Emergency.Blog

Analysis: Hybrid Wars

May 1, 2008

Hybrid Wars

By Greg Grant, Government Executive Magazine

What if the battles of the future are neither conventional nor irregular, but a combination of both?

The October 1973 Arab-Israeli War featured some of the largest set-piece battles fought since the end of World War II. For American defense planners, the conflict provided a bounty of information on the performance of the latest military hardware from Western and Soviet arsenals that had been sold to the Israeli and Arab armies, respectively. After the war, U.S. defense officials went to Israel and picked over the battlefields, searching out lessons from the fighting.

The United States was busy extricating itself from the disaster of Vietnam, and many in the U.S. military, particularly in the Army, saw the big battles fought on the Golan Heights and in the Sinai as an opportunity to refocus their intellectual efforts away from fighting shadowy guerrillas in jungles and back to the conventional, big battles they preferred. The 1973 war displayed the lethality of new precision weaponry. It was the first war to feature large numbers of guided missiles, launched from both the air and the ground. Egyptian and Syrian troops, for example, used vast numbers of Soviet-built Sagger portable anti-tank missiles to savage attacking Israeli tanks.

Now, in a touch of deja vu, American defense planners are examining another Arab-Israeli clash - this one from 2006, when Israel's army faced off against fundamentalist Muslim organization Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. In a war that lasted 34 days, Hezbollah fought the vaunted Israeli Defense Forces, considered one of the most technologically advanced militaries, to a standstill. The outcome sent shock waves through the world's military establishments, particularly the Pentagon. Ever since, Defense Department planners have been trying to discover how Hezbollah guerrillas could have defeated a conventional army outfitted with U.S. equipment.

High-Tech Guerrilla Tactics

The Lebanon fighting, said Army Chief Gen. George W. Casey in a January speech in Washington, featured "3,000 or so Hezbollah [fighters] embedding themselves in the population, in the urban areas north of Israel . . . attacked by some 30,000 Israeli troops. That's the type of operation that we all need to be thinking about in the future and be preparing for." The fighting, he added, exemplified a new type of war that would become increasingly common in the future: "a hybrid of irregular warfare and conventional warfare."

Hybrid wars, according to retired Marine officer Frank Hoffman, who has written extensively on the subject, blend the lethality of conventional warfare with the tactics and fanaticism of irregular warfare.

In the 2006 case, Hezbollah, a quasi-state within a state, fought like a guerrilla force. But it was armed with high-tech weaponry, such as precision guided missiles, that nation-states typically use. Hezbollah forces shot down Israeli helicopters, severely damaged a patrol boat with a cruise missile and destroyed heavily armored tanks by firing guided missiles from hidden bunkers. The organization also used aerial drones to gather intelligence, communicated with encrypted cell phones and watched Israeli troop movements with thermal imaging night-vision equipment.

Hezbollah's members fought in small, dispersed cells from concealed bunkers hidden in mountainous and urban terrain. Their decentralized command-and-control system frustrated repeated Israeli attempts to decapitate the organization. Israel followed a war plan suited for a conventional campaign against organizations with hierarchies and nodal structure, says Hoffman. "Hezbollah is hierarchical at the strategic level, it s political and social structure are very hierarchical, but at the tactical level they fight like guerrillas, in small cells."

Hezbollah, Hoffman says, exemplifies an emerging trend. Future opponents of the United States, particularly non-state opponents, will wage a hybrid style of warfare because they've learned they can't take on the U.S. military, with its high-tech targeting sensors and overwhelming firepower, in a stand-up fight.

"Lebanon is going to become the Grozny of this decade in terms of case studies," Hoffman says, referring to the Chechen city where Russian forces took a beating in 1994 at the hands of guerrilla fighters. Chechen rebels fought in a traditional tribal style of small dispersed cells, using widely available, yet fairly advanced, weaponry to take a heavy toll on Russian armored columns that became ensnared in the city's urban canyons. Tomorrow's hybrid wars, Hoffman says, will be fought with a rapidly changing blend of tactics and advanced weapons in the "dense urban jungle" of developing world cities.

Israel's plan to defeat Hezbollah relied too heavily on air power, says retired Army major general Robert H. Scales, who advises the service on new weapons and forces to battle hybrid enemies. Precision air strikes can take out an enemy like a nation-state with a fixed structure built around interconnected nodes. But "what if the enemy builds a method of war that is non-nodal?" Scales asks.

This poses a particular challenge to a U.S. war machine that has focused on targeting and destroying an enemy's key command centers and supply lines, usually through bombing campaigns. In Lebanon, even though the IDF fighters controlled the skies, Hezbollah was able to move men and equipment around the battlefield. "To have relatively free rein on the ground under air dominance, literally with fighter aircraft hanging over you, that to me is the essence of hybrid warfare," Scales says.

A hybrid enemy is extremely adaptable. But the U.S. military's weapons buying process is highly bureaucratic. The military lays out requirements that are approved by various oversight bodies. Then manufacturers provide specialized weapons. Hybrid enemies use what's available, most often on the open market, and adapt the weapons to their enemy and the terrain. Suicide bombings confound Western minds, but they are acceptable among hybrid enemies who adhere to what are considered primitive tribal notions of revenge or the heroic warrior. "A diabolical enemy will take you on in an irregular war in order to leverage the best pieces of your technology, but use it the best way he can," Scales says.

