Key Al Qaeda leader killed in Iraq raid, US military confirms

By Chelsea J. Carter, Associated Press | January 29, 2010 BAGHDAD - A key Al Qaeda in Iraq figure involved in smuggling hundreds of suicide bombers across the border from Syria has been killed in a raid in northern Iraq, the US military said yesterday. The military called the death a blow to the insurgent organization in Iraq, but acknowledged it remains very much capable of carrying out well-planned, coordinated assaults with large body counts. A series of attacks against three hotels and a police crime lab in Baghdad this week killed dozens. The US military said it had confirmed the identity of the operative through fingerprints and other means. The man was identified as Saad Uwayid Obeid Mijbil al-Shammari, also known as Abu Khalaf, the military said in a statement. Abu Khalaf was killed Jan. 22 during a joint US-Iraqi raid in the northern city of Mosul, about 60 miles from the Syrian border. He was killed after he broke free from his restraints and attacked his guard, the military said. He was believed to have been moving foreign fighters across the border since 2006, the same year a US air strike killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of Al Qaeda in Iraq. The military said he also worked as a financier, gathering and distributing money and weapons to Al Qaeda throughout the country. Earlier this week, General Raymond Odierno, the top US commander in Iraq, said intelligence indicated there were five to 10 main insurgent leaders planning the attacks in Baghdad. Odierno also said there has been a decline in the number of foreign fighters crossing from Syria into Iraq, citing political pressure from Damascus and beefed-up security along the border. In an interview yesterday, Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani of Iraq said Al Qaeda has been hampered by the decreased number of foreign fighters. “The decline in the infiltration of terrorists has weakened Al Qaeda. But we think that Al Qaeda and other networks linked to it are still able to carry out some operations,’’ Bolani said.

Rivals Taxi as Iraqi Airways Rebuilds

National Carrier Orders New Aircraft and Competitors Increase Routes Despite Security Concerns, Hobbled By STEFANIA BIANCHI And DANIEL MICHAELS Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Iraqi Airways, which since 2004 has leased used jetliners, recently ordered new aircraft from Boeing Co. In a potentially hopeful sign for Iraq's battered economy, foreign airlines are increasing service to the country as its national airline is rebuilding after two decades of war, sanctions and neglect. Flying in Iraq remains difficult due to continuing security concerns and because airports and air-traffic control systems are just starting to be modernized. Iraqi Airways spokesman Abir Burhan said the carrier hopes the influx of foreign airlines "will add more credibility to Iraqi Airways and Iraq's aviation sector." The national airline, which since 2004 has leased used jetliners, recently ordered new aircraft from Boeing Co. and started flying new turboprops from Canada's Bombardier Inc. The carrier still faces big financial hurdles, however, and is engaged in a long-running legal battle with Kuwait Airways dating back to the first Gulf War that could impede the Iraqi airline's development. The risk, industry officials said, is that foreign airlines could snag the Iraqi market before the national carrier can establish itself. Rivals, including Bahrain's Gulf Air, Turkish Airlines Inc., Lebanon's Middle East Airlines and Austrian Airlines AG, already cater to locals, who are now free to travel abroad, and to outsiders from around the globe who want to cash in on Iraq's oil wealth and reconstruction needs. "It's a good market," said Turkish Airlines Chief Executive Temel Kotil. Turkish was one of the first foreign carriers to serve Baghdad after the end of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003 and it plans in March to start flights to Basra, in southern Iraq. "We want to serve many Iraqi cities," Mr. Kotil said, adding that most of the carrier's passengers are Europeans. Gulf Air late last year started services to Baghdad, Najaf to its south and Erbil in northern Iraq. The carrier said it filled 74% of the seats on the flights last month—a high load for new routes. Gulf Air executives said they are considering adding two more cities. German giant Deutsche Lufthansa AG recently announced that it aims this summer to start serving Baghdad and Erbil, pending regulatory approval. Austrian Airlines, a unit of Lufthansa, is increasing flights to Erbil, the one Iraqi city it serves. Upscale Qatar Airways also is examining the Iraqi market, officials said. As ordinary Iraqis start to fly—largely to visit friends and relatives around the region—budget carriers also see opportunities. Low-fare Bahrain Air recently began service to Iraq, while rivals including Air Arabia and FlyDubai—both from the United Arab Emirates—and Kuwait's Jazeera Airways have said they also are assessing the market. 'We'd like to start very soon," said Stefan Pichler, chief executive of Jazeera Airways. "It's an attractive market with around-the-year demand." Iraqi Airways is trying to keep up but still needs funding from the state, which is already overburdened. "The Iraqi government doesn't have the financial incentives or resources to either draw in business or to stave off threats to Iraqi Airways," said Saj Ahmad, chief analyst of U.K.-based consultants FBE Aerospace. Mr. Burhan, at Iraqi Airways, brushed off the competitive threat. "Anything that connects Iraq to the rest of the world is good for the carrier and the country as a whole," he said. One factor limiting competition is security. Even carriers that have experience flying to less-developed markets get nervous about Iraq. A DHL Express cargo plane in 2003 was hit by a missile on takeoff from Baghdad but landed safely, thanks to heroic piloting. Austrian struggled to staff its flights to Erbil when they began in late 2006. Austrian in August 2007 suspended the service for 10 months due to security threats. An Austrian spokeswoman said many staff now volunteer for Erbil flights, although planes depart quickly after landing. Security concerns raise the insurance premiums carriers pay, increasing costs. Foreign airlines recoup the expense by charging high fares. But less-established Iraqi Airways may struggle to sell expensive tickets, analysts said. Iraqi Airways wants to start flying to London soon, Mr. Burhan said. For now, the carrier is focusing on the Middle East, mainly carrying Iraqis conducting business in the region. The strategy is driven partly by history. After Iraq was defeated in the first Gulf War, when it invaded neighboring Kuwait in August 1990, international sanctions largely kept the carrier grounded. The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 opened new opportunities for the carrier, which started flying leased planes. In 2008 it announced plans to order up to 40 new Boeing 737s, valued at $3 billion at list prices. The carrier also said it planned to order 10 of Boeing's new 787 Dreamliners, allowing it to fly intercontinental routes. But the airline's ambitions are limited by the legacy of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, when Iraqis stole planes and spare parts from Kuwait Airways. Kuwait later won a series of international court rulings against Iraq and a $1.2 billion compensation claim. Iraq hasn't paid the claim and representatives of the Kuwaiti carrier said they will secure payment of the debt by having Iraqi planes seized if they land in Europe. Mr. Burhan said the Kuwaiti and Iraqi governments "are in constant negotiations about this at a high level and are trying to sort it out."

