have on display several of Philby’s personal items including a flask, camera, coat, and a photo of Lenin. Joining these are additional Cambridge Five artifacts including fellow conspirator John Cairncross’ passport and a 1st edition book written by Anthony Blunt. . . .
Cambridge Five John Cairncross Passport
. . . . Canadian Intelligence. Celebrating its 25th anniversary, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) has loaned several artifacts for display in the “School for Spies” gallery. Previously on display in the Canadian Embassy, these tools of the trade will include a camera concealed in a woman’s handbag, a toy truck with a miniature one-time pad, special lens and encoding sheet hidden inside, and a concealment device designed to look like a tree branch. CSIS has also loaned several items pertaining to Igor Gouzenko, a clerk for Soviet military intelligence at the Soviet Embassy in Canada, who defected and often regarded as the first instance of Cold War espionage. Gouzenko’s gun, written statement to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and scrapbook of his clippings will have a dedicated case in the “Red Terror” gallery. . . .
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Jamestown Foundation, 5 Feb 10: Insurgent violence has continued unabated in the North Caucasus this week, with five federal servicemen dying in a shootout with insurgents in Chechnya yesterday (February 4) and Russia’s security services again accusing Georgia of aiding militants in the North Caucasus. . .
. . . . On February 3, the head of the FSB directorate for Dagestan, Vyacheslav Shanshin, told Russia’s Vesti-24 state television channel that security forces in the republic had killed an Egyptian militant who was “one of the founders of the al-Qaeda network in the North Caucasus.” RIA Novosti quoted an unnamed FSB spokesman as saying that the 49-year-old Egyptian national, Makhmoud Mokhammed Shaaban, was killed in a shootout with police in Dagestan’s Botlikhsky district on February 2, and that a Dagestani militant and a police officer also died in the gun battle.
The FSB spokesman said that Shaaban, aka Seif Islam (the sword of Islam), had seen action in Afghanistan in the 1990’s, and “was also in Sudan, Somali, Libya and Georgia,” as well as arriving in Chechnya in 1992 “to take part in operations against federal forces.” The spokesman added that Shaaban had organized the North Caucasus branch of al-Qaeda with Saudi-born Islamic radical Ibn Al-Khattab, and that he had been behind a series of bombing attacks targeting railway tracks, electricity lines and energy pipelines on the instructions of Georgian secret services.
On February 4, a spokesman for Georgia’s Interior Ministry, Shota Utiashvili, denied the allegations that his country had assisted Shaaban. He called the charges “anti-Georgian propaganda” and said Georgia has nothing to do with the violence in Russia’s North Caucasus. . . .
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ABC News, 5 Feb 10: President Obama today honored the “sacrifice” of seven CIA officers who lost their lifein the Khost, Afghanistan suicide bombing late last year, and called for their legacy to be a summons to carry on and win the war.
“There are no words that can ease the ache in your hearts,” Obama said at the memorial service at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. “But to their colleagues and all who served with them — those here today, those still recovering, those watching around the world — I say: Let their sacrifice be a summons. To carry on their work. To complete this mission. To win this war, and to keep our country safe.”
Family members of the seven CIA officers killed in eastern Afghanistan on December 30th as well as more than a thousand Agency officers, senior officials from the Intelligence Community, the White House and the Pentagon, as well as members of Congress gathered today to pay their respects at the private memorial to their service.
“At the remote outpost, they were bound by a common spirit. They heard their country’s call and answered it. They served in the shadows and took pride in it. They were doing their job and they loved it. They saw the danger and accepted it. They knew that the price of freedom is high and, in an awful instant, they paid that price.”
The President said that while they served in secrecy – their legacy is all around. “It’s written in the extremists who no longer threaten our country — because you eliminated them. It’s written in the attacks that never occurred — because you thwarted them. And it’s written in the Americans, across this country and around the world, who are alive today — because you saved them.”
Speaking directly to the families of those lost, the president said that it is “against the natural order of life” for parents to lay their children to rest. “Yet these weeks of solemn tribute have revealed for all to see — that you raised remarkable sons and daughters. Everything you instilled in them — the virtues of service and decency and duty — were on display that December day. That is what you gave them. That is what you gave to America. And our nation will be forever in your debt.”
As is tradition each of the fallen will be represented with a star on the Memorial Wall at the CIA headwaters – honoring employees who have died in the line of service.