An unpublished Defense Science Board report completed last year notes that hybrid enemies are better armed today because lethal conventional weapons can be bought at bargain prices. Staying at a transaction level below that of major weapons' sales, armed groups can rapidly share weaponry and easily exchange knowledge. The availability of commercial technologies means that weapons development costs are virtually nonexistent. Cell phones and digital networks provide advanced command and control. Hybrid adversaries require few of the costly reconnaissance and surveillance systems that travel with U.S. forces to foreign battlefields, such as aerial drones and radar aircraft, because they're fighting in their own territory - often in their own neighborhoods. The report also notes that these potential adversaries use "human guidance" - that is, suicide car bombers - rather than more expensive technical guidance.

One lesson from Lebanon that worries some U.S. military thinkers is that in the many years Israeli Defense Forces spent policing the occupied territories, they lost important skills for conducting major combat operations. IDF units did not train for combat above the small unit level, and key elements such as armor and artillery lost much of their major combat capacity. Army Lt. Col. Gian Gentile has warned that the same thing could be happening to the U.S. military, particularly the Army. At the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., the focus is on counterinsurgency, and large unit maneuver operations are a thing of the past.

Gentile notes that neighborhood policing is different from large-scale maneuver warfare with mechanized units supported by artillery and air power. He says the demands of operations in Iraq mean Army units don't have time to do anything but prepare for counterinsurgency. "If we can ever get through Iraq, then the Army could try to restore some kind of balance and go back to at least partly focusing on conventional war," he says. The lesson of the Iraq war has been not that the U.S. military is weak, rather that it is optimized for a specific task: fighting large conventional armies. And during the past five years it has acquired a new competency - counterinsurgency. The idea of hybrid warfare is to fight in the seam between the two...

-- Source/story continues at: http://www.govexec.com/features/0508-01/0508-01s1.htm

Afghan President escapes assassination bid

27 Apr 2008 - 01:30 CDT

Afghan President escapes assassination bid

AFGHANISTAN: President Hamid Karzai was hussled away but escaped unhurt after an assassination attempt during an official celebration in the capital of Kabul.

A Presidential Palace source said Mr Karzai was safe, but the Taliban, which claimed responsibility for the attack, said three of its fighters were killed. "Yes, he is safe and fine," a palace source said, declining to be named.

Government ministers were also seen leaving the celebration near the presidential palace and state television cut off live transmission of the celebration, which marked the 16th anniversary of fall of Kabul to the Mujahideen. Sounds of gunfire could be still heard after television stopped coverage of the event.

Taliban insurgents are behind the firing at President Karzai a Taliban spokesman said. "We had our people there who fired at Karzai," Zabihullah Mujahid told a Reuters from an undisclosed location. "We had place six personnel in the area. Three of our men have been killed."

He did not immediately say how they were killed but an AFP reporter at the scene said there was an exchange of gunfire, apparently between the attackers and troops. A security official at the scene said one suspected attacker was arrested....

-- Source/continues: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/27/2228416.htm

Hamas Cleric Predicts 'Rome Will Be Conquered by Islam'

Monday, April 14, 2008

Hamas Cleric Predicts 'Rome Will Be Conquered by Islam'

A sermon last Friday by a prominent Muslim cleric and Hamas member of the Palestinian parliament openly declared that "the capital of the Catholics, or the Crusader capital," would soon be conquered by Islam.

The fiery sermon, delivered by Yunis al-Astal and aired on Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV, predicted that Rome would become "an advanced post for the Islamic conquests, which will spread though Europe in its entirety, and then will turn to the two Americas, even Eastern Europe."

"Allah has chosen you for Himself and for His religion," al-Astal preached, "so that you will serve as the engine pulling this nation to the phase of succession, security and consolidation of power, and even to conquests through da'wa and military conquests of the capitals of the entire world.

"Very soon, Allah willing, Rome will be conquered, just like Constantinople was, as was prophesized by our prophet Muhammad," he added...

-- Source/continues at: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,351242,00.html

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[ERRI counter-terrrorism analyst question: Does this sound like the kind of person/group with whom the United States should go and try to negoitate? For example -- for comparison and analytical purposes only -- what would happen if a Catholic priest was quoted in the national media as saying that they were going to "take over Mecca"? And, most of all...where's the outrage and condemnation of al-Astal's remarks by the international community or the the United Nations]

'Chilling' UK Plot Details Going Unreported by U.S. Media

April 4, 2008

Chertoff Blasts U.K. Plot Press Coverage

DHS Secretary Says 'Chilling' Plot Details Going Unreported by U.S. Media

By JASON RYAN

LONDON, ENGLAND: As the London trial for the alleged plotters of the foiled 2006 U.K. plane bombings gets underway, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff blasts what he calls minimal press coverage of the "disturbing" and "chilling" case, which led to a ban on liquids brought on aircraft for 18 months.

In a post to the department's blog, Leadership Journal, Chertoff criticized the focus on "celebrity peccadilloes and microscopic analysis of political comments," charging that the media is overlooking "a very significant story that tells us a lot about why we need some of the moderately inconvenient security measures with which we live" ? a reference to the limit on liquids allowed on board flights, and other airport security requirements.

On trial are eight men who, according to the prosecution, planned to strike at least seven jetliners bound for North America on United Airlines, American Airlines and Air Canada flights into New York, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, Montreal and Toronto.

The new restrictions on liquids were a result of the thwarted attack, but "because we couldn't say more without violating British legal rules, some of you may have wondered whether the plot was all that serious," Chertoff wrote. "The details being unfolded are riveting ? and chilling," he continued. "Unfortunately, the trial is not getting much play in our domestic news outlets, but the evidence should be required reading for those who travel by air..."

