Weekly Intel Update for 19 FEB 10

Terrorism

In December 5 members of an Army Arabic translation unit were detained for allegations that they were plotting to poison service members at the location. The Army says that there “is no credible information to support the allegations." It is unclear if they are still being held.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,586721,00.html?test=latestnews

http://blogs.cbn.com/stakelbeckonterror/archive/2010/02/18/update-five-muslim-soldiers-arrested-at-fort-jackson-in.aspx

Two sides to this one. If the allegations are untrue, then the government just took a punch in the teeth. What Muslim would go to work for a intel group when some dim-witted and bigoted co-worker is probably going to make up crap to get them hauled away? Another angle on this is a lot of Army brass is going to be hyper sensitive about allegations of a 5th column after the Fort Hood shooting. Most of the people who ignored the warning signs about Major Hassan are probably going to get letters of reprimand, and be career dead ended, or forced to retire. If they really were planning something, then it brings up the old question: if communism is a belief system with religious aspects, and Islam is a belief system based on religion, why is it legal to discriminate against Communists and not Muslims? The constitution provides protections for religions, even if they are dangerous to the public good. This isn’t an argument against the first amendment, merely an acknowledgement that it is much harder to fight religiously motivated enemies of the state than it is ones who have a secular belief system.


Pakistan

This past week, it was announced that Pakistani forces, given intelligence by the CIA, captured the functional Commander in Chief of the Afghanistani Taliban, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. He’s not saying much, though. Additionally, American intel types weren’t allowed to question him for almost two weeks after his capture. There is some suspiscion that Pakistan’s intelligence service, the ISI, was worried he’d reveal how much the ISI has been helping the Taliban in Afghanistan over the years. It has been an open secret that the ISI has been riddled with Taliban sympathizers since before 9/11.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/world/asia/19intel.html

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/20100218_Captured_Taliban_chief_is_saying_little.html


Additionally, Pakistani forces rolled up two Taliban “Shadow Governors” in the aftermath.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/world/asia/19taliban.html

There’s all sorts of implications to this. First is that it briefly creates a power vacuum at the top, and that strategic planning of the Taliban may be disrupted as they scramble to re-establish a hierarchy. Another implication is that Pakistan’s leadership is finally taking the Afghan Taliban as seriously as the Pakistani Taliban, since the two organizations are strongly linked and providing each other support. Over time, as Baradar let’s things slip, it will give insight into the Taliban’s top level of strategy. While not as useful as time sensitive operational and tactical details, it still helps us develop a more effective strategy over time. He is also a bargaining chip, and the most optimistic in the DoS think he might lead to a reconciliation. The most tantalizing possibility is he could lead to the capture of UBL eventually. The latter is a long shot, but it’s also information he’d feel more inclined to divulge, since he could be convinced that if the US gets UBL, they’ll be less inclined to stick around in Afghanistan with no lingering causus belli.


Afghanistan

The assault on Marjah is on, and darned if I can make out who’s winning this one. The Coalition and the Afghanis are making extremely slow progress. It may take a full month to secure the town of only 80,000 people. The reasons behind this are primarily extremely tight rules of engagement (ROE) designed to minimize civilian casualties. Airpower is extremely difficult to come by as a result.

However, that still hasn’t been enough to prevent them. On the second day of the assault someone in the army screwed up a call for artillery fired, and planted a pair of rockets into a home 600 yards away from the intended target, killing 12 civilians. The army withdrew the weapon while investigating, the put it back into play Wednesday.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aP9PlZjNrXXo

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-afghanistan-civilians18-2010feb18,0,4359902.story

It hasn’t taken long for the Taliban fighters to figure out our ROE, and exploit them to the maximum extent possible, including liberal use of human shields.

http://www.fayobserver.com/Articles/2010/02/15/976418

http://www.usatoday.com/NEWS/usaedition/2010-02-18-marjah18_ST_U.htm?csp=34

Military casualties have been relatively low: 12 killed so far. However, right now I think the Taliban are winning this one for several reasons:

1. They have their propaganda tool already: those 12 civilians killed by the coalition, and in one go, are enough for them to stir up a lot of hate and fear towards the coalition going forward.

2. It doesn’t matter if only 10% of the population supports the Taliban, you look pretty freaking tough when 400 or so of your fighters can hold off 3,000+ US Marines for a month. Never mind the fact that the Marines are fighting with both hands tied behind their backs due to ROE. It’s still an information operations victory. Think Alamo, or Wake Island. Makes for one hell of a rallying cry.

