Target Centermass

Category: Central Asia

  • Surprise! Syria Backs a Nuclear Iran

    Oh wait, no, this isn’t a surprise at all.

    Syria yesterday backed Iran in its nuclear confrontation with the West as their leaders met in Damascus in a defiant show of solidarity.

    The Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, welcomed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and said the Iranian leader had the right to acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. In turn, Mr Ahmadinejad asserted his host’s right to freedom from foreign interference.

    Both men face confontations with the United Nations Security Council.

    Both men also face the danger of a virus called democracy growing between them.

  • Strike Reportedly Kills al-Qaida Militants

    We aimed for Ayman al-Zawahiri, ranked number two in the latest al Queda polls but bouyed in the BCS by being ranked higher in some computer rankings. We apparently missed.

    Now, the news is that it looks like we nailed some key bad guys.

    Pakistani intelligence agents hunted Wednesday for the graves of four al-Qaida militants believed killed in an airstrike near the Afghan border including one authorities suspect was a high-ranking al-Qaida figure.

    ABC News reported that a master bomb maker and chemical weapons expert for al-Qaida was killed in the attack on the village of Damadola last week. He was identified as Midhat Mursi, also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri, who ran an al-Qaida training camp and has a $5 million reward on his head.

    According to ABC, Pakistani officials also said two other terror network officials were killed: Khalid Habib, the al-Qaida operations chief for Pakistan and Afghanistan; and Abdul Rehman al Magrabi, a senior operations commander for the group.

    Pentagon officials said they had no information on the report. A Pakistani intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he’s not authorized to speak to journalists, said authorities still did not know the names of the dead foreign militants but suspect one was a ranking al-Qaida figure.

    “We have no names. We know one of them had value in al-Qaida. He had intelligence value in the network, but we are still checking his name,” said the official.

    […]

    The U.S. government refuses to discuss the airstrike, which has been condemned by Pakistan.

    Provincial authorities say the attack killed 18 residents of the Pashtun village, and they also say they believe sympathizers took the bodies of four or five foreign militants to bury them in the mountains, thereby preventing their identification.

    “Efforts are under way to investigate further,” said Shah Zaman Khan, director-general of media relations for Pakistan’s tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

    He said authorities were also looking for two prominent pro-Taliban clerics accused of harboring militants, Maulana Faqir Mohammed and Liaqat Ali, who were allegedly in Damadola and survived the assault.

    Intelligence officials say the dead foreigners could be aides of al-Zawahri, who is thought to have sent them in his place to an Islamic holiday dinner to which he’d been invited in Damadola on the night of the attack.

    My first point is this: either the residents of this village knew how to spin on a global stage or the international media was willing to give them a helping hand.

    Hours after the attack, an Associated Press reporter visited the village, which consists of a half-dozen widely scattered houses on a hillside about four miles from the Afghan border.

    Residents said then that all the dead were local people and no one had taken any bodies away. However, it appeared feasible bodies or wounded could have been spirited away in the darkness after the attack, which took place about 3 a.m.

    Islamic custom dictates that bodies be buried as soon as possible, and the reporter saw 13 freshly filled graves with simple headstones and five empty graves alongside them apparently prepared for more dead. When the reporter returned the next day, the five empty graves were filled in, apparently because no more bodies had been found in the rubble.

    The only tidbits of official information that have surfaced since then have come from provincial authorities, and they have yet to give a list of the dead. But Pakistani intelligence officials have said they believe some of those killed were Pakistani militants and that their bodies were also removed from the scene.

    A Pakistani army official has told the AP that some bodies were taken away for DNA tests information at odds with reports from provincial authorities. The federal government has not confirmed the report about DNA tests.

    The rush by the media resulted in a major gaffe, as Michelle Malkin and a good chunk of the blogosphere showed us yesterday.

    My second point is that our intelligence appears to have been rather good and timely in this case — certainly a nice development. And some bad guys are taking that long dirt nap. Hooah!

    Assuming Zawahiri lives, I’d reckon his ties with the locals have certainly become a wee bit less enthusiastic … from both perspectives.

  • West Sees No Point in More Nuclear Talks with Iran

    Next stop on the Iranian nuke journey: the United Nations Security Council.

    An emergency meeting over Iran’s controversial nuclear programme is to be held by the United Nations’ atomic weapons watchdog at the request of Britain, France and Germany, it was revealed yesterday.

    The so-called EU3 and the United States are expected to push at the session of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s governing board to have Tehran referred to the UN Security Council after it resumed research that could be used for generating electricity or making atomic bombs.

