Canary In The Coal Mine

U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice Briefs Jewish Leaders on U.N. Drive

From: JTA  |  JTA.org  |  September 16, 2011

 

NEW YORK -- U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice (Pictured) briefed a dozen American Jewish leaders on the American efforts to avert the Palestinian bid for statehood in the U.N.

Three sources who attended the Thursday meeting told Politico that the U.S. is resigned to the measure passing the General Assembly, but is whipping votes to cut into its margin of victory.

"She didn’t have a starry-eyed approach," one of the Jewish leaders told Politico. "There's an awareness both on her part and on our part that assuming that the Palestinians go ahead with the resolution it’s going to pass the General Assembly and it’s going to pass by a comfortable margin."

The U.S. has promised to veto the bill when it comes before the Security Council, but, according to sources at the meeting, Rice is also attempting to convince other Security Council members to abstain from voting and deny the measure the nine of fifteen votes it requires to pass the Security Council.

The sources described the meeting to Politico as warm, with Malcom Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, an oft-times critic of the Obama administration, reportedly telling Rice that the administration deserves more credit for its work on the issue.

The attendees, a source told Politico, were Lee Rosenberg of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee; the World Jewish Congress's Ronald Lauder; the American Jewish Committee's David Harris; the Anti-Defamation League's Abraham Foxman; Hoenlein; Daniel Mariaschin of B'nai B'rith International; Rabbi Steve Gutow of the Jewish Council on Public Affairs; Americans for Peace Now's Martin Bresler; J Street's Jeremy Ben-Ami; Rabbi Eric Yoffie of the Union for Reform Judaism;  Rabbi Julie Schonfeld of the Rabbinical Assembly; and Rabbi Steven Weil of the Orthodox Union.

Later in the day, Rice briefed a small group of journalists from Jewish media outlets, including the JTA, and denied that the U.S. is working to create a toned-down draft of the U.N. resolution on Palestinian statehood. 

“We’re not negotiating any text, we’re not engaged in efforts to water down a text,” Rice said Thursday in the briefing. “We’re making the case that this is not a productive course.”

Rice dismissed as false rumors that a draft text even exists, but she said the Europeans were talking with the Palestinians about the substance of a resolution.

“There is no Palestinian text yet,” she said. “Nobody in New York has seen one.”

Source:  http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/09/16/3089420/rice-briefs-jewish-leaders-on-un-drive

Ahmadinejad Congratulates Hu on 40th Anniversary of Iran-China Diplomatic Ties

From: Tehran Times Political Desk  |  TehranTimes.com  |  July 24, 2011

 

He Guoqiang (R), a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and secretary of the CPC's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, meets with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran, capital of Iran, July 16, 2011. (Xinhua/Li Tao)

 

TEHRAN -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent a message to Chinese President Hu Jintao on Sunday commemorating the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Tehran and Beijing. 

The Islamic Republic of Iran and the People’s Republic of China established diplomatic relations on August 16, 1971. 

“I would like to extend my sincere congratulations to you and the country’s government on the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Iran and the People’s Republic of China,” Ahmadinejad wrote. 

“I’m sure that the strong and growing relations between Iran and the great country of China, which are based on understanding and are meant to serve mutual interests, will be further strengthened through the determination of the leaders of the two countries,” he added. 

According to the People’s Daily, the volume of trade between Iran and China reached $29.3 billion in 2010. 

 

Source:  http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=244657

Terror in Mumbai - Again

by Irfan Al-Alawi  |  Hudson-NY.org  |  July 18, 2011

 

July 13, 2011: Terror struck Mumbai again when Back-to-back IEDs exploded at Zaveri Bazar, Opera House and Dadar in the space of a few minutes from 6.45 PM .Explosions came two days after the fifth anniversary of the Mumbai serial train blasts in which 186 persons were killed. 

