INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO.598
B.RAMAN
One has to await the findings of the enquiries ordered by President Barack Obama and the hearings to be held next month by the Congressional Oversight Committees on the human, systemic and technological failures which enabled Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab, a 23-year-old Al Qaeda trained Nigerian student, to get into a flight of the North-West Airlines of the US at the Schiphol airport in Amsterdam with a concealed explosive device and unsuccessfully try to blow it up as it was about to land at Detroit on December 25,2009.
2. The human and systemic failures resulted in his being allowed to board the aircraft at the Schiphol airport despite the fact that his father, a reputed banker of Nigeria, who had reportedly come to know of his son’s presence in Yemen since August,2009, had met separately an official of the US State Department and of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) posted in Nigeria and shared with them his concerns over the religious radicalisation of his son. However, he apparently did not tell them that his son was in Yemen. Had he done so, they might have possibly shown greater concern over the information than they seem to have done.
3. The officers of the State Department and the CIA did what was expected of them. It has been reported that the State Department official immediately conveyed the information to his headquarters in Washington DC and the CIA officer to his headquarters . Both the headquarters passed the information on to the National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC) under the Director, National Intelligence.
4. While the information conveyed by the father of the Nigerian was thus promptly shared by everyone who was in receipt of it with all those responsible for counter-terrorism in Washington DC, the failure still occurred because none of those in receipt of the information subjected it to an action-oriented analysis and assessment in order to decide what action was called for on that information. Did it call for the cancellation of a two-year visa issued to the student by the US Embassy in London in June 2008? Did it call for an advisory to the North-West Airlines and to the security authorities at the Schiphol airport not to let him board the flight and to subject him to a special physical security check?
5. It would appear that neither the State Department nor the CIA nor the NCTC posed these questions to each other and examined what follow-up action was called for. All they did was to add the information to their database of 550000 names of persons who had come to adverse notice but against whom the evidence was not strong enough to warrant non-issue or the cancellation of the visa and/or the denial of permission to board a flight to the US.
6. The lesson: Information alone serves only a limited purpose unless it is subjected to an action oriented analysis and assessment followed by joint action by all concerned. The absence of joint action oriented analysis and assessment of terrorism-related information was one of the major deficiencies in the US system pointed out by the National Commission which went into the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US homeland. One of the reasons the NCTC was set up in 2004 was to address this deficiency. Despite the NCTC being in position for five years now, this deficiency has again come to notice.
7. The second lesson relates to the need for proper scrutiny of a visa application. This has been repeatedly stressed by counter-terrorism experts since 9/11. Despite this, one keeps coming across instances of poor scrutiny. The poor scrutiny of the visa applications of David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana of the Chicago cell of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) by the Indian Consulate-General in Chicago enabled them to obtain a visa for coming to India and prepare the ground for the 26/11 terrorist strikes in Mumbai. Similarly, a poor scrutiny of the visa application of Abdulmuttalab by the US visa officer would appear to have resulted in his obtaining a US visa despite his reputation as someone sympathetic to the Taliban. Around the same time, he had applied to the British for a renewal of his student visa to enable him to continue studying in the UK. The British visa officer, who scrutinised his application, immediately noticed that he had given a false particular about his educational institution and rejected his request.
8. The third lesson relates to the inadequacies of the technological means presently available to the physical security officials which come in the way of their detecting explosive devices concealed in private parts of the body. In the past, narcotics and gold smugglers used to evade detection by concealing the narcotics or gold in their private parts. Now, terrorists have started doing so with explosive devices. How to deal with this? This is a question needing urgent attention by physical security experts and scientists. ( 30-12-09)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
OBAMA: AL QAEDA COMES HOME CALLING
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO. 597
B.RAMAN
According to the NEFA Foundation of the US, a non-Governmental organization which closely monitors the activities of Al Qaeda, “Al-Qaida's network in Yemen (otherwise known as "Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula") has issued an official communique claiming responsibility for the failed terrorist bomb plot targeting a Delta/Northwest airliner traveling from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas day. The communique included original photographs of would-be bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab grinning in front of an Al-Qaida banner. The group acknowledged that the device had failed to properly detonate, but promised that it would "continue on this path until we achieve success." The statement also congratulated Ft. Hood shooter Maj. Malik Nidal Hasan and urged fellow Muslims to follow in his footsteps and kill American soldiers. “
2.According to the same Foundation, “Al-Qaida's network in Yemen has issued an official response to the airstrike earlier this week on a suspected Al-Qaida gathering in the region of Shabwah that reportedly killed up to 30 people, including a number of senior Al-Qaida operatives. The group threatened that it would not allow "the slaughter of Muslim women and children to pass without taking vengeance for them, Allah willing. We call upon all Yemeni tribes... and the people of the Arabian Peninsula to confront the crusaders and their clients in the Arabian Peninsula by attacking military bases, embassies, intelligence agents, and naval fleets occupying the waters of the Arabian Peninsula."
3.There is so far no reason to doubt the authenticity of these claims which show that the attempt to blow up a plane of the North-West Airlines on December 25,2009 as it was approaching to land at Detroit was part of a wider conspiracy of Al Qaeda orchestrated from Yemen and not the isolated act of an individual as sought to be made out by some officials of the Obama Administration. They also show that the massacre of 13 soldiers at Fort Hood in Texas by Maj.Malik Nidal Hasan of the US Army on November 6,2009, was an act of Al Qaeda-inspired terrorism and not an act of irrational anger of a Muslim serving in the Army.
4.The Obama Administration now faces a two-front “war” against Al Qaeda---- one in the Af-Pak region and the other in the Yemen-Saudi axis. Its success or failure in this “war” will determine the security of Americans in their homeland in the months to come. These developments clearly show that Obama’s overtures to the Arabs through his Cairo address earlier this year and his marking his distance from the Israeli Government and the Jewish people since coming to office on January 20,2009, have had no impact on Al Qaeda, which is as determined as ever to make the Americans bleed. It is to be hoped that these developments will mark the beginning of the end of Obama’s illusions relating to how to counter jihadi terrorism. There is no soft option in dealing with Al Qaeda and its associates whether in the Af-Pak region or in other areas.
5.Al Qaeda’s jihad against the US started in 1992 in Yemen , from where bin Laden’s father had migrated to Saudi Arabia. That year, suspected members of Al Qaeda bombed a hotel in Aden used by U.S. troops going to Somalia, killing two civilians. This was followed by the October 2000, suicide bombing of the USS Cole off Aden that killed 17 U.S. sailors
6.In 2007, remnants of the Saudi branch of Al Qaeda, who had survived an anti-Al Qaeda offensive by the Saudi security forces in the wake of the post-2004 incidents involving Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, fled into Yemen and took sanctuary there just as Osama bin Laden and other remnants of Al Qaeda had fled in 2002 from Afghanistan into North Waziristan of Pakistan and took sanctuary there. This was followed by a car bomb attack on Spanish tourists killing eight of them and the assassination of two Belgians. During 2008, there was a failed mortar attack on the US Embassy in Sana’a. Later, 17 Yemenis, including seven terrorists, died in a twin car- explosion near the US Embassy.
7.Like the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan, Yemen, with its mountainous terrain dotted with caves and other natural hide-outs, provides an ideal shelter and launching pad for Al Qaeda. The widespread poverty and the lack of facilities for modern education drive a large number of youth into the arms of Al Qaeda. It has nearly 4000 madrasas, which are the breeding ground of fundamentalist ideological beliefs. Yemen had contributed a large number of volunteers for the jihad against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Many of them returned to Yemen after the withdrawal of the Soviet troops. Some of them were rehabilitated by being recruited to the Police and the security forces. Others took to a new jihad--- this time against the US and Israel. Those rehabilitated in the security forces and those, who had joined Al Qaeda, remained in contact with each other having fought shoulder to shoulder against the Soviets in Afghanistan.
8.In January, 2009,Al Qaeda announced the merger of the Yemeni and Saudi branches of the organization under the leadership of Yemeni Nasir al-Wahishi, with a Saudi Said Ali al-Shihri, as his No.2. al-Shihri used to be detained by the US in its detention centre at the Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The group called itself Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
9. In March, 2009 a suicide bomber killed four South Korean tourists near the eastern town of Shibam. Another then targeted a convoy of South Korean security officials and the families of the victims while they were on their way to the airport of Sana’a, the capital. On March 28, 2009,four policemen died in clashes with persons believed to be from Al Qaeda in the south of the country.
10. The Yemeni Deputy Prime Minister Rashad al-Alimi, who is in charge of Security and Defence, told his parliament on March 23, 2009, that he suspected that Al Qaeda had managed to infiltrate the Yemeni security services. The suspicion that it had penetrated the security services was strengthened by the precision attack of Al Qaeda on the South Korean convoy to the airport. It was apparently aware of the proposed route of the convoy and the time at which it would be moving to the airport.
11. The merger of the Saudi and Yemeni branches of Al Qaeda and the activities of the AQAP rang the alarm bell in the US and Saudi Arabia. Barbara Starr, the CNN’s Pentagon correspondent, reported on February 5,2009, as follows:"There are strong indications of heightened activity in Yemen," one U.S. official told CNN. "There is real concern in the U.S. government that al Qaeda is trying to mount attacks in Yemen." The United States continues to worry about attacks against the US Embassy or other U.S. business interests in Yemen, the official said. But there are also growing concerns that a renewed al Qaeda network in Yemen could plan attacks against Saudi oil infrastructure or the massive cargo shipping operations that run through the immediate region -- potentially disrupting an already shaky world economy. The official said there is a flow of intelligence information in recent weeks backing up that assessment. "There are clear indications al Qaeda is placing emphasis on Yemen as a place to conduct operations and train operatives." The official said the United States has been watching closely and is seeing 'gatherings' of al Qaeda operatives and communication among them. There have also been signs of communication between al Qaeda in Yemen and the al Qaeda leadership believed to be hiding in Pakistan, an official said.”
12.The US authorities feared the emergence of a Yemeni Waziristan, which could become a new launching pad for Al Qaeda operations abroad. US concerns were multiplied by the fact that there were about 100 Yemenis among the terrorist suspects detained in Guantanamo Bay. If President Barack Obama closed down this centre, how to prevent these detenus from joining the AQAP?
13. John Brennan, Obama’s Deputy National Security Adviser, visited Yemen in March,2009, to discuss this with President Ali Abdallah Saleh. General David Petraeus, commander of the US Central Command, told a Congressional hearing on April 1, 2009, that the inability of the Yemeni Government to exercise control over all of its territory was offering Al Qaeda a “safe haven in which to plan, organize and support terrorist operations.”
