| Britain |
| Echoes of al-Qaeda, hints of Iraq |
| 2005-07-08 |
| If Al Qaeda or its allies carried out the bombings in London, as many investigators suspect, Islamic extremists would have succeeded in striking their top European target as terrorist networks are gaining combat experience and inspiration from the conflict in Iraq, officials said Thursday. Experts said the attacks bore many signatures of the fragmented but virulent networks that have operational or ideological ties to Osama bin Laden's organization: multiple targets, near-simultaneity, significant civilian casualties and political timing. But the lack of details about the blasts prompted debate among experts about whether the plot was the work of a longtime cell based in Britain, recently arrived operatives from Iraq, or a combination of the two. The bombs went off as President Bush sat down with Prime Minister Tony Blair and other world leaders at the Group of 8 summit in Scotland, a day after London was chosen to host the 2012 Summer Olympics. The timing recalled the car bombings against British targets in Istanbul in 2003 as Bush met with Blair in London, as well as last year's bombings of commuter trains in Madrid that killed 191 people three days before Spanish national elections. Like Spain at the time of the Madrid bombings, Britain is a staunch ally in the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq. Britain had repeatedly been threatened by Al Qaeda, leading security chiefs to say an attack was inevitable. Experts said Britain's role in Iraq probably served as a strong motivation for the bombers, citing a message posted on a website declaring that Britain had paid the price for its presence there and that other members of the coalition faced the same fate. Some investigators suspect the plot involved Islamic extremists from Europe who went to Iraq, gained combat experience and ideological fervor , then returned to wage their holy war. Before Thursday's attacks, investigators say, they had been concerned by the increasing presence in Europe of veterans of the Iraq conflict. During the last six months, Western intelligence reports described a "redeployment" onto the continent of operatives of Abu Musab Zarqawi, the suspected leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. The operatives were thought to be planning attacks, a senior European police official said. A senior U.S. intelligence official cited indications that Zarqawi had moved to reestablish his network in Europe, where it had already been linked to past plots in Britain, France and Germany. In February, U.S. intelligence officials said they had intercepted a message from Bin Laden to Zarqawi, urging him to expand his focus beyond the Iraq insurgency. Bin Laden instructed Zarqawi to consider mounting attacks on targets in the United States. "We know Zarqawi has in fact renewed efforts to try to expand his reach outside the Iraqi theater, to include the European homeland," the senior intelligence official said. He also described intelligence about Al Qaeda's aspirations to carry out new attacks in Europe. Although the official said nothing was known about the ethnicity or citizenship of the plotters, he noted that the name of the group claiming responsibility for the London attacks, the Secret Organization of Al Qaeda in Europe, was similar to the name of the group in Iraq. A British law enforcement official said Britain's counter-terrorism agencies, which have been effective at infiltrating Islamic extremist groups at home, would find it more difficult to detect foreign fighters back from Iraq. "I think it's more likely to be returnees, perhaps people connected to the Zarqawi group," said the British official, who requested anonymity. "It doesn't feel like home-grown. Because we have got a pretty good feel for what's going on among the groups in Britain. We have got good contacts in the Muslim community, and you would have thought at some point someone would have detected something. Unless it was a group that completely slipped in under the wire." But some investigators and experts favored another scenario involving local plotters. A British anti-terrorism official said returning fighters appear less well-organized and cohesive than networks that have developed in Britain. "If we are talking about returning jihadis from Iraq, our knowledge of them and how they are structured does not necessarily fit with this operation," the official said. Experts said the bombings of a major transportation system required an extensive support network in Britain, which, unlike neighboring countries, still screens travelers from Western Europe at its borders, making it more difficult for would-be terrorists to slip into the country. "My point of view is that it was not returnees from Iraq," said Stefano Dambruoso, Italy's judicial attache in Vienna and a veteran anti-terrorism prosecutor. "There was this desire to attack in London for a long time. It was just a question of time. When Al Qaeda says they are going to do something, eventually they do it." Experts say Bin Laden's battered organization has evolved into a constellation of networks connected to the core command structure sometimes more by ideology than clandestine messengers or Internet communications. Partly because Al Qaeda's senior leadership has been degraded â with Bin Laden and his senior deputies believed to be hiding along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border â U.S. officials said the London bombings were probably not planned or controlled by the group's leadership. U.S. intelligence officials and counter-terrorism experts said Thursday's violence demonstrated that terrorists remain capable of unleashing devastation nearly four years after Sept. 11, even in a country where security forces are vigilant