11. May 2010 by admin.

Pakistan: Faisal Shahzad and the Pakistani Taliban

May 10, 2010 

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said May 9 that the United States has evidence linking the Pakistani Taliban to Faisal Shahzad, the man who confessed to the failed bombing attempt at Times Square in New York City on May 1. Shahzad is a naturalized U.S. citizen who demonstrated a willingness to carry out an attack on U.S. soil. However, his status as a U.S. citizen would have been problematic for the Pakistani Taliban, who must remain wary of potential infiltration from U.S. intelligence. Furthermore, the attempted bombing showed little to no signs that Shahzad had help from an outside group.

The Case of Faisal Shahzad U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced May 9 that the United States had uncovered evidence linking the Pakistani Taliban to Faisal Shahzad, the naturalized U.S. citizen of Pakistani descent who confessed to the botched May 1 attempt to bomb Times Square in New York City. Gen. David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, made essentially the opposite contention May 7, arguing that Shahzad acted alone. Any link between Shahzad and the Pakistani Taliban is not as meaningful as it appears, but it does draw attention to the need for a more sophisticated discussion of the Pakistani Taliban phenomenon and the way in which Shahzad approached the organization.

In the wake of the attack, Shahzad allegedly has been linked not only to the Pakistani Taliban but also to Anwar al-Awlaki, the former U.S.-born radical imam of a mosque in a Virginian suburb of Washington, D.C., who is now thought to be in hiding in Yemen. Al-Awlaki was also linked to two of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers and U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, who gunned down 13 at Fort Hood in November 2009.

But even Hasan, who appears to have had closer ties to al-Awlaki, acted as a lone wolf and did not inform anyone of his intentions. In other words, despite some loose ideological affinity, the connection played no operational role in the attack, as the old apex leadership of al Qaeda prime did in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. What made Hasan an effective lone wolf was not his ideological connections, but his insider knowledge of a good location for an attack at Fort Hood, his professional and personal proficiency with small arms and an appropriate target selection commensurate with his skill.

Shahzad was more of a “Kramer” jihadist in the tradition of Richard Reid — an ultimately inept radicalized individual with no operational understanding of basic tradecraft, no self-awareness of that lack of skill and ambition to carry out an attack utterly beyond his capabilities. Shahzad’s skill set is strikingly similar to that of Najibullah Zazi or the Glasgow group — they were all failed bomb makers.

The ‘Walk-In’ Jihadist

About the only thing Shahzad brought to the table was the passport of a naturalized U.S. citizen and a willingness to carry out an attack on U.S. soil. However, that entails more problems than opportunities.

A militant group that U.S. and Pakistani intelligence are actively targeting has to be inherently skeptical of outsiders — especially if one shows up on their doorstep (as Shahzad did) with an offer that appears to be too good to be true. Any entity must balance operational security with the active pursuit of its goals and objectives. But the lack of tradecraft that Shahzad exhibited is only further evidence that if Shahzad interacted with the Pakistani Taliban meaningfully — and there is not yet much evidence either way about how far he made it up the chain of command during his visit – they did not help him attain any meaningful skills. Although subsequent events might have shown that the group — if it was behind the plot — missed a chance to strike at the U.S. homeland, the ensuing investigations and focus of both U.S. and Pakistani intelligence efforts will only make operational security all the more important and any Shahzad-like offers all the more difficult to trust.

Shahzad’s childhood in Pakistan afforded him both cultural and filial connections in the country. There are even reports that a childhood friend was behind the 2008 attacks in Mumbai. Childhood has little bearing on adult operational capability, though it did make it easier for Shahzad to travel outside Peshawar, where he once lived, and make contacts with innumerable individuals — some invariably with some degree of connection to the shadowy, amorphous world of the Pakistani Taliban and their local and transnational allies.