Intelligence from Tehran Elevates Concern in the West

By Dieter Bednarz, Erich Follath and Holger Stark The West has long been suspicous of Iran's nuclear program. SPIEGEL has obtained new documents on secret tests and leadership structures that call into question Tehran's claims to be exclusively interested in the peaceful use of the technology. It was probably the last attempt to defuse the nuclear dispute with Tehran without having to turn to dramatic new sanctions or military action. The plan, devised at the White House in October, had Russian and Chinese support and came with the seal of approval of the US president. It was clearly a Barack Obama operation. Under the plan, Iran would send a large share of its low enriched uranium abroad, all at once, for a period of one year, receiving internationally monitored quantities of nuclear fuel elements in return. It was a deal that provided benefits for all sides. The Iranians would have enough material for what they claim is their civilian nuclear program, as well as for scientific experiments, and the world could be assured that Tehran would not be left with enough fissile material for its secret domestic uranium enrichment program -- and for what the West assumes is the building of a nuclear bomb. PHOTO GALLERY 3 PhotosPhoto Gallery: Iran's Nuclear Program Tehran's leaders initially agreed to the proposal "in principle." But for weeks they put off the international community with vague allusions to a "final response," and when that response finally materialized, it came in the form of a "counter-proposal." Under this proposal, Tehran insisted that the exchange could not take place all at once, but only in stages, and that the material would not be sent abroad. Instead, Tehran wanted the exchange to take place in Iran. Once again, the Iranian leadership has rebuffed the West with phony promises of its willingness to compromise. The government in Tehran officially rejected the nuclear exchange plan last Tuesday. To make matters worse, after the West's discovery of a secret uranium enrichment plant near Qom, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defiantly announced that he would never give in, and in fact would build 10 more enrichment plants instead. Highly Volatile Material But officials in Washington and European capitals are currently not as concerned about these cocky, unrealistic announcements as they are about intelligence reports based on sources within Iran and information from high-ranking defectors. The new information, say American experts, will likely prompt the US government to reassess the risks coming from the mullah-controlled country in the coming days and raise the alarm level from yellow to red. Skeptics who in the past, sometimes justifiably so, treated alarmist reports as Israeli propaganda, are also extremely worried. They include the experts from the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), whose goal is prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. After an extensive internal investigation, IAEA officials concluded that a computer obtained from Iran years ago contains highly volatile material. The laptop reached the Americans through Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), and was then passed on to the IAEA in Vienna. Reports by Ali Reza Asgari, Iran's former deputy defense minister who managed to defect to the United States, where he was given a new identity, proved to be just as informative. Nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri, who "disappeared" during a pilgrimage to Mecca in June 2009, is also believed to have particularly valuable information. The Iranian authorities accused Saudi Arabia and the United States of kidnapping the expert, but it is more likely that he defected. Iran's government has come under pressure as a result of the new charges. They center on the question of who exactly is responsible for the country's nuclear program -- and what this says about its true nature. The government has consistently told the IAEA that the only agency involved in uranium enrichment is the National Energy Council, and that its work was exclusively dedicated to the peaceful use of the technology. But if the claims are true that have been made in an intelligence dossier currently under review in diplomatic circles in Washington, Vienna, Tel Aviv and Berlin, portions of which SPIEGEL has obtained, this is a half-truth at best. According to the classified document, there is a secret military branch of Iran's nuclear research program that answers to the Defense Ministry and has clandestine structures. The officials who have read the dossier conclude that the government in Tehran is serious about developing a bomb, and that its plans are well advanced. There are two names that appear again and again in the documents, particularly in connection with the secret weapons program: Kamran Daneshjoo and Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. Secret Heart of Iran's Nuclear Weapons Program Daneshjoo, 52, Iran's new minister of science, research and technology, is also responsible for the country's nuclear energy agency, and he is seen as a close ally of Ahmadinejad. Opposition leaders say he is a hardliner who was partly responsible for the apparently rigged presidential election in June. Daneshjoo's biography includes only marginal references to his possible nuclear expertise. In describing himself, the man with the steely-gray beard writes that he studied engineering in the British city of Manchester, and then spent several years working at a Tehran "Center for Aviation Technology." Western experts believe that this center developed into a sub-organization of the Defense Ministry known as the FEDAT, an acronym for the "Department for Expanded High-Technology Applications" -- the secret heart of Iran's nuclear weapons program. The head of that organization is Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, 48, an officer in the Revolutionary Guard and a professor at Tehran's Imam Hossein University. Western intelligence agencies believe that although the nuclear energy agency and the FEDAT compete in some areas, they have agreed to a division of labor on the central issue of nuclear weapons research, with the nuclear agency primarily supervising uranium enrichment while the FEDAT is involved in the construction of a nuclear warhead to be used in Iran's Shahab missiles. Experts believe that Iran's scientists could produce a primitive, truck-sized version of the bomb this year, but that it would have to be compressed to a size that would fit into a nuclear warhead to yield the strategic threat potential that has Israel and the West so alarmed -- and that they could reach that stage by sometime between 2012 and 2014. The Iranians are believed to have conducted non-nuclear tests of a detonating mechanism for a nuclear bomb more than six years ago. The challenge in the technology is to uniformly ignite the conventional explosives surrounding the uranium core -- which is needed to produce the desired chain reaction. It is believed that the test series was conducted with a warhead encased in aluminum. In other words, everything but the core was "real." According to the reports, the Tehran engineers used thin fibers and a measuring circuit board in place of the fissile material. This enabled them to measure the shock waves and photograph flashes that simulate the detonation of a nuclear bomb with some degree of accuracy. The results were apparently so encouraging that the Iranian government has since classified the technology as "feasible." SPIEGEL obtained access to a FEDAT organizational chart and a list of the names of scientists working for the agency. The Vienna-based IAEA also has these documents, but the Iranian president claims that they are forged and are being used to discredit his country. After reporting two years ago that the Iranians had frozen their nuclear weapons research in 2003, the CIA and other intelligence agencies will probably paint a significantly more sobering scenario just as the UN Security Council is considering tougher sanctions against Iran. Mulling Sanctions When France assumes the Council's rotating chairmanship in February, Washington could push for a showdown. While Moscow is not ruling out additional punitive measures, China, which has negotiated billions in energy deals with Iran, is more likely to block such measures. China could, however, approve "smart" sanctions, such as travel restrictions for senior members of the Revolutionary Guard and nuclear scientists. Fakhrizadeh is already on a list of officials subject to such restrictions, and Daneshjoo could well be added in the future. But the West would presumably be on its own when enforcing sanctions that would be truly harmful to Iran -- and to its own, profitable trade relations with Tehran. The most effective trade weapon would be a fuel embargo. Because of a lack of refinery capacity Iran, which has the world's second-largest oil reserves, imports almost half of the gasoline it uses. Sanctions would trigger a sharp rise in the price of gasoline, inevitably leading to social unrest. Experts are divided over whether it would be directed against the unpopular regime or if the country's leaders could once again inflame the Iranian people against the "evil West." This leaves the military option. Apart from the political consequences and the possibility of counter-attacks, bombing Iran's nuclear facilities would be extremely difficult. The nuclear experts have literally buried themselves and their facilities underground, in locations that would be virtually impossible to reach with conventional weapons. While even Israeli experts are skeptical over how much damage bombing the facilities could do to the nuclear program, the normally levelheaded US General David Petraeus sounded downright belligerent when asked whether the Iranian nuclear facilities could be attacked militarily. "Well, they certainly can be bombed," he said just two weeks ago in Washington.

'Chemical Ali' hanged by Iraq government

Ali Hassan Majid, a cousin of Saddam Hussein, is executed after receiving four death sentences for his role in the killing of hundreds of thousands of Kurds and Shiites beginning in the late 1980s. By Raheem Salman and Ned Parker January 26, 2010 Reporting from Baghdad and New York The Iraqi government on Monday hanged Ali Hassan Majid, one of the most notorious figures of Saddam Hussein's regime, who had earned the nickname "Chemical Ali" for his gassing of Kurds in the late 1980s. Majid was executed after being sentenced to death in four cases brought before an Iraqi criminal court for the killing of Kurds and Shiites during the rule of Hussein, his first cousin. The hanging was announced by government spokesman Ali Dabbagh on Iraqi television. Prime Minister Nouri Maliki said in a statement, "By executing Ali Majid, another black page in the book of repression, genocide and crimes against humanity has been closed." Monday's execution was carried out after a final guilty verdict was rendered against Majid last week for the 1988 gassing of Kurds in the northern town of Halabja, an attack that killed as many as 5,000 people and came to symbolize Hussein's brutal methods. Later, state television broadcast two pictures of Majid, according to Agence France-Presse. One showed him in an orange-red jumpsuit with his face uncovered. In the second photo, Majid wore a black hood and was flanked by two masked men. U.S. forces captured Majid in August 2003 and he was first sentenced to death in June 2007 for his role in the broad military campaign against the Kurds that was called Anfal, Arabic for the "spoils of war." The offensive lasted from 1987 to 1988 and saw up to 182,000 people killed, villages razed and families herded into internment camps. Majid received another death sentence for his involvement in the suppression of an uprising among Iraq's Shiite majority after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The revolt ended with thousands killed and many buried in mass graves. The Iraqi judiciary also sentenced him to death for his role in quelling a Shiite revolt after Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq Sadr was killed in 1999 and his supporters rioted. In court, Majid had presented an image in stark contrast to his reputation as Hussein's bloodthirsty crony: a thin figure with gray hair who propped himself up with a cane. The fates of two of Majid's codefendants in the Anfal case remain undecided. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and senior Sunni politicians oppose the death sentence handed to Sultan Hashim Ahmad Jabburi Tai, a former defense minister and commander in the north during the Anfal campaign. Hashim surrendered to American forces in 2003 and may have collaborated in some form with the U.S. military and Iraqi opposition before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. His supporters argue that he was following orders during the Anfal campaign, while many of the country's Shiite elite believe he should be executed. Hussein Rashid Mohammed, the former deputy head of army operations, has also been sentenced to death. Kurdish politicians applauded the death sentence against Majid. "I hope everyone who is a criminal and commits these big crimes will be punished," said parliament member Mahmoud Othman, a Kurd. But Othman lamented one sore point that hung over the Anfal and Halabja trials: Saddam Hussein, hanged in December 2006, was never brought to court for his actions against the Kurds. "I think the wrong thing in all this process was that Saddam Hussein was quickly executed," Othman said. "Everything was ordered by him. He should have been left alive to see the trials and to talk about the secrets and who helped him from outside."

