Iran arrests 13 terrorist group members

Iran said on Sunday it had arrested 13 members of a terrorist group that authorities in the Islamic state say carried out attacks on minority Sunnis, state television reported. The armed group was linked to the Islamic state’s “foreign enemies,” state television said, using a phrase that usually refers to the United States and Israel.

“The group was directly involved in last year’s assassination of a Sunni Friday prayer leader … a Sunni member of an influential clerical body … and a Sunni religious leader,” an Intelligence Ministry statement said, television reported.

The ministry did not identify the group nor say whether those detained were Sunni rebels in southern Iran or Kurdish separatists based in mountainous areas close to the borders with Iraq and Turkey.

According to state television, Intelligence Ministry agents who detained the 13 suspects at locations around the country, also seized 10 bombs and 500 kg of explosives from the group, which had planned more attacks.

Iran reports arrest of members of a “terrorist group”

Iran said on Tuesday 20 April it had arrested members of an extremist group in the west of the country who had planned to carry out “terrorist attacks” in the Islamic state, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar said the group, identified and arrested by the Intelligence Ministry, was armed and guided by American forces, IRNA reported.

Mohammad-Najjar did not identify the group or say whether those detained belonged to Kurdish separatist groups, based in mountainous areas close to the borders with Iraq and Turkey.

Iranian security forces often clash with guerrillas from the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which took up arms in 1984 for an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey.

Like Iraq and Turkey, Iran has a large Kurdish minority, mainly living in the country’s northwest and west.

Tehran sees PJAK, which seeks autonomy for Kurdish areas in Iran and shelters in Iraq’s northeastern border provinces, as a terrorist group.

Sectarian violence is relatively rare in Iran, whose leaders reject allegations by Western rights groups that it discriminates against ethnic and religious minorities.

Iranian officials often accuse the United States and Israel of supporting “terrorists.” The United States dismisses such allegations.

Ahmadinejad asks UN to investigate 9/11

Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who said last month that the terrorist attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, were “a big fabrication,” wrote to the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, on Tuesday 13 April to ask him to open an investigation into the events of that day.

In a letter to the secretary general, Mr. Ahmadinejad asked him to “form an independent fact-finding committee trusted by regional countries on major elements behind [the] September 11 attack which was carried out as the main pretext to attack the Middle East,” according to the Iranian Students News Agency.

The letter also accused “NATO intelligence and security forces in Afghanistan” and “some American and European media” of supporting terrorist attacks by Baluchi militants in Iran’s southeast. In February, when Iran announced the arrest of Abdolmalek Rigi, the leader of the Baluchi militant group Jundallah, it broadcast video of the captured rebel on state television in which he claimed that he had acted with support from the Obama administration.

Barbara Plett, the BBC’s U.N. correspondent, reports from New York that the secretary general’s office “said that it was studying the letter from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but had no comment.”

New report in Nokia Iran surveillance technology case

A journalist from Finnish daily Fifi got his hands on the “Nokia Lawful Interception Gateway” (LIG) manual, which confirms that the technology enables surveillance of mobile internet usage. It seems now that Nokia exported at least three separate systems to Iran. Nokia built a GSM network; the GSM network was provided with the LIG system; and the LIG has been upgraded with an “add-on”, called  Monitoring
Centre.

The commotion caused by the NSN trading with Iran has been mostly about the Monitoring Centre. The actual problem now seems to be the more extensive LIG, which gives users extensive power to monitor citizen mobile phone as well as mobile internet usage.

Fifi comments:

And this is where it gets interesting, even for the ordinary Western mobile phone user normally untouched by Iran’s political storms. LIG, with its extensive monitoring capabilities, or a comparable system by a different manufacturer, is monitoring all mobile voice and data networks around the world, including here in Finland.

In fact, it is precisely because of us Europeans that these extensive monitoring systems first became legal and then mandatory worldwide. Europe has spearheaded the transition from more restricted surveillance methods to extensive systems like the LIG: systems that store all of the target’s communications data during surveillance for future investigation.

Importantly:

NSN doesn’t seem to have broken any laws or export regulations while delivering the LIG to Iran. On the contrary, it has complied with the demands of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute that the potential for surveillance by law enforcement agencies should be expanded. The minimum standards of surveillance capacity that the EU demands from telecommunication carriers are almost as broad as the ones that the Gateway provides.

