The Counter Terrorist Magazine - October/November 2013

Natrun Breakout • FARC Hostage • Brother’s Circle • Cognitive Warfare

Journal for Law Enforcement, Intelligence & Special Operations Professionals

Counter The

October/November 2013

Volume 6 • Number 5

Challenges of the

United Nations

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Counter

The Journal for Law Enforcement, Intelligence & Special Operations Professionals october/november 2013 Volume 6 • Number 5

COVER story:

30

contents

30

16

48

Challenges of the United Nations

By Steve Young

FEATURES:

8

Firsthand: Hostage of the FARC

By Myriam Norton

16

Case Study: The Wadi al Natrun Prison Break and the Future of Egypt

By Dean T. Olson

The Brothers’ Circle: Russian Criminal 48 Network Spans the Globe

By Jennifer Hesterman

56

COGNITIVE WARFARE IN THE 21ST CENTURY

By Richard Landes

departments: 6

From the Editor Vaya Con Dios

46 Book Review

We Will Bury You 69 Innovative Products

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72 Training Review

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Cover Photo: A burning house in the neighborhood of Orchard Court in Homs Syria after

bombing of the Syrian army who is trying to suppress the revolution against the regime there.

Photo: Bo yaser

The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013 5

Counter The

From The Editor:

Vaya Con Dios

By Chris Graham

E

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dmund Burke said, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” Quite frequently good men do nothing and quite frequently evil triumphs… at least for a time. Let us celebrate the life of an ordinary man who chose to do the opposite of the do-nothing men.

Don Alejo Garza Tamez was born in 1933 in Nuevo Leon, Mexico. He grew up fishing and hunting. On November 13, 2010 men from the Zetas narco-insurgent gang told him to leave his ranch within 24 hours. As in all governments, some Mexican officials are honest and diligent, some are incompetent and some are corrupt.

Unfortunately, there is no 2nd Amendment in Mexico to protect citizens’ ability to own weapons appropriate for self-defense. Don Alejo told his workers not to come back in the morning.

Under the morning sun, the 77 year old rancher watched several vehicles pull in front of his house. Men unconcerned with gun prohibitions dismounted firing long bursts into the air. The ringleader shouted, “We own this ranch”. Don Alejo shot him dead and an intense firefight ensued.

When Mexican Marines arrived, they found a structure partially destroyed by fragmentation grenades; bullet holes were everywhere. The body of Don Allejo lay inside with two hunting guns at hand. He had weapons as inadequate as bird guns positioned at each window. Marines found the remains of four Zetas outside. Blood trails were everywhere and the fleeing Zetas had abandoned two more of their own unconscious and bleeding.

On the anniversary of Don Alejo’s death, I will raise a toast to a heroic man. The world has great need for such courage in the face of each of the challenges that we face.

Don Alejo’s actions are an inspiration to Mexican citizens and each of the ranchers, sheriff’s deputies and border patrol agents on our border. May they inspire a renewed commitment to effective border security operations and improvement of leadership.

Semper Fidelis,

Chris Graham Editor, The Counter Terrorist

october/november 2013 Editor Chris Graham Director of Operations Sol Bradman Director of Advertizing Carmen Arnaes Production Assistants Giselle Manassa Melissa Berne

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Advertising Sales Chris Bell Publisher: Security Solutions International 13155 SW 134th St. • STE 204 Miami, Florida 33186 ISSN 1941-8639 The Counter Terrorist Magazine, Journal for Law Enforcement, Intelligence & Special Operations Professionals is published by Security Solutions International LLC, as a service to the nation’s First Responders and Homeland Security Professionals with the aim of deepening understanding of issues related to Terrorism. No part of the publication can be reproduced without permission from the publisher.

The opinions expressed herein are the opinions of the authors represented and not necessarily the opinions of the publisher.

Please direct all Editorial correspondence related to the magazine to: Security Solutions International SSI, 13155 SW 134th Street, Suite 204, Miami, Florida.

33186 or info@thecounterterroristmag.com The subscription price for 6 issues is $34.99 and the price of the magazine is $5.99.

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Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013 7

Firsthand:

Hostage of the FARC

By Myriam Norton

During the eighties, nineties, and early two thousands, each year, around 3,000 individuals were taken into captivity in Colombia. I am one of them. I was abducted at gunpoint by a group of common criminals who then sold me to the FARC (Colombian Armed Revolutionary Forces), Colombia’s most powerful terrorist organization.

T Excerpted from the author’s book Under Their Claws—A Testimony of My Kidnapping (Trafford, 2012).

8 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013

his is common for FARC and similar organizations; freelance criminal gangs agree to conduct the initial kidnap of their prey and then pass them over to the FARC in exchange for money.

At that time, the FARC financed their operations mainly by collecting ransom from their hostages’ families, managing their drug business and extortion. It was against the law to pay ransom for a kidnapped loved one in Colombia

Andes Mountains. Photo: EEIM

because this encouraged more kidnapping and gave the subversive groups increased power. However, paying up was the only way to get someone back alive. Many never returned. Even when families paid the required sum, the terrorists sometimes kept the victims, asked for a second payment, or had them murdered and sent back in a body bag.

The FARC had acquired information about me, my family and our properties

and they considered us potential prospects for producing a generous ransom. We are not wealthy, just normal property owners.

I had a small flower farm near Bogotá, Colombia’s capital, that I visited often to watch over my greenhouse. On one of my trips to care for the farm, I arrived early in the morning and got to work in the orchard attending my fruit trees. Suddenly I felt something cold and saw two sinisterlooking men. They pressed guns against

The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013 9

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They pressed guns against my temples. I almost fainted. One of the men said, “Where ya’ been?

We’ve been waiting an’ ya’ ain’t come out here for a while.” my temples. I almost fainted. One of the men said, “Where ya’ been? We’ve been waiting an’ ya’ ain’t come out here for a while.” One then pushed me from behind towards the farm house. My farm hands and their children were tied up in the main room, crying hysterically. The bandits threatened to kill them if I put up any resistance. These folks were like family to me; they had tended my farm for many years.

One of the men grabbed me brutally by my hair, pulled my head back, and forced me to swallow a bitter, green liquid I have since learned is an herbal narcotic that can cause brain damage if administered in large doses. The men dragged me out of the house and pushed me into the back seat of my old car, taking off at high speed down the driveway. At the entrance to the farm, two strange-looking specimens got into the back seat with me. I must have been hallucinating by that time and soon fell unconscious.

I woke up in a freezing, wooden mountain cabin with armed guards at the door. When I asked for the bathroom, I was escorted by two “guerilleros.” On the way, I saw many more of them with very young uniformed girls sitting on their laps, engaged in petting. I was then certain this was a kidnapping, and I felt shattered. I was held in the Andes foothills in an outdoor camp. Conditions

Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) insurgents.

Photo: National Defense University, Institute for National Strategic Studies Institute for National Strategic Studies. were deplorable. There were seven other kidnap victims present.

The guerillas had a routine for kidnapping and transporting their captives to the network of camps spread around the country, some in the jungles and others in the freezing mountains.

They had to get me out of Bogotá as soon as possible before the “Gaula” (the army unit designated to handle kidnappings) could track me down. This was their normal procedure; the victim was carried on horseback into the mountains, where it would be extremely difficult to follow them. My family was instructed by friends not to put pressure on the army or police if I was not found within a week.

After that, I would be heavily guarded and in great danger of being murdered if the army approached the campsite. At this point, the best hope of retrieving me was the long and arduous process of negotiation.

The guerillas had no specific profile for their victims when it came to

10 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013

kidnapping. Some of the hostages with me in the camp were simple, common people with no resources to pay ransom.

The FARC and similar groups had their people infiltrate banks, government, and other public entities so they could check personal information to see who was worth kidnapping. Some victims were just picked up riding in a big car or jeep. This was called “Pesca Milagrosa” or “Miracle Catch,” and for close to four decades, it was dangerous to travel outside the main cities in Colombia because kidnappers would set up road blocks and bring people in at random.

When my family learned of my kidnapping, they immediately resorted to the negotiation process. The key to my liberation was the expertise of a very intelligent, dedicated committee that met every day to plan strategies and make decisions. The committee members had experience negotiating with the subversives and offered invaluable advice to my son, who held phone conversations

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The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013 11

directly with the FARC representative. I will be eternally grateful to this group of dedicated folks who gave their time and service to fight the horror of kidnapping, a terrible plague in Colombia.

The guerilla chiefs lived in large, wellequipped camps where they carried out their operations: bombing local towns, acquiring more property, and lording over people who worked in the drug industry. In comparison, the camp where I was held was very primitive, and we were cold all the time, poorly fed, and received no medical attention. Some of the wealthiest victims were tortured for information about their possessions or information about other wealthy citizens.

These captives were usually kept alone and chained to a pole or a tree, some for months or even years.