Phony Budget Tricks to "lessen deficits"..

Although the freeze would shave no more than $15 billion off next year's budget -- barely denting a deficit projected to exceed $1 trillion for the third year in a row -- White House officials said it could save significantly more during the next decade. They described the freeze as a critical component of a broader deficit-reduction campaign intended to restore confidence in Obama's ability to control the excesses of Washington and the most lavish aspirations of his own administration. "You can't afford to do everything that you might have always wanted to do. That's the decision-making process that the president and the economic team went through," said a senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe the speech the president will deliver on Wednesday night. "We're not here to tell you that we've solved the deficit. But you have to take steps to control spending." The spending freeze would affect only about one-eighth of the nation's $3.5 trillion budget, the bulk of which is devoted to entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which are responsible for much of the future increase in spending. It would not restrain funding for the $787 billion economic stimulus package Obama pushed through Congress early last year, nor would it apply to a new bill aimed at creating jobs, which Democrats have identified as their top priority in the run-up to November's congressional elections. It is also unlikely to affect the approximately $900 billion health-care bill, which has been on life-support since the Massachusetts vote. (Washington Post, 1/26)

US Marines' Iraq command ends; Biden in Baghdad

Enlarge by Joe Barrentine, AP U.S. Vice President Joe Biden prepares to cut a cake with the logo of the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, as Col. John Norris, the unit's commander, looks on at a dining facility on the Victory Base Complex in Baghdad, on Saturday, Jan. 23, 2010. (AP Photo/The News Tribune, Joe Barrentine) By Adam Schreck, Associated Press Writer RAMADI, Iraq — The U.S. Marines marked the end of nearly seven years in Iraq on Saturday by handing the Army their command of Anbar province, once one of the war's fiercest battlefields but now a centerpiece of U.S.-Iraqi cooperation. The changing of the guard -- overseen by military brass and some of Anbar's influential Sunni sheiks -- signals the start of an accelerated drawdown of American troops as the U.S. increasingly shifts its focus to the war in Afghanistan. American commanders are trumpeting security gains in places such as the western Anbar province as a sign that their partnership with Iraqi security forces is working, and that the local troops can keep the country safe. But fears are growing about a possible resurgence in sectarian tensions -- fed by the Shiite-dominated government's plans to blacklist more than 500 parliamentary candidates over suspected links to Saddam Hussein's regime. In Baghdad, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden met with Iraq's leaders Saturday to try to alleviate the pressures. While he kept expectations of a breakthrough low -- telling reporters after a meeting with President Jalal Talabani it was up to the Iraqis, not him, to resolve the issue -- his visit alone underscored Washington's concern. The White House worries the bans could raise questions over the fairness of the March 7 parliamentary election, which is seen as an important step in the American pullout timetable and a way to break political stalemates over key issues such as dividing Iraq's oil revenue. "I am confident that Iraq's leaders are seized with this problem and are working to find a just solution," Biden said during his visit. The Marines formally handed over U.S. responsibility for Sunni-dominated Anbar, Iraq's largest province, to the Army during a ceremony at a base in Ramadi, the scene of some of the war's most intense fighting. Overall control of the province shifted from the U.S. military to Iraq in September 2008, but the U.S. continues to provide support for Iraqi forces. Iraqi and American color guards stood together at attention as both countries' national anthems were played by a U.S. military band. As many as 25,000 Marines were in Iraq at the peak of the fighting, mostly in Anbar province. Fewer than 3,000 remain. All but a handful of those will ship out in a matter of weeks. The Marines' extended stay in Anbar went against the grain of the Corps' usual role as a fighting force designed to quickly seize territory and then turn it over to the Army to maintain control from fixed bases. Sharing the front row at the handover ceremony with American Army and Marine generals were some of Anbar's influential tribal sheiks in traditional checkered headdresses and gold-embroidered robes. Their decision to shift support to the Americans is credited with sapping the Sunni insurgency -- including al-Qaida in Iraq -- of much of its strength in areas near Baghdad. Maj. Gen. Terry Wolff, the Army commander who assumed responsibility for the province, said he hoped security gains cemented by U.S. troops and their Iraqi counterparts would ensure a smooth transfer despite the overall drawdown in American forces. "The goal that we all seek is the Iraqis securing their own election, and that the election is fair and the election is free," he told reporters after the handover. If all goes as planned, the last remaining Marines will be followed out by tens of thousands of soldiers in the coming months. President Barack Obama has ordered all but 50,000 troops out of the country by Aug. 31, with most to depart after the parliamentary election in March. The remaining troops will leave by the end of 2011 under a U.S.-Iraqi security pact. The changeover at Ramadi, 70 miles (115 kilometers) west of Baghdad, leaves the U.S. Army's 1st Armored Division with responsibility over both Baghdad and Anbar, the vast desert province that stretches from western Baghdad to the borders of Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The province was once the heart of the deadly Sunni insurgency that erupted after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. In the battles for control of the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, the Marines saw some of the most brutal and deadliest fighting of the war. Violence began dropping off in the province in late 2006 when Sunni fighters -- known as Awakening Councils -- turned against al-Qaida and sided with the Marines to fight the insurgency. The upcoming parliamentary election is considered an important step toward speeding the U.S. troop pullout and seeking progress on stalled political initiatives. Among them: passing laws clarifying the rules for foreign oil investment and dividing the revenue among Iraq's main groups. But plans to ban hundreds of candidates have raised deep concerns in Washington that the voting could widen rifts between the majority Shiites who gained power after Saddam's fall and Sunnis who are struggling to regain influence. Biden, who arrived late Friday, had a full agenda of meetings with Iraqi leaders, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has strongly supported the blacklist and has resisted attempts at possible American mediation. Some Sunni leaders have accused the Shiite-led government of using the ban as a political tool. But al-Maliki insists that Iraq must purge all ties to Saddam's Sunni-dominated regime. A vetting panel has put 512 names on the blacklist and more are expected. Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told The Associated Press that during the meeting with al-Maliki, Biden was careful not to "give the wrong message that America wants to interfere in the Iraqi affairs." Biden later met with Talabani, who has asked for a legal review on the blacklist. The courts are expected to examine whether the vetting panel has legal grounding because it does not have formal parliamentary approval. The panel includes two controversial Shiite figures: Ali al-Lami, who was once detained by the U.S. military over a 2008 attack in a Shiite district of Baghdad; and Ahmed Chalabi, who is blamed for supplying U.S. officials with faulty intelligence on Saddam's weapons program prior to the 2003 invasion. Al-Lami is also a candidate in the March election -- raising further complaints from Sunnis about possible political motives behind the list.