Read the leaked  documents. A good place to start is the product description (PDF).

The European Parliament passed a resolution strongly condemning the NSN Iran deal.

Iran: Trial in Torture Deaths Begins

Twelve suspects accused of torturing to death three anti-government protesters during the widespread turmoil after the June presidential election went on trial last Tuesday, the official news agency IRNA reported. Iran’s judiciary last year charged 12 officials at the Kahrizak detention center in Tehran for involvement in the deaths of three protesters held there. The IRNA report did not identify any of the suspects, saying the judge had banned reporting details of the trial. In January, a parliamentary inquiry found a former Tehran prosecutor, Saeed Mortazavi, responsible for the deaths of the three at the detention center. There has been no word of any effort to punish him.

Trial in torture deaths begins in Iran

Twelve suspects accused of torturing to death three anti-government protesters during the widespread turmoil after the June presidential election went on trial on Tuesday 9 March. Iran’s judiciary last year charged 12 officials at the Kahrizak detention center in Tehran for involvement in the deaths of three protesters held there. The official news agency IRNA did not identify any of the suspects, saying the judge had banned reporting details of the trial. In January, a parliamentary inquiry found a former Tehran prosecutor, Saeed Mortazavi, responsible for the deaths of the three at the detention center. There has been no word of any effort to punish him.

Yemen update

1. US involvement strategy

U.S. military teams and intelligence agencies are deeply involved in secret joint operations with Yemeni troops who in the past six weeks have killed scores of people, among them six of 15 top leaders of a regional al-Qaeda affiliate, according to senior administration officials.

The operations, approved by President Obama and begun six weeks ago, involve several dozen troops from the U.S. military’s clandestine Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), whose main mission is tracking and killing suspected terrorists. The American advisers do not take part in raids in Yemen, but help plan missions, develop tactics and provide weapons and munitions. Highly sensitive intelligence is being shared with the Yemeni forces, including electronic and video surveillance, as well as three-dimensional terrain maps and detailed analysis of the al-Qaeda network.

As part of the operations, Obama approved a Dec. 24 strike against a compound where a U.S. citizen, Anwar al-Aulaqi, was thought to be meeting with other regional al-Qaeda leaders. Although he was not the focus of the strike and was not killed, he has since been added to a shortlist of U.S. citizens specifically targeted for killing or capture by the JSOC, military officials said.

The far-reaching U.S. role could prove politically challenging for Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who must balance his desire for American support against the possibility of a backlash by tribal, political and religious groups whose members resent what they see as U.S. interference in Yemen.The collaboration with Yemen provides the starkest illustration to date of the Obama administration’s efforts to ramp up counterterrorism operations, including in areas outside the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones.

The commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, General David Petraeus, says there are indications the domestic conflict in Yemen could become a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

General Petraeus was asked whether he sees the civil war between Yemen’s government and rebel Houthi forces in the north as a proxy war, with Iran supporting the rebels and Saudi Arabia helping the government. The general said it is not a proxy war now, but has the potential to become one, and there may already have been some movement in that direction.

2. London conference

Foreign ministers from the US, Britain, Saudi Arabia and 20 other countries met in London at Gordon Brown’s invitation to back President Ali Abdullah Salih and pledge not to interfere in Yemen’s internal affairs. But they also issued a stark public warning of the dangers of inaction.

“The challenges in Yemen are growing and, if not addressed, risk threatening the stability of the country and broader region,” said a statement issued after two hours of talks at the Foreign Office. It called for “urgent and concrete action” by Yemen to address “conditions conducive to radicalisation and instability”.

Civil organizations in Yemen sent a letter to U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown expressing their fear that the Yemen government would exploit the conference and the international attention in order to settle accounts with its political rivals, in the guise of the fight against terrorism.

The London meeting promised to support Yemeni counter-terrorist capabilities, enhance aviation and border security, and strengthen coastguard operations. Yemen pledged in return to pursue reforms and initiate discussions with the IMF. An existing 10-point plan includes scrapping fuel subsidies and public sector jobs.