-- Source/continues: http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/Blotter/story?id=4591780&page=1

Additional references:

Thursday, August 10, 2006 - Analysis of Improvised Liquid Bombs in London Terrorist Plot, can be found at:
http://www.emergency.com/archives/08-01-2006_08-31-2006.htm

Monday, August 21, 2006 - 11 Atlantic Bomb Plot Suspects Charged (Video), can be found at:
http://www.emergency.com/archives/08-01-2006_08-31-2006.htm

Zawahiri says U.N. is enemy and vows attacks on Jews

Wed Apr 2, 2008, 21:36 PM BST

Zawahiri says U.N. is enemy and vows attacks on Jews

DUBAI, U.A.E.: Al Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri described the United Nations as an enemy to Muslims and vowed attacks on Jews both inside and outside Israel in a statement posted on the Internet on Wednesday. "The United Nations is an enemy of Islam and Muslims," he said in remarks made in response to questions posted on the Internet.

He defended attacks on U.N. offices in an apparent reference to twin bomb attacks on U.N. buildings in Algiers which killed 41 people in December and the bombing of a U.N. building in Baghdad in 2003 which killed 22.

Zawahiri also called for attacks on Jews. "We promise our Muslim brothers that we will do our utmost to strike Jews in Israel and abroad with help and guidance from God..."

-- Source: http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=
worldNews&storyid=2008-04-02T215218Z_01_L02643688_
RTRUKOC_0_UK-QAEDA-ZAWAHRI.xml

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April 02, 2008

Al-Qaida's Zawahri says militant organization doesn't kill innocents, threatens Egypt

The Associated Press

CAIRO, EGYPT: Al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri responded to criticism Wednesday about the organization's notoriously brutal tactics, maintaining that it does not kill innocents, in hour-and-a half-long audio response to questions submitted to the movement on extremist Web sites.

The audio message, which was accompanied by a 46-page English transcript, was the first installment of answers to a raft of online questions and focused mainly on future al-Qaida efforts elsewhere in the region, particularly Egypt.

"We haven't killed the innocents, not in Baghdad nor in Morocco, nor in Algeria, nor anywhere else," he said according to the English transcript which, like the audio message, appeared on Web sites linked to the group.

The answer was in response to the question "excuse me, Mr. Zawahiri, but who is it who is killing with Your Excellency's blessing the innocents in Baghdad, Morocco and Algeria?"

-- Source/continues: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/02/africa/
ME-GEN-Al-Qaida-Zawahri-Questions.php

New Tape From Zawahiri Calls For Attacks on "Jews and America"

22:00CDT - 23 March 2008

New Tape From Zawahiri Calls For Attacks on "Jews and America"

A new audio tape, purportedly from al Qaeda's No. 2 figure, Ayman al-Zawahiri, today called on Jihadist to "...hit the interest of the Jews and the Americans and all those who participated in the aggression against Muslims." The alleged Zawahiri tape follows follows a similar statement last week from Usama bin Laden, who called on Muslims to rise up and "liberate" the Palestinian territory of Gaza from Israeli sanctions and raids against it's Hamas-led government.

This latest recording, posted on websites often used by al Qaeda and other Islamic militant groups, appeared to be produced by al Qaeda's media arm As-Sahab.

Reviewers said that the identity of the speaker on the tape could not be independently verified, but some experts almost immediately said that the tape contained the voice of Zawahiri. It is believed that the tape is currently being analyzed by U.S. military and intelligence agencies for both authenticity and content.

ERRI counter-terrorism analysts said that it is thought that Bin Laden and Zawahiri are coming under increasing pressure to facilitate some sort of major terror event or else they may suffer a loss of support from hard-core jihadists and the shadowy financiers who provide funding for the global Al-Qaeda insurgency.

Watch Emergency.Blog for more on this developing story....

Second Reported Bin Laden Tape in As Many Days

March 20, 2008 -- Updated 22:57 GMT

Purported bin Laden message: Iraq is 'perfect base'
Second Reported Bin Laden Tape in As Many Days

MIDDLE-EAST: Al-Jazeera broadcast on Thursday an audiotape on which a voice identified as Osama bin Laden declares "Iraq is the perfect base to set up the jihad to liberate Palestine."

Terrorist leader Osama bin Laden spoke on a video released by al Qaeda in September. The voice calls on "Muslims in neighboring countries" to "do their best in supporting their mujahedeen brothers in Iraq."

"My speech to you is about the siege of Gaza and the way to liberate it," he said. "The Gaza siege is a direct result of Annapolis," he adds, apparently referring to the site of November's summit in Annapolis, Maryland, where Israeli and Palestinian leadership agreed to work toward a two-state plan.

He accused Arabs who supported the plan of having become "partners in this horrendous crime." And he predicted, "Palestine will be restored to us, with God's permission, when we wake up from our slumber and adhere to our faith and sacrifice our souls and belongings for it."

The speaker called for armed revolt in the Middle East.

"Palestine and its people have been suffering from too much bitterness for almost a century now on the hands of the Christians and the Jews. And both parties didn't take Palestine from us by negotiations and dialogue, but with arms and fire, and this is the only way to take it back," he said. Though the voice sounds like bin Laden, CNN has not been able to confirm that it is him...

Official sources could not immediately confirm or deny whether the latest tape was Bin Laden.