US Marine Corps ends role in Iraq

AP – U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden, center, poses for a photo with Gen. Raymond Odierno, the top U.S. commander … By ADAM SCHRECK, Associated Press BAGHDAD – The U.S. Marine Corps wrapped up its role Saturday in Iraq, handing over duties to the Army and signaling the beginning of an accelerated withdrawal of American troops as the U.S. turns its focus away from the waning Iraqi war to a growing one in Afghanistan. The Marines were set to formally hand control of Sunni-dominated Anbar, Iraq's largest province, to the Army during a ceremony at a base in Ramadi — where some of the fiercest fighting of the war took place. If all goes as planned, the last remaining Marines will be followed out by tens of thousands of soldiers in the coming months. President Barack Obama has ordered all but 50,000 troops out of the country by Aug. 31, 2010, with most to leave after the March 7 parliamentary election. The remaining troops will leave by the end of 2011 under a U.S.-Iraqi security pact. But concerns about the success of the election — and perhaps the loss of hard won security gains that the Marines helped cement — are on the rise because of a growing political dispute that could see more than 500 candidates blacklisted because of suspected ties to Saddam Hussein's regime. Vice President Joe Biden was in the Iraqi capital Saturday delivering a message of Washington's concerns over fears that the banning of candidates could stall reconciliation efforts between Shiites and Sunnis. The U.S. sees reconciliation as essential to Iraq's stability. The changeover at Ramadi, west of Baghdad, leaves the U.S. Army's 1st Armored Division with responsibility over both Baghdad and Anbar, the vast desert province that stretches from western Baghdad to the borders of Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The province was once the heart of the deadly Sunni insurgency that erupted after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. In the battles for control of the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, the Marines saw some of the most brutal and deadliest fighting of the war. Violence began dropping off in the province in late 2006 when Sunni fighters — known as Awakening Councils — turned against al-Qaida and sided with the Marines to fight the insurgency. As many as 25,000 Marines were in Iraq at the peak, mostly in Anbar province. The few thousand who remain — except for U.S. Embassy guards and advisers in Baghdad — are expected to ship out in a matter of weeks.

Gates Warns of Militants in South Asia

By YOCHI J. DREAZEN NEW DELHI—U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said al Qaeda is working with an array of local militant groups to destabilize South Asia and trigger a war between India and Pakistan, an indication of growing U.S. fears about new terror attacks throughout the volatile region. Mr. Gates said al Qaeda had formed alliances with the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban as well as with Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani-based group that carried out the attacks in Mumbai in 2008 that left more than 160 dead. Indian troops on Wednesday man a bunker near a border area where Pakistani and Indian forces exchanged fire over the weekend. The American defense chief, who is in the middle of a three-day visit to India, said the al Qaeda-led "syndicate" is trying "to destabilize not just Afghanistan, not just Pakistan, but potentially the whole region." Speaking to reporters here, Mr. Gates said the Islamist groups were focusing particular attention on India and Pakistan, regional rivals who have fought three major wars since 1947. He said that Pakistani-based militants were trying to carry out strikes within India in hopes of provoking an Indian counterattack that could escalate into a new conflict between the two nations. Mr. Gates said the groups also posed an "existential" threat to Pakistan and warned that India's government—which refrained from reprisal attacks on Pakistan after the Mumbai assault— wasn't likely to exercise similar restraint if new attacks occurred on its territory. "The ability of any state to continue that, were it to be attacked again, I think is in question,'' Mr. Gates said. "I have to leave the answer to that question to the Indian government and its officials, but I think it's not unreasonable to assume that Indian patience would be limited were there to be further attacks.'' The three-day trip here was designed to bolster Washington's ties to New Delhi, a U.S. ally that is rapidly emerging as one of the biggest purchasers of American-made weapons, airplanes and military vehicles in the world. In an editorial published in the Times of India on Tuesday, Mr. Gates said India and the U.S. had made "significant strides in developing a stable defense trade." On Wednesday, Mr. Gates encouraged India's government to sign a series of technical agreements that would clear the way for India to purchase high-tech American-made encryption, navigation and targeting systems. The agreements, which have been under discussion for months, face significant Indian opposition. Beyond the commercial dealings, Mr. Gates's meetings with senior Indian officials including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh focused heavily on the threat posed by al Qaeda and its regional allies. Mr. Gates said Wednesday that Pakistani-based militants might try to provoke a new war "through some provocative act" within India. After the Mumbai attacks in November 2008, New Delhi has pursued an international diplomatic push to force Pakistan to take responsibility for the fact that the terrorists emanated from there. With United Nations and U.S. pressure, Pakistan agreed to pursue the Lashkar-e-Taiba militants responsible for the attack and to clamp down on the organization's charitable wing. Pakistan also brought charges against several individuals suspected of helping to plan the attack. Indian officials take pride in the fact that their response was handled entirely through diplomatic channels, and Mr. Gates praised them this week for behaving with "great statesmanship." But the Indian government has also repeatedly called on Pakistan to do more to curtail terrorists dedicated to attacking India. Indian officials have cautioned that if there is another attack on India emanating from Pakistan, the response would likely go further than mere diplomacy. If new major attacks take place in India, it is widely expected here that India would respond with what it considers to be military restraint—such as targeted missile strikes against terrorist camps on the Pakistani side of Kashmir. That scenario presents American officials who are in the region with a huge challenge: how to create enough political breathing space to prevent a subsequent escalation that could lead to outright war between the two sides. It is an effort that U.S. officials in the region view as central to their mission of helping maintain and improve relations between the two neighbors. On Wednesday, Mr. Gates encouraged India and Pakistan to work together and share information about the militants imperiling both their countries, and to avoid blaming each other for any new violence. "It's very dangerous for the region as a whole," Mr. Gates said. "It does require a high level of cooperation among us all."

Ex-fighters get government jobs in Iraq

Nearly 50,000 Sunni fighters who sided with American forces against al-Qaeda and other militants in Iraq are now in government jobs, a top official said. The announcement at a U.S. military base in the heart of Baghdad was a reminder that Iraq's sectarian tensions risk being stoked as parliamentary elections approach in March. Many of the former Sunni fighters, part of a group known as the Sons of Iraq, were former insurgents who switched sides, helping to stabilize the country. The U.S. has been urging Iraq's Shiite-led government to find jobs for the fighters to promote national unity and maintain security as American troops begin to leave the country. Mohammed Salman al-Saadi, chairman of Iraq's Implementation and Follow-up Committee for National Reconciliation, said Iraq hopes to put the rest of the 96,000 Sons of Iraq in jobs by summer.

Israeli government convenes for 1st time in Berlin

AP foreign, Monday January 18 2010 ARON HELLER Associated Press Writer= BERLIN (AP) — Israel's government convened for the first time in Berlin, the former heart of the Nazi regime, for a special joint session with the German government highlighting the nations' bond six decades after the Holocaust. High on the agenda Monday will be Germany's push to win the release of a captive Israeli soldier held by Hamas militants and its efforts to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions. Environmental issues, economic cooperation and efforts to restart the Middle East peace process are also to be discussed. The historic trip was originally scheduled for late November, but was put off at the last moment when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fell ill with a viral infection and a light fever. "We assign great importance to this good relationship with Germany," Netanyahu told his Cabinet on Sunday. "It has far-reaching implications for Israel's economy, for Israel's policies, for our political struggle in the world and for Israel's security." Israel was established three years after the end of World War II. Since then, Germany has paid $39.4 billion in compensation to Holocaust survivors in Israel, some 250,000 of whom are still alive. Some Israelis still refuse to buy German-made goods or visit Germany. But since the two countries established diplomatic ties in 1965, Germany has become perhaps Israel's strongest ally in Europe. Before the delegation visited Germany's Holocaust memorial, two nations signed an agreement to provide assistance to developing nations, particularly in Africa. "There is great symbolism from a moral standpoint that nations with such a difficult history are now cooperating together," said Israel's deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, after the signing. Germany is Israel's third-largest trade partner after the U.S. and China. The Germans have also played a leading role as a Mideast mediator and in efforts to halt Iranian nuclear ambitions. Monday's session follows a historic visit in March 2008 by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Cabinet to mark the 60th anniversary of Israel's independence. During that three-day visit, Merkel addressed the Israeli parliament, in German, and expressed shame over the Holocaust. The 20-minute speech earned Merkel a standing ovation. In that joint government session, a first for Israel, the two nations approved a series of cooperative projects. Israeli and German governments are scheduled to hold joint Cabinet sessions once a year. Germany has such arrangements with five other nations. "This visit aims to institutionalize this yearly arrangement, it is much more than symbolic," said Shimon Stein, who served as Israel's ambassador to Germany between 2000-2007. "Given Israel's position in the world, it needs partners." Germany, like other European nations, has little influence on Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking — that's a role largely reserved for the U.S. — but has contributed hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinians over the past decade. Though not on the official agenda, the German-mediated efforts to arrange a prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas — widely known yet not officially acknowledged by Berlin — will certainly be discussed as will the Iranian nuclear program. Sgt. Gilad Schalit has been in Hamas captivity for more than three and a half years. Talks to swap him for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners have repeatedly broken down, but the addition of German mediation in recent months appears to have given new life to the talks. Israel is also thankful for Germany's leading role in the international efforts to persuade Iran to halt its nuclear program, which Israel and most of the West believes is meant to develop an atomic bomb. Israel considers a nuclear Iran to be an existential threat and has hinted at attacking Iran if international diplomacy fails. Netanyahu's entourage includes six Cabinet members— including his defense and foreign ministers — who will meet separately with their German counterparts. Israeli Science Minister Daniel Hershkowitz, whose parents both survived the Holocaust, said the trip was had a special symbolism for him. "We don't forget the past ... but today Germany is a great friend," he said, after viewing the Holocaust memorial — 2,700 gray slabs that serve as a tribute to the Holocaust's 6 million Jewish victims. "This is the answer to those who 70 years ago wanted to eliminate us."