14. Saudi concerns over the resurgence of Al Qaeda in Yemen and the activities of the AQAP were strengthened when a suicide terrorist deputed from Yemen with an explosive device reportedly concealed in the rectum area narrowly missed killing the Saudi Deputy Interior Minister in August 2009. The concealment technique worked, but he did not succeed in killing the Deputy Minister presumably because the remote control device was activated prematurely before he was within killing range of the Deputy Minister.
15.The Obama Administration’s plans to neutralize Al Qaeda set-up, with the co-operation of the Yemeni security authorities, took shape only after reports emerged in November,2009, that Major Nidal Malik Hasan of the US Army was in touch with Anwar Al Awlaki, an extremist cleric born in the US, who has been living in Yemen since 2002. Many regard Awlaki as an ideologue of Al Qaeda in Yemen.
16.The US authorities do not as yet regard the massacre of fellow soldiers by Major Hasan as an act of terrorism, but Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and others have cited the connection between Hasan and Al-Awlaki as proof that the Fort Hood shooting was a terrorist attack. Their suspicions were strengthened by Al-Awlaki’s open approval of the act of Major Hasan. Al Jazeera quoted al-Awlaki as saying in an interview: “My support to the operation was because the operation that brother Nidal carried out was a courageous one, and I endeavored to explain my position regarding what happened because many Islamic organizations and preachers in the West condemned the operation.” While approving post-facto Major.Hasan’s action, he refrained from saying anything which might create a suspicion that he had prior knowledge of what the Major intended doing
17. While continuing to treat Major Hasan’s act as not amounting to terrorism, the Obama Administration decided to act against the camps of the AQAP in Yemen. There were two major air raids----supposedly by Yemeni planes, but actually by US aircraft------ which reportedly killed 30 members of Al Qaeda. Reports that some senior leaders of Al Qaeda in Yemen, including its No.1 and 2, might have been killed have not been confirmed so far. The second of these raids took place on December 24,2009, a day before the Detroit attempt and the first a week earlier.
18.There is no reason to believe, despite the claims of the AQAP, that the Detroit attempt was triggered off by these raids because according to the Nigerian authorities, the Lagos-Amsterdam-Detroit itinerary of Abdulmutallab had been finalized and the tickets for the to and fro journey bought from the KLM office in Accra on December 16. This was before these air raids.
19.However, after the first of these raids, Al Qaeda was reported to have held a protest rally of its local supporters in Southern Yemen at which speeches were made threatening retaliation against the US . The speakers also reportedly said that their jihad was against the US and not against the Yemeni army.
20. My assessment on the basis of the available details is that the Detroit conspiracy involving the use of the Nigerian was planned by Al Qaeda much before the US decided to go into action against Al Qaeda in Yemen, that Abdulmuttalab was in Yemen between August and December,2009, for being trained and that Al Qaeda’s ability to attempt a repeat of the December 25 plan would depend on the availability of another volunteer with a valid visa for the US.
21.The concerns for the US authorities would be the possibility that Major Hasan and Abdulmuttalab could be the tips of an Al Qaeda iceberg and that unless they identify the rest of the iceberg and neutralize it, they cannot be certain of the security of their homeland. The interrogation of Abdulmuttalab should theoretically enable US officials to get information about other anti-US assets of Al Qaeda and its future plans against the US, but, unfortunately, the capture of senior Al Qaeda operatives from Pakistan in the past such as Abu Zubaidah, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and others did not appear to have yielded any worthwhile information about the future targets and plans of Al Qaeda. My own impression is that they came out with a lot of details about the past, but hardly said anything or knew anything about the future. Al Qaeda’s restrictive security is quite strong. As a result, information regarding its future plans known to those captured is not very significant. (29-12-09)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
B.RAMAN
According to the NEFA Foundation of the US, a non-Governmental organization which closely monitors the activities of Al Qaeda, “Al-Qaida's network in Yemen (otherwise known as "Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula") has issued an official communique claiming responsibility for the failed terrorist bomb plot targeting a Delta/Northwest airliner traveling from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas day. The communique included original photographs of would-be bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab grinning in front of an Al-Qaida banner. The group acknowledged that the device had failed to properly detonate, but promised that it would "continue on this path until we achieve success." The statement also congratulated Ft. Hood shooter Maj. Malik Nidal Hasan and urged fellow Muslims to follow in his footsteps and kill American soldiers. “
2.According to the same Foundation, “Al-Qaida's network in Yemen has issued an official response to the airstrike earlier this week on a suspected Al-Qaida gathering in the region of Shabwah that reportedly killed up to 30 people, including a number of senior Al-Qaida operatives. The group threatened that it would not allow "the slaughter of Muslim women and children to pass without taking vengeance for them, Allah willing. We call upon all Yemeni tribes... and the people of the Arabian Peninsula to confront the crusaders and their clients in the Arabian Peninsula by attacking military bases, embassies, intelligence agents, and naval fleets occupying the waters of the Arabian Peninsula."
3.There is so far no reason to doubt the authenticity of these claims which show that the attempt to blow up a plane of the North-West Airlines on December 25,2009 as it was approaching to land at Detroit was part of a wider conspiracy of Al Qaeda orchestrated from Yemen and not the isolated act of an individual as sought to be made out by some officials of the Obama Administration. They also show that the massacre of 13 soldiers at Fort Hood in Texas by Maj.Malik Nidal Hasan of the US Army on November 6,2009, was an act of Al Qaeda-inspired terrorism and not an act of irrational anger of a Muslim serving in the Army.
4.The Obama Administration now faces a two-front “war” against Al Qaeda---- one in the Af-Pak region and the other in the Yemen-Saudi axis. Its success or failure in this “war” will determine the security of Americans in their homeland in the months to come. These developments clearly show that Obama’s overtures to the Arabs through his Cairo address earlier this year and his marking his distance from the Israeli Government and the Jewish people since coming to office on January 20,2009, have had no impact on Al Qaeda, which is as determined as ever to make the Americans bleed. It is to be hoped that these developments will mark the beginning of the end of Obama’s illusions relating to how to counter jihadi terrorism. There is no soft option in dealing with Al Qaeda and its associates whether in the Af-Pak region or in other areas.
5.Al Qaeda’s jihad against the US started in 1992 in Yemen , from where bin Laden’s father had migrated to Saudi Arabia. That year, suspected members of Al Qaeda bombed a hotel in Aden used by U.S. troops going to Somalia, killing two civilians. This was followed by the October 2000, suicide bombing of the USS Cole off Aden that killed 17 U.S. sailors
6.In 2007, remnants of the Saudi branch of Al Qaeda, who had survived an anti-Al Qaeda offensive by the Saudi security forces in the wake of the post-2004 incidents involving Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, fled into Yemen and took sanctuary there just as Osama bin Laden and other remnants of Al Qaeda had fled in 2002 from Afghanistan into North Waziristan of Pakistan and took sanctuary there. This was followed by a car bomb attack on Spanish tourists killing eight of them and the assassination of two Belgians. During 2008, there was a failed mortar attack on the US Embassy in Sana’a. Later, 17 Yemenis, including seven terrorists, died in a twin car- explosion near the US Embassy.
7.Like the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan, Yemen, with its mountainous terrain dotted with caves and other natural hide-outs, provides an ideal shelter and launching pad for Al Qaeda. The widespread poverty and the lack of facilities for modern education drive a large number of youth into the arms of Al Qaeda. It has nearly 4000 madrasas, which are the breeding ground of fundamentalist ideological beliefs. Yemen had contributed a large number of volunteers for the jihad against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Many of them returned to Yemen after the withdrawal of the Soviet troops. Some of them were rehabilitated by being recruited to the Police and the security forces. Others took to a new jihad--- this time against the US and Israel. Those rehabilitated in the security forces and those, who had joined Al Qaeda, remained in contact with each other having fought shoulder to shoulder against the Soviets in Afghanistan.
8.In January, 2009,Al Qaeda announced the merger of the Yemeni and Saudi branches of the organization under the leadership of Yemeni Nasir al-Wahishi, with a Saudi Said Ali al-Shihri, as his No.2. al-Shihri used to be detained by the US in its detention centre at the Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The group called itself Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
9. In March, 2009 a suicide bomber killed four South Korean tourists near the eastern town of Shibam. Another then targeted a convoy of South Korean security officials and the families of the victims while they were on their way to the airport of Sana’a, the capital. On March 28, 2009,four policemen died in clashes with persons believed to be from Al Qaeda in the south of the country.
10. The Yemeni Deputy Prime Minister Rashad al-Alimi, who is in charge of Security and Defence, told his parliament on March 23, 2009, that he suspected that Al Qaeda had managed to infiltrate the Yemeni security services. The suspicion that it had penetrated the security services was strengthened by the precision attack of Al Qaeda on the South Korean convoy to the airport. It was apparently aware of the proposed route of the convoy and the time at which it would be moving to the airport.
11. The merger of the Saudi and Yemeni branches of Al Qaeda and the activities of the AQAP rang the alarm bell in the US and Saudi Arabia. Barbara Starr, the CNN’s Pentagon correspondent, reported on February 5,2009, as follows:"There are strong indications of heightened activity in Yemen," one U.S. official told CNN. "There is real concern in the U.S. government that al Qaeda is trying to mount attacks in Yemen." The United States continues to worry about attacks against the US Embassy or other U.S. business interests in Yemen, the official said. But there are also growing concerns that a renewed al Qaeda network in Yemen could plan attacks against Saudi oil infrastructure or the massive cargo shipping operations that run through the immediate region -- potentially disrupting an already shaky world economy. The official said there is a flow of intelligence information in recent weeks backing up that assessment. "There are clear indications al Qaeda is placing emphasis on Yemen as a place to conduct operations and train operatives." The official said the United States has been watching closely and is seeing 'gatherings' of al Qaeda operatives and communication among them. There have also been signs of communication between al Qaeda in Yemen and the al Qaeda leadership believed to be hiding in Pakistan, an official said.”
12.The US authorities feared the emergence of a Yemeni Waziristan, which could become a new launching pad for Al Qaeda operations abroad. US concerns were multiplied by the fact that there were about 100 Yemenis among the terrorist suspects detained in Guantanamo Bay. If President Barack Obama closed down this centre, how to prevent these detenus from joining the AQAP?
13. John Brennan, Obama’s Deputy National Security Adviser, visited Yemen in March,2009, to discuss this with President Ali Abdallah Saleh. General David Petraeus, commander of the US Central Command, told a Congressional hearing on April 1, 2009, that the inability of the Yemeni Government to exercise control over all of its territory was offering Al Qaeda a “safe haven in which to plan, organize and support terrorist operations.”
14. Saudi concerns over the resurgence of Al Qaeda in Yemen and the activities of the AQAP were strengthened when a suicide terrorist deputed from Yemen with an explosive device reportedly concealed in the rectum area narrowly missed killing the Saudi Deputy Interior Minister in August 2009. The concealment technique worked, but he did not succeed in killing the Deputy Minister presumably because the remote control device was activated prematurely before he was within killing range of the Deputy Minister.