Only a broad approach that incorporates improving the economy, battling poverty, promoting stability and fighting terrorism will solve the underlying causes of Yemen’s many problems, the top United Nations political official told an international conference on the country. B. Lynn Pascoe, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, told the High-Level Meeting on Yemen, held in London, that the UN is ready to assist the impoverished Arab nation make progress on the humanitarian, developmental and economic fronts.

3. Threats

In his Friday sermon on January 15, the well-known Yemeni Islamist and U.S. designated terrorism supporter Shaykh Abd al-Majid al-Zindani called for jihad to defend Yemen in the event of a foreign military intervention. Al-Zindani noted that some American media reports said the “Yemeni regime is about to collapse and U.S. forces and Marines should intervene to protect oil sources in Yemen.” Al-Zindani considered such media reports (which he did not cite specifically) a declaration of war by the United States.

Al-Zindani’s remarks came a day before the shaykh and 149 other Yemeni clerics issued a fatwa in the name of the “Association of Scholars of the Yemen” declaring that jihad is “fard ayn” (a compulsory duty) in the event of military intervention in the country, and thus rejecting any military cooperation with Washington, the use of Yemeni territory for foreign military bases, and Yemen’s commitment to any security or military agreements that are contrary to Islamic Shari’a (Al-Bawaba, January 14; Asharq al-Awsat, January 14).

The entry of the clerics in Yemen to the growing crisis, regardless of whether they are linked to al-Qaeda or not, indicates the development of an environment that is sympathetic to the growing presence of al-Qaeda.

Yemen announced on Thursday 21 January that it would stop granting entry visas to travellers at the country’s international airports in order to halt terrorist infiltration.

Thousands of Somali boys and teenagers fleeing war and chaos at home are sailing to Yemen, where officials who have long welcomed Somali refugees now worry that the new arrivals could become the next generation of al-Qaeda fighters.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, meanwhile, announced in London the suspension of direct flights from Yemen until further security measures are agreed.

4. Impact on civilians
Amnesty International warned that the government’s heavy-handed response to the threat posed by al-Qaida puts Yemen at risk of being locked in a downward spiral on human rights.

In its latest briefing paper on Yemen, Amnesty International highlights an increase in human rights violations against those who criticize or oppose the government.

“The government has resorted to increasingly repressive methods to counter this opposition, including waves of arrests, incommunicado detention and unlawful killings,” said Malcolm Smart.

“Counter-terrorism is no excuse to sideline human rights. Whilst the government has a duty to protect people and hold to account those engaged in terrorism it must abide by its obligations under international law.”

In Sa’da, in the north of the country, the long running conflict between government forces and the Huthis, armed fighters belonging to the Zaidi Shi’a minority, resumed with new intensity last August and has been marked by serious abuses on both sides.

Both sides are alleged to have killed civilians and according to the UN’s refugee agency, so far more than the 200,000 people have been forcibly displaced.Civilians have also been put at risk, and some possibly killed, by Saudi Arabian security forces that have carried out attacks against rebels in Yemen’s northern border region. These attacks lacked any safeguards for the protection of civilians.

Mr Stillhar, the ICRC’s deputy director of operations, spent two days in Sana’a meeting with government authorities, the heads of UN agencies and the leadership of the Yemeni Red Crescent and a further two days in the northern governorate of Amran, where he met a good number of the tribal leaders of the region.

“What I’ve seen is a serious humanitarian crisis in the making,” declared Mr Stillhart. Since August 2009, when the conflict resumed, which, Mr Stillhart pointed out, was actually the sixth round of conflict between the government and the rebels, at least 150,000 civilians have been directly affected, or about one person in five living in the area.

He emphasized that the majority of displaced people had found shelter with host families, primarily relatives, and that this is putting a growing strain on host communities that were already living on the edge before fighting broke out. From his assessment after his short visit, Mr Stillhart said that the needs of the people clearly exceed the capacity of the humanitarian response.

Mr Stillhart explained that, as most communities are suffering, at least indirectly from the conflict, they naturally all feel entitled to some sort of assistance and this makes the whole aid effort extremely complicated to organize.