Lufthansa to resume flights to Baghdad

German airline Lufthansa on Tuesday signalled its confidence in Iraq’s economic recovery when it became the first major European or US carrier in 20 years to announce the resumption of scheduled flights to Baghdad. Europe’s largest airline said it was planning to fly to the Iraqi capital from Frankfurt and Munich some time this summer, hoping to profit from rising demand for such a service from European, American, and Iraqi business people. “We reckon there’ll be demand not just for flights into Iraq, but also demand from Iraqi citizens to fly to Europe, the US, and also Africa,” a Lufthansa spokesman said, although he declined to give any details about the routes.The Frankfurt-based airline said it would be able to give more details about the frequency of the new service once the German and Iraqi governments had finalised a bilateral air-traffic treaty, which the two nations started negotiating in October.A spokesman for the transport ministry signalled an agreement was in the offing. “Both sides have stressed that they wish to resume traditionally friendly air-traffic relations between the two countries,” the spokesman said. Like European and US rivals, Lufthansa stopped flying to Baghdad in 1990 when a US-led force liberated Kuwait from Iraqi occupation in what became known as the first Gulf War against then Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.Since the overthrow of his dictatorship by a US-led invasion in 2003, Iraq has struggled to exploit its vast crude oil reserves, battling internal division and domestic terrorism while still trying to lure foreign investors.But, with security apparently improving, the Iraqi government now hopes to triple oil output to 7m barrels a day over the next six years, and has awarded oil-exploitation rights to a string of international companies in recent months.Lufthansa said it also planned to fly to Erbil, in oil-rich northern Iraq. The city has been served from Vienna – with security-related interruptions – since 2006 by Austrian Airlines, which was taken over by Lufthansa last year.

Fort Lewis troops let Iraqis take the lead

U.S. soldiers provide backup as Iraqis search homes in village SCOTT FONTAINE; The News Tribune Last updated: January 14th, 2010 12:20 AM (PST) MARFU, Iraq – The Iraqi man lied to the Iraqi army officer about having no weapons. The officer did not like it, and let him know. As Fort Lewis and Iraqi soldiers searched for weapons caches and criminal suspects in a village of mud-brick homes in rural Diyala province, the Iraqi commander vented his anger. Iraqi soldiers had searched the man’s storage shed and discovered dozens of 9mm rounds hidden in a grain sack. That made him the target of the commander’s tirade. “You lied to us!” he yelled, shoving the bullets in his face. “Why would you lie to us? You will not lie to us!” Iraqi soldiers later bound the man’s hands in flexicuffs and blindfolded him. He was one of three people they hauled away during Monday’s early-morning search involving troops from Fort Lewis’ 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment. The battalion – part of 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division – is on its third deployment to Iraq and is operating in a country seeing its lowest levels of violence since the American invasion in 2003. Monday’s operation was only the fourth for the battalion’s Comanche Company since it arrived in August. In past years, Fort Lewis Stryker soldiers were often the ones interacting directly – sometimes intensely – with the locals, aided by Arabic language interpreters. Now, in the midst of the U.S.’s phased pullout from the country, Iraqi soldiers take the lead. Much of the 1-23 battalion’s deployment has been spent meeting community and tribal leaders and training the Iraqi army in Diyala province, the northern region historically rife with Sunni-Shia and Arab-Kurd tensions. “This is definitely a change of pace for guys who have deployed before,” company commander Capt. Clint Kuhlman said. “It’s just a different assignment nowadays.” The joint patrol rolled into Marfu with a wanted list of 23 names, seven with outstanding warrants for terrorism charges. Iraqi army and police had received tips from residents complaining about militia members in the area. The village sits several miles from the perimeter of Forward Operating Base Grizzly, where the battalion is located. A convoy of 12 Stryker vehicles and one Mine Resistant Ambushed Protected vehicle, loaded with a mix of American service members and Iraqi soldiers, left Grizzly just before sunrise. They positioned themselves outside the village and were joined by Iraqi army and police vehicles about 10 minutes later. The sound of the Strykers approaching forced several villagers to flee before the soldiers could set up the cordon. Five men ran from their homes into the nearby palm groves, but U.S. commanders back at FOB Grizzly watched the runaways on a live video feed provided by a drone circling overhead. Officers at Grizzly transmitted their coordinates to troops in Marfu. Two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters were diverted from farther north and circled over the men, their rotor wash covering them with dust. Iraqi soldiers detained the runaways but later released them because their names weren’t on the wanted list. A sixth person drove away before the Americans could secure the cordon. Soldiers tracked his vehicle using aerial surveillance and patched the information over to the Iraqi police, who caught up with and questioned him. American and Iraqi soldiers stopped foot and vehicle traffic coming and going. About another 60 Iraqi troops entered the village, accompanied by a squad of U.S. soldiers, to search the homes and question the residents. The American troops stood back as the Iraqis entered the houses. “It’s been made very clear to us – they do not want us to enter the homes, and we don’t enter the homes,” said platoon leader Lt. Matt Salmi, a DuPont resident originally from New Jersey. “We want people to know this is an Iraqi operation looking for Iraqi suspects.” The hidden bullets in the grain bag were the patrol’s first discovery. Soldiers ripped into the man’s other burlap sacks, most containing wool, in an ultimately unsuccessful search for other weapons. “Right now, this guy apparently just has some pistol rounds,” said Staff Sgt. Kurtis Gibson, a squad leader. “But hiding them in a grain bag? That’s just sketchy.” The Iraqi soldiers detained the man but eventually let him go because a warrant wasn’t pending. They detained seven villagers but let all but three go: two who were wanted on terrorism charges and another who didn’t have identity papers, a crime under Iraqi law. Other troops fanned out, walking past feral dogs and livestock, and questioned residents. Those with more than one AK-47 and one magazine – the maximum allowed by Iraqi law – had their weapons confiscated. The village’s muhktar lost his illegally modified Kalashnikov. But one man told Iraqi soldiers he worked for the city council and was allowed to keep his three shotguns. Across the village, another platoon found two of the seven suspects wanted on terrorism. The Americans, meanwhile, stayed in the background. “This has been what it’s like,” said Gibson, a 27-year-old Steilacoom resident. “They search, and we’re nearby in case they need help. And they never really ask for too much help once we get on the ground.”