and skilled. Global surveillance did not detect any spike in communications, or "chatter," among suspected extremists before Thursday's attacks, U.S. officials said. Similarly, last year there was no increase in chatter hinting at the Madrid attacks, Spanish officials said. On a day when Al Qaeda also claimed to have killed an Egyptian diplomat in Iraq, some counter-terrorism experts in the United States called for a reassessment of the progress against the network. "I think we vastly overestimate the damage we have done to Al Qaeda," said Michael Scheuer, a former senior counter-terrorism official at the CIA and a critic of Bush administration policy. Dozens of Al Qaeda operatives have been killed or captured in the last four years, Scheuer said, but the network has survived by becoming increasingly decentralized and adopting new modes of communication. Moreover, militants linked to Al Qaeda pulled off their first strikes ever in Western Europe last year with the Madrid bombings and November's assassination of a Dutch filmmaker. Many of the suspects in those cases were known to police as Islamic radicals and were under surveillance at the time of the attacks. Officials say those cases revealed the rise in Europe of a new generation of young, inexperienced terrorists of predominantly Moroccan origin. Anger and propaganda about the Iraq conflict tended to drive their fanaticism, and few attended the clandestine training camps like those that produced thousands of religious warriors in Afghanistan until late 2001. The Madrid bombings resemble the London subway attacks in that the Spanish suspects used explosives detonated by remote control on commuter trains. The evidence suggests the Madrid attacks were an essentially local plot inspired by Al Qaeda that may also have received technical expertise and limited direction from veteran militants, particularly operatives tied to the Zarqawi network operating in and around Iraq. Some of the alleged ringleaders played a role in recruiting and dispatching aspiring holy warriors from Europe to Iraq, which may also have been at play in Thursday's attacks. Police in Britain have disrupted several plots that illustrate the multiethnic membership of extremist organizations which have made London their base since the 1990s. London mosques have served as the headquarters of leaders of Egyptian, North African, Persian Gulf and Pakistani movements. London was the longtime home of cleric Abu Qatada, accused by Western security officials of acting as a top Al Qaeda ideologue who inspired Zarqawi and others. A group of Britons of Pakistani descent were arrested last year for possessing explosives for alleged plots against civilians in shopping malls and other public places. In 2002, British police investigated intelligence reports that extremists planned to bomb above-ground subway stations with vehicles packed with gasoline containers, but they were unable to substantiate the tips, according to the British law enforcement official. British authorities have disrupted 20 plots in the last three years, experts said. The London attacks required long-term planning, said Charles Heyman, a senior defense analyst at Jane's Defense Consultancy, who talked with security officials in London after the attacks. "We suspect there's quite a bit of a home-grown element to this," Heyman said. "The logistics, the planning, the reconnaissance â the reconnaissance is absolutely vital in any operation like this. They may spend months until they actually get it right.... Somebody worked very hard at this one. It's very, very well-planned." The plot also suggests the involvement of a large number of people, experts said. "If we assume there were four bombs involved, you're not talking about someone who just planted it, you're talking about people who constructed the device, selected the target, briefed the bombers and coordinated the operation, and you've got to take into account that they were given some kind of safe housing while they were in London â they may still be in London," said Paul Wilkinson, an international relations professor at St. Andrews University, who chairs the advisory board for the school's Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence. Wilkinson and other experts speculated that the attacks might have combined a local infrastructure with leaders or skilled operatives from outside Britain. If networks involved in the Iraq violence played a role, that would be the worst-case scenario feared by Europe's anti-terrorism services since the conflict in Iraq began attracting holy warriors from Europe. Extremists from Britain, France and other countries have died in suicide attacks in Iraq. Over the last year, authorities have detected an increasing presence of insurgents back from the fighting in Iraq. The Dutch alone have identified "dozens" of such former combatants, a U.S. law enforcement official said. Iraq could replace Russia's Chechnya republic, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Afghanistan as the breeding ground for terrorists who could unleash their new experience, skills and fervor on the West, European officials say. The CIA issued a classified report in May warning that Iraq had become a more effective training ground than Afghanistan for terrorists, and that the threat would spread as foreign fighters left Iraq and returned to their home countries or migrated elsewhere. Muslims flocking to Iraq from other countries are getting firsthand exposure to "a broad range of terrorist activity, everything from assassinations, kidnappings, bombings to attacks with conventional weapons," said a U.S. intelligence official who described the contents of the classified report on condition of anonymity. In contrast to the rustic training camps of Afghanistan, Iraq insurgents learn to operate and evade detection in an urban environment, the official said. Iraq is breeding "a generation of people who have the potential to be the leadership of Islamic extremism for some time to come," the intelligence official said. |