 

Once again, terror has struck the metropolis of Mumbai, India's leading commercial center. In a repetition of the homicidal assault on the city in December 2008, three coordinated bombings on Wednesday killed 18 people and injured 133, according to the latest report. The main blast erupted at the city's southerly jewelry market, which features a large diamond trade. Secondary assaults took place at Zaveri Bazaar, where gold bullion is sold, and Dadar, a shopping area where stores are owned by Muslims as well as Hindus. All three took place during early evening rush-hour traffic, when the jewelry and gold markets are typically crowded with customers.

Zaveri Bazaar was similarly hit by terror bombs in 1993 and 2003, while Dadar is near a train station that was one of several rail terminals attacked in 2006. The wider district was the targeted location for the 2008 attacks.

Noting that the victims included gem and precious-metal traders, some Indian media speculated that the bombs, which are believed to have been improvised explosive devices (IEDs) carried by an automobile and at least one person on a motorbike, were planted at the order of India's criminal underworld. A fourth IED was located in Mumbai, but did not explode.

The Indian government has imposed a high alert against terrorism. Indian public opinion and many moderate Muslims cannot avoid speculating that, as in the 2008 attack, Pakistan and its powerful radical Islamist ideological networks stand behind the carnage.

Mumbai police blame the latest horror on the "Indian Mujahidin," one of several terror entities supported from Pakistan. As became known throughout the world, Pakistani extremism benefits from subsidies from the commanding sectors of the country's military, particularly their Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

South Asian Muslim extremism – beginning with the Deobandi sect that inspires the Afghan and Pakistan Taliban, and including the jihadist Jamaat-e Islami (JI), founded by the radical theoretician Abu'l Ala Mawdudi, and its many satellite organizations, factions, and grouplets – has made clear that its ambitions are not limited to the mountain fastnesses of Afghanistan or the teeming cities of Pakistan. The violence of the Taliban is more than an expression of the Pashtun ethnic claims, as is mistakenly assumed by foreign observers.

Pakistani radicals have recently conducted a sustained campaign of terror and penetration, extending as far as Bangladesh. Their weapons have included violence against spiritual Sufis; Shia Muslims, whom they accuse of apostasy from Islam; anti-radical Sunni Muslims, and secular citizens. Earlier this year, in Pune, east of Mumbai, a bombing that killed more than a dozen people and injured scores, was blamed on Pakistani fanatics.

The radical Islamist offensive against India began in earnest in 2007 with a murderous attack on the Ajmer Sharif shrine, the mausoleum of the most famous Indian Sufi saint, Moinuddin Chisti, who lived in the 12^th and 13^th centuries. In that feint across the border of Pakistan, two people were killed and 20 were injured. The Ajmer Sharif incident was the most daring such act in a series of outrages against Sufi institutions in southwest Asia.

In Bangladesh, once known as East Pakistan, Islamist extremism has been the object of significant suspicion and fear since the country won its sovereignty in 1971. JI cadres, driven by the fundamentalism of Mawdudi and his vision of an "Islamic state," were involved in massacres and other crimes during the Bangladesh independence war; the Islamabad regime still harbors resentment of India for having intervened to assist Bangladesh. Pakistani Muslims often appear united - aside from their sectarian and doctrinal differences - in blaming New Delhi for Pakistan's separation from Bangladesh, even though the citizens of former West and East Pakistan had only religion in common. Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims are distinguished from one another by culture, language, traditions, and even different alphabets.

Deobandi fundamentalists, having brought the Taliban to life at the western extreme of South Asia, have embarked on a program of infiltration in Bangladesh through the activism of the "Tabligh-i Jama'at" movement, which captures millions of young believers with its campaigns of preaching and mass participation. Bangladesh, with its popular dedication to Sufism, and its securely democratic political institutions - that includes a woman prime minister, Shaykha Hasina Wajed - has, at 160 million, a population almost as large as Pakistan's 190 million, and could lead South Asia's Muslims.