One of the most terrifying ordeals of my captivity was when the guerillas forced me to walk for miles to a mountain to call my family on a cell-phone for “proof of life.” The negotiation process couldn’t go forward unless my loved ones knew I was still alive. I was exhausted by the time we got to the mountain, and I almost gave up when they told me I had to climb a sheer cliff to reach the plateau on top, the only place for miles around where a call could be made. Another hostage, a kind young man, saved my life that day. We scaled the cliff together, and he instructed

I went into a crisis state and completely lost control, lashing out and screaming, “You murderers! Why don’t you just kill me too? I’d rather be dead than continue on this way.”

me every inch of the way. “Myriam, don’t look down, we’re almost there.” He climbed ahead of me and pulled me up the smooth face of the mountain from one tiny ledge to another. There were armed guerillas stationed on the plateau looking out for military aircraft. When I heard my son’s voice over the cell phone, I broke down. He kindly made it clear that I was to act as if I was talking to a stranger.

It was too dangerous for the FARC to know a family member was doing the negotiating.

Because this knowledge would have put us both at risk, I had to force myself to control my emotions. After the call, climbing down the cliff was even worse than going up, and I was in a state of shock by the time we reached the ground.

At one point during my captivity, the guerillas got word the army was sending planes to attack, so we had to leave the premises immediately. We packed up the tents and our meager possessions and began trekking across the mountain. We were all dressed in guerilla uniforms so it would be impossible for the army to tell who was a subversive and who was a hostage from the air.

Partway through our journey, all hell broke loose! We ran through the forest while aircraft descended, shooting.

One elderly hostage, who couldn’t keep up with the rest of us, asked to be left behind. The guerillas decided that one of them should stay back with him, and soon I heard a gunshot. The bandit joined us with a smug look on his face and the man’s ring on his finger. I went into a crisis state and completely lost control, lashing out and screaming, “You murderers! Why don’t you just kill me too? I’d rather be dead than continue on this way.” My fellow hostages calmed me down and made me promise never to throw a fit like that again. It would only give the captors an excuse to take my life. We finally reached a new campsite

12 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013

where we set up the tents at gunpoint and resumed our unbearable life in captivity.

Eventually, one of the hostages found an old radio in the mud and managed to fix it. After that, we listened regularly to a government radio program broadcast all over the country, where families spoke to their kidnapped loved ones. My family joined the program, and I heard my sons and mother telling me how much they loved and missed me. This gave me new incentive to stay alive.

In my book I describe our daily life, the food we ate, what we wore, the way we bathed, and how we were treated. I include character studies of our captors, my interactions with fellow hostages, the strategies I learned to stay mentally aware and positive, and many more incidents.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the story is how my liberation came about and the day I was ransomed and finally set free.

My story may stand out because it is told through the eyes of an older woman from a European culture. I was accustomed to a life of values and beauty. The contrast between my usual surroundings and lifestyle and the treatment I received in captivity made the experience even more acute. The psychological impact of kidnapping is different for each victim. In my case, I had to spend a long time coming to terms with the trauma, fear, and frustration I experienced. The healing process took a long time. Writing my story helped me find peace as I released my pent-up emotions on paper. With the help of one of my sons, a psychiatrist, I was able to piece together my broken psyche.

Far more important than my personal story is that of Colombia, a wonderful country inhabited by hard-working people. It has been the target of the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary group FARC (ironically considered the

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wealthiest terrorist group in the world) and other groups for decades. Massacres, bombings, kidnappings, and internal warfare have left an enormous number of internally displaced people.

According to the latest report from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), based in Geneva, the number of displaced individuals in Colombia lies between 4,900,000 and 5,500,000 people. Entire families have been forced off their land or murdered if they don’t comply with FARC assaults. Drug trafficking has been transferred from the hands of powerful drug lords into the hands of the FARC and other subversives.

Youth are used as soldiers, young girls are abused, and little children are taken into captivity for ransom. Many young girls who were recruited into the FARC were sterilized by force so they could be sexual slaves without procreating. The value of life was limited, and the magnitude of violence reached extreme proportions.

The Colombian government is currently

negotiating with the FARC, but the damage goes on and the scars left by the crimes committed have touched the lives of almost every Colombian family. I truly hope my story will open the eyes of my readers to the need for action to rescue, protect, and restore the lives of kidnapping victims. Each hostage that shared their captivity with me had their own personal story. I include a few of them in my book in honor of their courage and suffering.

Some survived, and some didn’t.

The most devastating experience of my life was when my son David, who carried out the negotiation for my freedom, passed away from a heart attack a few years after my release. I am eternally grateful to him for his love and dedication. I struggle with the unanswered question, “Why did God take him and not me?” As terrible as the kidnapping was, it can’t compare to this kind of grief.

General Alvaro Valencia Tovar, a retired general in the Colombian Army and former

presidential candidate, did me the honor of writing the foreword and epilogue for my book. His knowledge of Colombian history and insight into current events is an invaluable part of my story.

I am not a professional author, but I felt compelled to do my best to shed light on this atrocious reality by providing information to support the efforts of the public forces that are fighting against similar groups everywhere.

•

About the author Ms. Norton was born in Vienna at the beginning of the Second World War. Her parents escaped to Colombia, where she was raised. She studied at Bryant College in Rhode Island; worked as an interpreter and secretary at the American Embassy in Bogotá, Colombia; married a doctor; had three sons; and started her own company. In 2003 she was kidnapped by the FARC. She is the author of Under Their Claws—A Testimony of My Kidnapping (Trafford, 2012).

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Case Study:

By Dean T. Olson

The Wadi al Natrun Prison Break and the Future of Egypt

Counter The

In one of the largest protests in human history, Egyptians protest President Barack Obama’s support to (former) President Morsi, member of the Islamic supremacist group Muslim Brotherhood (2013).

16 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013

Recent instability in Egypt, and President Muhammad Morsi’s arrest by the Egyptian military for previous crimes, is but the most recent phase of a broken country’s flirtation with democratic practices.

T

he revolutionary wave that swept much of the Arab world beginning in December 2010 was euphemistically called the Arab Spring. It forced from power long-standing secular dictators not only in Egypt but in Tunisia, Libya, and Yemen, and sparked the bloody civil war in Syria. It forced from power longstanding secular dictators not only in Egypt but in Tunisia, Libya, and Yemen, and sparked the bloody civil war in Syria.

The political view from Washington that continues to inform foreign policy toward Arab nations appears to be that the

Arab Spring would usher in democratic reforms. It was likely this belief that led American President Barack Obama to pressure previous Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to step down in February 2011. President Obama took steps to actively court the Muslim Brotherhood prior to Mubarak’s exit. Then, shortly after Mubarak was overthrown, the Obama administration began actively supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Muslim Brotherhood, the oldest and best-organized movement in Egypt, was likely to gain and consolidate power

by capitalizing on its organizational superiority and holding elections as quickly as possible.1 While others in Egypt wanted to wait until a constitutional convention convened and a new blueprint for Egyptian governance could be written, the Muslim Brotherhood agitated vociferously for immediate elections.

Later, in December 2012, five months after elections plagued by corruption and fraud catapulted Morsi to power, President Obama was silent when Morsi assumed dictatorial powers and pushed through a Muslim Brotherhood constitution.2

The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013 17

After the 2011 revolution, many Egyptians hoped that the heavy-handed abuses of Mubarak’s security apparatus, the corruption-plagued judiciary, and a failing economy would be rectified by the country’s new rulers. Instead, Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood regime jettisoned its democratic façade through a series of power grabs and increasingly imposed rule by the draconian Islamic code of justice known as shariah. In the process, Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority were massacred and their churches burned. Throughout this period, Morsi continued to strengthen his own authority while claiming to exercise power to safeguard the reform process.

Meanwhile, Morsi’s government was unable to meet the basic requirements of the Egyptian people, including their needs for water, electricity and fuel.3 The government’s failure to address

Egypt’s deteriorating infrastructure, food, agriculture, housing, police, security, and legal systems led a deeply disillusioned and frustrated populace to vent its anger in public protests that ultimately led the military to depose Morsi in 2013. These protests were some of the largest in human history.

Like many failing states, Egypt has been unable to exert authority over some of its territory, including the ungoverned Sinai.4 As in other regions of the world that operate beyond the bounds of formal state authority, much of the Sinai exists in a netherworld ruled by local clans.

Strong Bedouin tribal traditions provide services the government cannot or will not provide. Drug, arms, and human trafficking and refugee flows are common from failed states and lawless regions like the Sinai. This chaos can be used to shield terrorist groups from counterterrorism

efforts, with these regions serving as cooling-off areas for operatives, logistics bases, and recruiting pools.5 Unsurprisingly, terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and Hezbollah have capitalized on the anarchy and moved into the Sinai. According to Lt. Col. Moshe Marzouk of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at Israel’s Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center, “Egypt’s territory has become no-man’s land for the smuggling of money, weapons, and terror cells. In fact, because of the difficulties in transporting arms, Hezbollah and the Iranians have built rocket production workshops in Sinai.”6 A prominent example of terrorist appropriation of blind spots in Egyptian governance is the April 2009 announcement on Lebanese television

by Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah that he had dispatched Mohammed Yusuf

Mansour, also known as Sami Shehab, to Sinai to establish a Hezbollah network there in 2005.7 Shehab stayed in Egypt after arriving in 2005 on a tourist visa under cover of being a businessman. One of his first tasks was to assist Palestinian allies in the months leading up to the Israel Defense Forces’ operation Cast Lead, a three-week offensive in December 2008 to combat Palestinian rocket attacks into Israel from Hamas-controlled Gaza.