Obama honors 7 slain CIA employees as patriots (AP, 5 Feb 10)
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NewsMax, 5 Feb 10: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatens U.S. security through his relationship with the terrorist group Hezbollah, says Luis Fleischman a professor at Florida Atlantic University. “Chavez promotes a relationship with Hezbollah,” Fleischman told Newsmax.TV’s Ashley Martella. “Drug trafficking is going on across all of Central America. Chavez promotes this activity to destabilize countries friendly to the U.S.”
The more anarchy that Chavez creates, the more difficulty he poses to U.S. security, says the professor of political science and sociology.
“Hezbollah has relationships with drug trafficking cartels. The cartels know exactly how to bring the drugs into the southern border of the U.S. These routes have been used not only by Hezbollah, but also by Al Qaeda to penetrate the U.S.” So the threat is imminent, Fleischman says. “If this situation doesn’t stop, the northern part of Latin America is going to end up in a situation similar to Afghanistan, where you don’t have state control over the territory.” That means warlords connected to the drug business will be in control, he says. “Islamic groups can use those routes that drug cartels paved to enter the U.S. and do a lot of harm.” . . . .
As for the Chavez regime, it’s clearly illegitimate, having violated human rights, repressed freedom of the press and taken power in possibly corrupt elections. “It’s a totalitarian state,” Fleischman said. “There is chaos in the street. Politics is corrupt. People live in fear.”. . . .
♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 158–Venezuela: An Introduction to Myriad National Security Threats to America
♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 267–An Introduction to Hezbollah: A Worldwide Terrorist Organization
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The hole where Medine Memi was buried by her relatives in the courtyard of their house in Adiyaman, southeastern Turkey Photo: REUTERS
“Muslims are the first victims of Islam. Many times I have observed in my travels in the Orient, that fanaticism comes from a small number of dangerous men who maintain the others in the practice of religion by terror. To liberate the Muslim from his religion is the best service that one can render him.” –E. Renan (1823-1892)
Daily Telegraph, 5 Feb 10: A 16-year-old girl has been buried alive by her relatives in Turkey as punishment for talking to boys, police have said. Medine Memi was found in a sitting position with her hands tied, in a two-metre hole dug under a chicken pen outside her home in Kahta, in the south-eastern province of Adiyaman.
Her father and grandfather have since been arrested and are due to face trial over her death. Her mother was also charged but has since been released. Police made the discovery in December after a tip-off from an informant, the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported on its website.
Medine had first been reported missing 40 days earlier. The informant told the police she had been killed following a family “council” meeting. Media reports said the father had told relatives he was unhappy that his daughter – one of nine children – had male friends. The grandfather is said to have beaten her for having relations with the opposite sex.
A postmortem examination revealed large amounts of soil in her lungs and stomach, indicating that she had been alive and conscious while being buried. “The report is blood curdling. According to our findings the girl who had no bruises on her body and no sign of narcotics or poison in her blood was alive and fully conscious when she was buried,” one official involved in the case told the Times.
It also emerged that Medine had repeatedly tried to report to police that she had been beaten by her father and grandfather days before she was killed. “She tried to take refuge at the police station three times, and she was sent home three times,” her mother, Immihan, said after the body was discovered in December.
Medine’s father is reported as saying at the time: “She has male friends. We are uneasy about that.” . . . . . .
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From Jihad Watch/Robert Spencer:
Syria recently scrapped a law limiting the length of sentences for honor killings, but “the new law says a man can still benefit from extenuating circumstances in crimes of passion or honour ‘provided he serves a prison term of no less than two years in the case of killing.’” That’s right: two years for murder! You can serve more time than that for serial double parking. In 2003 the Jordanian Parliament voted down on Islamic grounds a provision designed to stiffen penalties for honor killings. Al-Jazeera reported that “Islamists and conservatives said the laws violated religious traditions and would destroy families and values.”
And a manual of Islamic law certified as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy by Al-Azhar University, the most respected authority in Sunni Islam, says that “retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right.” However, “not subject to retaliation” is “a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring’s offspring.” (’Umdat al-Salik o1.1-2). Reliance of the Traveller: The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law Umdat Al-Salik
In other words, someone who kills his child incurs no legal penalty under Islamic law. That’s why these honor killings keep happening — because they are broadly tolerated, even encouraged, by Islamic teachings and attitudes. Yet no authorities are calling Islamic leaders to account for this.
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