-- Source/continues:http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/
meast/03/20/binladen.message/index.html

Bin Laden Slams EU Over Prophet Cartoons

19 March 2008

Bin Laden Slams EU Over Prophet Cartoons

CAIRO, EGYPT: Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden addressed the "wise men" of the European Union in a new audio message late Wednesday, slamming the publication of drawings insulting to the Prophet Muhammad and vowing a strong reaction.

The message, which appeared on a militant Web site that has carried al-Qaida statements in the past and bore the logo of the extremist group's media wing al-Sahab, showed a still image of bin Laden aiming with an AK-47.

A voice believed to be bin Laden's described the attacks of the Europeans on women and children but said these "paled (in comparison) when you went overboard in your unbelief and freed yourselves of the etiquettes of dispute and fighting and went to the extent of publishing these insulting drawings, this is the greatest misfortune and the most dangerous..." <Developing>

-- Source/continues at: Google/AP: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h0ara
uyjLz9xhnBdnw6pEEOpKErwD8VGP61G0

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OBL: Revenge for Republishing Offensive Cartoons Will Be Severe

Says Reprinting the Cartoons More Serious Than Killing Women and Children

A jihadist Web site Wednesday posted a message from Osama bin Laden chiding the European Union for allowing newspapers to republish cartoons insulting the prophet Muhammad.

Listen to Bin Laden's New Message in his five-minute audio message (below) entitled, "The Response Is What You See, Not What You Hear." Bin Laden accuses Europeans of abandoning the "etiquettes of disputes and morals of fighting."

-- Source/continues: http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4484466&page=1

-- Listen to the Video: http://www.abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4484362

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Emergency.com UBL Archive Page: http://www.emergency.com/1999/bnldn-pg.htm

Al-Qaeda Targeting Pak Police, FBI in Pakistan

March 17, 2008 at 8:45 AM

They'll Be Back: al-Qaeda Targeting Pak Police, FBI in Pakistan

Al-Qaeda is definitely stepping up its battle in Pakistan, as Syed Saleem Shahzad reports. Last week, terrorists struck the offices of the Pakistani police's investigative offices in Lahore, killing at least 30 with a car bomb.

However, according to Asia Times Online's investigations, the real target, an undercover office of the Special Investigation Authority (SIA), was missed as the suicide attacker hit the advertising agency.

The SIA is a joint initiative of US and Pakistani planners set up to eliminate the strong roots of radicalization in Punjab province which could easily be transformed into very strong al-Qaeda connections. The SIA will remain a target in Lahore as well as other parts of Punjab, including Multan.

The undercover counterterror investigative unit is not a secret, though indications are the bomber imprecisely hit his assigned target, primarily striking a marketing company instead.

The SIA's investigative partner, America's FBI, will also remain an actively pursued target in Pakistan as well. Yesterday, the Luna Caprese restaurant in Islamabad was struck as well, a popular gathering spot for Westerners. A Turkish civilian was killed and four American FBI personnel injured, including the FBI's top counterterrorism agent in Pakistan...

-- Source/continues at: http://threatswatch.org/rapidrecon/2008/03/theyll-be-back-alqaeda-targeti/

Man Arrested on the Runway at Heathrow Airport

15:25pm GMT - 13/03/2008

Heathrow Airport hit by major security alert

By Gary Cleland

LONDON, ENGLAND: A man has been arrested after being caught on a runway in a secure area of Heathrow Airport. Scotland Yard confirmed that the man, who has not been identified, was arrested at 14.05pm (GMT) this afternoon on the airport's northern runway.

A police spokeswoman said the man was now in custody and had been carrying a rucksack, which she said "would be examined in due course". She was unable to give any details about his age.

It is thought that the emergency services received two 999 calls about the man. No one has been reported injured in the incident.

It is not yet clear whether or not the man was engaged in terrorist activity.

Heathrow has been targeted in recent months by climate change protesters angry at plans to expand the airport...

-- Source/continues: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/13/nheathrow113.xml

PAKISTAN: Suicide/Homicide Attacks Kill Dozens

Published: March 11, 2008

2 suicide attacks kill dozens in Pakistan

IHT/The Associated Press

LAHORE, Pakistan: Blasts set off by suicide bombers ripped through a seven-story police headquarters in Lahore and a nearby advertising agency Tuesday, killing at least 24 people and wounding more than 200.

The two blasts happened about 15 minutes apart in different districts of this eastern city. The first tore the facade of the Federal Investigation Agency building as staff were beginning their workday. It also damaged scores of homes in the neighborhood.

The Lahore police chief, Malik Muhammad Iqbal, said an explosives-packed car was driven into a parking lot and detonated next to the building - which houses a department of the federal police's anti-terrorism unit - knocking out the walls of several offices and part of a stairwell.

Pervez Malik, another city police official, said 17 people were killed and 165 were wounded. Dr. Fayaz Ranjha, a top official at the Mayo Hospital in Lahore, said a 3-year-old girl was among the dead.

The second explosion shattered the office of an advertising agency in a residential neighborhood, about 25 kilometers, or 15 miles, from Lahore. Muhammad Afzal, another city police official, said three people were killed there, including two children...

-- Source/continues at the International Herald Tribune: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/11/asia/pakistan.php

Pakistan blast kills at least 12

Tuesday, 11 March, 2008

Pakistan blast kills at least 12

LAHORE, PAKISTAN: At least 12 people have been killed and several injured in a blast at the office of Pakistan's federal investigation agency in the eastern city of Lahore, police says. "The explosion took place in the premises of Federal Investigation Agency's office, killing 12 people and injuring several others," city police chief Malik Muhammad Iqbal told AFP.