But Islamabad, however, is jealous of its prerogatives as the "recognized" Muslim power in the region. Its animosity toward India is also fed by long-standing rivalry for control of Kashmir. The once-paradisiacal northern region, now partitioned between Pakistan and India, has been the pretext and training ground for Pakistani and foreign jihadists. South Asian and other radicals recruited in, and blooded in, Kashmir participated in defending the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001, and were then "re-assigned" to Kashmir. More recently, they returned to combat in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The dreaded - and unfortunately efficient - terrorist network, known as "Lashkar-e-Taiba" or "Army of the Righteous," is an ally of al-Qaeda. It was responsible for the 2008 Mumbai bloodshed, and treats Kashmir as its home and hearth, nesting there with the complicity of Islamabad authorities between its sorties into Afghanistan and the main territories of Pakistan and India.

The permanently festering Pakistani grievance over Kashmir has other ramifications. Indian strategists worry that China is furthering the goal of Pakistan's extremists to dominate the subcontinent. Chinese troops have been reportedly patrolling Kashmir as Pakistan allocates its military resources to the conflict in Afghanistan - a "shadow war" in which the real intentions of Pakistan are seldom revealed.

It is no secret that both Pakistan and India possess nuclear weapons, and that the Pakistani atomic physicist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, handed over military technology to Iran, North Korea, and Libya. If, therefore, one counts China and North Korea and Pakistan as members of a nuclear alliance, India faces three nuclear-armed opponents.

While Islamabad politicians insistently accuse India of attempting to "encircle" Pakistan by influencing the Afghan government, in the wider sphere, Pakistan and China have already established an atomically-armed 'ring of fire' around India.

Indian Muslims, who have embraced, in their majority, cooperation with their non-Muslim fellow-citizens, are also threatened by Pakistani radicalism. The bombings in Mumbai most certainly took the lives of Muslims as well as Hindus and others.

Finally, for Muslims in the United Kingdom, the latest onslaught of violence in Mumbai once again points to the role of extremist ideology among South Asian Muslim immigrants and their offspring.

South Asians make up the overwhelming majority of British Muslims; and the Deobandi and Saudi-financed Wahhabi sects, along with other jihadi groups, are fighting hard for control over the community. The traditional, Sufi-oriented Islam of the Barelvi sect - which is culturally conservative but anti-radical - has been challenged in mosques across England by Deobandi, Wahhabi, and jamaati preachers. Bangladeshi Muslims in the UK have also proven more susceptible to Islamist ideology than their relatives in Bangladesh itself.

The latest gruesome news from Mumbai underscores the dangers to the region - and the world - posed by the Pakistani romance with radicalism. Unfortunately, moderate, traditional Muslims, Pakistani and Indian politicians, and anti-jihadist religious leaders in the subcontinent – as well as South Asian immigrants in the West - have proven long on complaint but short on practical action to obstruct the extremist invasion. It is doubtful that this incident will be the last of its kind.

 

Source:  http://www.hudson-ny.org/2272/mumbai-terror

Life-Size Noah's Ark Opens in Hong Kong

by Chris Mitchell, CBN News Middle East Bureau Chief  |  CBN.com  |  July 17, 2011

 

HONG KONG -- One of the most famous Bible stories is Noah's Ark. Now people can visit a life-size replica of the ark in one of the world's most famous cities, Hong Kong.

The ark rises next to a huge suspension bridge and one of the world's busiest waterways. Its story begins with a unique partnership including a government, a developer and Christian organizations working together.

In the late 90s, Hong Kong needed a bridge to connect the city with its new airport. Matthew Pine is manager of "Noah's Ark" theme park.

"As part of the whole development scheme, there was an island that needed to be developed to enable the building of the bridge," he recalled.

 

As a lawyer for the developers, Hugo Chan had a message for the government.