However, a naturalized U.S. citizen who had spent more than a decade in the United States — even one with some historical acquaintance among militants — is problematic. It is next to impossible for a jihadist group to have any confidence in the trustworthiness of an individual who walks in and volunteers in a scenario such as this. The potential for that individual to be a double agent is simply too high to meaningfully compromise operational security — especially as the United States and others are trying very hard to enhance their intelligence for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) strikes in the region. The lack of tradecraft in Shahzad’s device is compelling evidence that whatever “contacts” or “training” he might have received in northern Pakistan was largely confined to physical training and weapons handling, not the far more sophisticated skill set of fashioning improvised explosive devices.

So whoever he did talk to in Pakistan — and the list of potentials is virtually endless for someone who grew up in the area — reveals almost nothing. More information may become available about whom he spoke with and what was discussed but there is no meaningful context for these conversations. Basic tradecraft and Shahzad’s Times Square device that make it clear that at most, the Pakistani Taliban sent a low-level representative to speak with him. It is unclear who provided the training, but it is reasonable to assume that he underwent basic guerilla training courses, but not advanced bomb-making courses. (Zazi received the bomb-making training but still failed in his attempt to attack New York’s subways because training without experience is insufficient.) However, the May 3 video of Pakistani Taliban leader Hakeemullah Mehsud claiming he had not been killed in a 2009 U.S. UAV strike probably gave the group an almost irresistible opportunity to claim credit for the May 1 attempted attack in the United States — even if it was an inept one — in order to bolster the larger movement’s standing (although the Pakistani Taliban is so fractious and diffuse, it can hardly be said that the claim was from “the group”).

Pakistani Taliban

The Pakistani Taliban is an outgrowth of the Afghan Taliban that Islamabad nurtured in the 1990s. The radical Islamist ideology and militant training that Pakistan (along with the United States and Saudi Arabia) had cultivated in Afghanistan during the 1980s war against the Soviets in order to consolidate control over the country eventually spilled back across the border. With a recent rise in attacks against Pakistani government targets, Islamabad began to grasp the implications and consequences of its existing policies. Consequently, in April 2009, it initiated an unprecedented counterinsurgency and counterterrorism campaign in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the leading group in the amorphous and diffuse phenomenon that is the Pakistani Taliban (even though the TTP itself is fractious), certainly has had ambitions to attack the continental United States, a supporter of the regime in Islamabad that it opposes.

However, it is important to note that at its strongest, the TTP demonstrated the ability to strike at urban targets in Pakistan. It has never demonstrated the capability to strike far afield, much less on the opposite side of the world. Others, such as splinter factions of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizb-ul-Jihad al-Islami, have demonstrated that capability recently, but not the TTP. So while it has the intent, it has never had the capability to carry out an attack at that distance. The closest it has come to an international attack is the suicide bombing on the CIA facility in eastern Afghanistan across the border from the FATA, which for all intents and purposes should be considered a local operation given the close proximity and porous nature of the border. In that instance, the group got lucky in that the bomber had independent access to agency officials. And the ongoing campaign in FATA is only further pressuring the Pakistani Taliban. Facing both the Pakistani military and American UAV strikes, the group has seen its operational reach within Pakistan severely constrained. The idea that the group has sufficient capacity to plot and support a strike on the continental United States is increasingly far-fetched, despite its desire to do so. In any event, Shahzad’s actions were not only carried out ineptly by an untrained individual, but have no evidence of meaningful outside support.

So while there are links that should not be underestimated, the botched Times Square bombing is merely the latest in a now well-established trend of “grassroots” and “Kramer” jihadists. They absolutely pose a danger — and an ongoing one at that — but they must not be mistaken for the coherent, transnational phenomenon of al Qaeda 2.0.

Posted via web from Jay’s Blogs

Posted in Taliban, War on Terror, Terror, Pakistan, Jihad, United State of America | Print | No Comments »

25. April 2010 by admin.

 The Afghanistan Campaign, Part 4: The View from Kabul

April 20, 2010

Amid a surge of Western troops into Afghanistan, a raging Taliban insurgency and Pakistan’s attempts to consolidate its influence in the country, Kabul is being pulled in many directions. The government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, now at the beginning of its second five-year term, is trying to secure its own future as well as balance the ambitions of other key players, all while preventing the already war-torn country from becoming a proxy battleground.