Mr. Iqbal said he could not immediately confirm the nature of the blast.

Television channels showed footage of a partially collapsed four-storey building and piles of blackened wreckage. It was not clear if the footage was of the investigation agency building or of nearby structures.

Police cordoned off the area while emergency workers carrying stretchers scrambled over the rubble. Rescue operations are underway at the time of this report.

-- Source/continues: http://news.sbs.com.au/worldnewsaustralia/
pakistan_blast_kills_12_542540

Chinese police foiled terror plot targeting Beijing Olympics, official says

09 March 2008

Chinese police foiled terror plot targeting Beijing Olympics, official says

 BEIJING, CHINA: A senior Communist Party official says Chinese police captured and killed alleged Islamic terrorists who were plotting attacks targeting the Beijing Olympics.

Wang Lequan, the top official in the western region of Xinjiang, says today a Jan. 27 raid in the regional capital Urumqi had seized materials that showed the plotters' purpose was specifically to sabotage the staging of the Games.

The Global Times newspaper published by the Communist Party earlier reported the group had planned bombings and other violent terrorist incidents on Feb. 5, the last business day before the start of the Lunar New Year holiday, but the paper had made no mention of the Olympics.

The paper said police confiscated guns, homemade bombs, training materials and extremist religious ideological materials during the raid, in which two members of the gang were killed and 15 arrested.

Wang says the group had acted on orders from a Uighur separatist group based in Pakistan and Afghanistan called the East Turkestan Islamic Movement - a group that has been labelled a terrorist organization by the United Nations...

-- Source/continues: http://canadianpress.google.com/article/
ALeqM5hOptsZJ6zQ7tRmBgKSWe4_CHa5jQ

Why were Mexican students at rebel camp in Ecuador?

Friday, March 7, 2008

Why were Mexican students at rebel camp in Ecuador?

By Franco Ordonez, McClatchy Newspapers

MEXICO CITY, MX: At least five Mexican nationals were present at a rebel camp where a top insurgent commander was killed last weekend in Ecuador, leaving Mexicans to speculate on why they were there.

Experts say that it's the first time Mexican nationals have been known to die alongside members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, Latin America's oldest guerrilla group.

Their presence added to questions of a possible link between FARC and a spate of pipeline bombings in Mexico last year that cut off fuel supplies to major industrial operations, including a Volkswagen factory. Mexican police officials noted then that the bombings, claimed by the Popular Revolutionary Army, or EPR, differed radically from the group's previous targets of ATM machines and other "nuisance bombings."

The police said then that the pipeline bombings ? which are a common FARC tactic in Colombia ? were so sophisticated that whoever did them may have received special training.

Also present in the Ecuador camp were an unknown number of Chileans.

Ecuador's security minister, Gustavo Larrea, said Friday that as many as four Mexicans were killed in the March 1 attack. A fifth Mexican, 26-year-old Lucia Morett, survived.

The Mexicans and Chileans apparently were planning to speak before a FARC meeting when they were killed. Journalists given a tour of the camp organized by the Ecuador government Thursday were shown a classroom area and what appeared to be an agenda for the meeting.

Mexican news outlets identified dead as Juan Gonzalez del Castillo, Natalia Velasquez, Fernando Franco Delgado, and Soren Ulises Aviles Angeles. The National Autonomous University of Mexico said Morett, Velasquez, Delgado and Gonzalez del Castillo were students there. The newspaper El Universal said Aviles Angeles was a student at National Polytechnic Institute.

Both Morett and Gonzalez del Castillo were members of a radical student group that supported the FARC, according to the group's Web site...

-- Source/continues at: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/29777.html

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Additional References:

"SECURITY PROBLEMS IN LATIN," ENN Daily Report, 08/24/96 - Vol. 2, No. 237, can be found at: http://www.emergency.com/ltn-scty.htm

"LATIN AMERICAN GUERRILLA GROUPS COME AND GO," Tuesday, June 24, 1997 Vol. 3 - 175, can be found at: http://www.emergency.com/latngurl.htm

"Terrorism - Latin America, Counter-Terrorism Archive," can be found at: http://www.emergency.com/cntrterr.htm#Question-8

"Colombia Advisory Sheet - HotSpot Report," can be found at:http://www.emergency.com/colbwarn.htm

Updates: New York City Recruiting Center Blast

Fri Mar 7, 2008 8:54am EST

US checks border stop for link to New York blast

WASHINGTON, DC: U.S. authorities are checking whether several people stopped at the Canadian border are linked to an explosion that damaged a military recruiting station in New York, police said on Friday.

"Some pictures of Times Square, including the recruiting station, were found," New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told CNN. "So federal officials are going back to take another look and talk to Canadian officials about that stop."

The pre-dawn blast on Thursday, caused by a crude bomb made from low-grade explosives, damaged the recruiting station but caused no injuries. That station, like others, has been the target of protests against the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

Times Square -- known as the "Crossroads of the World" for its shops, restaurants, hotels, theaters and office towers -- was largely deserted when the bomb went off at about 3:45 a.m. (0845 GMT). Still, the blast triggered a Pentagon alert for other recruiting stations across the country...