15.The Obama Administration’s plans to neutralize Al Qaeda set-up, with the co-operation of the Yemeni security authorities, took shape only after reports emerged in November,2009, that Major Nidal Malik Hasan of the US Army was in touch with Anwar Al Awlaki, an extremist cleric born in the US, who has been living in Yemen since 2002. Many regard Awlaki as an ideologue of Al Qaeda in Yemen.
16.The US authorities do not as yet regard the massacre of fellow soldiers by Major Hasan as an act of terrorism, but Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and others have cited the connection between Hasan and Al-Awlaki as proof that the Fort Hood shooting was a terrorist attack. Their suspicions were strengthened by Al-Awlaki’s open approval of the act of Major Hasan. Al Jazeera quoted al-Awlaki as saying in an interview: “My support to the operation was because the operation that brother Nidal carried out was a courageous one, and I endeavored to explain my position regarding what happened because many Islamic organizations and preachers in the West condemned the operation.” While approving post-facto Major.Hasan’s action, he refrained from saying anything which might create a suspicion that he had prior knowledge of what the Major intended doing
17. While continuing to treat Major Hasan’s act as not amounting to terrorism, the Obama Administration decided to act against the camps of the AQAP in Yemen. There were two major air raids----supposedly by Yemeni planes, but actually by US aircraft------ which reportedly killed 30 members of Al Qaeda. Reports that some senior leaders of Al Qaeda in Yemen, including its No.1 and 2, might have been killed have not been confirmed so far. The second of these raids took place on December 24,2009, a day before the Detroit attempt and the first a week earlier.
18.There is no reason to believe, despite the claims of the AQAP, that the Detroit attempt was triggered off by these raids because according to the Nigerian authorities, the Lagos-Amsterdam-Detroit itinerary of Abdulmutallab had been finalized and the tickets for the to and fro journey bought from the KLM office in Accra on December 16. This was before these air raids.
19.However, after the first of these raids, Al Qaeda was reported to have held a protest rally of its local supporters in Southern Yemen at which speeches were made threatening retaliation against the US . The speakers also reportedly said that their jihad was against the US and not against the Yemeni army.
20. My assessment on the basis of the available details is that the Detroit conspiracy involving the use of the Nigerian was planned by Al Qaeda much before the US decided to go into action against Al Qaeda in Yemen, that Abdulmuttalab was in Yemen between August and December,2009, for being trained and that Al Qaeda’s ability to attempt a repeat of the December 25 plan would depend on the availability of another volunteer with a valid visa for the US.
21.The concerns for the US authorities would be the possibility that Major Hasan and Abdulmuttalab could be the tips of an Al Qaeda iceberg and that unless they identify the rest of the iceberg and neutralize it, they cannot be certain of the security of their homeland. The interrogation of Abdulmuttalab should theoretically enable US officials to get information about other anti-US assets of Al Qaeda and its future plans against the US, but, unfortunately, the capture of senior Al Qaeda operatives from Pakistan in the past such as Abu Zubaidah, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and others did not appear to have yielded any worthwhile information about the future targets and plans of Al Qaeda. My own impression is that they came out with a lot of details about the past, but hardly said anything or knew anything about the future. Al Qaeda’s restrictive security is quite strong. As a result, information regarding its future plans known to those captured is not very significant. (29-12-09)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
AL QAEDA IN DETROIT: QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR: PAPER NO. 596
B.RAMAN
( I have attempted to answer some questions received from the readers of my earlier three articles on Al Qaeda’s unsuccessful attempt to have a North-West Airlines plane blown up as it approached Detroit on December 25,2009)
Q: You have said the Detroit attempt was part of Al Qaeda’s continuing efforts to target the US, but the US authorities seem to believe that the present evidence does not indicate that the Detroit attempt was part of a wider conspiracy.
A.A new method of concealment of explosives in the rectum region was tried out by Al Qaeda in its unsuccessful attempt to kill the Saudi Deputy Interior Minister in August 2009. A similar method would appear to have been used by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to smuggle the explosive into the aircraft. It is unlikely that an individual with no previous expertise in the fabrication and concealment of explosive devices would have succeeded in fabricating the device and smuggling it in concealed in the rectum area. He had been trained in this technique by Al Qaeda in its training camp in Yemen. This shows that this was an Al Qaeda plot and not the plot of a lone wolf. The British authorities also feel that Abdulmutallab was not acting alone. Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, British Home Secretary Alan Johnson said: “"We don't know yet whether it was a single-handed plot or (there were) other people behind it - I suspect it's the latter rather than the former." He added that the British police and security services were examining whether he was radicalised while at University College London (UCL) between 2005 and 2008. He also revealed that Abdulmutallab had been placed on a watch list earlier this year after UK authorities refused to renew his student visa. It has been reported that the British authorities refused because he had given false particulars of the educational institution where he intended continuing his studies. The Home Secretary hinted that the US authorities must have been aware of this by remarking that they should theoretically have been informed, and he doubted there had been a "hiccup" in procedures.
Q. It has been reported that he managed to obtain a tourist visa to visit the US around the same time the British refused to renew his visa. How could this have happened if the British had informed the US authorities?
A.There has apparently been a communication gap somewhere. This needs to be checked.
Q. Was he recruited by Al Qaeda during his stay in the UK from 2005 to 2008 or during his subsequent stay in Dubai?
A.It will be difficult to answer this question at present. However, it is significant that he obtained his US visa before he proceeded to Yemen for training. His value to Al Qaeda was because of his having a valid US visa. The reports till now are that he obtained the US visa from the US Embassy in London and not at Dubai. If this is correct, it will be reasonable to surmise that he was probably already in touch with Al Qaeda from London and that his obtaining a US visa before going to Yemen was the beginning of the conspiracy to use him to attack the US. Thus, Al Qaeda’s conspiracy involving the use of the Nigerian was at least seven months old.
Q.Some reports have alleged that he managed to get into the flight to Detroit at the Schiphol airport of Amsterdam without a passport.
A. Not correct. Reliable sources say that he had a valid Nigerian passport with a valid US visa.
Q.It has been alleged by some that he had only a one-way ticket, which should have sounded the alarm bell?
A. Again not correct. The British media has quoted the Nigerian civil aviation authority as saying that Abdulmutallab bought his return ticket from Lagos to Detroit via Amsterdam at a KLM office in Ghana's capital, Accra, on 16 December, with a planned return of 8 January. He paid the £1,775 fare in cash. Before the flight departed on December 24, he checked in as normal, taking only a carry-on bag. There are some intriguing aspects here. It has been reported that he flew from Yemen to Ethiopia, then to Accra, then to Lagos and from there to Schiphol en route to Detroit. Did he reach Accra from Yemen via Ethiopia before December 16 in order to buy the ticket personally or did someone else buy the ticket for him at Accra and hand it over him? Did he travel from Yemen to Accra via Ethiopia under a different name with a different passport? The fact that he bought the ticket right up to Detroit shows that the decision to blow up the plane over Detroit had been taken by Al Qaeda before he started his journey from Yemen. The decision to catch the flight to Detroit and blow it up was not taken by him on the spur of the moment. It was a carefully-considered decision taken by Al Qaeda in Yemen and his itinerary was worked out accordingly. It is not clear why Detroit was chosen for the attempt.
Q.What is the likelihood of the complicity of the Yemeni Government?
A. The Yemeni Government has been extending counter-terrorism co-operation to the US. Complicity with Al Qaeda at the Governmental level is unlikely. Complicity at the level of individual officials is likely in matters such as providing false documentation. Many Pakistani officials serve in the Yemeni Police and other security establishments in Yemen. There is a strong possibility of their complicity. In the past, many Palestinian and international terrorists such as Carlos, Yohannes Weinrach alias Peter of the Baader-Meinhof etc had even managed to obtain false passports----even diplomatic ones--- from contacts in the Yemeni security services.
Q. If it is a conspiracy hatched by Al Qaeda, would it have been done by the central command and control headed by Osama bin Laden based in North Waziristan or by the local unit of Al Qaeda in Yemen?
A. Generally, all operations directed at the US are planned and orchestrated from the central command and control in North Waziristan. However, the local command and control in Yemen plans and carries out other operations , such as in Saudi Arabia, Somalia etc. ( 28-12-09)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
B.RAMAN
( I have attempted to answer some questions received from the readers of my earlier three articles on Al Qaeda’s unsuccessful attempt to have a North-West Airlines plane blown up as it approached Detroit on December 25,2009)
Q: You have said the Detroit attempt was part of Al Qaeda’s continuing efforts to target the US, but the US authorities seem to believe that the present evidence does not indicate that the Detroit attempt was part of a wider conspiracy.
A.A new method of concealment of explosives in the rectum region was tried out by Al Qaeda in its unsuccessful attempt to kill the Saudi Deputy Interior Minister in August 2009. A similar method would appear to have been used by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to smuggle the explosive into the aircraft. It is unlikely that an individual with no previous expertise in the fabrication and concealment of explosive devices would have succeeded in fabricating the device and smuggling it in concealed in the rectum area. He had been trained in this technique by Al Qaeda in its training camp in Yemen. This shows that this was an Al Qaeda plot and not the plot of a lone wolf. The British authorities also feel that Abdulmutallab was not acting alone. Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, British Home Secretary Alan Johnson said: “"We don't know yet whether it was a single-handed plot or (there were) other people behind it - I suspect it's the latter rather than the former." He added that the British police and security services were examining whether he was radicalised while at University College London (UCL) between 2005 and 2008. He also revealed that Abdulmutallab had been placed on a watch list earlier this year after UK authorities refused to renew his student visa. It has been reported that the British authorities refused because he had given false particulars of the educational institution where he intended continuing his studies. The Home Secretary hinted that the US authorities must have been aware of this by remarking that they should theoretically have been informed, and he doubted there had been a "hiccup" in procedures.
Q. It has been reported that he managed to obtain a tourist visa to visit the US around the same time the British refused to renew his visa. How could this have happened if the British had informed the US authorities?
A.There has apparently been a communication gap somewhere. This needs to be checked.
Q. Was he recruited by Al Qaeda during his stay in the UK from 2005 to 2008 or during his subsequent stay in Dubai?
A.It will be difficult to answer this question at present. However, it is significant that he obtained his US visa before he proceeded to Yemen for training. His value to Al Qaeda was because of his having a valid US visa. The reports till now are that he obtained the US visa from the US Embassy in London and not at Dubai. If this is correct, it will be reasonable to surmise that he was probably already in touch with Al Qaeda from London and that his obtaining a US visa before going to Yemen was the beginning of the conspiracy to use him to attack the US. Thus, Al Qaeda’s conspiracy involving the use of the Nigerian was at least seven months old.