A growing Taliban insurgency and a surge of U.S. and allied forces into the country are shaking things up in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital. There, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, now in his second five-year term, has been formally in power since 2002 and in elected office since 2004. After several years of being portrayed as an American lackey, perceived more as the mayor of Kabul than the president of Afghanistan, Karzai has tried to break out of this mold and secure his own political survival. This at a time when the Taliban have emerged as a major force and the United States has made it clear that its commitment to Afghanistan is limited.Karzai’s problems have only escalated since the Obama administration took office. Relations began to sour in the run-up to last year’s Afghan presidential election, when elements in Washington began searching for alternatives to Karzai, who was being criticized for corruption. But with years of experience in managing his country’s many regional warlords, Karzai was able to quickly align with all major ethnic groups and ensure his victory in the election, despite the entire process being marred by charges of fraud.Tensions with Washington throughout the election helped Karzai create his own political space within the country, space that he sought to expand even as U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry behind the scenes expressed doubts about Karzai’s viability as an effective American partner. In recent weeks, Karzai took his efforts to a different level by accusing the United States of engaging in fraud during the Afghan election, triggering a strong response from Washington. His move paid off. After a couple of weeks of high tensions, senior U.S. officials, including President Barack Obama, moved to ease the strain, calling the Afghan president an ally and partner. With almost all of a second five-year term still ahead of him, Karzai is as much a political reality in the country as the Taliban. 

Objectives and Problems

 The main objective of the current Karzai regime is to maintain as much of the existing political structure as possible and to maximize its position within that structure. This is a system that has been crafted and staffed in large part by Karzai and his inner circle, and thus it bolsters their position disproportionately. But because the Taliban are also a political reality, Kabul must work to achieve meaningful political accommodations that will serve to stabilize the security situation in the countryside.To maximize its leverage, Kabul must do this rapidly. The surge of U.S. forces into the country and the money, aid and advice that the Karzai regime receives will never be more abundant than it is right now, so with his power at its height, Karzai must reach these political accommodations as soon as possible.Meanwhile, Kabul has two main problems. The first is that it has limited means to compel the Taliban to negotiate on the requisite timetable while the Taliban have every incentive to hold out on any meaningful talks. The Karzai government is working with interlocutors (mostly former Taliban officials who still retain influence) to negotiate with the jihadist movement, but the question is the pace at which real progress can be made. At the heart of these negotiations is the question of who speaks for the Pashtuns, Afghanistan’s single largest demographic segment, accounting for more than 40 percent of the country’s population.Nor will political accommodation come cheaply. The Taliban will not be won over with a few Cabinet positions. The current discussions include the need for constitutional change that will allow more room for Islamic law and perhaps an extra-executive religious entity that controls the judiciary. Just how much of a stake the Taliban would have in the government and what shape that stake would take remains to be seen. In any case, it will likely require substantial concessions in Kabul.  