    The US and EU said yesterday they saw no point in holding further negotiations with Iran on its nuclear programmes and it was time for the Security Council to tackle the issue.

    Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, said there was “not much to talk about” and Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, agreed. Ms Rice said the international community was united in mistrusting the Islamic republic and its present leadership with nuclear technology.

    ‘Bout freakin’ time. It was obvious from the beginning that the Euro-led negotiations were a waste of valuable time, time Iran has used to its advantage. A week ago, I blogged the following:

    It is time, actually well past time, to admit that the Euro diplomacy path was a gambit doomed to fail. The U.S. was forced to allow it, as the Bush administration had been painted into a corner with all the false and politically-driven accusations of unilateral action and rush to war surrounding the Iraqi theater. From the beginning, there was a key fault with the negotiations — one side didn’t actually want them to succeed.

    So now we find the matter heading toward the UNSC. Make no mistake, however — that will not be the last stop on this hellish ride. It’s just another point on a journey that will likely end in flame. The true story ultimately lies in just who will decide the locations of said flame.

  • Monday Post-MNF Link Dump

    Man, I could go for some football right now. Instead, I’ve been checking out these stories.

    Media Zinger o’ the Day

    Landing like a solid right cross hidden behind a good left jab [emphasis added].

    Witnessing former Vice President Gore’s speech today in which he basically accused President Bush of criminality for warrant-less eavesdropping on Americans was fascinating in part because it demonstrated just how spicy a Washington speech can be when the person giving it has nothing left to lose.

    Where Have I Heard This Tune Before?

    Filed under Iran-Playing-the-World-Like-a-Fiddle.

    A POTENTIAL breakthrough in the nuclear stand-off with Iran came last night when the Iranian ambassador in Moscow praised a proposal to move Tehran’s uranium enrichment programme to Russia.

    As Britain, the United States, Russia, France and China met in London yesterday to discuss how to handle Iran’s illegal nuclear development, the country was facing the growing certainty that it would be referred to the UN Security Council.

    While China remained resolutely silent on the possibility of sanctions – a move which it has the power to veto – Russia made significant moves towards the western stance on Iran’s nuclear programme.

    Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, said last night that his position is “very close” to that of the United States and Britain. And it appeared that he could hold the key to a resolution when Iran’s ambassador to Russia, Gholamreza Ansari, welcomed an offer to move the Iranian uranium enrichment programme to Russia.

    Such a move would mean Iran, which is developing a missile which could reach Israel, could not acquire enough material for a bomb.

    “As far as Russia’s proposal is concerned, we consider it constructive and are carefully studying it. This is a good initiative to resolve the situation. We believe that Iran and Russia should find a way out of this jointly,” said Mr Ansari.

    Banned in Iran: CNN

    Allowed in Saddam’s Iraq for a willingness to filter news for the tyrant, banned from Iran for a mistranslation. From a journalistic standpoint, which is more degrading?

    Iran banned CNN from working in the country due to its mistranslation of comments made by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a recent news conference.

    The indefinite ban, announced Monday on state-run television, highlighted the continuing tension between Iran and the West over Tehran’s nuclear program.

    In remarks Saturday, Ahmadinejad had defended Iran’s right to continue nuclear research. State media have complained since the news conference that CNN translated his words as “nuclear weapons” instead of “nuclear technology” or “nuclear energy.”

    “Due to mistranslation of the words of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during his press conference, activities of the American CNN in Tehran are banned until further notice,” said a Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry statement read on state-run television.

    CNN acknowledged the mistake in its U.S. broadcast.

    Yet Another Reason to Despise the Media

    A long-time military deserter has been identified and taken into custody.

    A US Marine who absconded from his base more than 36 years ago as a protest against the Vietnam war has been arrested and may face a court martial.

    Ernest Johnson Jr, 55, fled his camp in North Carolina in 1969 after becoming disenchanted with the war in Vietnam.

    […]

    Mr Johnson said he began to doubt the wisdom of joining the Marines after news emerged in 1969 of a now-infamous massacre of Vietnamese civilians at the village of My Lai.

    […]

    “I just decided I didn’t want to be a part of killing anybody. That’s about as plain as I can say it,” Mr Johnson said.

    A spokesman for the US Marines said Mr Johnson could face a maximum jail term of three years and a dishonourable discharge if found guilty.

    A decision has not yet been taken on whether to transport him back to Camp Lejeune, in North Carolina.

    However, the US military has previously dropped charges against similar deserters, instead giving them a less-than-honourable discharge.

