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Archive for category Threat Watch
Bahrain and the Battle Between Iran and Saudi Arabia
Posted by Brian in Threat Watch on 8/Mar/2011 16:00
Bahrain and the Battle Between Iran and Saudi Arabia is republished with permission of STRATFOR.
By George Friedman
The world’s attention is focused on Libya, which is now in a state of civil war with the winner far from clear. While crucial for the Libyan people and of some significance to the world’s oil markets, in our view, Libya is not the most important event in the Arab world at the moment. The demonstrations in Bahrain are, in my view, far more significant in their implications for the region and potentially for the world. To understand this, we must place it in a strategic context.
As STRATFOR has been saying for quite a while, a decisive moment is approaching, with the United States currently slated to withdraw the last of its forces from Iraq by the end of the year. Indeed, we are already at a point where the composition of the 50,000 troops remaining in Iraq has shifted from combat troops to training and support personnel. As it stands now, even these will all be gone by Dec. 31, 2011, provided the United States does not negotiate an extended stay. Iraq still does not have a stable government. It also does not have a military and security apparatus able to enforce the will of the government (which is hardly of one mind on anything) on the country, much less defend the country from outside forces. Read the rest of this entry »
Agent: ATF partly to blame for Mexico Violence
Posted by Gary in Law, News, Threat Watch on 7/Mar/2011 15:20
Watch this chilling and revealing news story.
From:Â CBS News
Agent: ATF partly to blame for Mexico violence
March 3, 2011 4:01 PM
An agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms claims the agency has a policy that allows guns to get in the hands of the Mexican drug cartels. Sharyl Attkisson reports.
ATF in Damage Control Mode over Gunwalker
Posted by Gary in Law, News, Threat Watch on 7/Mar/2011 15:12
ATF Memo from The Sipsey Street Irregulars
Public Information Officers:
Please make every effort for the next two weeks to maximize coverage
of ATF operations/enforcement actions/arrests at the local and
regional level. Given the negative coverage by CBS Evening News last
week and upcoming events this week, the bureau should look for every
opportunity to push coverage of good stories. Fortunately, the CBS
story has not sparked any follow up coverage by mainstream media and
seems to have fizzled.It was shoddy reporting, as CBS failed to air on-the-record interviews
by former ATF officials and HQ statements for attribution that
expressed opposing views and explained the law and difficulties of
firearm trafficking investigations. The CBS producer for the story
made only a feigned effort at the 11th hour to reach ATF HQ for comment.This week (To 3/1/2011), Attorney General Holder testifies on the Hill
and likely will get questions about the allegations in the story. Also
(The 3/3/2011), Mexico President Calderon will visit the White House
and likely will testify on the Hill. He will probably draw attention
to the lack of political support for demand letter 3 and Project
Gunrunner.ATF needs to proactively push positive stories this week, in an effort
to preempt some negative reporting, or at minimum, lessen the coverage
of such stories in the news cycle by replacing them with good stories
about ATF. The more time we spend highlighting the great work of the
agents through press releases and various media outreaches in the
coming days and weeks, the better off we will be.Thanks for your cooperation in this matter. If you have any
significant operations that should get national media coverage, please
reach out to the Public Affairs Division for support, coordination and
clearance.Thank you,
Scot L. Thomasson
Chief, ATF Public Affairs Division
Washington, DC
Gunman Targets U.S. Soldiers At Frankfurt Airport
Posted by Gary in News, Threat Watch, Warriors on 3/Mar/2011 17:09
From Stratfor
Red Alert: Gunman Targets U.S. Soldiers At Frankfurt Airport
March 2, 2011
Two people were killed and two were injured, at least one critically, in a shooting attack on U.S. military personnel at 3:20 p.m. local time March 3 at Germany’s Frankfurt International Airport. According to breaking news reports, an armed attacker boarded a U.S. military bus idling in front of Terminal 2 and began shooting. The two killed were a U.S. soldier and the driver of the bus, whose nationality is unclear. The perpetrator is alleged to be from Kosovo, of Albanian ethnicity and 21 years old, according to German media sources. According to news reports, the U.S. forces involved in the attack were on their way to Afghanistan.
There have been plots against U.S. military targets in Germany in recent years. The attack fits in the category of “armed jihadist assault” similar to what American-born Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki called for in mid-2010 in jihadist Internet chat rooms. Al-Awlaki had been tied to U.S. Maj. Nidal Hasan, who was charged with the November 2009 Fort Hood shooting.
