RFE/RL, 3 Dec 09: Russian intelligence service (FSB) cells within Russia’s Black Sea Fleet based in Sevastopol are to be dissolved and all FSB agents moved to Russia by mid-December, RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service reports.
In June, Ukrainian Security Service Chairman Valentyn Nalyvaichenko said that all FSB workers operating within the fleet that are based in Sevastopol are to leave Ukraine by December 13. He said Ukraine would then begin security oversight for the Russian fleet in Crimea.
Sources within Ukraine’s security agencies told RFE/RL that the Russian agents’ departure is being carefully monitored. They said Some Russian intelligence workers have already left Ukraine and others are due to leave soon.
Officially, 19 FSB operatives have been based in Sevastopol according to an agreement between the Ukrainian and Russian security services. Most of those FSB officers have been in Crimea since 2001.
Ukrainian security services recently accused these agents of supporting anti-Ukrainian sentiment and activities, backing Russian separatist organizations, and protesting against NATO-led military exercises being held on the Crimean peninsula. Some of the FSB officers are to be transferred to the Russian port of Novorossiisk.
Neither Russia’s Black Sea Fleet command nor the Ukrainian security service would officially comment on the status of the FSB officers. The Russian fleet, which is leasing the Crimean base from Ukraine, is due to leave Sevastopol in 2017.
DNA, 3 Dec 09: On Holi day in March this year, the religious town of Pushkar in Ajmer district of Rajasthan had an unholy visitor. Investigators have learnt that suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative David Coleman Headley stayed in a hotel in the town in March.
The hotel where Headley stayed is opposite an Israeli religious centre. In Pune too, Headley stayed in a hotel close to a Jewish religious centre. The 10 Pakistani terrorists who attacked Mumbai last November also targeted Nariman House, a Jewish religious centre, in Colaba.
Investigators believe Headley and his associate Tahawwur Hussain Rana were given the task of gathering details of Jewish religious centres across the country.
According to Kailash Parashar, owner of Hotel Oasis, Headley’s movements were suspicious. He tried to conceal his identity by giving his name as just ‘David Colman’ in the hotel register. “David gave a copy of his original US passport but again changed one digit of the number,” Parashar said. According to the register entry, Headley had arrived from Delhi and planned to proceed to Mumbai.
Parashar recalled that though the hotel had several rooms available, Headley insisted number 17, which faces the Israeli centre. The room cost just Rs500 a day. He hardly made eye contact with hotel staff and mostly kept to himself. “He would mostly be seen with his head lowered,” Parashar told DNA on telephone. . . . .
Jihad Watch, 2 Dec 09: D. C. Watson’s exhaustively researched list of arrested and convicted jihadists and their supporters living in the United States, which has been posted here and here, has been newly updated, and can be referenced here — scroll down and you’ll see it: “Misunderstanders of Their ‘Peaceful’ Faith.”
Washington Times/Inside the Ring, 3 Dec 09: Former White House and State Department official and Iran specialist Michael Ledeen is warning in a new book that the United States is failing to recognize that the Iranian regime is a force for evil in the modern world.
His new book, “Accomplice to Evil: Iran and the War Against the West,” argues that ignoring the threat from Iran is similar to the failure before World War II to correctly identify the threat posed by Nazism.
“The refusal to see evil, and the deliberate denial of its existence, are very common, whether among policy makers, intellectuals or reporters,” Mr. Ledeen wrote. . . . . .
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Center for Security Policy, 30 Nov 09: . . . . . . It is difficult to combat a shadowy organization like Al Qaeda, but it is far more difficult to prevent “lone wolf” actors from attacking. Al Qaeda may be difficult to infiltrate and gather intelligence on, but how do we “infiltrate” a lone Jihadist?
This is symptomatic of a revolutionary Jihadist subculture metastasizing within the American Muslim community, especially within its mosques and organizations. This revolutionary subculture has produced an atmosphere in which Muslims are inspired to act violently. This is a very dangerous and volatile situation.
Over the last 12 months alone, we have been provided with a stack of evidence of the Jihadist insurgency inside America. Americans have largely ignored this evidence, or at least failed to “connect the dots.” Seemingly completely unrelated cases do in fact have common threads: they are acts of Jihad.
I decided to go back and research examples of Jihad in America over the last 12 months, roughly 1 December 2008 to 1 December 2009. Here is a list of incidents, cases, actions, statements and plots which point to a Jihadist insurgency in our midst . . . . .