 The second problem is that Kabul’s efforts to negotiate with the Taliban are being pulled and manipulated from all sides. This is the real challenge for the current regime — balancing all the outside players who are trying to shape the negotiations. Kabul needs to prevent the already fractious and war-torn country from becoming a proxy battleground for the United States and Iran or Pakistan and India (among other countries). The difficulty of maintaining this balancing act — while also maintaining local support — is increasing by the day.Kabul’s closest allies are the United States and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Although Washington and Kabul do not always see eye to eye, and Karzai is trying to distance himself from the United States in order to downplay the puppet image, the United States and other coalition countries provide the foundational support for his government as well as security in the countryside. And while the United States likely views Karzai as a convenient scapegoat as well as an interchangeable political part, it is trying to demonstrate some confidence in the Afghan president. At a major tribal meeting in Kandahar on April 4, U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, head of the ISAF, was notably silent, allowing Karzai to speak and lead the discussion.Aside from the United States, Pakistan is the next biggest player in Afghanistan, and because of its own links to the Taliban, it has far more practical leverage than the United States does in shaping the negotiations (of which it has every intention of being at the center). Pakistan’s arrest of senior Taliban figure Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar is now believed to have been carried out to disrupt direct negotiations between the Taliban and Kabul in which Baradar is thought to have been engaged. A strong Pakistani hand in Afghanistan is a longstanding reality for Kabul, but Islamabad is maneuvering to consolidate its influence as a planned American drawdown in 2011 approaches.But Pakistan’s resurging role in Afghanistan places Karzai in a difficult place between his eastern neighbor and its regional rival India. New Delhi has invested a great deal in development and reconstruction work in Afghanistan since 2002, and Kabul will need to balance this aid with the need for Pakistani assistance with the Taliban. And complicating all this, of course, is India’s alignment with Russia on the Afghanistan issue.Perhaps more critical than the Indo-Pakistani struggle over Afghanistan is the U.S.-Iranian contest. Although Iraq is the main arena for Washington’s struggle with Tehran, the focus of the contest is shifting to Afghanistan, along with the U.S. military effort. Iran also has considerable influence to its east, with deep historical, ethno-linguistic and cultural ties that it has adroitly established and cultivated not only among its natural allies — ethno-political minorities opposed to the Taliban — but also among some elements of the Taliban themselves. Though this influence is not decisive (the Taliban have their own interests, and many groups opposed to the Taliban are close to Karzai and the West), Tehran has the ability to influence events on the ground in Afghanistan, and an eventual settlement of the war cannot happen without Iranian involvement. From Karzai’s point of view, he has to balance his alignment with the United States with the fact that Iran is always going to be Afghanistan’s western neighbor, long after U.S. and NATO forces have left his country.This is really the ultimate problem. On its best day, Afghanistan is poor, lacks basic infrastructure and is economically hobbled. With weak domestic security forces and little to offer the outside world, Kabul can only hope to continue to entice more international aid while playing all the various countries with vested interests in Afghanistan against each other. Incorporating the Taliban into the political framework will be especially important over the next few years, but when and if that happens, the balancing act will continue to be played by any central government in Kabul.

Posted via web from Jay’s Blogs

Posted in Terror, Taliban, War on Terror, Geopolitics, Afganistan, Jihad, Pakistan, Obama, United State of America | Print | No Comments »

25. April 2010 by admin.

The Afghanistan Campaign, Part 3: The Pakistani Strategy

 Pakistan is central to the U.S. war in Afghanistan — and Islamabad views Kabul’s fate as central to its own. No other country is as pivotal to Afghanistan’s long-term fate as Pakistan is, and in this part of our series we examine the country’s long historical relationship with the Taliban and its strategy and objectives going forward.The Pakistani strategy of securing influence in Afghanistan is dictated by the unalterable reality of geography. With a long common border, a strong Pashtun population on both sides and active militant groups interconnected with each other across the border, Pakistan is forced to take an active role in Afghanistan. It’s the same sort of geopolitical imperative that bound the colonial British to the region, and before them the Muslim emperors, and before the Muslim emperors the Hindu rulers.Pakistan’s core is comprised of the provinces of Punjab and Sindh, which encompass the country’s demographic, industrial, commercial and agricultural base. From Punjab in the north, this heartland extends southward through Sindh province, flowing seamlessly along the Indus River valley into the Thar Desert. This means Pakistan’s core is hard by the Indian border, leaving no meaningful terrain barriers to invasion. (Indeed, the Punjabi population straddles the Indian-Pakistani border much as the Pashtun population straddles the Pakistani-Afghan border). This narrow strip of flat land is inherently vulnerable to India, Pakistan’s arch-rival to the east, a geographic arrangement that was no accident of the British partition. Hence, suffering from both geographic and demographic disadvantages vis-a-vis India — and with no strategic depth to speak of — Pakistan is extremely anxious about its security in the east and is forced to look in the opposite direction both out of concern for its depth and in search of opportunity.