-- Source/continues: http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN07308570

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07:55 AM EST, March 7, 2008

Time Square bomb: Letter to Congress not related

WASHINGTON - Authorities on Friday were investigating whether an explosion at the Times Square military recruiting office was connected to strikingly similar bombings at two foreign consulates in New York, but ruled out a link to mysterious letters sent to Capitol Hill offices.

Investigators were also scrutinizing surveillance video and forensic evidence after a bicycle-riding bomber struck the landmark station Thursday, scarring one of the world's most recognizable locations.

Authorities said there was no connection between the blast and a letter sent to as many as 100 members of Congress bearing the words "Happy New Year, We Did It." The lengthy anti-war letters -- which arrived with photos of a man standing in front of the recruiting office before it was damaged -- contained no threats, officials said.

Laura Eimiller, an FBI spokeswoman in Los Angeles, said an individual was questioned there about the letters to Congress and "there is no evidence linking the letters, which contained no threat, to the bombing." A law enforcement official in Washington, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation of the bombing is continuing, called the timing of the letters an "incredibly unbelievable coincidence" and said no charges were expected in connection with them.

Democratic lawmakers were startled to receive the letters in their office mail just hours after the early morning New York bombing, and turned them over to the Capitol Police...

-- Source/continues: http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-nyletter0308,0,6304302.story

Colombia: Rebels considering dirty bombs

Tue. Mar. 4, 2008 -- 21:19 PM EST

Colombia: Rebels considering dirty bombs

Associated Press

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND: Colombia's vice president on Tuesday defended his country's attack on a rebel base on Ecuadorean soil, telling a U.N. disarmament panel that the leftist guerrillas were trying to acquire radioactive material that could be used to make "dirty bombs."

Vice President Francisco Santos said evidence in two computers found after the attack indicated rebels were trying to acquire radioactive material ? "the primary basis for generating dirty weapons of mass destruction and terrorism."

But the evidence Colombia shared with reporters didn't support Santos' allegation, indicating instead that the rebels were trying to buy uranium to resell at a profit.

Speaking to the 65-nation Conference on Disarmament, Santos said the discovery demonstrates that the economic power of drug trafficking is enabling terrorist groups "to constitute a serious threat not just to our country but to the entire Andean and Latin American region."

Meanwhile, Ecuadorean Justice Minister Gustavo Jalkh told the U.N. Human Rights Council that Colombia violated its human rights obligations when its military staged the attack that killed a key rebel leader.

Both bodies are in the same Palais des Nations complex that houses United Nations offices in Geneva, but it was unclear if Santos and Jalkh met face-to-face.

The regularly scheduled meetings of the panels came a day after Ecuador and Venezuela ordered troops to their borders with Colombia, expelled that country's diplomats and largely halted trade at key points along the frontier in response to Colombia's killing of Raul Reyes, a leader with the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, on Saturday.

The guerrillas of FARC, who have been fighting for more than four decades, finance their operations largely through the cocaine trade...

-- Source/continues at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080305/ap_on_re_eu/colombia_un

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ERRI WMD analyst questions: O.K. -- if we buy the alternative reality posed by unnamed reporters above -- FARC wants to illegally acquire and sell the uranium to whom? Another terrorist group, or a rogue nation? Does that sound any better?

Homeland Security Issues Warning on Sports Arenas

March 4, 2008

March Madness: Homeland Security Issues Warning on Sports Arenas

FBI and DHS Issue Warning Just in Time for March Madness

By RICHARD ESPOSITO

As the spring sports season moves into high gear, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI today issued an assessment, called "Potential Threats to Popular Sports and Entertainment Venues," that said arenas and stadiums are attractive "potential targets during events."

The assessment repeatedly noted that the FBI and DHS have no "information on any credible or specific current terrorism plots to attack stadiums or arenas in the United States."

The report, however, said "operational planning and surveillance against sporting facilities are often difficult to detect," and college and professional basketball playoffs, the stock car racing season, hockey playoffs and horse racing's Triple Crown are among the events that "regularly bring tens of thousands of fans...into large open-access facilities."

Prepared at the request of the private sector with input from federal agencies, the report is intended to provide "decision makers with the broad, analytically-based threat information necessary to inform investment priorities and program design."

"The FBI and DHS put out a joint bulletin for law enforcement concerning potential threats against sporting events. This is routine; we have no current threats against sports venues," FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said in a statement...

-- Source/continues at: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4387469&page=1

War Drums in Latin America

Posted 04 Mar 2008

War Drums in Latin America

Monday, Mar. 03, 2008

By TIM PADGETT

Few world leaders rattle a saber as flamboyantly as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez does. On Sunday, in a piece of vintage Chavez theater, he ordered thousands of troops and tanks to the border with Colombia after that country's military had ventured a mile into Ecuador on Saturday to kill Raul Reyes, a top commander of Colombia's FARC guerrillas. The left-wing Chavez called conservative Colombian President Alvaro Uribe a "criminal" and a "lapdog of the U.S. empire," warning ominously that "this could be the start of a war in South America."

Don't bet on it.

Sure, Chavez and Uribe, two of Latin America's most outsized egos, loathe each other. Each has significantly fattened his military arsenal in recent years, and tensions have rarely been this high between their countries. Nor are they alone on the Latin street when it comes to martial upgrading: Brazil's 2008 federal budget, for example, includes a 53% increase in military spending, leading many to wonder if Latin America is undergoing an arms race not seen since the heyday of military rule across the continent. But that doesn't mean that either Chavez or Uribe can afford an armed conflict.