Shehab also smuggled arms and operatives into the northern Sinai to plan attacks against Israel in retaliation for the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus, Syria, in February 2008.

Mughniyeh was associated with the 1983 U.S. Marine barracks and embassy bombings in Beirut that killed over 350 people. He was also involved in the kidnapping of dozens of foreigners in Lebanon in the 1980s and was indicted in

Egyptians protest the Obama administration’s closeness with the Muslim Brotherhood cult (2013).

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Argentina for his role in the 1992 Israeli embassy bombing in Buenos Aires. He is believed to have killed more American citizens than any other terrorist before the September 11, 2001, attacks. Israeli agents are credited with the car bombing that caused his death.8 The Shehab cell was additionally tasked with destabilizing the country by attacking government offices and shipping in the Suez Canal. When rounded up, the cell consisted of 49 operatives, including combatants of Palestinian Hamas. Before their arrest, the group had planned three simultaneous terror attacks against Israeli and Egyptian targets in three different tourist spots in Sinai.9 Egyptian security officials arrested Shehab in November 2008 on charges of smuggling arms and equipment to Gaza via the strip’s Egyptian border. Additional arrests further disrupted the network in early April 2009, when security officials seized explosive belts and other bombmaking materials. The officials charge that the network was “observing and locating tourist groups who repeatedly come to south Sinai resorts and residences”.10 According to Israeli officials, Hamas and al-Qaeda fighters, under the operational control of the Muslim

Brotherhood, are now using the northern Sinai as a base from which to launch largescale attacks on both Egypt and Israel.

This new terror strategy is designed to push Egyptian forces out of the northern and central regions of the Sinai Peninsula and bring Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip under Palestinian control.11 An Egyptian retreat would also allow Hamas to fully eliminate the Egyptian blockade that impedes the organization’s smuggling routes into Gaza and restore them back to full operation.12, 13 Taking advantage of the current upheaval in Egypt, Hamas and al-Qaeda have moved more than 1,000 fighters into the Sinai through tunnels that link Gaza to the Egyptian city of Rafah.14 The increase in jihadist activity in the Sinai is bolstered by inroads terror groups have made in recruiting indigenous Bedouins. Egyptian military officials blame Bedouins for facilitating recent jihadist terrorist attacks on both Egyptian and Israeli targets near the Sinai border.

The government’s media organ Al-Ahram claims that the growing link between terrorist groups and the Tarabin Bedouin clan is based on mutual financial interests and religious sympathies.15 The 300,000 nomadic tribe members in the Sinai

are suspected of using their familiarity with the vast expanse of land to provide refuge and training camps for terrorists.

Egyptian intelligence officials also believe the Bedouin and militant groups are collaborating in arms, drugs and human trafficking operations as a means to fund terrorist activities.

Bedouin tribal leader Hassan Khalaf acknowledges that al-Qaeda is beginning to infiltrate Sinai in a “coalition of evil.”

In his words, “they do exist but not in the thousands, maybe 200.”16 Khalaf claims that Bedouin alliances with jihadists result from their mistreatment at the hands of Egyptian security forces. For example, Khalaf alleges that Cairo courts have sentenced several hundred Bedouin to life in prison after trying them in absentia for crimes they didn’t commit.

“Sinai is ideal and fertile ground for al-Qaeda,” says Khalil al-Anani, a Middle East specialist at Durham University in England.17 “It could become a new front for al-Qaeda in the Arab world.” Most observers see no evidence as yet of formal links between al-Qaeda and the Sinai militants, made up of Bedouin aggrieved at their treatment by Cairo, Egyptians who escaped prisons during the 2011 uprising against Hosni Mubarak, and

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Palestinians from neighboring Gaza.18 Bedouin elders report that in every village, three or four youths have disappeared to join the militants, sometimes inspired by al-Qaeda propaganda delivered over the Internet, and sometimes inspired by preachers in local mosques. With a lack of roads, development, and state control, the mountains and villages of the northern Sinai’s vast desert hinterland are nearly impenetrable, making it easy for militants to hide. In fact, in the Jabal al-Halah mountain in central Sinai, the militants are believed to be so well dug-in that nobody can touch them, with Bedouins in the area calling the region “the Tora Bora of Sinai,” a reference to the Afghan mountain hideout used by al-Qaeda in 2001.19 Conditions in the northern Sinai parallel those in the tribal areas of Pakistan, where al-Qaeda has grown deep roots. Both areas are generally beyond the control of central governments; both lie in the middle of wider political conflicts; the authority of tribal leaders in both has been diminished as money from crime, Gulf remittances, and state patronage has filtered in, making it easier for militants to promote unity in Islam over tribal loyalty.20 As Ehud Yaari of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy explains, “We are witnessing today the rise of these new Bedouin fundamentalists [who are]… destroying the old tribal structures. They allow marriages between rival tribes and force women to wear the veil. This never happened before.”21 A particular concern is that militant Salafists in Gaza and Sinai are joining forces, creating an environment ripe for al-Qaeda to establish a base.22 According to one Arab diplomat in Islamabad, Pakistan, Egyptian members of al-Qaeda have begun to move back from Pakistan to take advantage of political changes in

their home country. As yet, however, the Sinai militants appear to be mimicking al-Qaeda rather than trying to establish formal links with the group.23 On January 30, 2011, fighters from Ezz e-Din al Qassam, the armed component of Hamas, crossed into the northern Sinai and attacked Egyptian troops near the city of El Arish.24 This was followed one day later by an attack on an Egyptian police station in El Arish by an al-Qaeda terror cell from Gaza. The intelligence organization Search for International Terrorist Entities (SITE) claimed that prior to the attack, an Islamist website had posted the following: “To our brothers, the Bedouins of Sinai, the heroes of Islam, strike with an iron fist, because this is a chance to stop the supply to the Israelites.”25 On February 6, 2011, five armed men, three of whom were members of Hamas, were captured by Egyptian soldiers as they went back to blow up another section of energy pipeline.26 One day later, Egyptian security forces came under attack near the city of Rafah by the al-Qaeda-linked Islamist group Takfir Wal-Hijra. The Egyptians claimed that the same group had kidnapped three Egyptian policemen only days earlier.27

Morsi’s Great Escape: The Wadi al Natrun Prison Break On July 26, 2013, Egypt’s military government arrested President Muhammad Morsi on charges of murder and conspiring with the terrorist organization Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian affiliate, to commit crimes against the Egyptian state.

These accusations are connected to a prison break at the Wadi al Natrun prison complex during the 2011 uprising against Hosni Mubarak. The break occurred when gunmen attacked the prison northwest of Cairo, freeing hundreds of prisoners

including Morsi and 30 other Muslim Brotherhood figures. Egyptian prosecutors allege that Morsi and the Brotherhood worked with Hamas to carry out the break, in which 14 guards were killed. 28 The Brotherhood has denied the charges.

Morsi’s current troubles stem from the protests against then-President Hosni Mubarak on Friday, January 28, 2011, when hundreds of people were arrested at various sites across Egypt.

The trouble started shortly after Friday jumma—Islamic religious services— when thousands of Egyptians took to the streets throughout the country in what was called the “Day of Rage.” Within hours, the number rose to hundreds of thousands. Mubarak responded to the growing unrest by unleashing his dreaded State Security Agency and rounding up many leaders of the protests.29 Morsi was among those arrested in the early morning hours of Friday, January 28, 2011, and

“To our brothers, the Bedouins of Sinai, the heroes of Islam, strike with an iron fist, because this is a chance to stop the supply to the Israelites.”

The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013 21

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housed with other Muslim Brotherhood leaders in the Wadi al Natrun prison. The prison also housed Hamas and Hezbollah members convicted of terrorist crimes, including Sami Shehab; Ayman Noufal of Hezbollah; Muhammad Al-Hadi, who was said to be a member of Hamas; and Ramzi Mowafi, who was believed to be the leader of al-Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula.

In Cairo and other cities, protesters demanding Mubarak’s ouster continued to fight battles with security forces. The police were stretched thin and withdrew from streets around the country for the rest of the revolution. Capitalizing on the turmoil and exhausted security forces, Hezbollah’s Nasrallah ordered a bold operation to free Shehab and other Hezbollah leaders from three prisons in the country.30 Thus, Hamas and Hezbollah prisoners were also freed in attacks on two other Egyptian prisons, elMarg and Abu Zaabal. A second objective was to release Muslim Brotherhood inmates to boost the anti-Mubarak street protests then in their second week across Egypt. On January 29, when the demonstrations intensified, policemen and prison guards were transferred from their posts to the streets. Hamas members, Hezbollah members, and sympathetic Bedouins hid among friends and family members of Wadi al Natrun prisoners to take advantage of the weakened guard force and break into the jail, freeing almost 3,000 prisoners and detainees, including members of Hezbollah and al-Qaeda.31 A military intelligence official confirmed reports that beginning on January 27, 2011, bands of fighters from Gaza began entering Sinai through crossborder tunnels, bringing ammunition, machine guns, and mines. They were met

by Sinai Bedouin in SUVs, he said. At the same time, Bedouin attacked police

positions near the border as a diversion.32 On Sunday, January 30, 2011, a joint Hezbollah-Hamas unit raided the Wadi al Natrun prison to free Morsi and 234 out of 430 prisoners in his cell block. Several witnesses reported that the attackers were masked, wore coats like those of Sinai’s Bedouins, spoke with Gazan and Sinai accents, and specifically targeted the cell block holding political prisoners.33 These prisoners included 34 senior members of the Muslim Brotherhood, including seven members of the Guidance Bureau and the supreme leadership of the movement.