West of the Punjabi-Sindhi core lay the peripheral territories of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Balochistan province. Though the Pakistani buffer territories of the NWFP and FATA are far more interlinked with Afghanistan than with Pakistan by virtue of the common Pashtun populations, they do provide Pakistan with some of the depth it lacks to the east and also protect against encroachment from the northwest. Having firm control of its own heartland and secure access to the sea through the port of Karachi, Islamabad must also control these buffer territories as a means of further consolidating security in the Punjabi-Sindhi core.In this effort, Afghanistan is both part of the problem and part of the solution. It is part of the problem because the Islamist insurgency that Islamabad once supported in Afghanistan has now spilled backwards onto Pakistani soil; it is part of the solution because Afghanistan remains a critical geopolitical arena for Islamabad. By securing itself as the single most dominant player in Afghanistan, Pakistan strengthens its hand in its own peripheral territories and ensures that no other foreign power — India is the immediate concern here — ever gains a foothold in Kabul. If India did, it would have Pakistan more or less surrounded. Indeed, the need to assert influence in Afghanistan is hardwired into Pakistan’s geopolitical makeup.

History

Afghanistan already was an issue for Pakistan when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in the final days of 1979. A secular Marxist government was in Kabul supported by arch-rival India and bent on eradicating the influence of religion (a powerful and important aspect of Pakistani influence in Afghanistan). When the Soviets invaded, Pakistan used Saudi money and U.S. arms to back a seven-party Islamist alliance. In the civil war that followed the Soviet withdrawal, Pakistan threw its support behind the much more hard-line Islamist Taliban and gave it the training and tools it needed to rise up and eventually take control of most of the country. Though Afghanistan was still chaotic, it was the kind of Islamist chaos that the Pakistanis could manage — that is, until Sept. 11, 2001, and the American invasion to topple the Taliban regime for providing sanctuary to al Qaeda.Thus ensued an almost impossible tightrope walk by the government of then-President Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Pakistan was forced to abruptly end support for the Taliban regime it had helped put into power and around which its strategy for retaining influence in Afghanistan revolved. Islamabad tried to play both sides, retaining contact with the Taliban but also providing the United States with intelligence that helped U.S. forces hunt the Taliban. This engendered distrust on both sides in the process. The Taliban realized that they could not depend on or trust Pakistan as they once did, and from 2003 to 2006, American pressure on Islamabad to crack down on al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas directly contributed to the rise of the Pakistani Taliban. So as the Islamist insurgency in Afghanistan spilled backwards into Pakistan, the cross-border Taliban phenomenon began to include groups focused on the destruction of the Pakistani state. To this day, however, despite the inextricably linked nature of these Pashtun Islamists, there is still an inclination within many quarters in Islamabad to distinguish between the “good” Taliban, who have their sights set on Afghanistan and ultimately Kabul (and with whom Pakistan retains significant, if reduced, influence), and the “bad” Taliban, who have become fixated on the regime in Islamabad and have perpetrated attacks against Pakistani targets. There also are other, non-Pashtun renegade Islamist elements that have carried out major attacks beyond Pakistani borders that have risked provoking Indian aggression, such as the militant attack in Mumbai in 2008.Nevertheless, Pakistan has realized that the militant problem in Afghanistan has endangered the weak control it does have over the buffer territories of the FATA and NWFP and is applying military force to the problem on its side of the border. It also appears to be working closer with the United States in terms of sharing intelligence. Across the border in Afghanistan, Pakistan does not want to see the Taliban stage too strong a comeback because of the offshoots of the movement that are becoming problematic on Pakistan’s own turf.Strategy But the Afghan Taliban can neither be ignored nor destroyed. They still have utility for Islamabad and must be dealt with. This will require skillful handling on the part of the Pakistanis, who have lost a lot of leverage over the group. Islamabad’s strategy is to try and balance a domestic policy that seeks to militarily neutralize Taliban rebels on the Pakistani side of the border while working with the Taliban on the Afghan side to achieve its foreign policy aims. Pakistan’s intelligence service, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, can provide devastating intelligence on the Taliban movement to the Americans, giving Islamabad leverage over Washington. And its long-standing connections to the group put Islamabad in a unique position to facilitate and oversee any negotiated settlement.So Pakistan is seeking to maximize its influence within the Afghan Taliban movement, gain control and ownership over any negotiation efforts and establish international recognition as the single most important player in Afghanistan. The West’s interest in withdrawing from Afghanistan puts Pakistan in a good position to succeed here. The Americans know Pakistan must be part of the solution and are anxious for Islamabad to provide that solution.But to succeed, Pakistan must again walk the middle ground between the United States and the Taliban. And once it is at the center of the negotiations, it must not only push both parties toward each other, it must also pull them in a third direction in order to satisfy its own aims — namely, to establish long-term conditions for Pakistani domination over Afghanistan.And to succeed in this effort, Pakistan will need more than just the Taliban. It must establish influence with the other key players in Afghanistan — particularly the government of President Hamid Karzai, who recently acknowledged that Islamabad will have a great deal of influence in the country but that he wishes to place limits on it as much as possible. And this is where things get tricky. The United States may ultimately have no choice but to work with Pakistan in attempting to secure a negotiated settlement with reconcilable elements of the Taliban. But Karzai is also seeking a deal with the Taliban, and if he can achieve one outside of Pakistan’s influence, he can try and minimize Pakistani influence in the negotiations (though Pakistan can no more be cut out of the negotiations than could the Taliban).