"We can help you with the bridge if you negotiate with the owners of the land on the island, build a theme park for the community, let us relocate the villages and build a residential development," he told them.

So the government built the bridge, apartments and a theme park.

"They had vision to do something remarkable, something outstanding. So they came up with many ideas. Some of them were really outrageous and some of them were very unreasonable," Pine said.

Developers say the vision of the ark came from an 8-year-old girl.

"She drew a little picture, her dad took it. The government officials loved it and from there on the architects and the engineers developed the plan," Pine explained. "The marketing teams came alongside. And the Hong Kong government came to support it as well. And they eventually created what you see today."

The contractors built the ark the way the Bible describes -- 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high. Many believe it was the largest wooden structure ever to roam the seas.

Outside of the ark, a garden features nearly 70 pairs of life-size replicas of animals and a few ones. Inside, the ark contains exhibits with rare animals like a nautilus, a toucan and exotic fish.

Screens show animated films that demonstrate how the original ark could have been constructed and how it might have been ventilated. The exhibits also teach that the story of a major flood is nearly universal throughout the world's ancient cultures.

The designers of the ark tell Noah's story at the time he opens the ark after the flood.

"The reason we chose that moment in the story is because this is the message we want to bring to Hong Kong. to China the world today," Pine said.

"In our lives we always face floods, we will face trials, we will face difficulties," he explained. "If we can find a vessel to pass through those storms, those floods in our lives that may even threaten our very lives, that we can pass through, have a new beginning, have a new hope, as it was in Noah's day."

 

Source:  https://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2011/July/Life-Size-Noahs-Ark-Opens-in-Hong-Kong-/

Iran FM Hails Strategic Ties With China

From: APA / en.apa.az  |  June 15, 2011

 

Baku, Azerbaijan -- Iran’s foreign minister has expressed optimism about the future of the Islamic Republic’s relations with China and has hailed the close stances of the two allies on global issues, APA reports quoting Press TV.

“Tehran-Beijing ties are strategic and their prospects are bright,” Ali Akbar Salehi told reporters on Thursday in the Kazakh capital Astana, IRNA reported.

Salehi is currently in Astana as part of an Iranian delegation led by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that is attending the 10th Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit. He said Iran and China have similar views on many important international issues, and the two countries plan to hold regular negotiations.

The Iranian foreign minister hailed the upcoming 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the People’s Republic of China, saying it would be a turning point for the efforts to strengthen and expand the two nations’ bilateral ties.

Salehi made the remarks after a meeting between Ahmadinejad and Chinese President Hu Jintao.

The two presidents discussed recent developments in North Africa and West Asia and bilateral economic and trade cooperation, Salehi explained and described the talks as positive and constructive.

During the their two-day meeting, the leaders of the six full members of the SCO -- China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan -- plan to adopt a new charter with a new article on observer states’ accession to full membership in the intergovernmental security organization founded in 2001 in Shanghai.

Iran, India, Mongolia, and Pakistan are the four observer states of the SCO. Iran, which has held observer status since 2005, is seeking full membership.

Iran’s full membership in the SCO would create a powerful coalition with China and Russia.

The SCO is viewed as a potential future counterweight to NATO’s growing influence in Eurasia. 

 

Source:  http://en.apa.az/news.php?id=149494

Gates Turns Off The Lights

by Frank Gaffney, Jr.  |  CenterForSecurityPolicy.org  |  May 30, 2011

 

I have been in Washington now for nearly forty years and, in all that time, I can't recall seeing anything quite like Robert Gates' ongoing farewell to arms.

In a series of speeches over the past few days - at Notre Dame, at the American Enterprise Institute and at the Naval Academy - the outgoing Secretary of Defense has sounded a series of warnings that the ship of state, or at least the carrier battle group that protects it, is headed for the rocks. 

That is surely so.  But, welcome as his alarm is, the course is one Mr. Gates has largely charted himself.  Of late, President Obama has simply ordered "full steam ahead," with encouragement from some in both parties on Capitol Hill.