Obama, Mexican president reach trucking agreement
Posted by Gary in Law, News, Opinion, Threat Watch on 3/Mar/2011 15:36
This is fraught with so many possible unintended consistences that it boggles the mind as to how people sworn to protect this nation could think there is a possible upside. But then again maybe the “upside” they are looking at only applies to scenarios we (liberty loving free men) would not consider positive. I’m not trying to be obtuse I’m trying to temper my consternation. Maybe that is a lost cause.
Excerpts from The Courier Press and AP contain obvious double-speak/right-think phrases implying that it is the Mexican government that is concerned about guns from our country causing the violence in Mexico and how a more open border might make that worse. Hmm, maybe we should rethink the whole second amendment thing while we are at it?
President Barack Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Thursday will announce a plan to open up U.S. highways to Mexican trucks, removing a longstanding roadblock to improved relations between the North American allies.
…The meeting comes three weeks after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jaime Zapata was shot to death in northern Mexico with a gun smuggled in from the U.S.
more
Marines Deployed Near Libyan Waters
Posted by Gary in News, Threat Watch on 1/Mar/2011 23:20
Sec Def Gates is positioning the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge in the Med. What is it about the U.S. Marines and Tripoli?
From: Yahoo
USS Kearsargers
TRIPOLI, Libya – Moammar Gadhafi’s forces battled poorly armed rebels Tuesday for control of towns near the capital trying to create a buffer zone around his seat of power. The increasingly violent clashes threatened to transform the 15-day popular rebellion in Libya into a drawn-out civil war.
Amid the intensified fighting, the international community stepped up moves to isolate the longtime Libyan leader.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he ordered two ships into the Mediterranean, including the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge, and he is sending 400 Marines to the vessel to replace some troops that left recently for Afghanistan.
Never Fight a Land War in Asia
Posted by Brian in Opinion, Threat Watch on 1/Mar/2011 15:23
Never Fight a Land War in Asia is republished with permission of STRATFOR.
By George Friedman
U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, speaking at West Point, said last week that “Any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should have his head examined.†In saying this, Gates was repeating a dictum laid down by Douglas MacArthur after the Korean War, who urged the United States to avoid land wars in Asia. Given that the United States has fought four major land wars in Asia since World War II — Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq — none of which had ideal outcomes, it is useful to ask three questions: First, why is fighting a land war in Asia a bad idea? Second, why does the United States seem compelled to fight these wars? And third, what is the alternative that protects U.S. interests in Asia without large-scale military land wars?
The Hindrances of Overseas Wars
Let’s begin with the first question, the answer to which is rooted in demographics and space. The population of Iraq is currently about 32 million. Afghanistan has a population of less than 30 million. The U.S. military, all told, consists of about 1.5 million active-duty personnel (plus 980,000 in the reserves), of whom more than 550,000 belong to the Army and about 200,000 are part of the Marine Corps. Given this, it is important to note that the United States strains to deploy about 200,000 troops at any one time in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that many of these troops are in support rather than combat roles. The same was true in Vietnam, where the United States was challenged to field a maximum of about 550,000 troops (in a country much more populous than Iraq or Afghanistan) despite conscription and a larger standing army. Indeed, the same problem existed in World War II. Read the rest of this entry »
Deadly Panjwai in Kandahar Province
Posted by Gary in News, Threat Watch on 28/Feb/2011 01:47
From: Michael Yon
27 February 2011
Filed from Tarin Kot, Urozgan Province
Panjwai has been one of the most dangerous areas of Afghanistan. Much Canadian, American, and Afghan blood has soaked into this ground.
Podcast: Michael Yon with Military.com
Posted by Gary in News, Threat Watch on 28/Feb/2011 01:28
Jihadist Opportunities in Libya
Posted by Brian in Opinion, Threat Watch on 25/Feb/2011 18:11
Jihadist Opportunities in Libya is republished with permission of STRATFOR.
By Scott Stewart
As George Friedman noted in his geopolitical weekly “Revolution and the Muslim World,†one aspect of the recent wave of revolutions we have been carefully monitoring is the involvement of militant Islamists, and their reaction to these events.