At the same time, Islamabad must find common ground with other regional players — Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey — in order to roll back Indian influence in Afghanistan (there even appears to be an emerging axis of sorts consisting of the Americans, the Saudis and the Turks). But Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visited New Delhi March 11 in order to coordinate and craft a common strategy for Afghanistan — a strategy being formulated between two countries that share a common interest in Afghanistan that runs counter to Pakistan’s and is coming closer to aligning with Iran’s.

In sum, Pakistan retains more levers in Afghanistan than any other single country, and with Saudi money and American might it is maneuvering to be the pivotal player in a powerful coalition with abundant resources. But Pakistan will continue to face challenges as it tries to distinguish between and divide the Taliban phenomena in Afghanistan and within its own borders.

Posted via web from Jay’s Blogs

Posted in Terror, Taliban, War on Terror, Geopolitics, Afganistan, Islam, Jihad, Pakistan, United State of America | Print | No Comments »

30. March 2010 by admin.

Russia: Telltale Signs of Caucasus Militants’ Involvement in Attacks

March 29 2010

A helicopter lands outside the Lubyanka station after the bombing of two Moscow metro stations on March 29

Twoexplosions in Moscow’s metro network on March 29 killed approximately 35 people (reports of the number of dead vary) and injured more than 100 others. While nobody has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, tactical details emerging from the investigation indicate that militants from the northern Caucasus were responsible.

Two blasts in Moscow’s metro network on March 29 killed approximately 35 people (reports vary; the number of dead could be as high as 46) and injured more than 100 others. The explosions, reportedly carried out by two female suicide bombers, were timed to hit the heart of the city’s public transportation network at its peak morning rush hour.

The first explosion occurred at 7:56 a.m. at Lubyanka station as the train pulled up to the platform and passengers entered and exited the train. The blast, which originated from the second car, killed approximately 23 people in the car and on the platform. Forty-three minutes later at Park Kultury, a second, very similar attack occurred. As the train pulled up to the platform and opened its doors, an explosion occurred on a rear train car, killing approximately 12 people. Both train stations are near prominent Moscow landmarks, such as the Federal Security Services offices, the Kremlin and Gorky Park.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks yet, but the tactical details emerging point to the involvement of militants from the northern Caucasus.