| Link |
| Iraq-Jordan | ||||||||||||
| Military Investigating Report of Marine Shooting Wounded "Prisoner" | ||||||||||||
| 2004-11-16 | ||||||||||||
| This is the most detailed story of this incident I've seen. It's getting major play by the MSM. It's also another reason to be glad we didn't sign on to the World Court nonsense. I'm sure a lot of groups would already be demanding this Marine be charged with war crimes. The U.S. military is investigating the videotaped fatal shooting of a wounded and apparently unarmed Iraqi prisoner by a U.S. Marine in a mosque in Fallujah, a Marine spokesman said. The dramatic footage was taken Saturday by pool correspondent Kevin Sites of NBC television, who said three other prisoners wounded a day earlier in the mosque had also apparently been shot the next day by the Marines. The incident played out as the Marines 3rd Battalion, 1st Regiment, returned to the unidentified Fallujah mosque Saturday. Sites was embedded with the unit. Sites reported that a different Marine unit had come under fire from the mosque on Friday. Those Marines stormed the building, killing 10 men and wounding five, Sites said. The Marines said the fighters in the mosque had been armed with rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 rifles. The Marines had treated the wounded, he reported, left them behind and continued on Friday with their drive to retake the city from insurgents who have been battling U.S.-led occupation forces in Iraq with increasing ferocity and violence in recent months. The same five men were still in the mosque on Saturday, Sites reported.
Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera showed the unabridged version of the Fallujah mosque shooting tape, complete with one name visible on a backpack and the faces of the Marines, which were not shown on U.S. networks. There was no immediate comment on the tape from Middle Eastern governments because of a Muslim holiday. The CNN broadcast of the pictures obscured parts of the video that could lead to public identification of the Marines involved. NBC's Robert Padavick told members of the U.S. television pool that the Pentagon had ordered NBC and other pool members to make sure the Marine's identity was hidden because "they (the military authorities) are anticipating a criminal investigation as a result of this incident and do not want to implicate anybody ahead of that." In New York, NBC spokeswoman Allison Gollust said the network did not broadcast the prisoner being shot because of its "graphic nature."
| ||||||||||||
| Link |
| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Iran parades blindfolded Brit soldiers on beach |
| 2004-06-23 |
| Fury erupted yesterday over new TV footage of eight blindfolded British servicemen held in Iran. The sickening scene showed the captives marching single-file along a baking hot beach. It was their second day of public humiliation since they were held on Monday after being accused of straying on to the Iranian half of a waterway bordering Iraq. The beach is thought to be near where their boats were seized. The six Royal Marine Commandos and two Royal Navy sailors were forced to tramp up and down first hands on heads â then holding the shoulders of the man in front. Looking scared and disorientated, several of the captives stumbled into each other during the cruel charade filmed for Iranian TV. The ordeal sparked international condemnation as a promise to free the men was broken. At midday Iran had claimed the eight were free to go. But the deal stalled. Last night the Foreign Office announced that the men would finally be freed this morning â if Iran sticks to its pledge. The international incident had threatened to become a full-blown crisis. Previous footage of the eight in blindfolds had already caused a storm. Two senior NCOs among them were forced to make a grovelling TV âconfessionâ. A Foreign Office spokesman said last night: âWe are deeply concerned to see these sort of pictures for a second day.â For the first time, UK diplomats were let into the Bandarmahshar army base where the men were held. But they were still not allowed to see them. The team had fallen into the hands of the hard-line Revolutionary Guards â an elite military unit who answer only to Iranâs leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Former SAS chief General Sir Michael Rose told The Sun: âThe Geneva Convention was agreed to stop this sort of thing happening.â Top analyst Major Charles Heyman said: âThereâs no military reason to march men up and down a beach blindfold. It can only have been done to humiliate them.â It emerged yesterday that one of the groupâs leaders, dad-of-two Chief Petty Officer Robert Webster, is a reservist and normally a firefighter at Newcastle airport. Two others had been named as married Royal Marines Sergeant Thomas Harkins and ex-Scottish amateur boxing champ Marine Scott Fallon. A fourth was revealed yesterday as Royal Marines Corporal Chris Monan, 26, of Marske, Cleveland. The MoD insists the men were on a routine trip when they were forced on to the shoreline and arrested. |
| Link |
| Iraq-Jordan |
| With rebels ruling Iraq roads, U.S. forces feeling pinched |
| 2004-04-20 |