Among the seven leaders were Mohamed Morsi and Dr. Saad Al-Katatni, who was the first speaker of the parliament and chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood’s “Freedom and Justice” party.34 Other inmates freed during the attack included 22 members of Hezbollah who were convicted of plotting terrorist attacks in Cairo, along the Suez Canal, and against Israeli vacationers in Sinai in 2007 and 2008, including network leader Sami Shehab.35 In all, 11 of Egypt’s more than 40 prisons saw jail breaks. Officials said men in pickup trucks and SUVs with machine guns used earthmoving equipment to break down walls and overwhelm guards, while prisoners inside rioted. “They came in so many cars I could not count them,” prison official Gen. Essam el-Qoussi told reporters. “It was like doomsday for us,” he said. According to el-Qoussi, the attackers “fought with our guards for about 90 minutes.”36 The unit assigned by Nasrallah for the Wadi al Natrun jail break consisted of 25 trained Hezbollah and Hamas operatives.

When the riots erupted in Egypt, they started making their way from Gaza to Egypt via smuggling tunnels at Rafah.

On the way, they picked up weapons and explosives in El Arish in northern Sinai.

Security forces were distracted by the

harassing attacks of armed Palestinians and Bedouin designed to divert them.37 The assault team was met at the Suez Canal by Muslim Brotherhood activists who ferried them across to Ismailia on the western bank using Egyptian smuggling boats. From there, team members were driven to the Wadi al Natrun prison, one of the largest in Egypt, to be briefed outside by former Muslim Brotherhood inmates on the guard and security posture in the jail and the locations of the cells holding the Hezbollah, Hamas, and Brotherhood convicts.38 After days of surveillance and preparation, the team struck. In a coordinated, multifocal attack, explosives and rocket-propelled grenades were used to destroy the outer control points, killing at least 30 Egyptian prison guards. Small explosive charges were used to breach

internal gates and clear the way to the cells. 39 Once outside, the freed inmates were collected by a large convoy of trucks and buses brought in by the Muslim Brotherhood that distributed them around the disturbance hubs in Cairo. A smaller convoy of minivans carried the 22 Hezbollah and Hamas members and the assault team across the Sinai to Gaza by various routes, moving them past Egyptian security forces who were fully engaged with the riots. As soon as the Wadi al Natrun escape was discovered, Egyptian forces in Sinai and Israeli forces on the Egyptian border deployed in an effort to stop the escapees from entering Gaza, but the forces were too late.40 On Thursday, February 3, Mahmoud Qmati, a Hezbollah member of the Lebanese parliament, announced that all

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The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013 23

22 members of the Shehab network who had been imprisoned in Egypt, including its leader Sami Shehab, had been freed from jail and returned home safely. This audacious joint Hezbollah-Hamas attack on the Wadi al Natrun prison was the first major paramilitary operation the groups had carried out deep inside Egypt.41

Conclusion Morsi’s only account of the Wadi al Natrun escape, an apparently selfserving effort to create an alibi, came in a frantic phone call he made to Al-Jazeera Mubasher television moments after being freed. “From the noises we heard ... It seemed to us there were [prisoners] attempting to get out of their cells and break out into the prison yard, and the prison authorities were trying to regain control and fired tear gas,” Morsi said in the call. By the time they got out, the prison was empty, and there was no sign of a battle, he claimed.42 Ali Ezz, a senior Brotherhood figure who escaped with Morsi, also told reporters that they had been trapped in the block while others fled. “We could have been left to die in that prison,” he said.

Ezz claimed testimony about a force of Bedouin and Gazan fighters was “baseless.”

Egypt’s military forces recently started a massive operation against armed extremists in the northern Sinai Peninsula, code named Operation Desert Storm, on July 27, 2013.43 The military action appears to be intended to block extremists’ desert and mountain bases and interdict terrorist activity in the region, primarily in the northern and central Sinai.

Egypt will likely continue as a failing state. Despite an infusion of cash from Gulf emirates and the Saudis that will keep the country afloat for the near term, Egypt has been run into the ground for the past 40 years. The mounting resistance and violent protests over Morsi’s ouster signal that the Muslim Brotherhood will not go quietly. Based on history, it seems unlikely that Egypt’s second new start in as many years will yield the constructively functioning democracy many people have hoped for.

•

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about the author Mr. Olson is a retired law enforcement commander. He was in charge of his department’s participation in the regional Joint Terrorism Task Force. His most recent book is Tactical Counterterrorism: The Law Enforcement Manual of Terrorism Prevention (Charles C. Thomas, 2012).

Endnotes Caroline B. Glick. “Israel’s reviled strategic wisdom.” Jerusalem Post, July 5, 2013. Available at: http://www.jpost. com/Opinion/Columnists/Column-OneIsraels-reviled-strategic-wisdom-318818.

Retrieved August 7, 2013.

2 Ibid.

3 Hassan Tahsin. “Egypt in the Volcano.”

Saudi Gazette, June 27, 2013. Available at: http://saudigazette.com.sa/index. cfm?method=home.regcon&content id=20130627171336. Retrieved August 1

7, 2013.

4 Angel Rabasa, Steven Boraz, Peter Chalk, et al. 2007. Ungoverned Territories: Understanding and Reducing Terrorism Risks. Santa Monica, CA: Rand, p. 32.

5 Dean T. Olson. “Ungoverned Areas Pose Transnational Threats.” Eurasia Review, December 17, 2010.

6 Y-Net News. “Experts: Hizbullah in Sinai just tip of the iceberg.” April, 13, 2009. Available at: http://www.ynetnews. com/articles/0,7340,L-3700863,00.html.

Retrieved August 7, 2013.

7 Ya Libnan, “Hezbollah confirms its cell members escaped Egyptian jails.” February 3, 2011. Available at: http://www. yalibnan.com/2011/02/03/hezbollahconfirms-its-cell-members-escapedegyptian-jails/. Retrieved August 7, 2013.

8 David Williams. “Did Mossad blow up the Hezbollah ‘Master Terrorist’ who kidnapped Terry Waite?” Daily Mail, February 13, 2008. Available

13SM00000255

26 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013

at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ article-514130/Did-Mossad-blowHezbollah-Master-Terrorist-kidnappedTerry-Waite.html#ixzz2ar3r4Bsg. Retrieved August 7, 2013.

9 Y-Net News. “Egypt: Hizbullah cell plotted against Israelis.” April, 12, 2009.

Available at: http://www.ynetnews.com/ articles/0,7340,L-3700695,00.html.

Retrieved August 7, 2013.

10 Ibid.

11 Debka File. “Lawlessness spreads in N. Sinai as Hamas transfers al Qaeda cells.”

Article 20643. Available at: http://www. debka.com/article/20643/.

12 Isabel Kerschner. http://www. nytimes.com/2011/02/08/world/ middleeast/08sinai.html?ref=middleeast&_ r=0). Retrieved August 7, 2013.

13 Frank Crimi. “Terror in Sinai.”

Front Page Magazine, February 14, 2011. Available at: http://frontpagemag. com/2011/frank-crimi/terror-in-sinai/.

Retrieved August 7, 2013.

14 Ibid.

15 Sherif Elhelwa. “Sinai Bedouins connecting with jihadist terrorists.”

Y-Net News, May 2, 2013. Available at: http://www.ynetnews.com/ articles/0,7340,L-4375445,00.html.

Retrieved August 7, 2013.

16 Ibid.

17 Tamim Elyan. “Insight: Mimicking al Qaeda, militant threat grows in Sinai.” Reuters, August 13, 2012.

Available at: http://www.reuters.com/ article/2012/08/13/us-egypt-sinaimilitants-idUSBRE87C0P620120813.

Retrieved August 7, 2013.

18 Ibid.

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid.

21 Ibid.

22 Reuters, Mimicking al-Qaeda, militant threat grows in Sinai, August 12, 2013, http://www.ynetnews.com/ articles/0,7340,L-4268688,00.html.

23 Ibid.

24 Debka File, “Lawlessness spreads in N. Sinai.”

25 Liam Getreu. “Terrorists blow up Egypt-Israel gas pipeline.” February 5, 2011. Available at: http://liamgetreu. com/2011/02/05/terrorists-blows-upegypt-israel-gas-pipeline/. Retrieved August 7, 2013.

26 Debka File, “Lawlessness spreads in N. Sinai.”

27 Ma’an News Agency. “Islamist group clashes with Egyptian forces at Gaza border.” July 2, 2011. Available at: http:// www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails. aspx?ID=357697. Retrieved August 7, 2013.