First, Russian investigators have said evidence from the scene suggests the two suicide bombers were female (authorities claim to have discovered their heads). The use of female suicide operatives is significant, as Chechen militants commonly use women — who generally attract less suspicion than men — as suicide bombers. Female Chechen suicide bombers referred to as “black widows” were used in many plots against civilian targets in Russia, including subways and rock concerts, and in attacks on board two crashed airliners in 2004. Female suicide bombers’ involvement in the March 29 explosions supports the idea that militants from the northern Caucasus carried out the attacks.

Furthermore, Russian media have reported that the devices contained nuts and bolts, which acted as deadly projectiles in the blasts. Packing shrapnel around explosives to maximize the casualty count in a bombing is a tactic used by many militants around the world, including Chechen operatives. Also, authorities have confirmed that the explosive material used in the attacks was TNT, which is frequently used by a number of militant groups, including those from the northern Caucasus. Suspected militants from the northern Caucasus have used TNT in several high-profile attacks, most recently in the November 2009 Nevsky express train bombing (involving a device containing approximately 30 pounds of TNT but using very different tactics) that killed 39 people and the attempted assassination of Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov in June 2009 that involved an improvised explosive device containing 130 pounds of TNT. Although use of shrapnel and TNT is hardly unique to militants from the northern Caucasus, the devices used in the March 29 attacks had the same components used in devices in previous attacks carried out by northern Caucasus militant groups.

Reports on the sizes of the devices vary; the device used in the Lubyanka station attack is said to have been between 3 and 8 pounds, and the device in the Park Kultury attack is said to have been between 1 and 4 pounds. Both operatives reportedly wore explosive belts that would be easily concealed by winter coats. Although larger devices can be engineered, it would make sense for these operatives to use smaller devices to reduce the risk of detection. The reported sizes of the explosive devices match up with the reports of the number of deaths in both attacks. In a very similar attack in February 2004 against a train on the metro’s green line, a single suicide bomber killed 41 people by detonating a device that reportedly contained 8 pounds of TNT. That attack was later claimed by a Chechen militant group.

Russian security officials reviewing surveillance footage of the attackers said the operatives boarded their respective trains at the Yugo-Zapadnaya station (the last stop on the red line in southwestern Moscow; security is more lax in the suburbs than in central Moscow). They appeared to be accompanied by two other women and a man; however, it is unclear how these individuals might have been connected with the bombers. They could have been handlers ensuring that the operatives got to their destinations securely, or they could have been uninvolved individuals who simply boarded the trains at the same time. Details about these possible accomplices should be watched to determine the nature of their involvement.

In addition to all of these tactical details, the timing of the attack also matches with past attacks carried out by northern Caucasus militant groups, who take advantage of the spring thaw to increase attacks against Russian targets. Most of these attacks take place in the northern Caucasus regions of Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan, but as demonstrated in attacks over the past decade militants from these regions are capable of reaching Moscow and other regions in the Russian core. For this reason, security in Moscow (especially within the metro system, which is an established target) is usually stringent. However,

public transportation systems around the world — not just Moscow’s — are notoriously difficult to secure, meaning that no matter how tight security is, successful attacks are inevitable.

Posted via email from Jay’s Blogs

Posted in Terror, Russia, Jihad, Islam | Print | No Comments »

21. February 2010 by admin.

Getty Images

The German bakery destroyed in a bombing in Pune, India

Summary

An improvised explosive device exploded at a German bakery in Pune, India, at about 7:30 p.m. local time Feb. 13. While no militant group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, it bears a remarkable similarity to attacks that were commonplace throughout India before the more spectacular commando-style attack that targeted Mumbai in November 2008. Though conflicting reports have emerged on the sequence of events before the bomb detonated, the bakery, known to be frequented by foreigners, likely presented an appealing soft target for whatever individual or group wanted it hit.