Q.Some reports have alleged that he managed to get into the flight to Detroit at the Schiphol airport of Amsterdam without a passport.
A. Not correct. Reliable sources say that he had a valid Nigerian passport with a valid US visa.
Q.It has been alleged by some that he had only a one-way ticket, which should have sounded the alarm bell?
A. Again not correct. The British media has quoted the Nigerian civil aviation authority as saying that Abdulmutallab bought his return ticket from Lagos to Detroit via Amsterdam at a KLM office in Ghana's capital, Accra, on 16 December, with a planned return of 8 January. He paid the £1,775 fare in cash. Before the flight departed on December 24, he checked in as normal, taking only a carry-on bag. There are some intriguing aspects here. It has been reported that he flew from Yemen to Ethiopia, then to Accra, then to Lagos and from there to Schiphol en route to Detroit. Did he reach Accra from Yemen via Ethiopia before December 16 in order to buy the ticket personally or did someone else buy the ticket for him at Accra and hand it over him? Did he travel from Yemen to Accra via Ethiopia under a different name with a different passport? The fact that he bought the ticket right up to Detroit shows that the decision to blow up the plane over Detroit had been taken by Al Qaeda before he started his journey from Yemen. The decision to catch the flight to Detroit and blow it up was not taken by him on the spur of the moment. It was a carefully-considered decision taken by Al Qaeda in Yemen and his itinerary was worked out accordingly. It is not clear why Detroit was chosen for the attempt.
Q.What is the likelihood of the complicity of the Yemeni Government?
A. The Yemeni Government has been extending counter-terrorism co-operation to the US. Complicity with Al Qaeda at the Governmental level is unlikely. Complicity at the level of individual officials is likely in matters such as providing false documentation. Many Pakistani officials serve in the Yemeni Police and other security establishments in Yemen. There is a strong possibility of their complicity. In the past, many Palestinian and international terrorists such as Carlos, Yohannes Weinrach alias Peter of the Baader-Meinhof etc had even managed to obtain false passports----even diplomatic ones--- from contacts in the Yemeni security services.
Q. If it is a conspiracy hatched by Al Qaeda, would it have been done by the central command and control headed by Osama bin Laden based in North Waziristan or by the local unit of Al Qaeda in Yemen?
A. Generally, all operations directed at the US are planned and orchestrated from the central command and control in North Waziristan. However, the local command and control in Yemen plans and carries out other operations , such as in Saudi Arabia, Somalia etc. ( 28-12-09)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Sunday, December 27, 2009
INADEQUACIES OF AIRLINE SECURITY: QUESTIONS FROM DETROIT
B.RAMAN
Continuing inadequacies in airline security have once again been brought out in the incident relating to the unsuccessful attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian, allegedly trained by Al Qaeda in one of its camps in Yemen, to blow up a flight of the North-West Airlines of the US from Amsterdam to Detroit on December 25, 2009, as it was approaching to land at Detroit.
2. Subsequent details indicate that after spending some months as a student initially of engineering in London and then of business management in Dubai, Abdulmutallab, who as a youngster had made no secret of his sympathy, if not admiration, for the Taliban, had found his way to Yemen, which has become for more than a year now the motivating and training ground of Al Qaeda and the launching pad for Al Qaeda’s acts of terrorism in other countries of the world, including the US.
3. Links between Yemen and jihadi terrorism are more than two decades old. Yemenis constituted the largest single group of foreign mercenaries who fought against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s. There is greater admiration and loyalty for Osama bin Laden amongst the various tribes of Yemen than in any other Arab country. Bin Laden’s father was of Yemeni origin and had migrated to Saudi Arabia from Yemen. There was considerable focus on Yemen by the US security agencies after the attack by Al Qaeda on the US naval ship USS Cole in Aden in October,2000, which pre-dated the 9/11 attacks in the US homeland. The largest single group of terrorist suspects detained in the Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba consists of Yemenis or people of Yemeni origin. Some of the terrorists involved in anti-US terrorist incidents in Pakistan had Yemeni blood in them. Some of the conspirators involved in the brutal kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist, in Karachi in 2002 were allegedly Yemeni-Balochs----born of mixed Yemeni and Baloch Pashtun parentage. Pakistani sources always claimed that Ramzi Yousef, a principal plotter in the explosion at the New York World Trade Centre in February 1993, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, who allegedly orchestrated the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US, were trusted by bin Laden because they had Yemeni blood in them. Normally, he keeps non-Arabs out of Al Qaeda for security reasons. Ramzi Yousef and KSM were exceptions.
4. For these reasons, anyone with links with Yemen, which cannot be satisfactorily explained, has to be carefully screened. Abdulmutallab seems to have obtained his US visa from the US Embassy in London before he left London and proceeded to Yemen. The US Embassy cannot be blamed for issuing the visa since at the time he applied for the visa his links with Yemen were apparently not known.
5. The first person to sound a wake-up call about Abdulmutallab was his father, who is a reputed banker of Nigeria. He reportedly came to know of his son going to Yemen from Dubai and unsuccessfully tried to persuade him to go back to Dubai and resume his studies. When he did not succeed, he is reported to have shared his concerns over his son with the US Embassy in Nigeria and with the Nigerian authorities. The suspicions or concerns of the father were conveyed by the US Embassy to the appropriate authorities in Washington DC, who rightly included his name in a data base of about 550000 names of persons, who have come to adverse notice, but the evidence against whom was not strong enough to deny them a visa or to prevent them from flying to the US.
6. Presumably, US visa officers all over the world have access to this data base so that they could consult it while processing visa applications. Apparently, the US Embassy in London failed to notice and alert Washington that Abdulmutallab, whose name had been brought on this list on a complaint from his father, already held a valid US visa, which he had obtained before going to Yemen.
7. Had this fact been noticed, it might not have led to a cancellation of his visa and the denial of permission to him to visit the US. But it should have led to a close questioning of him at the Schiphol airport in Amsterdam by the security authorities of the US and Holland. There was apparently no such questioning. As a result, the security authorities failed to find out that he was travelling to the US by a circuitous route which started in Yemen. It has been reported that he flew from Yemen to Ethiopia, then to Ghana, then to Lagos in Nigeria and from there to Schiphol to catch the flight to Detroit. The circuitous route taken by him should have sounded an alarm bell and led to his being subjected to special security checking at Schiphol, which should have included a detailed interview on his itinerary and on the purpose of his stay in Yemen and a physical search and a search by dogs more intensive than that to which other passengers are subjected.
8. An intriguing question is whether his passport contained the immigration stamp of Yemen, which might have raised eyebrows at Schiphol. If not, did he travel from Yemen to Ethiopia by a different passport to conceal the fact that his travel started from Yemen?
9.A more than normal intensive checking of selected individuals is an important component of physical security. From the details regarding the Nigerian emerging after the incident, it would appear at least in hindsight that his was a fit case for such intensive checking. Why this did not happen? That is one of the questions which needs to be addressed by the enquiries by the US administration as well as by the Congressional Homeland Security Committees ( 28-12-09)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Continuing inadequacies in airline security have once again been brought out in the incident relating to the unsuccessful attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian, allegedly trained by Al Qaeda in one of its camps in Yemen, to blow up a flight of the North-West Airlines of the US from Amsterdam to Detroit on December 25, 2009, as it was approaching to land at Detroit.
2. Subsequent details indicate that after spending some months as a student initially of engineering in London and then of business management in Dubai, Abdulmutallab, who as a youngster had made no secret of his sympathy, if not admiration, for the Taliban, had found his way to Yemen, which has become for more than a year now the motivating and training ground of Al Qaeda and the launching pad for Al Qaeda’s acts of terrorism in other countries of the world, including the US.
3. Links between Yemen and jihadi terrorism are more than two decades old. Yemenis constituted the largest single group of foreign mercenaries who fought against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s. There is greater admiration and loyalty for Osama bin Laden amongst the various tribes of Yemen than in any other Arab country. Bin Laden’s father was of Yemeni origin and had migrated to Saudi Arabia from Yemen. There was considerable focus on Yemen by the US security agencies after the attack by Al Qaeda on the US naval ship USS Cole in Aden in October,2000, which pre-dated the 9/11 attacks in the US homeland. The largest single group of terrorist suspects detained in the Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba consists of Yemenis or people of Yemeni origin. Some of the terrorists involved in anti-US terrorist incidents in Pakistan had Yemeni blood in them. Some of the conspirators involved in the brutal kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist, in Karachi in 2002 were allegedly Yemeni-Balochs----born of mixed Yemeni and Baloch Pashtun parentage. Pakistani sources always claimed that Ramzi Yousef, a principal plotter in the explosion at the New York World Trade Centre in February 1993, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, who allegedly orchestrated the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US, were trusted by bin Laden because they had Yemeni blood in them. Normally, he keeps non-Arabs out of Al Qaeda for security reasons. Ramzi Yousef and KSM were exceptions.
4. For these reasons, anyone with links with Yemen, which cannot be satisfactorily explained, has to be carefully screened. Abdulmutallab seems to have obtained his US visa from the US Embassy in London before he left London and proceeded to Yemen. The US Embassy cannot be blamed for issuing the visa since at the time he applied for the visa his links with Yemen were apparently not known.
5. The first person to sound a wake-up call about Abdulmutallab was his father, who is a reputed banker of Nigeria. He reportedly came to know of his son going to Yemen from Dubai and unsuccessfully tried to persuade him to go back to Dubai and resume his studies. When he did not succeed, he is reported to have shared his concerns over his son with the US Embassy in Nigeria and with the Nigerian authorities. The suspicions or concerns of the father were conveyed by the US Embassy to the appropriate authorities in Washington DC, who rightly included his name in a data base of about 550000 names of persons, who have come to adverse notice, but the evidence against whom was not strong enough to deny them a visa or to prevent them from flying to the US.
6. Presumably, US visa officers all over the world have access to this data base so that they could consult it while processing visa applications. Apparently, the US Embassy in London failed to notice and alert Washington that Abdulmutallab, whose name had been brought on this list on a complaint from his father, already held a valid US visa, which he had obtained before going to Yemen.
7. Had this fact been noticed, it might not have led to a cancellation of his visa and the denial of permission to him to visit the US. But it should have led to a close questioning of him at the Schiphol airport in Amsterdam by the security authorities of the US and Holland. There was apparently no such questioning. As a result, the security authorities failed to find out that he was travelling to the US by a circuitous route which started in Yemen. It has been reported that he flew from Yemen to Ethiopia, then to Ghana, then to Lagos in Nigeria and from there to Schiphol to catch the flight to Detroit. The circuitous route taken by him should have sounded an alarm bell and led to his being subjected to special security checking at Schiphol, which should have included a detailed interview on his itinerary and on the purpose of his stay in Yemen and a physical search and a search by dogs more intensive than that to which other passengers are subjected.