There are at least six reasons to doubt that the bluster could morph into bullets...

-- Source/continues at: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1719158,00.html

[The views expressed above are those of the author and/or publisher and do not necessarily represent those of ERRI or EmergencyNet News. They are presented to give our readers alternative viewpoints from around the world and to encourage discussion and further study of important topics.]

Multiple Arson Fires Reported Near Seattle, WA

08:27 AM PST on Monday, March 3, 2008

'Street of Dream' homes burned by blaze

Domestic Terrorism?

By TIM ROBINSON / KING 5 News and Associated Press

WOODINVILLE, Wash. - An early morning fire still burning at the "Street of Dreams" model luxury home development in Echo Lake just north of Woodinville has destroyed at least three homes, and officials believe a well-known arsonist group is responsible.

No injuries have been reported in the three-alarm fire, which started around 05:00 a.m. (PST) Monday.

Snohomish County District Seven Chief Rick Eastman said a sign saying ELF was left at the scene. ELF or Earth Liberation Front has claimed responsibility for other arsons, including one at the University of Washington in 2001 for which a woman is now on trial in Tacoma.

Eastman said some of the homes were still under construction and no one was living in the homes at the time. Three homes were completely destroyed and one home had heat and smoke damage. Eastman said fires also were set at a total of six homes.

Eastman said that the fires were suspicious because they were set in multiple places in separate homes...

(Editor's note: "The Street of Dreams" is an annual showcase of luxury homes in the Seattle area.)

-- Source/continues: http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/
NW_030308WAB_street_dreams_fires_LJ.1a79d3a7.html

Venezuela's Chavez: Colombia incursion would be war

02 March 2008

Venezuela's Chavez: Colombia incursion would be war

Saber-Rattling Increases in Latin America

CARACAS, VENEZUELA: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (picture with Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, left) warned his Colombian counterpart that war would break out between the South American neighbors if Colombia's military crossed into Venezuelan territory.

Chavez railed on Saturday against Colombian forces for entering Ecuadorean territory on a raid that killed a senior commander of Colombia's largest guerrilla group, and he cautioned President Alvaro Uribe against similar actions along Venezuela's border. "Don't think about doing that over here, because it would very serious, it would be cause for war," Chavez said. "How far is President Uribe willing to go in his warlike madness?"

Chavez, who maintains warm relations with the Colombian guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, said that "it was obscene to see the smiling faces" of Colombian military commanders standing behind Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos as he announced the death of FARC spokesman Raul Reyes and 16 other rebels on Saturday.

"The Colombian government audaciously acknowledges they entered Ecuadorean territory," said Chavez, speaking during a televised meeting with his Cabinet. "We call on Colombia's government to clarify this."

On Sunday, Colombia denied it violated Ecuador's sovereignty and said it acted in self-defense.

"The terrorists, among them Raul Reyes, have had the custom of killing in Colombia and taking refuge in the territory of neighboring countries. Many times Colombia has suffered from this situation that we must avoid to protect our citizens," a Foreign Ministry statement said.

Colombia's military tracked Reyes' location through an informant and bombed a camp on its side of the Ecuadorean border, where Reyes was thought to be, Santos said. Ground troops moved in, but came under attack from another camp across the border in Ecuador. When the military overran that camp, they found Reyes' body, Santos said.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said Uribe had informed him of the raid, but later announced that he was misled after Ecuadorean officials inspected a bombed rebel camp.

"The (Colombian) president either was poorly informed or brazenly lied to the president of Ecuador," said Correa, who called home the ambassador to Colombia for consultation and promised a diplomatic note of protest. "Clearly Ecuadorean airspace was violated" in the bombing, Correa said.

Uribe earlier called Reyes' death a step forward in defeating terrorism...

-- Source/continues: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080302/
ap_on_re_la_am_ca/venezuela_colombia

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Summary & Index of Selected Terror Events of the Early 21st Century

webposted February, 2008

Summary & Index of Selected Terror Events of the Early 21st Century

Initial reports, references, links, and background data

Can be found at: http://www.emergency.com/2008/terr_summary08.htm

Damascus, Syria: Crossroads For Terrorism

FBI warns of possible Hezbollah revenge in U.S.

February 16, 2008

FBI warns of possible Hezbollah revenge in U.S.

State and local law enforcement receive an intelligence bulletin to watch for retaliation by the Lebanese militia group, which has vowed to avenge the death of its leader.

By Josh Meyer, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON -- The FBI and Department of Homeland Security sent a bulletin Friday to state and local law enforcement authorities advising them to watch for potential retaliatory strikes by Hezbollah, one day after the Lebanese militia group vowed to avenge the death of a top commander by attacking Israeli and Jewish targets around the world.

"While retaliation in the U.S. homeland is unlikely, Hezbollah has demonstrated a capability to respond outside the Middle East to similar events in the past," said the intelligence bulletin sent to about 18,000 state and local law enforcement officials late Friday afternoon.

The FBI also said it was intensifying its domestic intelligence-gathering efforts to identify any potential Hezbollah threats in the United States in the aftermath of Tuesday's car-bomb assassination of Imad Mughniyah in Syria.

On Wednesday, the FBI sent a confidential internal bulletin to its 101 Joint Terrorism Task Forces across the country warning of the possible domestic consequences of Mughniyah's killing. As part of that effort, FBI officials at headquarters told the bureau's field offices and multiagency task forces to increase monitoring and surveillance of suspected Hezbollah operatives and to conduct fresh interviews with sources and informants about the U.S.-designated terrorist group, according to two FBI officials.