China Tests Ballistic Missile Defense

Game On J. E. Dyer - 01.12.2010 - 2:36 PM Commentary Magazine China announced its first successful test of an antiballistic-missile system on Jan. 11. The Pentagon confirms detecting the test. American pundits note in passing that this represents an apparent shift in China’s long-maintained political stance on ballistic-missile defense (BMD), but they are more eager to focus on the connection between the Chinese test and our Patriot-system sale to Taiwan. They should back up and look again at their first point. It’s China’s posture shift on the role of BMD systems in global security that will matter in the long run. China has indeed, as the New York Times analysis points out, been a perennial opponent of the BMD concept advanced in U.S. defense programming. Throughout its participation in the nuclear age, China has hewed to the same line as Russia: that global stability is preserved, in fact if not always in name, by mutual assured destruction. U.S. analysts have known for some years now that Beijing could turn its anti-satellite technology on the BMD problem, but China’s pattern, like Russia’s, has been to develop and test in secret while staking out a contradictory political posture. The contradictory political posture has been abandoned, and that means more than that China is mad at us. It means that China perceives that the old conditions have expired. Under those old conditions, the chief dynamic involved Russia trying to forestall U.S. deployment of our “National Missile Defense” — the concept that would fully supersede MAD. But that condition no longer obtains, because with President Obama’s September 2009 policy reversal, Russia has succeeded. The significance for China of our Patriot sale to Taiwan, assuming it is consummated, is that Beijing will have been unable to deter us given the same conditions in which Russia succeeded. That is inevitably a blot on China’s image as a great power. The BMD system launch of Jan. 11 was not announced solely for our benefit; it was a signal to the rest of the world too — starting with Russia, Japan, and India — that China has superpower options of its own and will use them. With Obama’s America retreating self-consciously to a “just one of the guys” security posture, the global interplay of power demonstrations, influence, and intimidation will increasingly be anyone’s game. Not everything will be about us, in 2010 and beyond — but everything will affect us. Victor Davis Hanson has an apt metaphor for it this week, depicting the emerging international situation as a gunfight brewing at the OK Corral. He correctly predicts that the participants will achieve as much as they can with flashy holster work. But without the early, preemptive intervention of a sheriff, bullets eventually fly. China’s fundamental change of posture this week, regarding the basis of global security, is a signal: game on.

Iraqi security forces lock down parts of Baghdad

By REBECCA SANTANA The Associated Press BAGHDAD — Iraqi security forces locked down parts of Baghdad Tuesday and were searching neighborhoods, the capital's chief military spokesman said, in what appeared to be a wide-ranging operation across the city. Enlarge photo Iraqi police officers stand guard near armored SUVs used by private security companies at a police station in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, Jan. 11, 2010. On Friday Iraqi security forces raided the headquarters of a private security company in Baghdad after receiving information that its license to operate had expired. Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, Baghdad's military spokesman, said about 20,000 bullets and 400 weapons, mostly rifles, were confiscated and no arrests were made. Iraqi soldiers secure the site of a bomb attack in central Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, Jan. 11, 2010. A bomb attached to a car targeted a lawmaker passing convoy, injured five people, police said. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim) An Iraqi municipality worker cleans the site of a bomb attack in central Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, Jan. 11, 2010. A bomb attached to a car targeted a lawmaker passing convoy, injured five people, police said. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim) While there are hundreds of checkpoints throughout Baghdad, such large-scale lockdowns and searches of neighborhoods have become rare since the height of the insurgency in 2006 and 2007. The security operation comes as Iraq is preparing for crucial nationwide parliamentary elections in March, and officials have warned that insurgents seeking to disrupt the vote could try to launch attacks as the election nears. "We imposed strict security procedures and blocked parts of Baghdad neighborhoods to launch search operations," Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi told The Associated Press by phone. He gave no details and would not comment on why the measures were imposed or whether authorities were responding to a specific threat. People in various neighborhoods across the city said no cars were allowed on the normally traffic-clogged streets in their areas, and some schools were closed as part of the security lockdown. In other areas of the city, life continued as normal. Samir Hassan, a university student in Baghdad, said he returned home after being told that there were no classes. "I just arrived at the university and then they told us there are no classes, and roads are blocked. The security situation is unstable. They told us, 'You should return,' so we are going home on foot," Hassan said. The capital has been rocked by a number of high-profile bombings in recent months, mostly targeting government institutions in central Baghdad. According to an Interior Ministry officer, some security raids on houses have taken place on Haifa Street and in the Fadhil neighborhood in central Baghdad, both former insurgency strongholds. Another security official said authorities were searching the Karkh neighborhood in western Baghdad for weapons and car bombs. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. ___ Associated Press writers Saad Abdul-Kadir and Sameer N. Yacoub in Baghdad and Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Washington contributed to this report.

U.S. Air Force, Israeli Air Force work hand-in hand

Posted 12/23/2009 by Airman 1st Class Alexandria Mosness 86th Airlift Wing Public Affairs 12/23/2009 - NEVATIM AIR FORCE BASE, Israel -- Several Ramstein units, in partnership with Israeli military members, concluded their exercise here with high spirits. The 10-day exercise held Dec. 1 through 10, brought Ramstein Airmen from units such as the 435th Contingency Response Group and 37th Airlift Squadron, each doing their part whether it be preparing the base of training on the C-130J Super Hercules. "Thank you very much for the effort everyone put in," said. Lt. Col. Patrick Dabrowski, commander of the Israel off-station training. "The training was a success. We were able to hit the dirt landing 57 times, complete two static-line jumps and one high-altitude-low-opening jump." For those involved, the exercise provided everyone the chance to hone in on their respective skills. "This was a very productive mission," said Tech. Sgt. Shawn Smith, 435th Contingency Response Group contingency airfield manager. "We had the opportunity to train with our allies in a more permissive environment than what we are used to in Germany." Without the complete effort of everyone involved, the exercise could not achieved a favorable outcome. "We wouldn't have been able to do it without maintenance, who kept the planes running, so we could accomplish our training," said Colonel Dabrowski. "The CRG filled in the seams and kept things running smoothly." The Israeli Air Force was also able to gain information from the visit. "We were able to provide briefings and orientations to the Israelis about the C-130 J," the colonel said. "Our bond has grown stronger over these last 10 days." The Israeli Air Force will be able to put this guidance about the C-130J Super Hercules to good use when they get one in the near future. "The J-model has absolutely changed what we are used to with the E-model, and it is very different from what we have," said Israeli Air Force commander Rami Lieberman, pilot and loadmaster. From briefings, to interaction between Americans and Israelis, one bond was certain. "We are all Airmen," Colonel Lieberman said. "We all speak the same language, whether it is Hebrew or English, in the air it is the C-130.We can learn a lot from what the Americans do, and hopefully, they can also learn from us. It is all about cooperation." The collaboration between the two countries extended from the lowest ranking to the highest and left a good impression on all involved. "Although we kept busy, it was an opportunity to see another part of the world," said Senior Airman Jacyln Nahahbedian, 86th Operations Support Squadron aircrew flight equipment. "The Israelis were not only accepting of us, but also very nice." The exercise was not only a chance to work with the host nation forces, but it also made Airmen thankful for their coworkers. "My favorite part was working with my airfield colleague," Sergeant Smith said. "We managed operations on the ground and in the air for the training, and we worked well as a team." As the exercise progressed, teamwork was a key part. "The Israeli Air Force was very forthcoming and orienting," said. Tech. Sgt. Jeff Vogel, 435th Contingency Response Group contingency aircraft controller. "If we were to deploy, this training allows us to integrate our way of business, and be prepared in the future to work with them." Going to a new nation might have many anxious, but the Israelis showed Americans there was nothing to worry about. "Their hospitality was one of a kind," Sergeant Vogel said. Bring along three C-130J Super Hercules, more than 100 member of Team Ramstein contributed their skills and teamwork to make this training such a success. __._,_.___