28 Fox News/Associated Press. “Egypt Accuses President of Murder, Conspiracy.”

July 26, 2013. Available at: http://www. foxnews.com/world/2013/07/26/oustedegypt-president-morsi-detained-overhamas-contact/?test=latestnews. Retrieved

August 7, 2013.

29 Tahsin, “Egypt in the Volcano.”

30 Ibid.

31 Mordechai Kedar. “Egypt: The Land of Total Loss.” Jewish Press, May 28, 2013. Available at: http://www. jewishpress.com/indepth/analysis/drmordechai-kedar/egypt-the-land-of-totalloss/2013/05/28/0/. Retrieved August 7, 2013.

32 Hamza Hendawi. “2011 jail breaks become political issue in Egypt.”

Associated Press, May 23, 2013. Available at: http://www.midco.net/news/read/ category/Top%20News/article/ap-2011_ jail_breaks_become_political_issue-ap.

Retrieved August 7, 2013.

33 Tahsin, “Egypt in the Volcano.”

34 Ibid.

35 Crimi, “Terror in Sinai.”

36 Kedar, “Egypt: The Land of Total Loss.”

Debka File. “Hezbollah-Hamas Team Breaks Members Out of Egyptian Jail.”

Article 20631. Available at: http://www. debka.com/article/20631/.

38 Tahsin, “Egypt in the Volcano.”

39 Ibid.

40 Ibid.

41 Ya Libnan, “Hezbollah confirms its cell members escaped Egyptian jails.”

42 Hamza Hendawi. “Ousted Egypt President Detained Over Hamas Contact.”

Time, July 26, 2013. Available at: http:// world.time.com/2013/07/26/oustedegypt-president-detained-over-hamascontact/. Retrieved August 7, 2013.

43 “Egypt army launches counterextremist operation in Sinai.” Jerusalem Post, July 27, 2013. Available at: http:// www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Egyptianmilitary-launches-operation-DesertStorm-to-root-out-Sinai-terrorists-321206.

Retrieved August 7, 2013.

37

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Challenges of the United Nations

By Steve Young

Criticism of the United Nations (UN) as a bloated, corrupt bureaucracy has been commonplace throughout the UN’s history. This perspective continues into the current century.

S Counter The

30 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013

ome of the UN’s inadequacies can be understood by contrasting the functions of the General Assembly with those of the Security Council in terms of responsibility to act and influence. In addition, the role of Third World countries in the UN can be disruptive, as in the case of the UN Commission on Human Rights (now

Free Syrian Army insurgent walking among rubble in Aleppo during the 2013 civil war.

Photo: Voice of America News: Scott Bobb reports from Aleppo, Syria

the Human Rights Council). It is worth reviewing the roles of these institutions in order to evaluate UN attempts to gain deliberative consensus on international peace-related issues.

The most visible UN consultative bodies are the Security Council and the General Assembly. The five permanent members of the United Nations Security

Council are the United States, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom.

Also making up the Security Council are 10 rotating members that are elected for two-year, non-consecutive terms.

The power that resides within the Security Council (and essentially over the entire UN) lies in the veto power of the permanent five members (perm

The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013 31

A Syrian rebel sniper in Khan al-Assal, Aleppo province.

Photo: Patrick Wells 5), as any perm 5 member can veto any UN resolution. In comparison, the 10 rotating members do not have veto power. Moreover, any resolution passed by the Security Council is considered binding, which means the UN cannot take action on international security issues without the full consent and approval of each member of the perm 5.

In recent years, there have been discussions about altering the composition of the perm 5 in light of the increasing economic and/or regional power of countries such as Japan, Germany, India, and Brazil.1 However, changes are unlikely because of political considerations and the desire of the perm 5 to maintain a sense of exclusivity. The power of the veto is a primary reason for inaction, especially in areas of conflicting political, economic, and military interest among the perm 5. For example, during the Cold War, Russia (then the USSR) frequently vetoed resolutions involving condemnation of Soviet human rights

abuses and acts of military oppression, such as the Soviet army’s move to smash the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.

More recently, the US has used its veto against many resolutions involving condemnation of Israel.2 Similarly, the Syrian conflict has once again pitted the US and Russia against each other within the Security Council.

Since the current Syrian conflict began in 2011, there have been at least three proposed Security Council resolutions condemning the violence in that nation and encouraging the removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. These resolutions were vetoed by both Russia and China, despite approximately 90,000 deaths and repeated calls for Security Council action by organizations such as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

When asked about their opposition to these measures, China’s ambassador said he believed the resolutions were onesided and would result in spillover strife in adjoining countries, while Russia

32 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013

claimed the resolutions opened the way for outside military involvement in Syrian affairs.3 Of course, in the time since those statements, the US government has announced its intention to arm selected rebel groups and Russia has supplied Syria with advanced anti-ship cruise missiles.4 It is also now common knowledge that predominantly Shi’a Iran and Iraq have funneled personnel, arms, and supplies into Syria to support Assad’s regime. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda elements are fighting against that regime along with the Sunni-dominated rebels, thus creating within Syria a sectarian war of Shi’a versus Sunni. Recently, the Security Council attempted to contain the conflict to Syria by passing a resolution asking all Lebanese parties to commit to a policy of disassociation (neutrality).5 Although the measure didn’t mention Hezbollah by name due to Russian objections, that Shi’a terrorist group was the apparent target of the resolution, as Hezbollah leaders have publically announced their fighters are participating in the conflict in support of Assad.6 In contrast to the Security Council, the United Nations General Assembly includes all UN member states. Each state has one vote, but all resolutions passed by the General Assembly are non-binding recommendations.

Nevertheless, this body can endorse actions related to international security.

For example, in 1990, both the General Assembly and the Security Council passed several resolutions condemning Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait and supporting sanctions against Iraq.7 Occasionally, however, the General Assembly disagrees with the Security Council. For example, on May 15, 2013, the General Assembly approved a resolution calling for a political solution

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to the conflict in Syria, despite the objections of several Security Council members, including Russia.8 The General Assembly can also be a forum for smaller nations to band together to thwart resolutions linked to Security Council deliberations. This speaks to the issue of obstructionism for which the General Assembly is often criticized. In particular, the Non-Aligned Movement, numbering 115 developing countries, has consistently voted against UN intervention and alleged violations of state sovereignty within the countries that make up the Movement. In addition, this bloc has joined with the Arab bloc to consistently vote for numerous resolutions against Israel while supporting the Palestinian cause.

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The United Nations Human Rights Council Originally known as the Commission on Human Rights, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) would appear to be a group with little room for conflict and much room for agreement, especially given that the General Assembly unanimously approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948.9 Since that time, however, the UNHRC has been criticized for the fact that a number of member nations have themselves been human rights abusers. For example, in 2001, alleged human rights violators Pakistan and Uganda were elected to the Commission. Sudan was also elected, despite that nation’s participation in the Darfur genocide.

According to a 2010 report by the US State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Pakistan remains a major human rights violator

34 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013

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Sudanese president Omar al Bashir arrives in the southern capital of Juba.

Photo: Al Jazeera English

As previously mentioned, Darfur has been another hotspot for human rights violations in recent years. Since 2003, this area in Western Sudan has been the site of an insurgency begun against the Sudanese government by non-Arab or African tribal groups in response to rampant discrimination and economic and political deprivation. The government’s reaction was formation of the Janjaweed militia, which is armed by the Sudanese military. Together with the military, this group has raped and pillaged local tribal populations for the past 10 years.14 The result has been a humanitarian crisis and genocide on a large scale. As of 2011, approximately 300,000 Darfuris had been killed and over 2.7 million displaced.15 The presence of a United Nations– African Union (UNAMID) peacekeeping

Two women in Gulu, Uganda whose lips have been cut off by Lord's Resistance Army rebels. This photograph is a part of an exhibit in the Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. Photo: U.S. Embassy, Kampala

Human rights abuses include extrajudicial killings, disappearances, and torture, as well as honor and sectariantargeted killings. yet today. Human rights abuses include extrajudicial killings, disappearances, and torture, as well as honor and sectariantargeted killings. Official corruption prevents free investigations of these incidents.10 In addition, Human Rights Watch proclaimed 2012 a disastrous

year for human rights in Pakistan.

The group cited concerns including insecurity and persecution of religious minorities, such as attacks against Shi’a (primarily the Hazara ethnic group) throughout Balochistan Province and against Christians in Punjab Province.

Other problematic incidents included targeted killings against rival political parties in Karachi, as well as women’s rights violations such as rape, domestic violence, and forced marriage throughout the country.11 In the past 40 years, Uganda has gone through several periods of human rights violations, beginning with the multiple crimes against humanity committed

36 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013

by the Idi Amin regime from 1971 to 1979. During that time, Amin was said to have murdered as many as 100,000 Ugandans.12 The rebellion in northern Uganda has resulted in numerous crimes against humanity committed by both the government and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). The LRA is infamous for kidnapping and forcing thousands of children to join its ranks over the past 25 years. Boys are trained as fighters, whereas girls are handed out as wives for the soldiers.13 As a result of these practices, LRA commander Joseph Kony and his chief deputies are currently under indictment by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

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The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013 37

Bombed out vehicles in Aleppo during the 2013 Syrian civil war. Photo: Scott Bobb force has failed to stop the killing.