5. Truce

Yemen’s government said Sunday it will accept a truce offer only if the rebels operating in the country’s north comply with six previously laid-out conditions. Government conditions include removal of rebel checkpoints, withdrawal of forces and clarification of the fate of kidnapped foreigners. The rebels must return captured military and civilian equipment and not enter local politics.

The Shiite Muslim rebels, known as the Houthis, had indicated Saturday that they were open to a cease-fire and to accepting the government conditions. But they demanded an end to military operations first.

6. Yemen CT measures

Although the government of Ali Abdullah Saleh, the country’s president, released 130 of its fighters as a goodwill gesture, al-Qaeda’s leadership in Yemen rejected the deal, according to Tariq al-Fahdli, who has since joined an outlawed group fighting for the secession of the south.

Yemeni security forces killed a man suspected of leading a cell of Al Qaeda and captured four other militants on Wednesday 13 January morning, hours after two soldiers were killed by Qaeda members in a neighboring district, Yemeni officials said. The clashes were the latest episode in the Yemeni government’s heightened campaign against Al Qaeda’s Arabian branch.

A Yemeni court sentenced seven suspected Al-Qaeda members to between five and 10 years in jail after convicting them of plotting to attack foreign interests and tourists.

The seven went on trial in October after having been arrested while preparing explosives and monitoring tourist buses to attack them, according to police.

They were convicted of “plotting to form an armed gang to execute criminal acts targeting foreign tourists and interests and government installments,” according to the verdict.

7. Halt of Guantanamo transfers
US President Barack Obama, who last year set January 22, 2010, as the date to close the detention camp in southeast Cuba, declared on Tuesday he had suspended transfers of freed Guantanamo Bay inmates to Yemen following the botched Christmas Day airliner attack.

Thirty Yemeni detainees the US government had deemed ready for release, some of whom are entering their ninth year there without charge, are now being told to wait even longer to return home.

Earlier this month, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the detention of Yemeni Guantanamo detainee Ghaleb Nassar Al-Bihani, ruling that he can remain in US custody, but, last month, the US government transferred six detainees back to Yemen. Also last month, a federal judge granted Yemeni detainee Saeed Hatim’s petition for habeas corpus, ordering his release.

There are 91 Yemeni detainees left in the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Yemen will begin building an $11 million rehabilitation center for returning Guantanamo detainees in three months when it expects to receive funding from the United States.

Pakistan update

1. Investigations of disappearance cases

Experts say an ongoing hearing in Pakistan’s Supreme Court tests the limits of the judiciary’s ability to curb the influence of Pakistan’s security agencies, including the all-powerful Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) which has in the past been termed a “state within a state.”

In the years since the 2001 attacks in the US, several hundred people suspected of links to militant groups have been held in secret detention centers and some were transferred to the the United States for cash. The Pakistani government also imprisoned hundreds of activists fighting for autonomy in the southwestern province of Baluchistan.

The case of Mr Masood Anwar is fairly typical. According to his wife Janjua, the travel-agency owner stepped out on the evening of July 30, 2005, along with Faisal Fayyaz to catch a bus. She hasn’t heard from him or seen him since. A leaked confirmation of his detention from a senior intelligence officer and the testimony of a former detainee who claims he briefly shared a cell with Mr. Janjua keeps her hope alive.

“This [case] is important in the sense that this would result in accountability of the intelligence agencies because intelligence agencies would be scrutinized,” says Hassan Askari-Rizwi, a political analyst based in Lahore.

Pakistan’s civilian establishment was rocked last month when the Supreme Court ruled a political amnesty known as the National Reconciliation Ordinance was unconstitutional. That ruling paved the way for a revival of corruption cases against senior politicians, bureaucrats, and diplomats. Among them are several cabinet members and Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington.

Mr. Rizwi says the missing person’s case has the potential to challenge Pakistan’s security establishment, and by extension the Army, in the same way the amnesty case challenged the civilian politicians. But, he cautions: “This is happening for the first time. I don’t know if they will be able to succeed.”

Up to 1,600 people went missing. The so-called missing persons case was earlier headed by Ifthikar Chaudhry, Pakistan’s iconic chief justice, before he was sacked in 2008. He was restored as a result of the so-called lawyers’ movement in the spring of 2009 and the case was reopened in late November.