US killed al Qaeda’s Lashkar al Zil commander in airstrike

By Bill Roggio January 7, 2010 8:45 AM Al Qaeda has confirmed that the US killed the leader of the Lashkar al Zil, or the Shadow Army, the terror group's military organization along the Afghan and Pakistani border. Mustafa Abu Yazid, al Qaeda's leader in Afghanistan, said that Abdullah Said al Libi was killed in a US airstrike in Pakistan. Yazid confirmed that Al Libi was killed in a tape praising the suicide attack on the CIA base in Khost. Yazid also confirmed that Saleh al Somali, al Qaeda's former external operations chief, was also killed in a US attack. Yazid said the suicide attack against the CIA at Combat Outpost Chapman in Khost province on Dec. 30, 2009, was carried out by an al Qaeda operative named Dr. Abu Dujanah al Khurasani. Media reports indicate the attack was carried out by a Jordanian doctor named Humam Khalil Muhammed Abu Mulal al Balawi, who enticed the CIA with promises of being able to produce Ayman al Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s second in command. Khurasani and Balawi are indeed the same person. The suicide attack, which killed seven CIA operatives and a Jordanian intelligence official, was designed to "avenge" the death of al Libi, Somali, and former Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, Yazid said, according to a translation of his statement received by The Long War Journal. "[This attack was carried out] to avenge our righteous martyrs, as he [Khurasani/Balawi] (may God have mercy on him) wrote in his will: 'To avenge the leader, Amir Baitullah Mehsud, the leaders Abu Saleh al Somali and Abdullah Said al Libi, and their brothers (may God have mercy on them)." Saleh al Somali, the former external operations chief who was tasked with conducting attack on the West, was reported killed in a US strike in North Waziristan on Dec. 8, 2009. Baitullah was killed in a strike in South Waziristan on Aug. 5, 2009. But Abdullah Said al Libi was not listed by US intelligence as being killed during recent strikes. “[Mustafa Abu Yazid’s statement] is our first true indication that Abdullah Said al-Libi is dead, which is the subtext for why Ilyas Kashmiri has been listed as the Lashkar al Zil commander in recent media reports,” a senior US military intelligence official told The Long War Journal. It is not clear exactly when al Libi was killed. On Jan. 4, the Asia Times described Ilyas Kashmiri as the leader of the Lashkar al Zil during a report that stated al Qaeda’s military organization was behind the suicide attack at Combat Outpost Chapman. Kashmiri is one of the most dangerous al Qaeda leaders. He served as the operations chief of Brigade 313, a conglomeration of Pakistani jihadi groups and one of six brigades in the Shadow Army. Kashmiri is suspected of planning and leading some of the terror group's most sophisticated assaults in the Afghan-Pakistan theater. Abdullah Said al Libi is a Lybian national who is thought to have served in his country's military before joining al Qaeda. In April 2009, al Libi laid out al Qaeda and the Taliban's strategy to retake control of the Khorasan, a region that encompasses large areas of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Iran. In the statement, al Libi is identified as the leader of the Qaidat al-Jihad fi Khorasan, or the base of the jihad in the Khorasan. "Al Libi's death is significant, but there is little doubt he has been replaced by perhaps the most capable military commander in al Qaeda's stable," a US intelligence official told The Long War Journal. The US thought Kashmiri was killed in a strike in North Waziristan alst September, but he later resurfaced in an interview with the Asia Times. Background on the Lashkar al Zil, or Shadow Army The Lashkar al Zil, or Shadow Army, is the successor to al Qaeda’s notorious Brigade 055, the military formation that fought alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan from 1996-2002. During the reign of the Taliban in Afghanistan prior to the US invasion in 2001, the 055 Brigade served as "the shock troops of the Taliban and functioned as an integral part of the latter's military apparatus," al Qaeda expert Rohan Gunaratna wrote in Inside al Qaeda. At its peak in 2001, the 055 Brigade had an estimated 2,000 soldiers and officers in the ranks. The brigade was comprised of Arabs, Central Asians, and South Asians, as well as Chechens, Bosnians, and Uighurs from Western China. The 055 Brigade was decimated during the Battle of Tora Bora in December 2001 and during Operation Anaconda in March 2002. The Shadow Army formed from t e ashes of 055 Brigade in Pakistan's tribal areas from 2002-2006. The Shadow Army has been expanded to six brigades, and has an estimated 8,000 to 12,000 fighters. In addition to dispatching small teams of embedded trainers to Taliban units, the Shadow Army fights in military formations along the Afghan and Pakistani border region. The Shadow Army occasional fights alongside the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin, and the Haqqani Network, in formations ranging from squad to company level. Evidence of this was seen recently in Swat and Bajaur in Pakistan, where the Pakistani Army met stiff resistance in some battles, as well as during battles in North and South Waziristan in 2007 and 2008. The Shadow Army also played a role the assaults on joint US and Afghan outposts in Nuristan province last fall, as well as in a series of attacks last year on outposts in the Afghan provinces of Paktika, Paktia, Khost, Kunar, and Nuristan. The most publicized attack took place in July 2008 in Wanat in Nuristan, when nine US soldiers were killed and the base was nearly overrun. The US has targeted the leaders of the Shadow Army during its air campaign in Pakistan’s northwest. The US killed Khalid Habib, the former leader of the Shadow Army, during an airstrike in South Waziristan in Pakistan last November. Habib was replaced by Abdullah Said al Libi. The US also killed Zuhaib al Zahib, a senior commander in the Shadow Army during a strike at the end of December.

Terrorist Recidivism

Max Boot - 01.06.2010 - 9:31 AM Commentary Magazine I recall visiting Saudi Arabia a couple of years ago and being briefed by Saudi officials on their program to reeducate and rehabilitate Islamist extremists in their prisons. The program had long been seen as a model effort; it influenced a similar program created in the U.S. detention system in Iraq that is now being replicated in Afghanistan. But recent events suggest the Saudi program was not all it was cracked up to be. As the Financial Times notes, “The revelation that two of the alleged leaders of the plot to blow up a US passenger jet were released by a Saudi militant rehabilitation centre has thrown a renewed spotlight on the programme and the kingdom’s response to terrorism.” That includes Said bin Ali al-Shihri, second-in-command of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Overall, the FT reports, 120 inmates from Guantanamo were released to the Saudis under the Bush administration. The result? The paper quotes Chris Boucek of the Carnegie Middle East program: “Of the Guantánamo prisoners, about 26 are wanted, in custody or killed – it is about [a] 20 per cent failure rate.” That should be of great concern. The Obama administration is right to suspend repatriations of detainees to Yemen; perhaps it should suspend sending them to Saudi Arabia, as well. The Saudis have done an impressive job of cracking down on terrorists within the kingdom, but the suspicion remains that they deal with some of these troublemakers by encouraging them to emigrate to countries like Yemen or Pakistan, thereby exacerbating the problems there — and potentially here in the United States as well. The real issue is not the fate of Gitmo; it is whether we are locking up dangerous terrorists, whether on Cuban or American soil. Continued detainee releases — which, it should be noted, started under the Bush administration — are endangering our safety

Israel to simulate biological warfare attack

By Anshel Pfeffer An exercise simulating a response to a biological warfare attack will be carried out in the Dan region next week. The exercise, which will be the largest of its kind in Israel's history, will be carried out in Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan, and Holon and aims to evaluate the ability of the Home Front, the medical services, rescue teams and the municipal authorities to respond in the conditions created by a biological catastrophe caused either by terrorists or by accident. The exercise, code named Orange Flame, will be held on Wednesday and Thursday next week, and rescue units of the Home Front Command and special detection units of the Health Ministry, will be tasked to locate the biological hazard and deal with hundreds of citizens who were hypothetically exposed to the substance. Advertisement Major hospitals, like Ichilov, Tel Hashomer and Sheba, as well as health maintenance organization clinics will prepare to receive the injured in the simulated incident. Three centers for the reception of those affected will be set up at Beit Dani in Tel Aviv, at Winter Stadium in Ramat Gan, and at the Holon Country Club, where more than 1,000 volunteers will be sent. The volunteers have been trained to behave like people who have been exposed to biological agents, and they will receive treatment at the three centers. The purpose of the exercise is to "train the country to deal with biological terrorism attacks," according to Brigadier General (res.) Ze'ev Snir, who is the defense minister's special assistance on the subject. "The first challenge is to contain the damage as much as possible and then to identify the material involved so it will be possible to continue with normal life," according to Danny Laor, head of emergency services at the Health Ministry. Both officials spoke at a press briefing on the planned exercise.