8. An intriguing question is whether his passport contained the immigration stamp of Yemen, which might have raised eyebrows at Schiphol. If not, did he travel from Yemen to Ethiopia by a different passport to conceal the fact that his travel started from Yemen?
9.A more than normal intensive checking of selected individuals is an important component of physical security. From the details regarding the Nigerian emerging after the incident, it would appear at least in hindsight that his was a fit case for such intensive checking. Why this did not happen? That is one of the questions which needs to be addressed by the enquiries by the US administration as well as by the Congressional Homeland Security Committees ( 28-12-09)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Saturday, December 26, 2009
AL QAEDA’S ATTEMPT TO BLOW UP PLANE OVER US
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO.595
B.RAMAN
From additional details of the attempt on December 25,2009, by a Nigerian member of Al Qaeda to cause an explosion in a plane of the US North-West Airlines flying from Amsterdam to Detroit as it was approaching Detroit to land there, it is evident that it was not a lone wolf terrorist attempt by an angry individual Muslim to give vent to his anger against the US. It was an attempt by Al Qaeda’s command and control to cause a spectacular incident involving mass casualties in the US air space and possibly US territory in order to demonstrate to the US and the rest of the international community that Al Qaeda remains strong and active despite the leadership losses suffered by it in the Af-Pak region during 2009.
2. The target was the US homeland and the audience was the US public, whose confidence in the revamped counter-terrorism set-up of the US might have been shaken had the Nigerian whom Al Qaeda trained and used succeeded in causing an explosion. The credit for the fact that the aircraft and its passengers escaped what could have been a disaster should go to some passengers of the plane and its crew, who acted promptly and with bravery after the terrorist suspect had attempted to cause a detonation, which remained incomplete in the sense that it caused only a fire and not a full-blown explosion. They overpowered the suspect and put out the fire and the flight crew managed to land safely.
3. Since 9/11, Al Qaeda has repeatedly tried to carry out another major terrorist strike against the US in the US Homeland, and had infiltrated many groups and individuals from Pakistan and elsewhere into the US for this purpose. An alert Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) thwarted these attempts. It detected and neutralized the cells, which were seeking to act as the Trojan Horses of Al Qaeda in the US Homeland.
4. Al Qaeda also sought to attack the US by targeting US-bound flights in order to cause mass casualties if not on the ground, at least in the air. Its 2001 attempt to have a Miami-bound plane blown up through shoe-bomber Richard Reid, who had concealed the explosive in his shoes, failed under circumstances similar to those of Detroit due to malfunctioning of the device and the alertness and courage of the passengers and the crew, who intervened to prevent a disaster.
5. In 2006, it again tried to have a number of planes bound for the US from the UK blown up with the help of some persons mainly from the Pakistani diaspora in the UK who were instructed to carry material capable of being converted into explosives into the aircraft by concealing it in soft drink bottles and use it to cause explosions. The alertness of the British intelligence and security services thwarted this attempt while it was still in the planning stage. The would-be perpetrators were arrested and prosecuted before British courts. One of the would-be perpetrators, Rashid Rauf, a British citizen of Pakistani origin from Birmingham, who was based in Pakistan was used by Al Qaeda to orchestrate this conspiracy. He was related by marriage to Maulana Masood Azhar, the Amir of the Jaish-e-Mohammad.
6. He was arrested by the Pakistani authorities, who avoided handing him over to the British for interrogation and prosecution. He escaped from custody under mysterious circumstances and was ultimately reported to have been killed in a US drone strike in Waziristan.
7. Despite the failure of its previous two attempts to blow up US-bound planes with the help of suicide bombers, Al Qaeda has not relented in its determination to strike at the US in its homeland----- either on land or in its air space. This is the chilling message from the Detroit incident. The failure of the attempts involving Richard Reid and the latest Detroit incident on Christmas Day (December 25,2009) were due to circumstances beyond the control of Al Qaeda and not due to the effectiveness of the security measures at the Schiphol airport of Amsterdam or the alertness of the Western intelligence agencies.
8. What should be of concern to governmental and non-governmental security experts all over the world is the fact that Al Qaeda’s conspiracy almost succeeded in that the Nigerian trained by it in Yemen managed to evade the security screening at Schiphol airport and carry concealed on his body, reportedly in his underwear, a high-grade explosive and a syringe with a chemical trigger to detonate it. Even after 9/11, on air flights diabetic patients are allowed to carry syringes and insulin on the basis of a certificate issued by a doctor, but the airport security have no way of verifying the authenticity of the medical certificates carried by a passenger.
9.Citing US security sources, sections of the media, including the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), have identified the explosive material carried on board the aircraft by the suspect as containing PETN, also known as pentaerythritol, a high grade explosive. Did he carry it concealed in his underwear as reported by sections of the media or inside his anus as was reportedly done by an Al Qaeda terrorist trained in Yemen who tried to kill the Saudi Deputy Interior Minister in August this year? The device inside the anus of that terrorist was reportedly triggered off by a remote control device. Did the Nigerian use the syringe to trigger off his device?
10. Even at the time of the attempt to kill the Saudi Deputy Interior Minister, counter-terrorism experts had warned of the implications for airline security of the new method of concealment devised by Al Qaeda. The security set-up of the Saudi Deputy Minister totally failed to detect the presence of the explosive material inside the anus.
11 The Nigerian, chosen by Al Qaeda for its latest attempt, has been identified as 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, allegedly the son of a serving or retired banker of Nigeria, who has reportedly identified his son. It is reported that till 2008 he was studying engineering in a college of London and then disappeared from the UK. He seems to have come into contact with Al Qaeda during this period and undergone training in Yemen.
12.The suspect came from an affluent family of Northern Nigeria which since 2007 has been showing signs of becoming another recruiting ground for Al Qaeda.
13.The Reuters news agency disseminated the following report on May 10,2008: “Al Qaeda Islamist militants have renewed their threat to bomb targets in Nigeria, , a newspaper reported quoting the national police chief. The United States embassy in Nigeria said last September the country was at risk of "terrorist attack" and Osama bin Laden once named the world's eighth biggest oil exporter as ripe for jihad or Islamic holy war. "The al Qaeda network has threatened to send time bombs to Nigeria ... CPs (commissioners of police) of all the commands should be on the alert and ensure that these items (bombs) do not pass through their end," the Punch newspaper quoted Inspector General of Police Mike Okiro as saying. He gave no details of what the targets might be, but he told a group of senior officers that intelligence reports showed the threat was real. A number of suspected jihadists have been arrested by police and the State Security Services (SSS) in recent years, but the cases have dragged on in the courts and there have been no convictions. No conclusive evidence of al Qaeda's presence in Nigeria has been made public. Five Islamist militants with suspected links to al Qaeda are on trial in the capital Abuja for plotting attacks on government targets in Africa's most populous country. The men were arrested in November (2007) by the SSS in mainly Muslim northern Nigeria. Three of them have also been charged with training in Algeria with the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) between 2005 and August 2007.The GSPC renamed itself al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in January 2007. The charge sheet said the five militants, all in their early 30s, "did conspire to commit terrorist acts," and said three of them trained in Algeria "with intent to attack government facilities and cause insurrection in Nigeria". Another charge said the militants had an AK 47 rifle, ammunition, dynamite, fertiliser "and 11 explosive devices" which they planned to use to attack government facilities and installations in the southern cities of Lagos and Ibadan.”
14. The alleged infiltration of Al Qaeda into Northern Nigeria was preceded by the spread of the ideology of the Taliban in the local Muslim community. An Islamic fundamentalist movement which disseminated the ideas of the Taliban became active. It was referred to by the locals as the Boko Haram movement. Boko Haram means “Western education is sinful.” It strongly opposed Western education as anti-Islam. Its founder Mohammed Yusuf, who was reportedly Iran-educated, was alleged to have been killed by the security forces, but the movement started by him, which is also referred to as the Nigerian Taliban, has remained active.
15. Shortly after the world came to know of the Detroit incident, a non-Governmental organisation of Nigeria known as “Citizens For Nigeria”, which is believed to consist largely of representatives of the Nigerian Christian community, put out the following statement: “Today, we heard of a Nigerian, Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, who said he was an agent for Al Qaeda and tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines plane as it was preparing to land in Detroit, Michigan, USA. The Citizens for Nigeria can predict that when Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab's identity is revealed, he will be known to come from the northern part of Nigeria that has always received state protection and patronage for religious persecution. In July, 2009, when the security forces in northern Nigeria battled the remnants of an Islamic sect loosely modelled on Afghanistan's Taliban movement, the world did not pay attention. In that particular incident, more than 180 people died. It was a local Nigerian news. Now that a Nigerian likely affiliated with Al Qaeda attacked an American airline, the world's attention will be fixed on Nigeria. To a majority of Nigerians, religious terrorism has a long history. To Christians, particularly those living in the northern part of Nigeria, terrrorism began long before Al Qaeda and 9/11. Northern Nigeria has always provided the breeding ground for intolerant Islamic fanaticism, the kind that gave life to Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab's ill-fated attack on the American soil. Nigerians have for years been killed in large numbers by Islamic fanatics with quiet but active support of the northern elite that have ruled Nigeria for most of her life.” (27-12-09)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
B.RAMAN
From additional details of the attempt on December 25,2009, by a Nigerian member of Al Qaeda to cause an explosion in a plane of the US North-West Airlines flying from Amsterdam to Detroit as it was approaching Detroit to land there, it is evident that it was not a lone wolf terrorist attempt by an angry individual Muslim to give vent to his anger against the US. It was an attempt by Al Qaeda’s command and control to cause a spectacular incident involving mass casualties in the US air space and possibly US territory in order to demonstrate to the US and the rest of the international community that Al Qaeda remains strong and active despite the leadership losses suffered by it in the Af-Pak region during 2009.
2. The target was the US homeland and the audience was the US public, whose confidence in the revamped counter-terrorism set-up of the US might have been shaken had the Nigerian whom Al Qaeda trained and used succeeded in causing an explosion. The credit for the fact that the aircraft and its passengers escaped what could have been a disaster should go to some passengers of the plane and its crew, who acted promptly and with bravery after the terrorist suspect had attempted to cause a detonation, which remained incomplete in the sense that it caused only a fire and not a full-blown explosion. They overpowered the suspect and put out the fire and the flight crew managed to land safely.
3. Since 9/11, Al Qaeda has repeatedly tried to carry out another major terrorist strike against the US in the US Homeland, and had infiltrated many groups and individuals from Pakistan and elsewhere into the US for this purpose. An alert Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) thwarted these attempts. It detected and neutralized the cells, which were seeking to act as the Trojan Horses of Al Qaeda in the US Homeland.