Thursday’s hearing directed the government to provide a full list of Pakistanis handed over to the US as well as those in jail in Afghanistan, India and other countries. Attorney General Mansoor Khan told the court that up to 1,600 people went missing between 2001 and 2008 though most have now been recovered. According to Janjua, who now heads an organization called the Defence of Human Rights and Public Services Pakistan, some 172 people remain missing. Justice Iqbal, who heads the three-member bench which is overseeing the case, said on Thursday that answers provided by the ISI are likely to be unreliable.

Some analysts here predict that the judiciary will be no match for the army and the ISI.

“They don’t have the resolve or power to bring the military establishment to account,” says Badar Alam, a senior editor for Pakistan’s Herald magazine, noting that the heads of the ISI and IB were called before the court in 2008 in connection with the case, without resolution.

2. Amnesty judgment for terrorism cases
(Jurist) The Supreme Court of Pakistan released its detailed judgment regarding the controversial National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) on Wednesday. The ordinance granted President Asif Ali Zardari [official website] and 8,000 other government officials immunity from charges including corruption, embezzlement, money laundering, murder, and terrorism between January 1986, and October 1999. A special 17-member panel of court unanimously ruled the NRO unconstitutional in December, paving the way for corruption charges to be brought against Zardari. Zardari is immune from prosecution while in office, but challenges to his eligibility as a presidential candidate are expected. Many other government officials could face immediate prosecution.

Last month, a Pakistani court issued an arrest warrant for Interior Minister Rehman Malik [official profile] on corruption charges. Malik is among 19 officials whose corruption cases the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has petitioned to reopen in an anti-corruption court in Rawalpindi. The NAB has also petitioned a Lahore court to reopen the cases of 32 individuals, including that of Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar. The NRO was signed [JURIST report] by former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf in 2007 as part of a power-sharing accord allowing former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto to return to the country despite corruption charges she had faced.

3. US and Pakistan coordinate military operations against terrorists

The top U.S. military officer says the United States and Pakistan are working together more closely to fight terrorist groups whose operations span the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Admiral Mike Mullen spoke in Washington on Monday at a meeting of senior officers from the region, sponsored by the U.S. military.

Admiral Mullen called on the military officers from Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and other regional powers to work together more closely because, he said, the terrorist groups are cooperating more in their efforts to hurt those countries.

“I would almost call it the harmonization of the terrorists, the collaboration of the terrorists,” he said. “These groups that didn’t work with each other at all, now are more and more collaborative. And that requires us to be much more harmonious.”

Mullen said the U.S. and Pakistani militaries are already cooperating more, working to avoid misunderstanding about troop movements and activities in the border zone, and to ensure that their operations complement each other, rather than just push the terrorists back and forth across the Afghan border.

“We are now reviewing campaign plans together, so we can see what those plans are and how we can best make them work together,” said the admiral.

Mullen also called for more exchanges among the militaries represented at the meeting. He particularly praised the Indian representative, Vice Army Chief Lieutenant General P.C. Bhardwaj, for attending the event.

The admiral urged all of the senior officers in attendance to avoid the kind of public disputes that have hurt regional relations in the past.

“I think it’s really important that we work as hard as we can with each other, and that any kind of public accusations or public finger pointing, quite frankly, that does not serve any of us well,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we won’t have disagreements. But I hope that we can do that privately, and not publicly.”

Mullen also stressed the U.S. intention to develop long-term relations with the countries of Central and South Asia – a theme also stressed by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates during his visit to the region last week. The admiral said countries in the region are understandably waiting to see the United States demonstrate that commitment over time, and to see the outcome of its effort to defeat the Taliban and help establish an effective government in Afghanistan.

4. Economic costs of the terror war

President Asif Ali Zardari told US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates that the economic cost of the war against terror, amounting to US $ 35 billion for the last eight years, had impacted Pakistan’s economy adversely, Presidential spokesman said.

“Pakistan has been facing delays in payments of Coalition Support Fund claims”, the President informed the Defence Secretary and urged timely reimbursement of arrears, Farhatullah Babar said.

Reviewing the overall security situation, the President welcomed the US affirmation of commitment to Pakistan’s stability and security, adding also, “It must be based on mutual respect and trust.”

