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Argentine Prosecutor Accuses Iran of Establishing Terror Network in Latin America

On May 29, Alberto Nisman, the Argentine prosecutor who investigated the 1994 AMIA bombing, issued a 500-page indictment that accused Iran of establishing terror networks throughout Latin America since the 1980s. The Iranian regime infiltrated “several South American countries by building local clandestine intelligence stations designed to sponsor, foster and execute terrorist attacks, within the principles to export the Islamic revolution,” a two-page summary of the report obtained by The Long War Journal stated.

In a 31-page summary report obtained by The Long War Journal, Nisman said that Iran’s “clandestine intelligence stations and operative agents … are used to execute terrorist attacks when the Iranian regime decides so, both directly or through its proxy, the terrorist organization Hezbollah.” Nisman also warned that Iran could seek to use sleeper cells. While presenting the indictment on May 29, Nisman reportedly said that members of the sleeper cells “[s]ometimes … die having never received the order to attack.”

Iran has set up intelligence bases in a number of South American countries, according to Nisman, including, but not limited to: Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Colombia, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and Suriname. Nisman, the summary stated, plans to send his indictment “to the pertinent judicial authorities” in the various countries. A copy of the indictment is also being sent to US authorities.

05/30/2013 · Comments Off Continue Reading →

Boston Bombing Investigation Exposed Successes, Failures of Surveillance Tech

Despite multiple photos and surveillance video images of two suspects involved in the Boston Marathon bombings last month, as well as state-of-the-art facial-recognition software and two government databases, investigators were unable to identify the two suspected perpetrators, even after releasing several of the images to the public.

It was only after one suspect was shot in a showdown with police and was fingerprinted on his way to the hospital that authorities finally had a name to go with a face — Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a Chechen youth who was already on two U.S. terrorist watch lists after Russian authorities warned the U.S. that he had become “radicalized.”

The watch lists were supposed to alert authorities if Tsarnaev attempted to travel overseas, but they failed as well, even after he returned last year from a six-month trip to Russia. The databases contained a misspelling of the suspect’s name — “Tsarnayev” instead of Tsarnaev — and two incorrect dates of birth.

The facial-recognition system failed because none of the images captured of the suspects at the bombing site were full-frontal shots that the system’s algorithms could recognize.

These are two of the technology failures discussed in a new documentary about the bombing manhunt produced by NOVA and airing on PBS stations tonight.

05/29/2013 · Comments Off Continue Reading →

Rise of Al-Qaida Sahara Terrorist

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — After years of trying to discipline him, the leaders of al-Qaida’s North African branch sent one final letter to their most difficult employee. In page after scathing page, they described how he didn’t answer his phone when they called, failed to turn in his expense reports, ignored meetings and refused time and again to carry out orders.

Most of all, they claimed he had failed to carry out a single spectacular operation, despite the resources at his disposal.

The employee, international terrorist Moktar Belmoktar, responded the way talented employees with bruised egos have in corporations the world over: He quit and formed his own competing group. And within months, he carried out two lethal operations that killed 101 people in all: one of the largest hostage-takings in history at a BP-operated gas plant in Algeria in January, and simultaneous bombings at a military base and a French uranium mine in Niger just last week.

The al-Qaida letter, found by The Associated Press inside a building formerly occupied by their fighters in Mali, is an intimate window into the ascent of an extremely ambitious terrorist leader, who split off from regional command because he wanted to be directly in touch with al-Qaida central. It’s a glimpse into both the inner workings of a highly structured terrorist organization that requires its commanders to file monthly expense reports, and the internal dissent that led to his rise. And it foreshadows a terrorism landscape where charismatic jihadists can carry out attacks directly in al-Qaida’s name, regardless of whether they are under its command.

05/28/2013 · Comments Off Continue Reading →

The Spy Novelist Who Knows Too Much

Last June, a pulp-fiction thriller was published in Paris under the title “Le Chemin de Damas.” Its lurid green-and-black cover featured a busty woman clutching a pistol, and its plot included the requisite car chases, explosions and sexual conquests. Unlike most paperbacks, though, this one attracted the attention of intelligence officers and diplomats on three continents. Set in the midst of Syria’s civil war, the book offered vivid character sketches of that country’s embattled ruler, Bashar al-Assad, and his brother Maher, along with several little-known lieutenants and allies. It detailed a botched coup attempt secretly supported by the American and Israeli intelligence agencies. And most striking of all, it described an attack on one of the Syrian regime’s command centers, near the presidential palace in Damascus, a month before an attack in the same place killed several of the regime’s top figures. “It was prophetic,” I was told by one veteran Middle East analyst who knows Syria well and preferred to remain nameless. “It really gave you a sense of the atmosphere inside the regime, of the way these people operate, in a way I hadn’t seen before.”