4. Al Qaeda also sought to attack the US by targeting US-bound flights in order to cause mass casualties if not on the ground, at least in the air. Its 2001 attempt to have a Miami-bound plane blown up through shoe-bomber Richard Reid, who had concealed the explosive in his shoes, failed under circumstances similar to those of Detroit due to malfunctioning of the device and the alertness and courage of the passengers and the crew, who intervened to prevent a disaster.
5. In 2006, it again tried to have a number of planes bound for the US from the UK blown up with the help of some persons mainly from the Pakistani diaspora in the UK who were instructed to carry material capable of being converted into explosives into the aircraft by concealing it in soft drink bottles and use it to cause explosions. The alertness of the British intelligence and security services thwarted this attempt while it was still in the planning stage. The would-be perpetrators were arrested and prosecuted before British courts. One of the would-be perpetrators, Rashid Rauf, a British citizen of Pakistani origin from Birmingham, who was based in Pakistan was used by Al Qaeda to orchestrate this conspiracy. He was related by marriage to Maulana Masood Azhar, the Amir of the Jaish-e-Mohammad.
6. He was arrested by the Pakistani authorities, who avoided handing him over to the British for interrogation and prosecution. He escaped from custody under mysterious circumstances and was ultimately reported to have been killed in a US drone strike in Waziristan.
7. Despite the failure of its previous two attempts to blow up US-bound planes with the help of suicide bombers, Al Qaeda has not relented in its determination to strike at the US in its homeland----- either on land or in its air space. This is the chilling message from the Detroit incident. The failure of the attempts involving Richard Reid and the latest Detroit incident on Christmas Day (December 25,2009) were due to circumstances beyond the control of Al Qaeda and not due to the effectiveness of the security measures at the Schiphol airport of Amsterdam or the alertness of the Western intelligence agencies.
8. What should be of concern to governmental and non-governmental security experts all over the world is the fact that Al Qaeda’s conspiracy almost succeeded in that the Nigerian trained by it in Yemen managed to evade the security screening at Schiphol airport and carry concealed on his body, reportedly in his underwear, a high-grade explosive and a syringe with a chemical trigger to detonate it. Even after 9/11, on air flights diabetic patients are allowed to carry syringes and insulin on the basis of a certificate issued by a doctor, but the airport security have no way of verifying the authenticity of the medical certificates carried by a passenger.
9.Citing US security sources, sections of the media, including the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), have identified the explosive material carried on board the aircraft by the suspect as containing PETN, also known as pentaerythritol, a high grade explosive. Did he carry it concealed in his underwear as reported by sections of the media or inside his anus as was reportedly done by an Al Qaeda terrorist trained in Yemen who tried to kill the Saudi Deputy Interior Minister in August this year? The device inside the anus of that terrorist was reportedly triggered off by a remote control device. Did the Nigerian use the syringe to trigger off his device?
10. Even at the time of the attempt to kill the Saudi Deputy Interior Minister, counter-terrorism experts had warned of the implications for airline security of the new method of concealment devised by Al Qaeda. The security set-up of the Saudi Deputy Minister totally failed to detect the presence of the explosive material inside the anus.
11 The Nigerian, chosen by Al Qaeda for its latest attempt, has been identified as 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, allegedly the son of a serving or retired banker of Nigeria, who has reportedly identified his son. It is reported that till 2008 he was studying engineering in a college of London and then disappeared from the UK. He seems to have come into contact with Al Qaeda during this period and undergone training in Yemen.
12.The suspect came from an affluent family of Northern Nigeria which since 2007 has been showing signs of becoming another recruiting ground for Al Qaeda.
13.The Reuters news agency disseminated the following report on May 10,2008: “Al Qaeda Islamist militants have renewed their threat to bomb targets in Nigeria, , a newspaper reported quoting the national police chief. The United States embassy in Nigeria said last September the country was at risk of "terrorist attack" and Osama bin Laden once named the world's eighth biggest oil exporter as ripe for jihad or Islamic holy war. "The al Qaeda network has threatened to send time bombs to Nigeria ... CPs (commissioners of police) of all the commands should be on the alert and ensure that these items (bombs) do not pass through their end," the Punch newspaper quoted Inspector General of Police Mike Okiro as saying. He gave no details of what the targets might be, but he told a group of senior officers that intelligence reports showed the threat was real. A number of suspected jihadists have been arrested by police and the State Security Services (SSS) in recent years, but the cases have dragged on in the courts and there have been no convictions. No conclusive evidence of al Qaeda's presence in Nigeria has been made public. Five Islamist militants with suspected links to al Qaeda are on trial in the capital Abuja for plotting attacks on government targets in Africa's most populous country. The men were arrested in November (2007) by the SSS in mainly Muslim northern Nigeria. Three of them have also been charged with training in Algeria with the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) between 2005 and August 2007.The GSPC renamed itself al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in January 2007. The charge sheet said the five militants, all in their early 30s, "did conspire to commit terrorist acts," and said three of them trained in Algeria "with intent to attack government facilities and cause insurrection in Nigeria". Another charge said the militants had an AK 47 rifle, ammunition, dynamite, fertiliser "and 11 explosive devices" which they planned to use to attack government facilities and installations in the southern cities of Lagos and Ibadan.”
14. The alleged infiltration of Al Qaeda into Northern Nigeria was preceded by the spread of the ideology of the Taliban in the local Muslim community. An Islamic fundamentalist movement which disseminated the ideas of the Taliban became active. It was referred to by the locals as the Boko Haram movement. Boko Haram means “Western education is sinful.” It strongly opposed Western education as anti-Islam. Its founder Mohammed Yusuf, who was reportedly Iran-educated, was alleged to have been killed by the security forces, but the movement started by him, which is also referred to as the Nigerian Taliban, has remained active.
15. Shortly after the world came to know of the Detroit incident, a non-Governmental organisation of Nigeria known as “Citizens For Nigeria”, which is believed to consist largely of representatives of the Nigerian Christian community, put out the following statement: “Today, we heard of a Nigerian, Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, who said he was an agent for Al Qaeda and tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines plane as it was preparing to land in Detroit, Michigan, USA. The Citizens for Nigeria can predict that when Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab's identity is revealed, he will be known to come from the northern part of Nigeria that has always received state protection and patronage for religious persecution. In July, 2009, when the security forces in northern Nigeria battled the remnants of an Islamic sect loosely modelled on Afghanistan's Taliban movement, the world did not pay attention. In that particular incident, more than 180 people died. It was a local Nigerian news. Now that a Nigerian likely affiliated with Al Qaeda attacked an American airline, the world's attention will be fixed on Nigeria. To a majority of Nigerians, religious terrorism has a long history. To Christians, particularly those living in the northern part of Nigeria, terrrorism began long before Al Qaeda and 9/11. Northern Nigeria has always provided the breeding ground for intolerant Islamic fanaticism, the kind that gave life to Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab's ill-fated attack on the American soil. Nigerians have for years been killed in large numbers by Islamic fanatics with quiet but active support of the northern elite that have ruled Nigeria for most of her life.” (27-12-09)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Friday, December 25, 2009
AL QAEDA ATTRIBUTED AVIATION TERRORISM ATTEMPT
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR----PAPER NO. 594
B.RAMAN
It is too early to assess definitively the failed attempt by a person of Nigerian origin to create an explosion on board a North-west Airlines flight (Airbus 330 with 278 passengers) from Amsterdam to Detroit as it was about to land in Detroit on Christmas Day on December 25,2009.
2.The attack seems to have failed due to the mal-functioning of what was intended by the suspect to be an explosive mixture and the prompt intervention of fellow-passengers, who managed to overpower the suspect after he had unsuccessfully tried to cause a detonation. While official sources in the US have characterised the incident as an attempted terrorist attack, the US Attorney-General has not yet done so.
3. A tentative assessment on the basis of available details would indicate that this could be an attempt by Al Qaeda to cause an explosion on board an aircraft by concealing a powder in the groin of a passenger posing as a diabetic patient and injecting a chemical trigger carried without being detected by the security inside an insulin injection tube.
4. Two serious breaches of security have come to notice: Failure to detect a person with a previous suspicious background as a terrorist despite the fact that his name figured in databases of terrorist suspects and failure to detect the concealment of a suspicious-looking powder in the groin of the suspect. The attempted use of medicines such as insulin for concealing chemical triggers, if corroborated, shows the continuing evolution of the modus operandi tried/used by the terrorists to escape detection.
5.The available details of the incident from open sources are given below:
(a). Identity of the suspect: A senior law enforcement source speaking to CBS News has identified the suspect as Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23. ABC News named the suspect as Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, who was said to be an engineering student at the University College of London.
(b). His background: US media reported that the passenger told investigators he was affiliated with Al Qaeda. CNN and other broadcast channels said the man told investigators he had acquired the explosive device in Yemen, along with instructions as to when it should be used. Peter King, a Republican Party member of the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, told Fox News that the suspect "definitely has terror connections". "My understanding is ... that he does have Al-Qaeda connections, certainly extremist terrorist connections, and his name popped up pretty quickly" in a search of intelligence databases. The CBS News reported that the suspect was on a U.S. government watch list of people with suspected terrorist ties. It said that a senior administration official declined to elaborate on how a man on a U.S. terrorist watch list was able to board the airline
( c ): Where did he get into the flight. At Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport. According to “The Sun”,the man, who flew from Nigeria to Amsterdam and then Detroit, was taken into custody at the Detroit airport.
(d). What kind of explosive or incendiary device he carried and how did he conceal it?: According to the Associated Press, one of the U.S. intelligence officials said the explosive device was a mix of powder and liquid. It failed when the passenger tried to detonate it. It added that a law enforcement source said the explosives may have been strapped to the man's body but investigators weren't immediately certain, partly because of the struggle with other passengers. According to the Agence France Presse, the explosive, which was apparently carried onto the flight from its originating airport in Amsterdam, was originally believed to be a small firecracker, but a US official said the device was "more complicated than gunpowder firecracker" and caught fire as the man tried to set it off. According to a report on the ABC television network, the suspect told the authorities he had had explosive powder taped to his leg and used a syringe of chemicals to mix with the powder that was to cause explosion. Another US intelligence official quoted by AP said an explosive device had been used consisting of a "mix of powder and liquid". The CBS reported that the explosive material was apparently taped to the man's leg and lit the lower part of his body. He was immediately subdued and restrained and was later transported to a hospital unit. He reportedly told US investigators that he picked up the explosive material in Yemen and was instructed to set it off on board an airplane. Those claims could not immediately be verified. One law enforcement source said the man claimed to have been instructed by Al Qaeda to detonate the plane over U.S. soil. A high-ranking law enforcement official told CBS News that the suspect apparently used a syringe to inject a chemical into a powder located near his groin, a technique not seen in previous attempted attacks. It's possible, the source said, that this incident was a test of whether the materials could pass screening and how effective they might be at causing damage. (26-12-09)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
B.RAMAN
It is too early to assess definitively the failed attempt by a person of Nigerian origin to create an explosion on board a North-west Airlines flight (Airbus 330 with 278 passengers) from Amsterdam to Detroit as it was about to land in Detroit on Christmas Day on December 25,2009.