In fact, peacekeepers are often targets. For example, in July 2013, unknown assailants using machine guns and RPGs killed 17 UNAMID peacekeepers in Darfur.16 Meanwhile, Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir is under indictment by the ICC for war crimes and genocide.

In December 2004, the US responded to human rights abusers’ membership on the UN Commission on Human Rights with a bipartisan task force headed by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell. This task force’s report included the following statement: It is no secret that the current Commission on Human Rights is flawed, allowing countries such as Liberia and Sudan to cover up their own poor human rights records instead of exposing the worst violators.

This report supports Secretary General Kofi Annan’s recommendation to replace the current dysfunctional Commission on Human Rights with a Human Rights Council whose members would be elected by the General Assembly based on their respective human rights records. Ideally, the Council would be composed of democracies with a strong commitment to human rights.17 Two years later, in March 2006, the UNHRC replaced the Commission on Human Rights, with the mandate of “promoting universal respect for the protection of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, without distinction of any kind and in a fair and equal manner.”18 Unfortunately, serious human rights abusers remained on the UNHRC and discriminatory votes continued. The only country other than Israel on which the UNHRC passed resolutions during its first year (2007) was Sudan, in relation

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The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013 39 23/07/2013 15:39:45

to the situation in Darfur, but none of these resolutions found the Sudanese government responsible for human rights violations. According to Freedom House, a non-governmental human rights organization, as of the most recent election of November 12, 2012, more than one-third of the UNHRC’s newly elected countries were deemed to be “Not Free” or “Partly Free.” These included Cote d’Ivoire, Gabon, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Venezuela, and the United Arab Emirates.19 The problem with UNHRC voting is that the Africa, Latin America, and Asia-Pacific groups tend to submit non-competitive (only one country) slates, thus ensuring their candidate is elected to the Council. Moreover, strict apportionment allocates the Western and Others Group (which includes the US) only seven of the UNHRC’s 47 members. Thus, Western human rights views can easily be outvoted during Council sessions. In assessing the present condition of the UNHRC, it is difficult to see how the creation of the Council has altered the functionality of the previous Commission.

Incredibly, as of July 11, 2013, Syria planned to submit its candidacy, along with China, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Maldives, and Vietnam, for four vacant seats on the UNHRC to begin in January 2014.20 Of these countries, only the Maldives was rated “Partly Free” by Freedom House, while the remainder were rated “Not Free.” Although it is clear to Westerners that these countries are not good candidates for the UNHRC, once they are elected, they have the ability to vote down any UN resolution on human rights because of apportionment.

Freedom of Expression and the Organization for Islamic Cooperation Founded in 1969, the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has the stated mission of acting as “the collective voice of the Muslim world and ensuring to safeguard and protect the interests of the Muslim world in the spirit of promoting international peace and harmony among various people of the world.”21 The OIC has staked out its own positions with respect to human rights and terrorism.

Unfortunately, these positions run contrary to the intent of the rights of the individual as expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

Nowhere are these positions more clearly articulated than within the 1990 Cairo Declaration.

The Cairo Declaration on human rights, passed by the OIC in 1990, provides for basic human rights as nominally stated in the UDHR, but with an Islamist slant that subjugates individual rights to that of the state or family. For example, Article 22 of the Cairo Declaration clearly states that individuals are only permitted selfexpression in ways that would not be contrary to the principles of shariah. In fact Article 24 states that “[a]ll the rights and freedoms stipulated in this (Cairo) Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shari’ah.”22 Pertinent to Article 22 are accusations of blasphemy and death threats from then Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini following Salman Rushdie’s 1989 publication of the Satanic Verses, allegedly insulting the Islamic prophet Mohammed, as well as threats to the editors of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten for publishing cartoons of

40 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013

Mohammed in September 2005.

The issue logically relevant to the UNHRC and the UN in general revolves around human security and the rights of the individual, even within the Muslim world, to freedom of self-expression and freedom of speech. If one accepts an anti-blasphemy argument, however, an individual residing in a country represented by the OIC has freedom of expression only until and up to the point that his or her expression can be alleged to be blasphemy or otherwise violate principles of shariah. Anyone who believes in individual liberty would view this concept as a violation of basic human rights, but the UNHRC is powerless to condemn it because of a lack of support from the OIC and like-minded countries.

Terrorism and the Organization for Islamic Cooperation

fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological.24 In comparison, the US Department of State defines terrorism as: [P]remeditated, politically-motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.25 As these examples illustrate, there are various ways to define terrorism, but attributes normally associated with any definition include some element of politics (i.e., if an act isn’t politically motivated, it isn’t terrorism), violence or the threat of violence targeting civilians and fear. There are really no exceptions to these attributes, and no exceptions

should be made based on the origin of the terrorist act.

However, the OIC maintains that there are exceptions to the definition of terrorism depending upon the reason for the violence. In a speech before the UN in 1974, Yasser Arafat said that the difference between the revolutionary and the terrorist lies in the reason for which each fights. He reasoned that people rising up against colonialism are not terrorists but freedom fighters.26 Arafat’s characterization of terror continues to be supported within the OIC at the same time the UN has sought to define terrorism. Moreover, Article 11 of the 1990 Cairo Declaration says that states and people have the duty to support the struggle of colonized peoples for the liquidation of all forms of “colonialism”

and “occupation.” The intent, here, appears to be to condone the anti-Israeli terrorist activities of groups such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah. As recently as October 2012, an OIC Egyptian delegate maintained that a distinction must be made between the definition of terrorism and the right of peoples to self-determination;27 another apparent attempt to continue to justify terror conducted against Israel.

Conclusion The UN is widely recognized and supported for its efforts on the humanitarian front in the form of such organizations as the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Program (WFP), and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Incredibly, there has never been a UN forum to discuss terrorism. This, of course, adds to the perception of the UN’s inadequacy. However, the primary reason for the lack of discussion on terrorism within the UN may not be a lack of willingness to host such a meeting, but rather OIC objections to the UN’s proposed definition(s) of terrorism.23 Thus, the OIC holds the UN hostage to a minority interpretation of terrorism.

Most textbooks that deal with terrorism begin by providing a definition of the term, but they usually include the caveat that defining terrorism is a difficult task because it means different things to different people. For example, the US Department of Defense defines terrorism as follows: [T]he calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate

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The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013 41

New and improved

On the international security front, however, the UN operates with many political challenges. Seemingly mundane activities such as finding a common definition of terrorism have prevented the UN from taking a collective stand against jihadists and extremists of all sorts.

Moreover, until 2005, intervention in genocide was not a collective UN option.

Power to pass binding resolutions remains in the hands of the perm 5, which is inevitably affected by national interests.

The UN is the world’s consultative body, chartered to be a center for coordinating the activities of nations for the common goal of securing international peace.

Time will tell how well the organization accomplishes this function.

•

about the author Dr. Young is a former CIA Operations Officer of the Clandestine Service with tours in the Middle East and South Asia.

He is currently the Coordinator for the Masters of Science in Security Studies at Sam Houston State University, in Huntsville, Texas.

Endnotes Nile Gardiner and Brett D. Schaefer.

“U.N. Security Council Expansion Is Not in the U.S. Interest.” August 18, 2005. The Heritage Foundation. Available at: http://www.heritage.org/research/ reports/2005/08/un-security-councilexpansion-is-not-in-the-us-interest.

Retrieved July 28, 2013.

2 “US blocks UN Security Council condemnation of Israeli settlement expansion.” December 20, 2012.

Mondoweiss: The War of Ideas in the Middle East. Available at: http:// mondoweiss.net/2012/12/condemnationsettlement-expansion.html. Retrieved July 28, 2013.

1

Michelle Nichols. “Russia, China veto U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria.” July 19, 2012. Reuters.

Available at: http://www.reuters.com/ article/2012/07/19/us-syria-crisis-unidUSBRE86I0UD20120719. Retrieved July 12, 2013.

4 “Syria crisis: Russia sends sophisticated weapons.” May 17, 2013. BBC News.

Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ world-middle-east-22565405. Retrieved July 27, 2013.

5 “Security Council urges Lebanese to stay out of Syria fighting.” July 11, 2013.

The Daily Star: Lebanon News. Available at: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/ Politics/2013/Jul-11/223281-securitycouncil-urges-lebanese-to-stay-out-ofsyria-fighting.ashx#axzz2Ylx4E1QT. Retrieved July 11, 2013.

6 Amir Ahmed and Tom Watkins.

“Hezbollah leader acknowledges fighters’ presence in Syria town.” May 27, 2013.

CNN News. Available at: http://www. cnn.com/2013/05/25/world/meast/syriaviolence. Retrieved July 28, 2013.

7 “Security Council Resolution 678.”

November 29, 1990. Worldpress.org.

Available at: http://worldpress.org/ specials/iraq/unscr678.htm. Retrieved July 27, 2013.