| EFL This is the Front Page article of âThe Seattle Timesâ. Oh and I almost forgot: "YOU ARE ALL GOING TO DIEEEEEE!!!!!!!" By Nicholas Riccardi and Edmund Sanders Los Angeles Times AKA the âNational Enquirerâ of LA BAGHDAD, Iraq â At a sprawling desert camp in southern Iraq, U.S. soldiers sleep in trucks and Humvees because Iraqi merchants are afraid to deliver tents. On a key road west through the Sunni Triangle, masked men with Kalashnikov assault rifles have occupied the concrete-block checkpoints the U.S. military once used. At Baghdadâs airport, goods are piling up because Iraqi truckers refuse to brave the main highway to the capital or transport the material to other U.S. bases. Of all the sudden changes in Iraq during the past three weeks, control of the roads is among the most striking. The U.S.-led coalition has been unable to hold onto all of its supply and communication lines on vital routes leading from the capital. Insurgents have blown up key bridges and rocketed fuel convoys. Although the U.S. military says there are no serious shortages, the perilous state of Iraqâs roads adds to a sense of chaos created by three weeks of Iraqi resistance that has left at least 99 U.S. service members dead, dozens of foreign civilian workers taken hostage and two allies, Spain and Honduras, announcing they will pull their troops out of the country. The United States vows to retake the roads; meanwhile, it is flying in more material from Kuwait and altering convoy routes and times. "In some cases, we have had to change the way we do business, but the bottom line is that critical supplies â food, water, fuel, ammunition, spare parts â are getting to the people that need them," said Army Maj. Richard Spiegel, of the 13th Corps Support Command, which is in charge of logistics in Iraq. "Example: Are some mess halls serving less variety of food? Yes, they are ... but there is still plenty of fresh food." Still, insurgents only need to dent the supply lines to have a serious impact on the militaryâs ability to maneuver, said Charles Heyman, a senior analyst at Janeâs Consulting Group. "It looks like the opposition has gotten its act together," he said. "It is reducing the ability of the coalition to operate where ... (it wants) to." The road to Baghdad International Airport, on the western edge of the capital, has long been the site of ambushes of U.S. convoys, but insurgents last week increased assaults on trucks and convoys and began handing out leaflets warning of more attacks. That was enough for Qassim Kadhum, 43. Until Saturday, the trucker was still picking up goods at the airport. But after passing several burned-out cars that day, he said he understood why crates were piling up at the terminals with no one to move them. Kadhum decided he would join other Iraqis who had stopped hauling supplies from the airport. "We are worried weâll be targets," he said. "We are not only worried about our safety, but the future of our families." Military buyers had signed contracts with local vendors to supply everything from water to portable tents. "When the security situation gets bad, they donât want to deliver, and thatâs whatâs happening now," said Army Capt. Ron Talarico, who is helping coordinate supplies. Seems like something we should fix. On the other paw you have to wonder if they even left the hotel bar to get this story...... Material from The Associated Press, The Washington Post and Reuters is included in this report. Guess not... |
| Link |
| Britain |
| MoD considers sharing new aircraft carriers |
| 2003-12-03 |
| BRITAIN and France could link up to build two aircraft carriers which would be used by the armed forces of both countries to save money on defence budgets and increase the military co-operation between the two countries. Charles Heyman, the senior defence analyst for Janeâs Consultancy Group, said yesterday: "Most analysts believe that the current carrier project is going to be difficult to fit into the MoDâs long-term costing and that something is going to give. "Recent defence market gossip suggests some sort of deal with the French is being considered; possibly one new carrier each within a bilateral defence agreement whereby, in the event of an emergency, the carrier available for operations (if only one is at sea) is made available to the other nation." Under this plan Britain would build only one aircraft carrier while France would build the second. Both would be compatible with the French Dassault Rafale aircraft rather than the Joint Strike Fighter, which had been earmarked for the British carriers. The carriers could be used by the air and naval air forces of both countries. Quite a change in plans from this |
| Link |
| Iraq | ||||||
| âCageâ confines infiltrators on Iraq border with Syria | ||||||
| 2003-12-02 | ||||||
| Hat tip to Drudge Fighters in the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment refer to it simply as "the Cage." It is a barbed-wire detention center for suspected foreign infiltrators consisting of a circular pen lined with rigid metal containers. Inside, the prisoners â some of them "high-value targets" with foreign identity cards â quietly await their interrogations. Several genuflect to God, while others simply run their fingers through the brown sand that stretches for miles in all directions. U.S. soldiers jokingly call the enclosure, designed to hold up to 2,000 prisoners, the "Super Bowl of Jihads." But it is seldom clear who sent the detainees across the border from Syria, and even their captors say most are probably not members of any organized movement. Anarchy among Jihadis? Free agent tryouts more likely
nice descriptive phrase "Some of the battle damage assessments show that we are finding some of these foreign fighters in pretty good numbers. We are also learning how the enemy is [infiltrating Iraq]." Pentagon officials have pinpointed the Syrian border as a key crossing point for al Qaeda and other jihadist groups who hope to confront U.S. forces in Iraq. For now, U.S. ground commanders view other crossing points on the Saudi and Iranian borders as less crucial to the antiterror campaign.