2.The attack seems to have failed due to the mal-functioning of what was intended by the suspect to be an explosive mixture and the prompt intervention of fellow-passengers, who managed to overpower the suspect after he had unsuccessfully tried to cause a detonation. While official sources in the US have characterised the incident as an attempted terrorist attack, the US Attorney-General has not yet done so.
3. A tentative assessment on the basis of available details would indicate that this could be an attempt by Al Qaeda to cause an explosion on board an aircraft by concealing a powder in the groin of a passenger posing as a diabetic patient and injecting a chemical trigger carried without being detected by the security inside an insulin injection tube.
4. Two serious breaches of security have come to notice: Failure to detect a person with a previous suspicious background as a terrorist despite the fact that his name figured in databases of terrorist suspects and failure to detect the concealment of a suspicious-looking powder in the groin of the suspect. The attempted use of medicines such as insulin for concealing chemical triggers, if corroborated, shows the continuing evolution of the modus operandi tried/used by the terrorists to escape detection.
5.The available details of the incident from open sources are given below:
(a). Identity of the suspect: A senior law enforcement source speaking to CBS News has identified the suspect as Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23. ABC News named the suspect as Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, who was said to be an engineering student at the University College of London.
(b). His background: US media reported that the passenger told investigators he was affiliated with Al Qaeda. CNN and other broadcast channels said the man told investigators he had acquired the explosive device in Yemen, along with instructions as to when it should be used. Peter King, a Republican Party member of the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, told Fox News that the suspect "definitely has terror connections". "My understanding is ... that he does have Al-Qaeda connections, certainly extremist terrorist connections, and his name popped up pretty quickly" in a search of intelligence databases. The CBS News reported that the suspect was on a U.S. government watch list of people with suspected terrorist ties. It said that a senior administration official declined to elaborate on how a man on a U.S. terrorist watch list was able to board the airline
( c ): Where did he get into the flight. At Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport. According to “The Sun”,the man, who flew from Nigeria to Amsterdam and then Detroit, was taken into custody at the Detroit airport.
(d). What kind of explosive or incendiary device he carried and how did he conceal it?: According to the Associated Press, one of the U.S. intelligence officials said the explosive device was a mix of powder and liquid. It failed when the passenger tried to detonate it. It added that a law enforcement source said the explosives may have been strapped to the man's body but investigators weren't immediately certain, partly because of the struggle with other passengers. According to the Agence France Presse, the explosive, which was apparently carried onto the flight from its originating airport in Amsterdam, was originally believed to be a small firecracker, but a US official said the device was "more complicated than gunpowder firecracker" and caught fire as the man tried to set it off. According to a report on the ABC television network, the suspect told the authorities he had had explosive powder taped to his leg and used a syringe of chemicals to mix with the powder that was to cause explosion. Another US intelligence official quoted by AP said an explosive device had been used consisting of a "mix of powder and liquid". The CBS reported that the explosive material was apparently taped to the man's leg and lit the lower part of his body. He was immediately subdued and restrained and was later transported to a hospital unit. He reportedly told US investigators that he picked up the explosive material in Yemen and was instructed to set it off on board an airplane. Those claims could not immediately be verified. One law enforcement source said the man claimed to have been instructed by Al Qaeda to detonate the plane over U.S. soil. A high-ranking law enforcement official told CBS News that the suspect apparently used a syringe to inject a chemical into a powder located near his groin, a technique not seen in previous attempted attacks. It's possible, the source said, that this incident was a test of whether the materials could pass screening and how effective they might be at causing damage. (26-12-09)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Thursday, December 24, 2009
CHINA'S COUSIN-COUSIN RELATIONS WITH MYANMAR
B.RAMAN
Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping visited Myanmar on December 19 and 20,2009, during the course of a four-nation tour covering Japan, South Korea, Myanmar and Cambodia. He went to Cambodia from Myanmar. Xi, who undertook the visit at the invitation of Vice Senior-General Maung Aye, Vice-Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), called on SPDC Chairman Senior-General Than Shwe in Nay Pyi Taw.
2.Xi is believed to be in the run to succeed President Hu Jintao, when he completes his tenure. His visit to Myanmar was significant for three reasons.
3.Firstly, through the importance accorded to the visit, the Myanmar military junta sought to reassure Beijing that despite recent moves for increased contacts between the junta and the Obama administration, the junta continued to give priority to Myanmar’s relations with China. Improved relations with the US will not be at the expense of the relations with China. Xi as well as his Myanmar hosts described the relations between the two countries as “baobo relationship”, which has been interpreted by local analysts as cousin-cousin relationship. The next door cousin is more important than the distant US---that was the message of the Junta to the Obama Administration.
4.Secondly, China reiterated its determination to go ahead with the construction of the parallel oil and gas pipelines between the Arakan area of Myanmar and Yunnan despite opposition from the local residents and insecurity along the route of the pipelines. China has accorded greater priority to the Arakan-Yunnan pipeline than to the Gwadar-Xinjiang pipeline proposed by the Pakistan Government. The Chinese Government has greater confidence in the ability of the Myanmar Army to ensure the security of the parallel pipelines passing through Myanmar territory than in the ability of the Pakistan Government to ensure the security of any pipeline passing through Pakistani territory. Moreover, with the recent commissioning of the first stage of the pipeline connecting Xinjiang with the Central Asian Republics, the need for a Gwadar-Xinjiang pipeline is not that urgent. Whereas the Arakan-Yunnan pipelines will have the dual purpose of transporting oil brought by Chinese tankers from West Asia and Africa thereby reducing the present Chinese dependence on the Malacca Strait and transporting the gas procured locally in Arakan by Chinese companies, any pipeline from Gwadar will have to be exclusively for transporting oil/gas from West Asia. Pakistan does not have any oil or gas to sell to China.
5.Thirdly, the visit underlined the concerns of Beijing over the anti-Chinese riots in the Kokang area of the Shan State in August,2009, when thousands of Chinese traders, who had illegally settled down in the Kokang area, had to flee to Yunnan following attacks on them. The attacks on the “Chinese cousins” ---- and the action of the Myanmar Army in closing its eyes to these attacks----were a rude shock to Beijing.
6. In an editorial published on December 22,2009, the Government-owned “ New Light of Myanmar” said that Xi’s visit strengthened the mutual friendship and the bilateral cooperation between the two countries. It added: “The peoples of the two countries have mutual respect and deep friendship as they have been dealing with each other like brothers for a long time. With reciprocal goodwill visits by the leaders of the two nations, bilateral relations and cooperation are thriving.”
7.It was stated by official spokesmen that Xi discussed with Maung Aye matters relating to the further improvement of bilateral relations and cooperation in the agriculture, transport, energy, electricity and communications sectors. The two countries signed five agreements on the development of trade, economy, the transport infrastructure, technological cooperation and purchase of machinery; seven financial agreements, three agreements on hydroelectric power; and one agreement on the energy sector and the oil and natural gas pipelines.
8. Among the MoUs signed during the visit was an agreement to allow the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) exclusive rights to build and operate a Myanmar-China Crude Oil Pipeline. According to a press release issued by the CNPC on December 21, the agreement grants the CNPC rights relating to tax concessions, transport of crude oil through Myanmar, customs clearance and road operations.
9.The press release added: “The agreement also stipulates that the Myanmar Government shall ensure the company's ownership and exclusionary (exclusive?) right to the pipeline and guarantee the safety of the pipeline.”
10.The pipeline will be constructed and run by a subsidiary of the the CNPC called the South-East Asia Crude Oil Pipeline Ltd. Earlier in June, 2009, the CNPC and the Myanmar Government had signed an MOU, agreeing that the CNPC would be responsible for the design, construction, and operation of the pipeline.
11.The CNPC started building a crude oil port on October 31 as part of the 771-kilometre pipeline project, which will start from the Maday Island in the Arakan state on the western coast of Myanmar and run through the Arakan State, the Magway division, the Mandalay division and the Shan State, and will finally enter Ruili in China’s Yunnan Province. Some reports have estimated the length of the pipeline as 1100 kms. This probably includes its length from Ruili to Kunming too.
12.The natural gas pipeline is proposed to be extended from Ruili to Kunming and then to the Guizhou province and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, covering a total distance of 2806 kms.
13. Earlier, in March 2009, the two Governments had signed an agreement which provided for the construction of a parallel oil-gas pipelines starting from the Kyaukpru port in the Arakan State. The construction is scheduled to be completed by 2013. According to the March,2009, agreement, a gas collection terminal and a port for oil tankers will be constructed on the Maday Island.
14. The Chinese state-owned CNPC will hold a 50.9-percent share in partnership with the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) in the company which will construct and run the pipelines. The project is expected to yield $29 billion over 30 years to the Myanmar military junta. Initially, the gas to be transported by the gas pipeline will be bought from the Shwe Gas consortium, which has already struck gas in the blocks for exploration allotted to it by the Myanmar Government, but it hopes to supplement it with gas found by Chinese companies in the blocks allotted to them by the Myanmar Government.
15.The Daewoo International from South Korea, holds 51 percent of the shares in the Shwe Gas Consortium, the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) of India 17 percent and the Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL), 8.5 percent.
16. This will be the third oil/gas pipeline being developed by China---the other two being the oil and gas pipelines from the Central Asian Republics the first stage of which was recently commissioned by President Hu Jintao and the proposed Sino-Russian oil pipeline. Pakistan is interested in making the Chinese agree to the construction of a gas pipeline from Gwadar to Xinjiang. Talks in this regard between the two countries are still in the preliminary stage. Bejing has so far not shown much enthusiasm for this project due to the deteriorating security situation in Balochistan.
17. The importance of maintaining peace and stability in the areas near the Sino-Myanmar border was repeatedly emphasized by the leaders of the two countries during their interactions. The junta sought to reassure the visiting Chinese leader of its sincerity and determination in this regard. Beijing’s suspicion that despite the repeatedly professed friendship of the junta for China, Myanmar Army units were complicit in the attacks on the Chinese in the Kokang area remains strong.
18. According to a statement posted on the web site of the Chinese Foreign Ministry on December 21,2009, Than Shwe assured Xi that Myanmar will work with China to preserve peace and stability in the border areas. He reportedly added that he understood that China and Myanmar shared a long border and maintaining peace and stability on the border was extremely important to both the countries.