Militant Islamists, and specifically the subset of militant Islamists we refer to as jihadists, have long sought to overthrow regimes in the Muslim world. With the sole exception of Afghanistan, they have failed, and even the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan was really more a matter of establishing a polity amid a power vacuum than the true overthrow of a coherent regime. The brief rule of the Supreme Islamic Courts Council in Somalia also occurred amid a similarly chaotic environment and a vacuum of authority.
However, even though jihadists have not been successful in overthrowing governments, they are still viewed as a threat by regimes in countries like Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. In response to this threat, these regimes have dealt quite harshly with the jihadists, and strong crackdowns combined with other programs have served to keep the jihadists largely in check.
As we watch the situation unfold in Libya, there are concerns that unlike Tunisia and Egypt, the uprising in Libya might result not only in a change of ruler but also in a change of regime and perhaps even a collapse of the state. In Egypt and Tunisia, strong military regimes were able to ensure stability after the departure of a long-reigning president. By contrast, in Libya, longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi has deliberately kept his military and security forces fractured and weak and thereby dependent on him. Consequently, there may not be an institution to step in and replace Gadhafi should he fall. This means energy-rich Libya could spiral into chaos, the ideal environment for jihadists to flourish, as demonstrated by Somalia and Afghanistan.
Because of this, it seems an appropriate time to once again examine the dynamic of jihadism in Libya. Read the rest of this entry »
Saudi with student visa in West Texas Arrested For “Attempted Use of Weapon of Mass Destruction”
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News, Threat Watch on 24/Feb/2011 16:23
“Moments ago, the Department of Justice announced that an investigation by the FBI’s Dallas Joint Terrorism Task Force has led to the arrest of 20-year-old Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, who was born in Saudi Arabia but came to the United States in 2008 on a student visa so he could attend South Plains College in Levelland, just outside Lubbock.
The feds allege that Aldawsari attempted to buy chemicals needed to make an improvised explosive device, posted repeatedly to blogs promising to help defeat “the infidels” and kept a list of “potential U.S. targets.” Says the Department of Justice:
On Feb. 6, 2011, the affidavit alleges, Aldawsari sent himself an e-mail titled “Tyrant’s House,” in which he listed the Dallas address for former President George W. Bush. The affidavit also alleges that Aldawsari conducted research that could indicate his consideration of the use of infant dolls to conceal explosives and possible targeting of a nightclub with an explosive concealed in a backpack.”
CAIR vs. Congressman Allen West
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News, Threat Watch, Warriors on 23/Feb/2011 22:22
Iranian Warships in Suez Canal
Posted by Gary in News, Threat Watch on 23/Feb/2011 13:00
First Iranian warships to pass through the Suez canal since 1979.
Michael Yon – Back in Afghanistan
Posted by Gary in News, Threat Watch, Warriors on 23/Feb/2011 05:29
From: Michael Yon
Am back in Afghanistan but for now am outside the wire and not with troops. I saw these US troops today as they searched for bombs in Kandahar City.
Revolution and the Muslim World
Posted by Brian in Opinion, Threat Watch on 22/Feb/2011 12:17
Revolution and the Muslim World is republished with permission of STRATFOR.
By George Friedman
The Muslim world, from North Africa to Iran, has experienced a wave of instability in the last few weeks. No regimes have been overthrown yet, although as of this writing, Libya was teetering on the brink.
There have been moments in history where revolution spread in a region or around the world as if it were a wildfire. These moments do not come often. Those that come to mind include 1848, where a rising in France engulfed Europe. There was also 1968, where the demonstrations of what we might call the New Left swept the world: Mexico City, Paris, New York and hundreds of other towns saw anti-war revolutions staged by Marxists and other radicals. Prague saw the Soviets smash a New Leftist government. Even China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution could, by a stretch, be included. In 1989, a wave of unrest, triggered by East Germans wanting to get to the West, generated an uprising in Eastern Europe that overthrew Soviet rule.
Each had a basic theme. The 1848 uprisings attempted to establish liberal democracies in nations that had been submerged in the reaction to Napoleon. 1968 was about radical reform in capitalist society. 1989 was about the overthrow of communism. They were all more complex than that, varying from country to country. But in the end, the reasons behind them could reasonably be condensed into a sentence or two.
Some of these revolutions had great impact. 1989 changed the global balance of power. 1848 ended in failure at the time — France reverted to a monarchy within four years — but set the stage for later political changes. 1968 produced little that was lasting. The key is that in each country where they took place, there were significant differences in the details — but they shared core principles at a time when other countries were open to those principles, at least to some extent. Read the rest of this entry »