Intel source rather than a fighting martyr Rather, he said, the organizations "are moving in highly trained operatives who can work on the ground with Iraqis in a âvalue-addedâ capacity by imparting strategy and know-how."
| ||||||
| Link |
| Syria-Lebanon |
| Two SBS survive ambush, desert trek and Syria jail |
| 2003-04-29 |
| Two British special forces commandos escaped capture by Iraqi forces by trekking up to 100 miles through enemy territory and desert to the Syrian border. One of the most stirring escape stories yet to emerge from the Iraq war ended with the two men being taken into custody by the Syrians, and the Prime Minister sending a personal envoy to Damascus to win their release. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Ministry of Defence refuse to comment on an episode that had begun with the disastrous ambush of a secret British mission behind enemy lines, but details divulged to The Times suggest it was another case of triumph over adversity. Major Charles Heyman, Editor of Janeâs World Armies, said: âThereâs no doubt whatsover this is the sort of high standard of evasion of the enemy on the ground weâve come to expect of our special forces. Itâs still pretty remarkable.â Military sources said that on about April 2, in the second week of the war, a squadron of between 30 and 40 Special Boat Service commandos were dropped by helicopter into northern Iraq to carry out reconnaissance and sabotage operations around Mosul. They split up into patrols, driving Land Rovers. One of the patrols of about 10 SBS commandos spotted a suspected Iraqi reconnaissance patrol, but did not open fire because of doubts over whether it was an Iraqi Army unit or Kurdish soldiers. That SBS patrol ran into an Iraqi ambush and came under heavy fire. The commandos were forced to abandon their vehicles and head off across rough terrain into the hills. All survived the ambush. An emergency call summoned a Chinook helicopter to rescue them, but two were missing. Al-Jazeera television subsequently showed pictures of jubilant Iraqis jumping on one of the British Land Rovers. Baghdad claimed that 10 soldiers from the SAS had been killed. The MoD made a brief statement in which it confirmed that British soldiers had had to be âextractedâ from northern Iraq, but made no mention of the two missing commandos. The two SBS men set off for the Syrian border, seeking what a military source called a âsafe havenâ. They would have had desert clothing and hoods, as well as night-vision goggles. Their survival kit would have included a personal global positioning system the size of a mobile telephone, a map and other basics. They would have travelled by night and hidden by day. Initially, at least, they would have been crossing country infested by Iraqi troops guarding oilfields. Later they would have crossed sparsely-populated desert. Once in Syria, they were almost certainly picked up by border guards. On April 14 - the day the war effectively ended with the fall of Tikrit - Tony Blair sent Mike OâBrien, a Foreign Office minister, to Damascus to exploit Mr Blairâs cordial relations with President Assad, of Syria, to win the commandosâ release. They flew home without publicity. The commandosâ story bears a strong resemblance to the escape of Chris Ryan, the SAS trooper in the ill-fated Bravo Two Zero patrol during the 1991 Gulf War. In that instance the eight-man SAS patrol ran into Iraqi troops while hunting Scud missiles in Iraq. One was killed in the subsequent firefight, four were captured and the other three tried to escape. Two died of hypothermia but Ryan managed to reach Syria. |
| Link |
| Axis of Evil |
| Top U.S. Military to Meet in Germany |
| 2003-01-06 |
| Top U.S. military commanders most likely to direct an attack on Iraq will gather in snowy southern Germany this month for exercises to strengthen ties between U.S.-based troops and the U.S. Army's Heidelberg-based V Corps. The commanders and more than 1,000 headquarters staff will coordinate simulated artillery, air and helicopter attacks deep into an enemy's rear area from a mobile headquarters in the Army's sprawling Grafenwoehr training grounds. The exercise - dubbed Victory Scrimmage - is classified, but a U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said troops from the 101st Airborne Division and the 1st Cavalry Division will be sent from the United States to practice Iraq invasion scenarios for seven to 10 days in late January and early February. Together with V Corps' 1st Armored Division and the 1st Infantry Division, the four divisions are among the Army's best-equipped