01/30/2013 · Comments Off Continue Reading →

Al Qaeda ‘Running’ from Pakistan, Again

The good news is Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik seems to have dropped the charade that newly appointed Taliban chief Hakeemullah Mehsud is dead. The bad news is we’re going to be bombarded with more of the “Taliban is collapsing” rhetoric.

09/29/2009 · Comments Off Continue Reading →

Iran Continues to Arm the Taliban

FOX News reports that another shipment of Iranian weapons has been confiscated in western Afghanistan:

Afghan and NATO forces uncovered the weapons cache on Aug. 29 in Herat. It included a small number of Iranian-made “explosively formed penetrators,” hyper-powerful roadside bombs similar to the weapons used to kill U.S. forces in Iraq, a senior U.S. Defense Official told FOX News.Also seized during the raid were 107 Iranian-made BM-1 rockets and dozens of blocks of Iranian C4 plastic explosives.

Iran has been using the same playbook it used in Iraq, but is a little bit more low-key in Afghanistan.

09/10/2009 · Comments Off Continue Reading →

Media Ethics

On Sunday, Billl Roggio reported the kidnapping of New York Times correspondent Stephen Farrell, who was freed today by a NATO operation. Farrell’s driver/interpreter Sultan Munadi was also kidnapped, and lost his life in the raid along with a British soldier. Editors at the Times had been trying to keep the abduction quiet, as they did for 7 months in the case of reporter David Rohde.

Roggio received several private and public appeals in to remove the news. The reason was often presented as a conclusion that “should be self-evident to any apparently decent human being:” a report could get the hostages killed. But this charge, and the ethical issues involved in reporting the kidnapping, merit a closer examination.

The case made by those asking to keep the story quiet revolves around the idea that the information would endanger the reporter, presumably by making his paid release or public execution more valuable. The quick justification given by the Times in the previous case of Rohdes’ abduction was the following:

09/09/2009 · Comments Off Continue Reading →

Iraq-Syria Row Intensifies

The Iraq-Syria row over Syria’s sponsorship of insurgent groups and al Qaeda operating in Iraq has gotten interesting over the past few days. Omar over at Iraq The Model has been closely following the story and has some interesting updates. First, a small group of Iraqis held a protest in Hillah and cleverly used Syrian President Bashir al Assad’s own words as part of their protest:

09/08/2009 · Comments Off Continue Reading →

Afghanistan’s Wild-Wild North

As policymakers and analysts continue to examine the ever-evolving insurgency in Afghanistan, the Taliban infiltration into northern Afghanistan is finally receiving some much needed attention. Often billed as “the stable and secure” northern areas, Afghanistan’s northern provinces have been the target of a burgeoning Taliban insurgency since 2004. When analyzing the northern conundrum it is imperative to view the situation as the Taliban do: a two-pronged approach that includes establishing a stronghold in the northwest province of Badghis and severing the resupply routes available through the Herat-Badghis Sabzak Pass, the sole entry into northwestern Afghanistan, while establishing a northeastern jump-off point in northern Baghlan and Kunduz Provinces.

09/02/2009 · Comments Off Continue Reading →

Taliban Strong in Remote Afghan Regions

DVIDS just posted an interesting story on a complex Taliban ambush against a US Army fuel convoy moving through the mountains at the border of Kandahar and Uruzgan provinces. A battalion of Taliban fighters established a “two-mile kill zone” in the mountains and attacked a 22-truck convoy from the 286th Combat Support Sustainment Battalion.

The Taliban used IEDs, mortars, RPGs, heavy machine guns, and other weapons during the ambush. The Taliban didn’t break contact with the convoy despite being on the receiving end of US air support from helicopter gunships and attack aircraft. The Taliban even attempted to flank the convoy as it regrouped outside of the kill zone, and they inflicted heavy damage on the vehicles in the convoy during the battle.

09/01/2009 · Comments Off Continue Reading →