Analysis

At approximately 7:30 p.m. local time on Feb. 13, an improvised explosive device detonated at a German bakery in Pune, India. Conflicting reports have emerged on the sequence of events, and while no militant group has claimed responsibility for the attack, it is similar to the type that occurred with frequency before the commando-style Mumbai attack, and the bakery may have been targeted because it was known to be frequented by foreigners.According to reports citing an employee of the bakery, a woman driving an auto-rickshaw handed the employee a backpack believed to contain the explosives responsible for the blast. However, an earlier story said that a customer placed a bag in the restaurant, and that the backpack was left unclaimed and detonated when a waiter opened it. The explosive material was reportedly RDX, a military-grade explosive, mixed with ammonium nitrate. Both materials are relatively easy to acquire and are commonly used in attacks in India. The fact that some reports indicate the device detonated as the backpack was opened suggests the bag was rigged to detonate upon being opened. However, due to conflicting information emerging about the incident, a timed device cannot be ruled out.The bakery, located just east of central Pune (approximately 100 miles southeast of Mumbai) in a neighborhood called Koregaon Park, was adjacent to Osho Ashram, a Hindu spiritual meditation center that draws in many foreign tourists. The bakery was also near many hotels that housed visitors to Osho Ashram. Other sites known to attract foreign visitors are also nearby, including a Chabad House, or Jewish cultural center, which was across the street from the bakery. (A Chabad House in Mumbai was targeted in the November 2008 militant attacks in that city.)The bakery was popular with foreign tourists, and the timing of the attack (Saturday evening) corresponded with peak business hours, when the restaurant would be bustling with people. This would make it less likely for suspicious activity to be noticed, and also provide a target-rich environment ; the restaurant was only some 344 square feet in size and was packed with nearly 70 people at the time of the blast.The latest reports indicate that nine people were killed in the incident, including the waiter who reportedly opened the bag, and as many as 60 were wounded. Contrary to earlier reports saying that most of those killed were foreigners, it appears that most of the casualties were Indians, with possibly only two foreigners (an Iranian biology student and an Italian woman) killed in the attack and 12 other foreigners injured. It is unclear how many foreigners were in the restaurant at the time, but since the restaurant was known to be a gathering place for foreigners (also as a place to buy drugs, according to one report), whoever was behind the attack could have been targeting foreigners. Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram said that David Headley, a U.S. citizen who was arrested in 2009 for his alleged links to the 2008 Mumbai attacks, had surveilled targets around the bakery during his trip prior to the 2008 attacks and during a March 2009 trip to Pune.Leading up to the 2008 Mumbai attacks, several Indian cities, including New Delhi, Bangalore and Ahmedabad, were the targets of serial bombings. The attacks involved multiple explosive devices detonating in short sequence in various locations around the cities, with crowded marketplaces and religious sites being very popular targets. These attacks occurred frequently across India, but quickly tapered off after the very different commando-style attack in Mumbai. Yesterday’s attack was the first significant bombing in India since Mumbai, but it was a fairly simple operation and involved only a single explosive device.Indigenous Islamic groups such as the Indian Mujihadeen claimed responsibility for the attacks leading up to Mumbai, for which the Pakistani-based Islamist group Lashkar-e-Taiba is believed to be responsible. No group has yet claimed responsible for the Pune attack, but indigenous Islamist groups certainly cannot be ruled out.Indian authorities, which have been at an elevated state of alert since the 2008 attacks, recently have issued warnings of possible attacks against religious sites around India. Chidambaram indicated that security had been stepped up at the nearby Chabad House and the Koregaon Park neighborhood of Pune in October 2009. With heightened security, it is more difficult to successfully carry out complex, multi-target attacks such as those of the recent past. However, an attack like the one against the German bakery in Pune, involving fewer people and fewer targets, would require less preparation time and communications and likely attract less attention from Indian authorities, and thus have a far higher chance of succeeding.

Posted via email from Jay’s Blogs

Posted in Terror, India | Print | No Comments »