Briefing the media about the meeting, Spokesperson to the President former Senator Farhatullah Babar said that the President emphasized that the issue of arrears in Coalition Support Fund amounting to over 1.3 billion dollars be resolved at the earliest.

5. Al Qaeda’s targets

America’s defense secretary is warning that al-Qaida, and what he calls its “syndicate” in South Asia, could provoke a new war between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, visiting India, is delivering a bleak assessment of the security situation in what he calls the “very dangerous region.” Speaking to reporters in the Indian capital, he warned a syndication of terrorist groups under the al-Qaida umbrella – benefiting from the successes of each other – intends to destabilize the region with further attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

In his meetings with Indian government leaders, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Gates praised New Delhi’s statesmanship and restraint following the Mumbai attack, which is blamed on Pakistani-based insurgents. But the defense chief is cautioning that such restraint cannot be expected again, if India suffers a similar assault.

6. Iran-Pakistan Joint Declaration

Following the Afghanistan-Iran-Pakistan Trilateral Ministerial Meeting in Islamabad on 16 January 2010, a Joint Declaration has been issued, related to the security ans stability in the region.

7. Pakistan objects to the new US screening law

Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi Wednesday raised objections to new screening laws for Pakistanis travelling to the United States and said it would have bad impact on relations.

Addressing a joint news conference with US special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Hoolbroke, the foreign minister said that despite positive gestures he apprised the US Special Envoy of some of the steps taken which have negative fall out on relationship and one of them is enhanced security screening in the US.

8. New academic reports

Pakistan: Balochistan Assessment 2010
South Asia Terrorism Portal

The strategic and resource-rich Balochistan province continues to remain on the periphery of Pakistan’s projects and perceptions. With both the “dialogue with those who are up in the mountains” and the counter-insurgency (CI) operations failing, the Baloch insurrection persists. Worse, subversion from the Taliban-Al Qaeda in the north of the province has added to the region’s complexities. There has, however, been some reduction in violence during 2009. At least 268 persons, including 148 civilians and 83 Security Force (SF) personnel, have died in the current year (till November 20) according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP). Significantly, there has been a dramatic reduction in the number of insurgents killed, an indication that CI operations are not yielding results. espite the reduced levels of violence, the insurgency continues to simmer, with a steady stream of bomb and rocket attacks on gas pipelines, railway tracks, power transmission lines, bridges, and communications infrastructure, as well as on military establishments and Government facilities. While there have been at least 126 bomb blasts and grenade explosions across the province in 2009 [data till November 20 (Source: SATP)], there have also been rocket attacks (numbers for which are not available currently) targeting state installations reported almost on a daily basis in the province. Baloch insurgents have also targeted Government officials and politicians.

Sectarian Terrorism in Pakistan during 2009
South Asia Analysis Group

The year 2009 ended with two attacks by suicide bombers on processions to mark the culmination of the period of Muhurrum observed by the Shias of Pakistan. Fifteen persons were killed in the first incident at Muzzafarabad, the capital of Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK), on December 27. Forty-two were killed in the second incident in Karachi on December 28. Sectarian clashes between Shias and Sunnis occur frequently in the Northern Areas consisting of Gilgit and Baltistan, where the Shias constitute the largest single sectarian group. To counter the growing influence of Shia sectarian organizations such as the Tehrik-e-Jaffria Pakistan and its militant wing called the Sipah Mohammad, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had over the years encouraged and helped Sunni extremist organizations such as the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ) to set up a presence in the Gilgit area. This has led to periodic clashes between the two communities.

Pakistan’s Nuclear Future: Reining the Risk
Strategic Studies Institute//United States Army War College

These analyses offer a window into what is possible and why Pakistani nuclear terrorism is best seen as a lesser included threat to war, and terrorism more generally. Could the United States do more with Pakistan to secure Pakistan’s nuclear weapons holdings against possible seizure? News reports indicate that the United States has already spent $100 million toward this end. It is unclear what this money has bought. If policymakers view the lack of specific intelligence on Pakistani nuclear terrorist plots against the United States as cold comfort and believe that such strikes are imminent, then the answer is not much. If, conventional acts of terrorism and war are far more likely than acts of nuclear terrorism, then there is almost too much to do. In the later case, nuclear terrorism would not be a primary, stand-alone peril, but a lesser included threat. What sort of Pakistan would that be? A country that was significantly more prosperous, educated, and far more secure against internal political strife and from external security threats than it currently is. How might one bring about such a state? The short answer is by doing more to prevent the worst. Nuclear use may not be the likeliest bad thing that might occur in Pakistan, but it is by far the nastiest. Certainly in the near- to mid-term, it is at least as likely as any act of nuclear terrorism. More important, it is more amenable to remediation.