8 Edith M. Lederer. “UN General Assembly approves Syria resolution.”

May 15, 2013. Yahoo News. Available at: http://news.yahoo.com/ungeneral-assembly-approves-syriaresolution-181206199.html. Retrieved June 12, 2013 9 “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” http://www.un.org/en/ documents/udhr/. Retrieved November 29, 2013.

10 “2010 Human Rights Report: Pakistan.” April 8, 2011. U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human 3

Rights, and Labor. Available at: http:// www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2010/ sca/154485.htm. Retrieved July 27, 2013.

11 “World Report 2013: Pakistan.”

2013. Human Rights Watch. Available at: https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2013.

Retrieved July 27, 2013.

12 Kjell Follingstad Anderson.

“Gross Human Rights Violations in Uganda.” 2007. Shared Humanity. org. Available at:http://www. sharedhumanity.org/LibraryArticle. php?heading=Uganda,%20Gross%20 Human%20Rights%20Violations%20 in. Retrieved July 27, 2013.

13 Caroline Pare. “Uganda’s rebel war.” November 2, 2000. BBC News. Available at: http://news.bbc. co.uk/2/hi/programmes/crossing_ continents/1003463.stm. Retrieved July 28, 2013.

14 Eric Reeves. “Genocide in Darfur— How the Horror Began.” September 3, 2005. Sudan Tribune. Available at: http:// www.sudantribune.com/Genocidein-Darfur-How-the-Horror,11445.

Retrieved July 28, 2013.

15 “Sudan Backgrounder.” United to End Genocide. Available at: http:// endgenocide.org/conflict-areas/sudan/ sudan-backgrounder/. Retrieved July 27, 2013.

16 “Darfur attack on U.N. force leaves 7 dead.” July 14, 2013. Houston Chronicle, A10.

17 “Gingrich-Mitchell Report: A viable Approach to UN Reform,” July 1, 2005.

Citizens for Global Solutions. Available at: http://www.usip.org/un/report/index. html. Retrieved January 9, 2013.

18 Resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly, 60/251. Human Rights Council. April 3, 2006. Available at: www2.ohchr.org/.../bodies/hrcouncil/ docs/A.RES.60.251_En.pdf. Retrieved

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January 9, 2013.

19 Trister, Sarah. “Assessing the 2012 UN Human Rights Council Elections: One-Third of Candidates Unqualified for Membership.” Freedom House Policy Brief, November 2012. Available at: http://www.freedomhouse.org/?page=1.

Retrieved January 13, 2013.

20 Luis Charbonneau. “Syrian bid for U.N. rights body criticized, Iran withdrew.” July 11, 2013. Reuters.

Available at: http://www.reuters.com/ article/2013/07/11/us-syria-iran-un-idU SBRE96A12U20130711?feedType=RSS. Retrieved July 11, 2013.

21 Organisation of Islamic Cooperation Home Page. Available at: http://www. oic-oci.org/page_detail.asp?p_id=52.

Retrieved January 9, 2013.

22 “The Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam.” August 5, 1990.

Available at: http://www.oic-oci.org/ english/article/human.htm. Retrieved January 9, 2013.

23 “UN seeks definition of terrorism.”

July 26, 2005. BBC News. http://news. bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4716957.stm.

Retrieved November 29, 2012.

24 “What is terrorism?” International Terrorism and Security Research. http:// www.terrorism-research.com/accessed.

Retrieved November 29, 2012.

25 Ibid.

26 “Speech of Yasser Arafat before the UN General Assembly.” November 13, 1974. MidEastWeb. http://mideastweb. org/arafat_at_un.htm. Retrieved January 14, 2013.

27 “There is no UN definition of terrorism.” Eye on the UN. http://www. eyeontheun.org/facts.asp?1=1&p=61.

Retrieved November 29, 2012.

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Book Review

We Will Bury You

By Major General Jan Sejna

I

n 1982, Major General Jan Sejna published We Will Bury You: The Soviet Plan for the Subversion of the West by the Highest Ranking Communist Ever to Defect. Readers today will find this plan fascinating. Sejna’s account of life behind the Iron Curtain reveals the amount of institutional deception that is necessary to bring a totalitarian government to power, and the scope of domestic spying and coercion that is necessary to retain that power.

The communist strategy was formally named “The Long-Term Strategic Plan for the Next Ten to Fifteen Years and the Years After.” General Sejna reports, “While the main target of the strategic plan is the United States, a direct attack against it would invite grave damage to the Soviet Union. Therefore, to avoid direct conflict with the U.S., the plan calls for the isolation of the ‘main enemy’ by the ‘Finlandization’ of Europe; reduction of Western political and economic access to the Third World by establishing pro-Soviet regimes wherever and whenever possible; and insurgency in areas of importance to the U.S.” “Phase One [of The Strategic Plan], ‘The Period of Preparation for Peaceful Coexistence’, was retrospective and covered the time from the 20th [Communist] Party Congress of 1956 to the 21st Congress in 1959. Phase Two, ‘The Peaceful Coexistence Struggle’… was expected to last from 1960 to 1972, the year after the 24th Party Congress. Phase Three was ‘The Period of Dynamic Social Change’,

46 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013

Reviewed by: Chris Graham

leading to Phase Four, ‘The Era of Global Democratic Peace.’”

In Phase Two, the main strategic objectives were to promote disunity in the West and accelerate social fragmentation of the Capitalist countries. In Europe, we must try to exaggerate fears of a renascent Germany and play upon French nationalism in order to detach France from NATO. We planned to use our penetration of European Social Democratic Parties to weaken their ties with United States and strengthen their will for accommodation with the Warsaw Pact. By manipulating the trade union movement and student organizations we proposed to exacerbate existing causes of social and industrial unrest and create areas of confrontation. We also intended to exploit anti-Americanism in Europe in order to weaken America’s commitment to its defense.

Inside the United States we would encourage isolationism and stir up internal disorder, focusing the attacks of the radical movement over there on the military and industrial establishments as barriers to peace. Here we received an unexpected bonus from the Vietnam War. In the third world, our aims were to destroy ‘colonialism,’ to weaken the economies of the old colonial powers, and win new allies in the effort to discredit the ‘Imperialist powers’ led, of course, by the United States. No one can deny our success in these objectives, helped by our exploitation of the new balance of votes in the United Nations.

In the Middle East we were to encourage Arab nationalism, urge the nationalization of oil, and work for the overthrow of Arab monarchies and their replacement by ‘progressive’ governments.

Sejna reports “The main strategic purpose of Phase Three, ‘The Period of Dynamic Social Change,’ was, in the words of the Soviet directive, ‘to smash the hope of false democracy’ and bring about the total demoralization of the West. Our relationship with the United States would be the vital element in this phase. By

fostering belief in our policy of friendship and cooperation with America, we planned to receive the greatest possible economic and technological help from the West, and at the same time convince the Capitalist countries that they had no need of military alliances. The erosion of NATO begun in Phase Two would be completed by the withdrawal of the United States from its commitment to the defense of Europe, and by European hostility to military expenditure, generated by economic recession and fanned by the efforts of the ‘progressive’ movements. To this end we envisaged that it might be necessary to dissolve the Warsaw Pact.” He adds, “The Soviet view was that during Phase Three Capitalism would suffer an economic crisis that would bring Europe to its knees and stimulate the influence of ‘progressive’ forces,” and, “We would therefore foment local or regional wars… In support of progressive movements—if it should be necessary.”

The general reveals, “The fourth and final phase of the plan looked forward to the dawn of ‘The Global Democratic Peace.’

At the start of Phase Four the U.S. would be isolated from both Europe and the developing countries. We could therefore undermine it by use of external economic weapons, and so create the social and economic conditions for progressive forces to emerge inside the country.” He also said, “I became…pessimistic after I defected and saw the West’s own policies.”

General Secretary Brezhnev told the author, “Some Left extremists misunderstand detente. They think we are surrendering to the Capitalists. They don’t understand that it gives us a free hand—a free hand to almost all the Communist movements in the world, and this is most important.”

Sejna describes some of the efforts undertaken to advance international communism, “In order to promote a swing to the left within Britain and force the pace

of radical change, progressive forces must take over the trade unions and penetrate the Labour Party. First, however, the role of the trade union movement must be changed, so that it became accepted as a pillar of government.” He recalls, “We made plans to ruin a number of Conservative politicians by concocting evidence of their close ties with… Fascist organizations… we were required to plan financial support for the rise of these progressives.” The author informs that “International companies, especially those under American ownership such as Ford and Chrysler, appeared in The Plan as targets for industrial militancy and agitation. The idea was to force out management and have workers’ committees take over their factories.”

Sejna states the logic of senior communists: “If we can impose on the USA the external restraints proposed in our Plan, and seriously disrupt the American economy, the working and the lower middle classes will suffer the consequences and they will turn on the society that has failed them. They will be ready for revolution.” He recounts their intent to “polish up our efforts to recruit ‘highlevel agents of influence’ in the American government, media, and academic elite.”

At the same time, the author reveals that behind closed doors senior communists admit “Wherever Socialism steps, the grass ceases to grow.”