On another note, a British officer remarked in the 19th Century that “An Afghan’s loyalty cannot be bought, it can only be rented. Apparently 25 Afghani policemen defected this week over pay issues. Oh, and they took their vehicles and heavy weapons with them. Oops.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/world/asia/19police.html


Iran

Iran’s “punch” at the west never clearly emerged last week. Was it their extremely effective suppression of green movement protests before they even began? Was is the declaration they had already enriched uranium to 20%? More likely than not, (hindsight being 20-20) their comments were intended for primarily domestic audiences. Based on articles out there Revolutionary Guard Basiji intimidation, plus government interference in electronic media prevented the protests from taking off. Based on the article below (and a little easy math) pro-government turn out outnumbered anti-government protesters 25-1.

http://www.iranfocus.com/en/iran-general-/clashes-erupt-at-major-anti-government-protests-in-iran-19708.html


Any Western leader hoping for changes from within needs to just forget it. It’s not happening. Consider the abject failure that is North Korea, and you get an idea how long these guys can hang onto power.

On the nuclear front, the usually cautious and diplomatic IAEA has weighed in on Iran, and has declared they have strong evidence I ran has been working on nuclear warheads since 2004. The IAEA report, in particular, dumps on the 2007 NIE that declared Iran hadn’t actively been working on a warhead since 2003.

http://www.iranfocus.com/en/nuclear/inspectors-say-iran-worked-on-warhead-19765.html

“In fact, some in the Obama administration suspect that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps or its leading religious leaders are betting that an escalation of the nuclear confrontation might distract attention from the protests that have rocked the government, while unifying the country against outsiders supposedly trying to suppress Iran’s rise as a significant power.”

I’m not sure who’s doing the mental math, but it’s one hell of an assumption to bet the existence of your country on the assumption the Israelis will pull their punches. You only unify the country if there’s a country left to unify.

“In its report, the institute also questioned Iran’s moving most of its stocks of low-enriched uranium into the plant at Natanz, which is doing the high enrichment. The transfer, it said, implied that Iran planned to enrich it all to higher levels and produce “far in excess” of any fuel needed for its stated purpose of fueling a medical reactor in Tehran.”

This is another line crossed. Based on the assessment that Iran is working for miniaturization, it implies a more sophisticated warhead. That gives us as little as 18 months before they are a nuclear armed power. They’re getting close. Gut feeling tells me that the outcome of this situation will be what comes to define the Obama administration. Will it be President Carter and the Desert One, or more like Regan and Operation Praying Mantis? Time will tell. The only sure thing is that oil prices will be going up.

Oh, did I mention the administration has ruled out any options but diplomacy and unilateral sanctions?

http://www.iranfocus.com/en/iran-general-/us-has-no-plan-for-military-action-against-iran-clinton-19760.html

Given that Iran is producing modern indigenously built guided missile frigates despite the weapons trade sanctions placed on them, it should be pretty clear how much of a chance sanctions have of working.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100219/wl_mideast_afp/iranmilitarynavyship_20100219131740

Again, Israel has pretty well figured they’re on their own, but they’re going to wait until the last minute (or some ideal moment when the rest of the world is already absolutely disgusted with Iran), to do something to deflect international criticism.


Israel

It looks like Israel got it’s hand caught in the cookie jar recently. On 20 JAN 2010 a senior Hamas commander, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, was found murdered in his hotel room in Dubai. Reports indicate he was both electrocuted and suffocated. Ouch.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE61H17M.htm

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100218/D9DUJ2G01.html

France and the U.K. were both infuriated, but has nothing to do with the dead terrorist. Those responsible used forged British and French passports of dual citizenship Israelis. Apparently, the Brits (at least) had a standing gentlemen’s agreement with the Mossad that British passports were never to be used for their activities. In return, the Brits and the Mossad shared intelligence. This is in danger now, and the U.K. is threatening to server intelligence ties with the Israelis. Additionally, the Israeli Ambassador to the U.K. was summoned to address the issue and offer an explanation.

I don’t think the Israeli’s expected the UAE police to bas as competent as they have been. This hurts their standing with the Europeans, right at the moment when they’re begging large European nations (like Germany and France) to unilaterally slap heavy duty sanctions on Iran. Not sure what their game is, but one or more of the following may be true:

1. They never expected it to go down this way,
2. This guy was way too juicy a target to pass up
3. They never gave a flying fig about the Europeans imposing sanctions on Iran, since they don’t expect them to work worth a damn anyway.
4. It wasn’t really the Mossad. Some of the people captured are Palestinian, and lots of Fatah members wanted this Hamas guy dead.