19. China’s State-owned Xinhua news agency reported that Xi said China wanted stability on the Sino-Myanmar border. He reportedly said: “China believes the Myanmar side would settle the relevant problems through peaceful ways such as dialogues and consultation so as to guarantee the stability in its border area with China.”
20. The Xinhua reported that Than Shwe assured Xi that his Government would continue to work with Beijing to ensure peace and development in the border areas. It would demonstrate good neighborly friendship and cooperation, he said.
21. Interestingly, the Myanmar-Government owned “The New Light of Myanmar” remained silent on these exchanges between Than Shwe and Xi. It merely said that the two leaders exchanged views on “matters to which two neighboring countries should pay serious attention.”
22. The August attacks on the illegal Chinese traders in the Kokang capital Laogai were triggered off by the refusal of anti-junta Kokang ethnic groups such as the United Wa State Army to disband themselves and join a border force formed by the Myanmar Army unless some of their conditions regarding the command and control of the proposed border force were met. The Myanmar Army seems to have suspected that these groups were being instigated by the illegal Chinese settlers from Yunnan living in the Kokang area not to accept the order of the Army. These dissident groups continue to defy the Army which has given them time till December 31,2009, to disband themselves and join the border force of the Army. It is not clear whether Xi pressed Than Shwe to withdraw this order and, if so, whether Than Shwe agreed to it. If the junta insists on enforcing its order after January 1, one could expect more violence. The fact that the Chinese are going ahead with the construction of the pipelines without worrying about the disturbed situation in the Shan State gives rise to the suspicion that some kind of an assurance might have been conveyed to Xi in this regard by Than Shwe. A possible face-saving for both will be to keep the order in force, but not to enforce it.
23. Lt-Gen Ai Husheng of the Chinese Chengdu Military Region that oversees Sino-Myanmar border security paid a six-day visit to Myanmar from December 5 to 10,2009, and met, among others, Maj-Gen Kyaw Phyoe, of the Triangle Region Command, Lt-Gen Min Aung Hlaing, Commander of Shan and Kayah states, and Maj-Gen Aung Than Tut, of the Northeastern Region Command. (25-12-09)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping visited Myanmar on December 19 and 20,2009, during the course of a four-nation tour covering Japan, South Korea, Myanmar and Cambodia. He went to Cambodia from Myanmar. Xi, who undertook the visit at the invitation of Vice Senior-General Maung Aye, Vice-Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), called on SPDC Chairman Senior-General Than Shwe in Nay Pyi Taw.
2.Xi is believed to be in the run to succeed President Hu Jintao, when he completes his tenure. His visit to Myanmar was significant for three reasons.
3.Firstly, through the importance accorded to the visit, the Myanmar military junta sought to reassure Beijing that despite recent moves for increased contacts between the junta and the Obama administration, the junta continued to give priority to Myanmar’s relations with China. Improved relations with the US will not be at the expense of the relations with China. Xi as well as his Myanmar hosts described the relations between the two countries as “baobo relationship”, which has been interpreted by local analysts as cousin-cousin relationship. The next door cousin is more important than the distant US---that was the message of the Junta to the Obama Administration.
4.Secondly, China reiterated its determination to go ahead with the construction of the parallel oil and gas pipelines between the Arakan area of Myanmar and Yunnan despite opposition from the local residents and insecurity along the route of the pipelines. China has accorded greater priority to the Arakan-Yunnan pipeline than to the Gwadar-Xinjiang pipeline proposed by the Pakistan Government. The Chinese Government has greater confidence in the ability of the Myanmar Army to ensure the security of the parallel pipelines passing through Myanmar territory than in the ability of the Pakistan Government to ensure the security of any pipeline passing through Pakistani territory. Moreover, with the recent commissioning of the first stage of the pipeline connecting Xinjiang with the Central Asian Republics, the need for a Gwadar-Xinjiang pipeline is not that urgent. Whereas the Arakan-Yunnan pipelines will have the dual purpose of transporting oil brought by Chinese tankers from West Asia and Africa thereby reducing the present Chinese dependence on the Malacca Strait and transporting the gas procured locally in Arakan by Chinese companies, any pipeline from Gwadar will have to be exclusively for transporting oil/gas from West Asia. Pakistan does not have any oil or gas to sell to China.
5.Thirdly, the visit underlined the concerns of Beijing over the anti-Chinese riots in the Kokang area of the Shan State in August,2009, when thousands of Chinese traders, who had illegally settled down in the Kokang area, had to flee to Yunnan following attacks on them. The attacks on the “Chinese cousins” ---- and the action of the Myanmar Army in closing its eyes to these attacks----were a rude shock to Beijing.
6. In an editorial published on December 22,2009, the Government-owned “ New Light of Myanmar” said that Xi’s visit strengthened the mutual friendship and the bilateral cooperation between the two countries. It added: “The peoples of the two countries have mutual respect and deep friendship as they have been dealing with each other like brothers for a long time. With reciprocal goodwill visits by the leaders of the two nations, bilateral relations and cooperation are thriving.”
7.It was stated by official spokesmen that Xi discussed with Maung Aye matters relating to the further improvement of bilateral relations and cooperation in the agriculture, transport, energy, electricity and communications sectors. The two countries signed five agreements on the development of trade, economy, the transport infrastructure, technological cooperation and purchase of machinery; seven financial agreements, three agreements on hydroelectric power; and one agreement on the energy sector and the oil and natural gas pipelines.
8. Among the MoUs signed during the visit was an agreement to allow the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) exclusive rights to build and operate a Myanmar-China Crude Oil Pipeline. According to a press release issued by the CNPC on December 21, the agreement grants the CNPC rights relating to tax concessions, transport of crude oil through Myanmar, customs clearance and road operations.
9.The press release added: “The agreement also stipulates that the Myanmar Government shall ensure the company's ownership and exclusionary (exclusive?) right to the pipeline and guarantee the safety of the pipeline.”
10.The pipeline will be constructed and run by a subsidiary of the the CNPC called the South-East Asia Crude Oil Pipeline Ltd. Earlier in June, 2009, the CNPC and the Myanmar Government had signed an MOU, agreeing that the CNPC would be responsible for the design, construction, and operation of the pipeline.
11.The CNPC started building a crude oil port on October 31 as part of the 771-kilometre pipeline project, which will start from the Maday Island in the Arakan state on the western coast of Myanmar and run through the Arakan State, the Magway division, the Mandalay division and the Shan State, and will finally enter Ruili in China’s Yunnan Province. Some reports have estimated the length of the pipeline as 1100 kms. This probably includes its length from Ruili to Kunming too.
12.The natural gas pipeline is proposed to be extended from Ruili to Kunming and then to the Guizhou province and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, covering a total distance of 2806 kms.
13. Earlier, in March 2009, the two Governments had signed an agreement which provided for the construction of a parallel oil-gas pipelines starting from the Kyaukpru port in the Arakan State. The construction is scheduled to be completed by 2013. According to the March,2009, agreement, a gas collection terminal and a port for oil tankers will be constructed on the Maday Island.
14. The Chinese state-owned CNPC will hold a 50.9-percent share in partnership with the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) in the company which will construct and run the pipelines. The project is expected to yield $29 billion over 30 years to the Myanmar military junta. Initially, the gas to be transported by the gas pipeline will be bought from the Shwe Gas consortium, which has already struck gas in the blocks for exploration allotted to it by the Myanmar Government, but it hopes to supplement it with gas found by Chinese companies in the blocks allotted to them by the Myanmar Government.
15.The Daewoo International from South Korea, holds 51 percent of the shares in the Shwe Gas Consortium, the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) of India 17 percent and the Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL), 8.5 percent.
16. This will be the third oil/gas pipeline being developed by China---the other two being the oil and gas pipelines from the Central Asian Republics the first stage of which was recently commissioned by President Hu Jintao and the proposed Sino-Russian oil pipeline. Pakistan is interested in making the Chinese agree to the construction of a gas pipeline from Gwadar to Xinjiang. Talks in this regard between the two countries are still in the preliminary stage. Bejing has so far not shown much enthusiasm for this project due to the deteriorating security situation in Balochistan.
17. The importance of maintaining peace and stability in the areas near the Sino-Myanmar border was repeatedly emphasized by the leaders of the two countries during their interactions. The junta sought to reassure the visiting Chinese leader of its sincerity and determination in this regard. Beijing’s suspicion that despite the repeatedly professed friendship of the junta for China, Myanmar Army units were complicit in the attacks on the Chinese in the Kokang area remains strong.
18. According to a statement posted on the web site of the Chinese Foreign Ministry on December 21,2009, Than Shwe assured Xi that Myanmar will work with China to preserve peace and stability in the border areas. He reportedly added that he understood that China and Myanmar shared a long border and maintaining peace and stability on the border was extremely important to both the countries.
19. China’s State-owned Xinhua news agency reported that Xi said China wanted stability on the Sino-Myanmar border. He reportedly said: “China believes the Myanmar side would settle the relevant problems through peaceful ways such as dialogues and consultation so as to guarantee the stability in its border area with China.”
20. The Xinhua reported that Than Shwe assured Xi that his Government would continue to work with Beijing to ensure peace and development in the border areas. It would demonstrate good neighborly friendship and cooperation, he said.
21. Interestingly, the Myanmar-Government owned “The New Light of Myanmar” remained silent on these exchanges between Than Shwe and Xi. It merely said that the two leaders exchanged views on “matters to which two neighboring countries should pay serious attention.”
22. The August attacks on the illegal Chinese traders in the Kokang capital Laogai were triggered off by the refusal of anti-junta Kokang ethnic groups such as the United Wa State Army to disband themselves and join a border force formed by the Myanmar Army unless some of their conditions regarding the command and control of the proposed border force were met. The Myanmar Army seems to have suspected that these groups were being instigated by the illegal Chinese settlers from Yunnan living in the Kokang area not to accept the order of the Army. These dissident groups continue to defy the Army which has given them time till December 31,2009, to disband themselves and join the border force of the Army. It is not clear whether Xi pressed Than Shwe to withdraw this order and, if so, whether Than Shwe agreed to it. If the junta insists on enforcing its order after January 1, one could expect more violence. The fact that the Chinese are going ahead with the construction of the pipelines without worrying about the disturbed situation in the Shan State gives rise to the suspicion that some kind of an assurance might have been conveyed to Xi in this regard by Than Shwe. A possible face-saving for both will be to keep the order in force, but not to enforce it.
23. Lt-Gen Ai Husheng of the Chinese Chengdu Military Region that oversees Sino-Myanmar border security paid a six-day visit to Myanmar from December 5 to 10,2009, and met, among others, Maj-Gen Kyaw Phyoe, of the Triangle Region Command, Lt-Gen Min Aung Hlaing, Commander of Shan and Kayah states, and Maj-Gen Aung Than Tut, of the Northeastern Region Command. (25-12-09)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
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