Secretary Gates has particularly warned against a "hollowing out" of the military, a not-so-implicit criticism of the $400 billion Mr. Obama has announced that he intends to cut from Pentagon accounts.  This reduction would come on top of the roughly $178 billion already being excised by the Gates team.

In so doing, Mr. Gates recalls the mistake made twice during my decades in this town - first by Presidents Ford and Carter, then by Presidents Bush '41 and Clinton:  Yielding to the ever-present-temptation to meet contemporary budgetary exigencies by cutting the nation's investment in its armed forces, leaving them without the modern equipment, realistic training, adequately sized forces, up-to-date facilities and development of the future technologies needed to deter and, if deterrence fails, to prevail in tomorrow's wars. 

It took an immensely expensive buildup under Ronald Reagan to rectify the first of these perilous mistakes.  Thanks in part to the Gates legacy, the second has still not been remedied.  The effect has been to condemn the armed services - currently in the midst of three far-flung military campaigns - to an unwise and unsustainable reliance for the foreseeable future on obsolescing tanks, ships, aircraft and missiles purchased during the Reagan years (if not before).

A couple of examples illustrate the problem we already have, let alone what will come if President Obama has his way:

In his recent speeches, Secretary Gates has emphasized the need to modernize the military's various air forces with the F-35, a "stealthy" fifth-generation aircraft that has run into production delays and increased costs.  The risks associated with the attendant slowing-down of deliveries of this plane have been greatly compounded by Mr. Gates' insistence on the premature shutting down of the production line for the far more capable F-22 - one of 30 Pentagon modernization programs he has eviscerated.  

The effect of falling for the old bird-in-the-bush gambit was predictable (and predicted):  They are never as good, cheap or readily available as we are told they will be. Worse yet, as the Washington Times' Bill Gertz reported in his "Inside the Ring" column last week, senior officers are now warning that, as a result, we are ominously ill-prepared to contend with growing challenges to our historic air superiority from Communist China.

Mr. Gates says President Obama's projected cuts will preclude the modernization of two legs of our strategic "Triad."   For those who share the Commander-in-Chief's zeal for the U.S. leading the way to "a world without nuclear weapons," the accelerating atrophying of our land-based missile and bomber forces is not only of no concern; it is a desirable thing.  For the rest of us who worry about the wisdom of America being the only nuclear power (actual or wannabe) that is systematically engaged in denuclearization, however, the prospect of a future strategic "Monad" is alarming.

The Defense Secretary is rightly concerned about the ability of an all-volunteer force to continue to maintain the operational tempos that have characterized the past decade.  Regrettably, the military may confront no-less-daunting requirements in the next decade, too, especially if enemy perceptions that the United States "lost" Iraq and/or Afghanistan translate into expensive new conflicts.  Cut the numbers of troops in the Army and Marines, cut their pay andbenefits - both of which Mr. Gates says are in prospect if the President has his way with the Pentagon budget - and that problem becomes infinitely worse.

That could be the effect, as well, if Mr. Gates and outgoing Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen certify before leaving office that the military is ready to accept avowed homosexuals.  Both have pushed hard for this top Obama agenda item; both know the President wants to get this done in time for June's Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender Month festivities. 

Yet, both men must appreciate that their successors should be allowed to take a fresh, hard look at the impact this action will actually have on readiness, unit cohesion and retention.  Such would be the case especially if that it proves to be as bad as careful analysis of the data predicts - particularly among the combat arms.  In that event, the contribution made during Mr. Gates' tenure at the Pentagon to the hollowing-out of the armed forces will be even more severe.

Mr. Gates' warnings about the Obama agenda are indeed welcome.   One can only wish he had done less to enable it to date, and pray that he does not make matters worse still before leaving office four weeks from now.