Obama's nuclear-free vision mired in debate

Pentagon officials have pushed back against the president's goals to shrink the U.S. stockpile and reduce the role of such weapons in foreign policy, sources say. By Paul Richter January 4, 2010 Reporting from Washington President Obama's ambitious plan to begin phasing out nuclear weapons has run up against powerful resistance from officials in the Pentagon and other U.S. agencies, posing a threat to one of his most important foreign policy initiatives. Obama laid out his vision of a nuclear-free world in a speech in Prague, Czech Republic, last April, pledging that the U.S. would take dramatic steps to lead the way. Nine months later, the administration is locked in internal debate over a top-secret policy blueprint for shrinking the U.S. nuclear arsenal and reducing the role of such weapons in America's military strategy and foreign policy. Officials in the Pentagon and elsewhere have pushed back against Obama administration proposals to cut the number of weapons and narrow their mission, according to U.S. officials and outsiders who have been briefed on the process. In turn, White House officials, unhappy with early Pentagon-led drafts of the blueprint known as the Nuclear Posture Review, have stepped up their involvement in the deliberations and ordered that the document reflect Obama's preference for sweeping change, according to the U.S. officials and others, who described discussions on condition of anonymity because of their sensitivity and secrecy. The Pentagon has stressed the importance of continued U.S. deterrence, an objective Obama has said he agrees with. But a senior Defense official acknowledged in an interview that some officials are concerned that the administration may be going too far. He described the debate as "spirited. . . . I think we have every possible point of view in the world represented." The debate represents another collision between Obama's administration and key parts of the national security establishment, after scrapes over troop levels in Afghanistan and missile defenses in Eastern Europe. But more than those issues, the future of U.S. nuclear weapons policy is directly tied to a series of initiatives Obama has advanced as a prime goal of his presidency. "This is the first test of Obama's nuclear commitments," said former U.S. Ambassador Nancy E. Soderberg, who held senior foreign policy positions in the Clinton administration. "They can't afford to fall short at the outset." Congress called for the nuclear review, the third such study since the end of the Cold War, placing the Pentagon in charge. Similar reviews were conducted near the beginning of the Clinton and the George W. Bush administrations, but Obama's is the first in which substantial changes stand to be made both in the number of U.S. nuclear weapons and in how they are used. The government maintains an estimated 9,400 nuclear weapons, about 1,000 fewer than in 2002. But Obama believes that stepping up efforts to reduce the stockpile will give U.S. officials added credibility in their quest to strengthen the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the cornerstone international arms-control pact. The timing of the administration debate on the nuclear review is crucial, because a key international meeting on the treaty is planned for May in New York. Also looming this year are other elements of Obama's nuclear agenda, including renewal of an arms-reduction treaty with Russia and a push for Senate ratification of a global ban on nuclear testing. The nonproliferation treaty has been weakened in recent years by the spread of nuclear technologies to countries such as North Korea, Pakistan and Iran. But nonnuclear countries are wary of intrusive new rules, arguing that though the United States preaches nuclear arms control to others, it has failed to live up to its own promises to disarm. For Obama, the stakes are high. The difficulties posed by challenges in Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Korea and the Middle East underscore the need for progress on arms control. Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in part because of expectations that he would make good on his pledge to reduce the nuclear threat. Obama would not be the first president to suffer setbacks on nuclear policy at the hands of politics and the U.S. bureaucracy. President Clinton and Defense Secretary Les Aspin had ambitious plans to overhaul nuclear policy. But their 1994 review quickly bogged down in internal disagreement, and ended largely by preserving the status quo. Obama has vowed to move toward abolishing American nuclear weapons, but has acknowledged that the process may not be completed in his lifetime. The president told world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in September that his administration would soon set out a new nuclear posture policy statement that "opens the door to deeper cuts and reduces the role of nuclear weapons." But the process of doing so in Washington has encountered difficulty on several scores, according to those who described the talks. A core issue under debate, officials said, is whether the United States should shed its long-standing ambiguity about whether it would use nuclear weapons in certain circumstances, in hopes that greater specificity would give foreign governments more confidence to make their own decisions on nuclear arms. Some in the U.S. argue that the administration should assure foreign governments that it won't use nuclear weapons in reaction to a biological, chemical or conventional attack, but only in a nuclear exchange. Others argue that the United States should promise that it would never use nuclear weapons first, but only in response to a nuclear attack. Pentagon officials question the value of such public declarations, contending that foreign governments may not even believe them, said the U.S. officials and others. During the Cold War, Soviet officials declared that they would use nuclear weapons only in response to a nuclear attack. But when Soviet archives were opened, it became clear that "there were scenarios where they would have contemplated first use," said Charles Ferguson, a former State Department official who now heads the Federation of American Scientists. The lingering skepticism that resulted could carry over to similar U.S. declarations, limiting their worth, some officials have argued. A "no-first-use" policy may represent a bigger step than the Obama administration would be willing to take, private analysts said. Instead, they think the administration might hedge its policy by saying, for instance, that the United States would use nuclear weapons only in situations that threatened its existence. Another issue being debated is how to scale back the U.S. stockpile while continuing to provide nuclear protection to allies, in part to keep them from developing their own nuclear arsenals. The U.S. maintains hundreds of nuclear weapons overseas for such purposes. For instance, some U.S. submarines in the Pacific carry nuclear-tipped torpedoes, which, Ferguson said, many Japanese officials like for their possible deterrent effect against a growing Chinese navy. Because nuclear weapons provide such assurance to a key ally, some U.S. officials are reluctant to cut back on the capability. For similar reasons, some U.S. officials want to keep about 200 U.S. bombs at European bases, providing security for Eastern European countries. Another debate is whether the U.S. needs three major delivery systems for its nuclear weapons -- long-range missiles, submarines and bombers. But eliminating one of them would face strong resistance from the affected military services and the lawmakers who support them. The senior Defense official said the nuclear posture debate centers on the different ways toward the twin goals of nonproliferation and deterrence. "We are not looking at whether to reduce the roles of nuclear weapons and whether to reduce [their numbers]," he said. "We're looking at how."

No U.S. combat-related deaths in Iraq in

DecemberJanuary 1, 2010 3:54 p.m. EST For the first time since the Iraq war began in 2003, no U.S. troops were killed in battle in December.STORY HIGHLIGHTS NEW: Casualties decreasing among Iraqis with civilian death toll at its lowest in November December is first month with no U.S. combat deaths since war began "That is a very significant milestone for us," top U.S. commander in Iraq says Baghdad, Iraq (CNN) -- December was the first month since the beginning of the Iraq war in which there were no U.S. combat deaths, the U.S. military reported. There were three noncombat fatalities. "That is a very significant milestone for us as we continue to move forward, and I think that also speaks to the level of violence and how it has decreased over time," said Army Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq. Since the beginning of the war more than six years ago, 4,373 U.S. military members have died -- 3,477 from hostilities and 898 in non-combat incidents. Combat fatalities have decreased significantly since June, when the United States started withdrawing troops from Baghdad, Iraq's capital, and other urban areas. The United States also started a troop drawdown in 2009 from about 160,000 to the current level of around 110,000. The U.S. military suffered double-digit combat-related deaths in February, April, May and June 2009. The highest was 17 in May. There were also eight non-combat deaths in May, making for the highest monthly total in 2009. Since July, U.S. forces have suffered no more than five combat-related deaths each month. There were five in July, three in August, four in September, two in October and four in November. Non-combat deaths outnumbered combat fatalities in March, September, October, November and December. The last U.S. combat death in Iraq reported by CNN occurred November 22, when Sgt. Briand T. Williams, 25, of Sparks, Georgia, died in Numaniyah after insurgents attacked his Army unit. Casualties also have decreased among Iraqis, with Interior Ministry officials reporting in late November that the civilian death toll fell that month to its lowest level since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. According to the Interior Ministry, 2,773 civilians were killed and 8,900 were wounded in 2009. In addition, 242 Iraqi soldiers were killed and 612 were wounded in 2009. In December, the ministry said, 306 Iraqi civilians were killed and 1,137 were wounded; 13 Iraqi soldiers were killed and 32 were wounded. Also in December, 48 Iraqi police were killed and 119 were wounded. November recorded the lowest casualty figures for Iraqis since the U.S.-led invasion, with 88 civilians killed and 332 wounded. In addition, 12 Iraqi soldiers died in November and 44 were wounded. Among Iraqi police, 22 died and 56 were wounded. Previously, January 2009 had the lowest Iraqi civilian casualty figures since 2003. Since then, figures had been fluctuating, with August being the deadliest month for Iraqi civilians in more than a year. Daily violence has drastically dropped across the country over the past two years, but sporadic spectacular attacks, including high-profile suicide bombings against government buildings on August 19, October 25 and December 8, continue to claim hundreds of lives and shake confidence in the abilities of Iraq's security forces. President Obama has said he plans to withdraw all U.S. combat forces from Iraq by August 2010 and all remaining troops by December 2011. Britain, the United States' major ally in Iraq, ended combat operations in April.