UN experts conclude major study into use of secret detention in the fight against terrorism

Despite the fact that international law clearly prohibits secret detention, the practice is widespread and “reinvigorated” by the so-called global war on terror, several independent United Nations experts stated, outlining a series of steps aimed at curbing this human rights violation. In a 222-page study which will be presented to the United Nations Human Rights Council in March, the experts conclude that: “If resorted to in a widespread or systematic manner, secret detention might reach the threshold of a crime against humanity.” Read the unedited advance version here.

The study, which took almost a year to complete, involves responses from 44 States to a detailed questionnaire, as well as interviews with 30 individuals – or their family members or their legal counsel – who were victims of secret detention, and in many cases may also have been subjected to torture.

It provides an historical overview of the use of secret detention, noting that it is not a new phenomenon in the context of counter-terrorism. From the Nazi regime to the former USSR with its Gulag system of forced labour camps, States have often resorted to secret detention to silence opposition, according to the report.

The study goes on to address the use of secret detention in the context of the ‘global war on terror’ following the events of 11 September 2001, describing “the progressive and determined elaboration of a comprehensive and coordinated system of secret detention” of persons suspected of terrorism, involving not only United States authorities, but also other States in almost all regions of the world. The study says, inter alia,

143.Given the prevailing secrecy regarding the CIA’s rendition programme, exact figures regarding the numbers of prisoners transferred to the custody of other governments by the CIA without spending any time in CIA facilities are difficult to ascertain. Equally, little is known about the amount of detainees who have been held at the request of other States such as the United Kingdom and Canada.While several of these allegations cannot be backed up by other sources, the Experts wish to underscore that the consistency of many of the detailed allegations provided separately by the detainees adds weight to the inclusion of Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, the Syrian Arab Republic, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Djibouti as proxy detention facilities where detainees have been held on behalf of the CIA. Serious concerns also exist about the role of Uzbekistan as a proxy detention site.

It also highlights that secret detention in connection with counter-terrorism policies remains a serious problem on a global scale, either through the use of secret detention facilities; through declarations of a state of emergency, which allow prolonged secret detention; or through forms of “administrative detention,” which also allow prolonged secret detention.

The study was issued by the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism, Martin Scheinin; Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Manfred Nowak; the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (represented by its Vice-Chairperson, Shaheen Sardar Ali); and the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (represented by its Chairperson, Jeremy Sarkin).

Iranian security services harass online Iranian protesters abroad

The Wall Street Journal reports that in recent months, Iran has been conducting a campaign of harassing and intimidating members of its diaspora world-wide — not just prominent dissidents — who criticize the regime, according to former Iranian lawmakers and former members of Iran’s elite security force, the Revolutionary Guard, with knowledge of the program. Part of the effort involves tracking the Facebook, Twitter and YouTube activity of Iranians around the world, and identifying them at opposition protests abroad, these people say.

Dozens of individuals in the U.S. and Europe who criticized Iran on Facebook or Twitter said their relatives back in Iran were questioned or temporarily detained because of their postings. About three dozen individuals interviewed said that, when traveling this summer back to Iran, they were questioned about whether they hold a foreign passport, whether they possess Facebook accounts and why they were visiting Iran. The questioning, they said, took place at passport control upon their arrival at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport.

Interviews with roughly 90 ordinary Iranians abroad — college students, housewives, doctors, lawyers, businesspeople — in New York, London, Dubai, Sweden, Los Angeles and other places indicate that people who criticize Iran’s regime online or in public demonstrations are facing threats intended to silence them. Although it wasn’t possible to independently verify their claims, interviewees provided consistently similar descriptions of harassment techniques world-wide.