    Why do I see this as a reason to despise the media? Well, there is this little tidbit at the end of the story.

    Captain Jay Delarosa denied the arrest was part of a campaign to send messages to modern-day Marines.

    “The purpose in apprehending such individuals is… simply an end result of a decision he made long ago.”

    That means that, during a wartime period with retention rates well above military expectations, some idiot in the press asked the question about an ulterior motive for capturing a deserter. If they cannot find a morale problem, they are quite willing to insinuate one. The approach of today’s practitioners of journalism, a craft I grew up loving, absolutely disgusts me

  • Zawahiri Apparently Lives

    When I blogged about Friday’s missile strike targeting chief al Queda lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri, I hedged that reports of his demise may be premature again. Indeed, that appears to be the case.

    Does that mean the strike was failure of intelligence or a bloody, tragic mistake? Not according to Bob Owens at Confederate Yankee, who points readers to a couple of stories saying the strike was based upon, of all things, a dinner invitation [emphasis in original].

    Terrorists were targeted at these locations by what appears to certainly be human intelligence working in conjunction with aerial surveillance and targeting. Only a human source (or communications monitoring—perhaps by NSA?) would be able to find out that al-Zawahiri was invited to dinner at this home, and it is reasonable for a circling drone or any operators on the ground to surmise that a small ground of armed men arriving at the specified location at the specified time might very well contain their target. This was not a case of an intelligence failure, but a case of one fewer terrorists showing up for dinner.

    There is, in every war, the tragic loss of innocents. At other times, those labeled as innocent sometimes are not as they appear.

  • U.S. Targeted al Qaeda No. 2 in Airstrike

    The hottest news tonight is apparent CIA missile attack aimed at a key al Queda figure.

    A U.S. airstrike in Pakistan targeted al Qaeda’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, but it was unclear if he had been killed, U.S. sources knowledgeable about the strike said in Washington.

    CNN quoted sources as saying the CIA had ordered the airstrike on buildings after receiving intelligence that Zawahri was in a village near the border with Afghanistan.

    ABC News quoted Pakistani military sources as saying five of those killed were “high-level” al Qaeda figures.

    Pakistan was investigating the reports, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said.

    “Our investigation is still going on … I cannot confirm anything,” Ahmed told Reuters.

    Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden and the Egyptian-born Zawahri have eluded capture since U.S.-led forces toppled Afghanistan’s Taliban government in 2001 in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

    Since 9/11, tales of the demise of several key enemy figures have come and gone, usually proving premature or unsuccessful. Significant in this story is that the CIA felt their intelligence was solid enough to carry out an attack within Pakistan, an attack whose political fallout will be interesting to follow. Still, should Zawahiri be found to have been hurried along to the long dirtnap, it would not be without a trace of irony.

    In a video aired last Friday, Zawahri congratulated Muslims “on Islam’s victory in Iraq” and said the United States was being defeated there.

  • Are You Ready to Apocalyptically Rumble?!!

    The Iranian president apparently is.

    Read and despair.

    Cower. Pretend our enemies are simply better folk than the dreaded neocons fear.

    Or brace for what must be done. In this case, we’re not drawing the line in the sand; they are. Ace states the case briefly. I’ve left out his great dry-humor, entertainment-related portion, so just follow the link if you want that.

    We can’t let them have the bomb. If it means preemptive war– we canot let them have the bomb.

    Hat tip for all to the Jawa Report and its ominous accompanying graphic.

    A man, possibly mad but certainly driven by a religious belief that is fatalistic, is now within a finger’s grasp of nuclear weapons. A country dead-set on destroying Israel and, ultimately, the U.S., has toyed with European negotiators while hastening the globe into greater danger. Please do not think the U.N. will stem this tide; there will be flame. There will be explosions. For now, the location of those flames and explosions may be up to us. For now …

    The saddest thing about it all is that the Iranian populace probably thirsts more for a true democratic government than any other Islamic country. Perhaps there’s maneuver room yet …

  • Crisis as Iran Reopens Nuclear Research Plant

    Iran has taken the next step in its game of nuclear brinksmanship.

    Iran yesterday precipitated a fresh crisis over its nuclear programme by removing UN seals at a facility in the town of Natanz and announcing that it would begin research involving nuclear enrichment – which can produce weapons grade material.

    To counter, Russia has announced that it is “very disappointed” and “expressed deep concern” on the development. Great Britain, France and Germany, the Euro powers that have been in negotiation with Iran in hopes of halting the radical nation’s nuclear ambitions, announced that they “may meet on Thursday to discuss” the issue. The United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency bravely rushed forth with a “predictably lame response” (for once not my phrasing for anything the agency has managed for years and years). Apparently, there was even a “global outcry” today, though I seemed to have missed it.