U.S. authorities have long described Hezbollah as the "A-Team" of terrorism, with far more discipline than Al Qaeda, vast financing from the government of Iran, and a global network of sleeper operatives who could be called on to launch an attack at any time. Various federal investigations and prosecutions have uncovered dozens of Hezbollah fundraisers and supporters in the United States, but few people are believed to be actual "bomb throwers," according to a senior FBI counter-terrorism official who focuses on Hezbollah.

Though they have no evidence of specific threats in the United States, officials said that precautionary measures were warranted because of Mughniyah's stature within Hezbollah and because the organization and its Iranian supporters had publicly blamed his death on Israel and "Zionist forces..."

-- Source/continues at:http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-fbialert16feb16,0,2494118.story

DHS, FBI Warn of Possibility of Female Homicide Bombers

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

DHS, FBI Warn of Possibility of Female Homicide Bombers

The growing use by terrorist groups of women -- some disguised as expectant moms -- to deliver deadly homicide bombs has prompted the Department of Homeland Security and FBI to issue a rare warning that such attacks could take place on American soil.

The joint security assessment cited recent female homicide bomber attacks in Baghdad -- in which two women who appeared to have Down syndrome delivered a deadly explosion that killed 99 -- as well as in Sri Lanka, Chechnya, India, Pakistan and the Palestinian territories as reason for the warning.

"Female suicide bombers may have an advantage over their male counterparts in accessing targets," the analysis cautioned. "The means to conduct a suicide attack vary widely, but a key element in maximizing the lethality of a suicide bombing is the bomber's ability to get close to the target."

The assessment also strongly warned that potential female homicide bombers could use "prosthetic devices that mimic the look of a pregnant woman."

"Regardless of delivery by a man or a woman," the warning reads, "improvised explosive devices may contain fragmentation or shrapnel, such as nails, bolts, glass fragments, marbles, ball bearings, or other small metal pieces."

The assessment, which emphasizes that DHS and FBI have no solid evidence indicating imminent homicide bombing attacks on U.S. soil, also reminds law enforcement officials that "facilities such as public places" are the most vulnerable to homicide bombing attacks and that "the terrorist's latitude in determining and adjusting the target and timing of an attack up to the point of detonation" make it difficult to prepare countermeasures.

"These factors indicate the importance of ... alertness by security professionals to potential threats from the full range of gender and age groups," the bulletin reads...

-- Source/continues at: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,330415,00.html

Embattled Muslim aide to leave Pentagon job (Coughlin follow-up)

Embattled Muslim aide to leave Pentagon job

Hesham Islam's 'resume didn't add up,' official says

February 11, 2008

WASHINGTON, DC: In a stunning turn of events, a high-level Muslim military aide blamed for costing an intelligence contractor his job will step down from his own Pentagon post, WND has learned.

Meanwhile, his rival, Maj. Stephen Coughlin, (click for previous Emergency.Blog story on this topic) a leading authority on Islamic war doctrine, may stay in the Pentagon, moving from the office of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the office of the secretary of defense. However, sources say a former U.S.ambassador to Turkey is trying to block his new contract.

The top Pentagon aide, Egyptian-born Hesham H. Islam, came under a cloud of suspicion after reports raised doubt about his resume and contacts he had made with radical Muslims. He is expected to leave the government next month, officials say.

Islam and Coughlin recently quarreled over intelligence briefings Coughlin presented showing a close connection between the religion of Islam and terrorism. Coughlin's contract with the Joint Chiefs, which ends in March, was not renewed.

But as a result of the ensuing firestorm that played out in the conservative press -- led by Washington Times Pentagon reporter Bill Gertz -- Islam was put under a microscope, and questions were raised regarding his background.

For example, Claudia Rosett of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies wrote a column challenging key claims in Islam's official biography. Within days, a Defense Department profile of Islam was removed from the department's website.

A Pentagon spokesman said it was "taken down in an attempt to reduce the rhetoric and the emotion surrounding this issue while we try to determine the facts."

A senior U.S. official says the life story Islam presented now appears sketchy. "His resume didn't add up, and he knows it," the official said. "He's voluntarily leaving the government in March."

At the same time, a report by terror expert Steven Emerson revealed that Islam, as special assistant to the deputy secretary of defense, has scheduled at least two meetings in the Pentagon with Syrian-tied radicals ? including a leading member of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood ? in direct violation of U.S. policy.

As WND previously reported, FBI officials believe Islam is involved with the U.S. branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and is helping its front groups run "influence operations" against the U.S. government.

"He's a Muslim brother," an FBI official told WND. "He's a bad actor, and he's made other unreported nefarious contacts."

Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., who co-chairs the House Anti-Terrorism Caucus, has been fighting to keep Coughlin in the Pentagon, where she says his blunt analysis of the Islamic enemy is sorely needed.

Citing federal court documents introduced as evidence in a recent major terror case, she also warns that U.S. front groups for the Muslim Brotherhood are conspiring to destroy America from within.

"Our enemies have clearly stated their intention to infiltrate us, much like the Russians did during the Cold war," Myrick said. "We had no problem analyzing and acting on that information then."

"I know that some people will refuse to admit there is a subversive movement going on here, but let me remind you that we have underestimated the will and capability of our enemy for more than 30 years," she added. "They are patient and determined to achieve their radical agenda."

-- Source/continues at:WorldNetDaily

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=56110