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy (www.SecureFreedom.org), a columnist for the Washington Times and host of the nationally syndicated program, Secure Freedom Radio, heard in Washington weeknights at 9:00 p.m. on WRC 1260 AM.

 

Source:  http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/p18734.xml

Bashir Pleads Not Guilty to Terrorism Charges

AFP  |  ABC.net.au  |  May 25, 2011

 

Indonesian Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, 72, has been accused of providing funding to a terrorist group. Photo: Reuters

 

Radical Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir has pleaded not guilty to terrorism charges and has accused the United States and liberal Muslims of trying to frame him.

The 72-year-old has been accused of providing funding of more than $62,000 to a terrorist group dubbed Al Qaeda in Aceh that was plotting attacks in Indonesia, and prosecutors have sought a maximum life sentence.

But in his formal response to the charges outlined in court last week, the preacher said any allegation of terrorism against the Aceh militants was a plot by the enemies of Islam.

"Prosecutors should realise that all trials which judge and punish the mujahid in Aceh are manipulations by the people who don't follow [Islamic law] to fulfil the interests of the US tyrant and its cronies," he said.

Bashir is seen as a spiritual leader of South-East Asian militants, but he denies any role in terrorist activity.

"Because my rhetoric is considered dangerous, the dream of the US tyrant and its cronies could be realised with a life sentence," he said.

He rejected the prosecution's case that his radical organisation, Jemaah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT), was a front for terrorist activity.

The cleric admitted he raised money for members of the JAT community but not to pay for weapons and militant training, as claimed by the prosecution.

Hundreds of Bashir's radical followers chanted "Allahu akbar" (God is greatest) outside the court.

Bashir served almost 26 months behind bars for the Bali bombings of 2002 that killed more than 200 people, but his conviction was overturned after his release in 2006.

Prosecutors have also unsuccessfully charged him with involvement in church bombings in 2000 and an attack on the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta in 2003.

 

Source:  http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/05/25/3226956.htm

Advocacy Group Markets Israel to Chinese, Indians

by Gil Shefler  |  JPost.com  |  May 11, 2011

 

Israel Project sends businessmen, politicians to tell Asian audiences about the benefits of doing business with Israel.

The Chinese believe Jews are good with money, strong in science and exert a tremendous amount of influence on the world – all Jewish stereotypes, but meant in a positive way, said Laura Kam, executive director for global affairs at The Israel Project, who just returned from a visit of the country last week.

In an interview at her office in Jerusalem on Tuesday, Kam spoke about the lessons she learned from her recent visit to Beijing, which she said was the first destination in the pro-Israel advocacy group’s bid to expand its mission to engage audiences in China, India and Russia.

“They think every Jew is a genius,” she said. “Every stereotype that is a negative in the Western world is a huge positive in China. The Chinese are extraordinarily forward thinking and entrepreneurial right now, and want to learn the secrets of the Jewish community worldwide. In their mind, there’s no difference between Jews and Israel.”

Kam was accompanied on her trip to Beijing by Gil Kerbs, an Israeli venture capitalist who is fluent in Chinese and does business in the country.

During their week-long stay, Kam helped set up interviews for Kerbs with media outlets like the People’s Daily, the state-sponsored newspaper which has a circulation of between three to 4 million readers, with the aim of raising awareness to the benefits of doing business with Israel.

“In India and China we’re going to push Israel’s high-tech prowess, Israel’s skill in growing food, in dealing with water, because for example, there are parts of China that are deserts and their people need water,” she said. “Israel has a company called Per Se, and 20 percent of the water in China is lost in pipes, and this company uses nuclear magneticresining technology to figure out how much water is leaking from a pipe.”

If Israeli businesses are flourishing in China, and public opinion is so favorable towards the Jewish state and the Jewish people, one might wonder whether The Israel Project might not put its resources to better use elsewhere.