and combat ready. That's a very big hammer. Wonder who's going to be the nail? "This is a grouping that is actually going to fight the war if necessary in Iraq, and they have to do these exercises to get their procedures right and for the officers to get to know each other," said retired British Army Maj. Charles Heyman, editor of Jane's World Armies. "These are the formations we've kept our eyes on for quite a long time, so the pieces of the jigsaw are falling into place." Heh, heh, heh Lt. Col. Joseph Richard, a V Corps spokesman, said it will be the first time the units from the United States will travel to Europe for an exercise with V Corps - the Army's only corps overseas with more than 40,000 personnel. "It's an opportunity to work out any particular challenges we may experience," Richard said. "We're talking about significant numbers of organizations and soldiers, and it's important to be able to flesh out these operations prior to any other operation we may have to undertake." Victory Scrimmage will be run by V Corps commander Lt. Gen. William Wallace, who spent much of December in Qatar with about 500 of his headquarters staff staging Internal Look, another classified exercise widely thought to have been a rehearsal for war with Iraq. About one-fifth of his staff stayed behind, and several other V Corps units, including the 130th Engineer Brigade and the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, were ordered to the region by mid-February. During the exercise, the headquarters staff will set up a corps command post - the kind that can be airlifted in entirety to a combat area - and then run computer simulated command and control exercises, Richard said. Like Internal Look, it will not involve combat units on the ground. "It's all part of normal military preparedness," Heyman said. "They'd be hostages to fortune if they didn't do it ... and they will probably have to do it again with troops on the ground as a field training exercise once they get on the ground in the Gulf." Gathering the four divisions for war games close to when the first major report by U.N. weapons inspectors is due, Jan. 27, is also a way to show Baghdad that Washington is serious. "There is a psychological operation going on both at the diplomatic and military level, and it's there to convince Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi army that resistance is futile," Heyman said. Prepare to be assimilated! |
| Link |
| International |
| Several other Arab countries could be targeted |
| 2001-09-20 |
Though Afghanistan is now in the cross-hairs, several Arab countries risk becoming targets in the US-led war on terrorism, analysts said Thursday. Iraq, Somalia, Sudan as well as Libya and Syria could face diplomatic and financial pressure or even military action sometime in the next five years, once the United States completes the first phase of its campaign, experts say. The message from Afghanistan will be to cooperate with the United States and its allies or face the consequences, according to Charles Heyman, a former British Army major who is now an editor of Jane's World Armies. "If you harbor international terrorists, you are in the firing line," Heyman told AFP when contacted by telephone in Shrewsbury, England. While he said Afghanistan was "definitely phase one" of a five-year campaign, phase two would include Sudan, Somalia and Iraq, as well as possibly Libya and Syria, Heyman said. These countries are all members of the 22-member Arab League, and have been accused by the United States of being state sponsors of terrorism or linked to Islamic militant groups in the past. Sudan, backed by other Arab countries, has requested an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers to discuss last week's attacks on New York and Washington, Arab officials said here Thursday. The other Arab countries were not named and there were no details about the agenda of the meeting, which has still to receive the green light. Sudan has repeatedly denounced terrorism since last week's attacks in the United States in an apparent bid to diminish any chances Washington might target Sudan anew in retaliation for anti-US attacks. |
| Link |
| Afghanistan |
| Expect guerrilla war... |
| 2001-09-23 |
And the longer it drags on, the closer you get to the nightmare scenario: entanglement in a guerrilla war. Army Maj. Charles Heyman, editor of Jane's World Armies, has warned that any indefinite base in Afghanistan is fraught with peril and that the window of opportunity before a decimating guerrilla action sets in may be as small as two months. |
| Link |