    With a tad bit more effort, the civilized world could have come across looking even more limp-wristed and weak … maybe.

    It is time, actually well past time, to admit that the Euro diplomacy path was a gambit doomed to fail. The U.S. was forced to allow it, as the Bush administration had been painted into a corner with all the false and politically-driven accusations of unilateral action and rush to war surrounding the Iraqi theater. From the beginning, there was a key fault with the negotiations — one side didn’t actually want them to succeed.

    Negotiation in the classic diplomatic sense assumes parties more anxious to agree than to disagree.

    —Dean Acheson

    The Euro-Iranian talks have been along the lines of the negotiations preceeding the Munich Agreement, as one side sought “peace in our time” while the other merely sought to buy time.

    The danger to the survival of Israel is evident, especially given the fanaticism of the current Iranian president and his backing hard-line religious leaders. What may be less evident but no less true is the danger the West would face by a nuke-capable and quite radical Iran stepping forth as leaders of the Islamist world.

    Unless science suddenly helps the European powers regrow a spine, the time has come for the only nations actually willing and capable of facing the threat to step up to the plate. I’m speaking specifically about the U.S. and Israel. Bloody action by one of the two may quickly be needed, though such wouldn’t be easy. Unfortunately, current global politics would prevent an overtly-combined action by the two. As the Islamist threat matures and becomes more evident, at least to those not completely and pathetically blinded, that sad political reality may change or become a less-pressing consideration when compared to the survival of our civilization.

  • Top Revolutionary Guard Dies in Iran Air Crash

    A kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh. And a crash may be just a crash.

    Ahmad Kazemi, appointed last year as ground forces commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, was among 13 people killed on Monday in a plane crash near the city of Urumiyeh, north-west Iran

    General Kazemi was one of a wave of promotions made last August by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, after new president Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad took office.

    Separate from Iran’s regular armed forces, the Revolutionary Guards have land, sea and air forces, and run a network of business activities. Iran’s reformists have long accused the Guards of playing too political a role.

    The aircraft, a French-made Falcon jet, came down because landing gear jammed, reported IRNA, the official news agency, which put General Kazemi among the 11 commanders killed.

    This was Iran’s second military plane crash in two months. On December 6, around 105 people, mainly journalists, died when a US-made military transport Hercules C-130 crashed into a residential building near Tehran’s Mehrabad airport after suffering engine trouble.

    Iran has a patchy recent history of air safety, with spare parts for both military and civilian aircraft subject to US sanctions.

    As I noted earlier, military aviation is a dangerous business. Still, given the recent radical behavior at the top of the Iranian government, I doubt I’m the only one with thoughts of the word purge.

    Even if, after all is said and done, the problem stems from continued American sanctions, do not turn here for tears.

  • U.S. Freezes Assets of Two Iran Nuclear Firms

    Bravo.

    The US government has frozen the assets of two Iranian companies linked to the Islamic republic’s nuclear drive, officials said.

    The Treasury Department said the duo — Novin Energy Co and Mesbah Energy Co — were guilty of fostering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

    Its action came a day after Iran informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that it plans on Jan 9 to resume research and development into its ‘peaceful nuclear energy programme’.

    The US and EU have demanded that Iran refrain from all nuclear enrichment activities.

    It’s just a start, but there’s no point in waiting for oft-teased progress from Euro-Iranian negotiations and certainly no need to wait for the United Nations Security Council to actually stir in further inaction.

    UPDATE: Iran Declares Its Nuclear Plan Nonnegotiable

    Iran vowed Wednesday to proceed with a plan to restart nuclear research next week, though the government has yet to explain to the United Nations’ nuclear monitoring agency what activities it intends to carry out.

    Ali Larijani, the senior official in charge of nuclear issues, was quoted on Iranian state television on Wednesday as saying the decision to resume nuclear research was “nonnegotiable.”

    Responding to criticism that the decision would violate Iran’s formal agreement with Europe to suspend all uranium conversion and enrichment activities, he said: “Research has its own definition. It is not related to industrial production. Hence, it was never part of the negotiations.”

    Late Tuesday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took a similar hard line. “We will not take a step back on our path,” he was quoted by state television as saying.

    If I were suddenly to find myself on the ground in Iran, I’d be keeping my head up and my eyes on the sky. Hey, I’m just pondering the possibilities.