“The world changes very fast,” said Kam. “In a sense it’s the Hippocratic oath: First do no harm. I take that to heart, but clearly, as more and more business is done in the world it’s important for the Chinese to know Israel is a good plan, and to enhance that.”

At the moment, details of what the organization’s programs in India and Russia would entail – besides speaking tours by Israeli politicians, businessmen and artists – are still unclear.

Mark Sloman, The Israel’s Project’s director for India Affairs, said the organization would have a better idea of how to reach out to Indian audiences in June, when they receive the results from a survey.

In the meantime, he cited the results of a poll conducted on behalf of Israel’s Foreign Ministry in India several years ago, as an indicator of what he expects to find.

“India was found to be the friendliest country towards Israel in the world, except the US,” he said. “Pakistan is to them what Iran is to us, but that doesn’t shape the relationship.

It’s a Hindu country and there’s no history of anti-Semitism there.”

 

Source:  http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=220051

Bin Laden’s Death And The Russian Insurgency

by Seth Mandel  |  FrontPageMag.com  |  May 9, 2011

 

In the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death, Russian leaders congratulated the United States and stressed the shared mission of the two countries in fighting Islamist terrorism. It would be easy to write this off as opportunistic justification for Russia’s anti-terror tactics—often rightly criticized by human rights groups for their heavy-handed nature, collateral damage, and lack of transparency—and the chance to conflate their cause with the West’s.

“Part of the reason Russian leaders have been so effusive in praising the US operation to kill bin Laden is because it looks to them just like one of our Russian actions,” Sergei Strokan, foreign affairs columnist for the Moscow liberal daily Kommersant, told the Christian Science Monitor. “We’ve been dealing with our own bin Ladens using targeted killings for quite some time.”

But the Russian response shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand. Though Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov’s rule has been marked by brutal suppression and rampant corruption—both sanctioned by the Kremlin—Russian officials are not inventing the Islamist insurgency in the North Caucasus. If anything, they downplay the threat so as to give the impression they are in control of the volatile region.

Consider this: In 2010, 440 Russian security, military, and police forces were killed in the Caucasus—the same number of American forces killed in action in Afghanistan. And, though it was a decade and a half ago, the Russians were the last authorities to have Ayman al-Zawahiri—the man expected to take over for Osama bin Laden—in custody.

That was after Zawahiri traveled to Dagestan to see if he could re-establish Islamic Jihad there and use the Caucasus as headquarters. Instead, Zawahiri was arrested, and when freed (most likely after bribing officials there) fled to Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

It was no surprise, then, that the situation in Chechnya (which quickly spread to neighboring Dagestan and Ingushetia) continued to show similarities with Afghanistan. When I reported on this story in 2009, Yossef Bodansky, former director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare of the U.S. House of Representatives, told me that Chechen fighters had shown up in Afghanistan to help attack coalition forces there. Money was also pouring into the Caucasus from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states for the Chechen jihad. Svante Cornell, research director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program at Johns Hopkins University, warned of the “Afghan-ization” of the Caucasus conflict—the moment at which violence reaches a level it is unlikely to drop below.

And Russians were reminded of the reach of the Caucasus Emirate—the breakaway Islamist authority in the region—when in January terrorists bombed Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport, killing more than 30.

Russian authorities also used bin Laden’s death to call attention to their own successes in the war on terror. A spokesman for the Russian foreign ministry said he wanted to emphasize that “this is a natural result: Bin Laden, Basayev and others like them sooner or later catch up with what they have done.” The Moscow News called it a “Basayev moment.” Shamil Basayev was second-in-command to Aslan Mashkadov, elected Chechen president after the first Chechen war. Basayev soon quit the government and declared his movement was no longer solely about Chechen independence but was part of the global jihad. There is evidence that Basayev received funding from bin Laden himself during this time. (The timeline fits as well, since Basayev’s decision to challenge Mashkadov for the presidency was made the same month Zawahiri made his trip to the Caucasus, establishing links he would take with him to Afghanistan.)

Basayev led the 1999 invasion of Dagestan that triggered the second Chechen war. The Russians finally killed Basayev in a targeted assassination in 2006. Russia has continued its policy of targeted assassinations of Islamist terrorist leaders in the Caucasus, but thus far have been unable to get to the Emirate’s current leader, Dokku Umarov.

Gordon Hahn, of the Monterey Terrorism Research and Education Program, wrote of one such attempt in March.

“It appears that Russian forces just missed killing CE amir Dokku ‘Abu Usman’ Umarov in a special operation that culminated in aviation bombing the mountains near the village of Verkhnii Akhul in Sunzha Raion, Ingushetia on March 28th,” Hahn wrote. “Umarov’s naib (deputy) Supyan Abdullaev, who had been fighting for 17 years, was killed in the operation along with at least six other mujahedin. Initial reports claimed 17 mujahedin had been killed in the air attack. Some Russian media have been reporting that not only Umarov’s naib but also his wife, his doctor Yusup Buzurtanov, and the amir of the Riyadus Salikhin Martyrs’ Brigade (RSMB) of suicide bombers ‘Khamzat’ Aslan Byutukaev were also killed in the operation.”

Hahn notes that Russian reports initially claimed Umarov was killed in the attack, though this was the seventh time such reports had circulated. A man claiming to be Umarov—and most likely was—called Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty about a week later to inform them that he was not killed in the operation. But Hahn also had some good news for the Russians—since they killed Umarov’s deputy in the attack, if they are now able to remove Umarov it will throw the Emirate into chaos.

Thus the American and Russian focus on targeted assassinations reveals the two most compelling reasons to pursue such a policy. In the case of bin Laden, his death provides both a moral and strategic boost for Western anti-terror efforts. In the case of Umarov, it would throw the terrorist organization into crisis from which it could only emerge on the conclusion of an internal power struggle. At the very least it would buy Russia time—but it could also deal a crippling blow to an organization that derives its strength not from numbers, but from leadership.

One more reminder that the Caucasus Islamists are part of the global jihadist movement came when Aslan Yemkuzhev was killed March 16 in a firefight with Russian police in Kabardino-Balkaria. Yemkuzhev, it turned out, trained with Fatah al-Islam in Lebanon—a Palestinian-founded terrorist group with possible ties to al-Qaeda.

Russia should not be excused its corruption, dismal human rights record, or the steady erosion of freedom that began under Boris Yeltsin and continued under Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev—but neither should the Islamist threat emanating from its frontier be ignored.

Seth Mandel is a writer specializing in Middle Eastern politics and a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Horowitz Freedom Center.

 

Source:  http://frontpagemag.com/2011/05/09/bin-laden%E2%80%99s-death-and-the-russian-insurgency/

Russia Received Early Notification Of Bin Laden's Death

Deutsche Presse-Agentur  |  MonstersAndCritics.com  |  May 2, 2011

 

North Caucasus

 

Moscow - The US informed Russia of the death of Osama bin Laden before releasing the news to the general public, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Monday.

The report came as the Russian leadership sought to draw parallels between the US' long search to track down the al-Qaeda leader and the Kremlin's ongoing campaign to suppress an Islamic insurgency in Russia's Caucasus Mountain region.

'The success of the US special forces, like the results of Russian special forces in the North Caucasus, in part against emissaries of al-Qaeda, have a universal significance,' the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Since the beginning of this year Russian forces in Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan have killed 136 insurgents - four of them al- Qaeda operatives - in a series of raids and security sweeps, the Interfax new agency said, citing a government report.

Russia's success in fighting this insurgency and the killing of bin Laden are 'a clear signal of terrorism's lack of a future and the inevitable responsibility that evil-doers will face for their actions,' the Foreign Ministry said.

 

Source:  http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/news/article_1636469.php/Russia-received-early-notification-of-bin-Laden-s-death