How many of these subversive seeds sown decades ago continue to grow? Have other adversaries picked up the communist strategy or pieces of it to carry forward? Is the similarity of current events to the Soviet Long-Term Strategic Plan’s predictions from decades ago merely coincidence? Read General Sejna’s book, We Will Bury You, and decide for yourself.

•

The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013 47

The Brothers’ Circle: Russian Criminal Network Spans the Globe

A

ccording to the FBI, Eurasian organized crime poses some of the greatest threats because of its size, wealth and global reach.1 Eurasian organized crime is associated with Russia, Eastern and Central European countries, and the independent states formed after the fall of the Soviet Union. Russian and Eurasian organized crime networks represent a significant threat to commerce and democratic institutions in the region. Syndicates and criminally linked oligarchs may attempt to collude with state or state-allied actors to undermine competition in strategic markets such as gas, oil, aluminum, and precious metals. TCO networks in the region are also establishing new ties to global drug trafficking networks, and nuclear material

trafficking is an especially prominent concern in the former Soviet Union.2 The national security implications of destabilization in this region are significant; massive criminal activity is destabilizing an area where nuclear weapons remain deployed, there is a viable black market, and there have been unaccounted nuclear devices.

Russia and its federation of 83 provinces, republics, and territories are of particular interest to law enforcement and intelligence officials. The demise of the existing totalitarian communist state and the anarchy of the early 1990s fostered the rise of many organized crime groups. In fact, within just a few years of the massive political upheaval, there were approximately 4,000 organized crime

groups in Russia. Boris Yeltsin, the first elected president of the Federation of Russian States, described the situation: “Organized crime has become the number-one threat to Russia’s strategic interests and to national security.

Corrupted structures on the highest level have no interest in reform.”3 Russia’s organized crime problem has not improved with the government’s stabilization. According to the FBI, the Russian interior ministry estimates more than one-half of the Russian economy, including significant portions of its vast energy and metallurgical sectors, is now controlled by organized crime.4 Powerful criminal groups such as the Russian Mafia have defrauded newly formed governments of billions of dollars, and

By Jennifer Hesterman

Modern transnational crime organizations (TCOs) are global, entrepreneurial, and operate similarly (and often in parallel) to multinational corporations. They are also increasingly violent and resort to kidnapping, extortion, and murder to further their goals.

Counter The

48 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013

Red Square, Moscow. Photo: Adam Baker

The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013 49

MACTAC Multiple-Assault Counter Terrorism Action Capability

are part of significant TCOs or have provided material support or acted for or on behalf of such organizations. Only four groups were targeted in the E.O.: the Camorra Italian Mafia, Los Zetas Mexican cartel, the Yakuza Japanese crime group, and the Brothers’ Circle. However, many specialists in transnational crime and Russian security affairs (as well as the Russians themselves) were confused by the identification of the previously unheard-of group. When the US government put the Circle on the same list as the most violent Italian Mafia group and the deadly Zetas, many wondered: What did the United States know about the Brothers to elevate them to this status?

Alleged bribes shown at a press conference of the investigation team of the USSR Public Prosecution Office enquiring into the case of the official mafia in the Uzbek SSR. Moscow.

1988. Photo: Fred Grinberg

they use corrupt officials to embezzle government funds. Criminal groups have become embedded in society after seizing major companies and small businesses under the guise of providing a krysha (roof ) of protection during privatization efforts, and they easily use Russia’s banks to illegally transfer billions out of the country annually. The country is rife with kleptocrats, or officials in overly powerful government bureaucracies who steal funds earmarked for public amenities, such as schools, hospitals, or roads. The Russian government’s posture seems to be one of coexisting. The government’s unwillingness or inability to effectively engage enables Russian crime groups to flourish.

The Brothers’ Circle The term bratsky krug, or brothers’ circle, has been used from time to time within the vorovskoi mir, the traditional

Soviet/Russian underworld.5 An actual group or syndicate dubbed “The Brothers’ Circle” was identified in July 2011, when the U.S. National Security Staff released its Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime: Addressing Converging Threats to National Security.6 In that document, the Brothers’ Circle was defined as “[a] multiethnic criminal group composed of leaders and senior members of several criminal organizations largely based in countries of the former Soviet Union.” According to the report, “[m] any Brothers’ Circle’s members share a common ideology based on the thief in law tradition, which seeks to spread their brand of criminal influence around the world.”7 Simultaneously, the U.S. Department of the Treasury designated the group under Executive Order (E.O.) 13581, “Blocking Property of Transnational Criminal Organizations,” which targets entities or individuals who

50 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013

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A “Coordinating Body” In January 2012, a clearer picture of the group was revealed when Treasury expanded their definition as follows: “The Brothers’ Circle is a multi-ethnic criminal group composed of leaders and senior members of several Eurasian criminal groups largely based in countries of the former Soviet Union but operating in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.”8 The government further explained that “[t]he Brothers’ Circle serves as a coordinating body for several criminal networks, mediating disputes between the individual criminal networks and directing member criminal activity globally.”9 The Circle is the typical postmodern organization: fluid, able to morph, and a constellation of “strange bedfellows” who work together as business partners without a shared culture or relationship.

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to their global nature, their exploitation of the Internet for clandestine communications, and their ability to launder, make, move, and store funds outside of traditional banking systems.

Because removing a criminal group’s top leadership tier is not likely to destroy the organization, the US government more often turns to the designation process in an effort to freeze the assets that serve as a group’s lifeblood. To date, Treasury has designated 15 Circle leaders, exposing links between groups and countries that are alleged to be part of the syndicate.

The first member identified was Zakhariy Kalashov, a Russian whose criminal activity includes money laundering, extortion, criminal protection, and drug trafficking. Kalashov is currently incarcerated in Spain, serving a nine-year sentence for money laundering, where he was found to have been communicating from prison to the syndicate through Marina Kalashova (also designated).10 Lasha Shushanashvili, a Georgian who was arrested in Greece and denied extradition, was recently given a 14-year sentence for running an armed robbery and contract killing ring. Another known Circle leader is Temuri Mirzoyev, who was previously identified as a crime boss in Russia and arrested several years ago.

His current whereabouts are unknown.

Similarly, member Vladimir Vagin has seven criminal convictions and has been wanted by Russian law enforcement since 2009 on charges of attempted murder; he fled to the United Arab Emirates and was taken into custody, but disappeared in March 2010. Kamchybek Kolbayev serves as the Brothers’ Circle “overseer” for its Central Asian activities, including narcotics trafficking; he is wanted in Kyrgyzstan on weapons and explosives charges and remains at large. Other Circle leaders have footprints in the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, France, Greece, Ukraine,

Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Georgia.11 More interesting was the designation of Gafur Rakhimov, who US officials believe runs an extensive heroin syndicate in Central Asia. He is also a prominent citizen of Uzbekistan with strong ties to that nation’s government, which has showered him with awards for promoting Olympic sports, despite decades of rumors regarding his ties to the Russian mafia.

Rakhimov has been Vice President of the Olympic Council of Asia since 1999, and he was Vice President of the National Olympic Committee of Uzbekistan from 2001 until his designation in 2012. On his now-defunct website, Rakhimov discussed his consumer goods importexport company, founded immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

He stated that he “carries out his business transactions via a number of companies where he is a leader and main shareholder. Namely these companies, for 10 years already have been performing fruitful cooperation on a solid economic basis with the world-known companies of England, Australia, Belgium, Germany, Holland, the USA, Switzerland, [and] France.” After learning of his Treasury designation, Rakhimov changed his nationality and departed Uzbekistan for an unknown location. He has also been linked to Russia’s richest man, Alisher Burkhanovich Usmanov, who has an estimated wealth of $18 billion.12 Rakhimov is still the Vice President of the Olympic Council of Asia; on their 2013 roster, he is listed as Mr. Gofur-Arslonbek Rakhimov.13 Yet another interesting Circle member is Vladislav Leontyev, alias “Belobrysy” (“Blonde”), a criminal opportunist who changes “industry” with need and demand. Leontyev is closely linked to political structures in local police forces in Russia and has engaged in corruption activities with mayors such

52 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013

as Andrei Klimentyev, who was captured by the FBI and returned to Russia in 1998. Leontyev and Klimentyev were operating in the United States in the 1990s, with ties to American gangs and evidence of their involvement in heroin and cocaine trafficking from Colombia.

Born in Gorky, Russia, Leontyev often lists his alternate place of birth as Caracas, Venezuela. He allegedly carries identity documents from the United Arab Emirates, Greece, Ghana, and Venezuela and is currently wanted by Russian authorities for illegal transactions involving precious metals and narcotics.14 With key leaders still on the run, connections in many countries, and access to a vast amount of resources, the Brothers’ Circle is still viable. In fact, in July 2013, Treasury announced sanctions against two companies suspected of having links to the Brothers’ Circle: Avuar (registered in Samara, Russia) and Guga Arm SRO (based in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic).15

G N I T A R T E N PE . . .

T H G I N E TH

Threat and Response Eurasian crime is nothing new in the United States, having spread here in the 1970s and 1980s with the arrival of more than 100,000 Soviet émigrés, known as “Refuseniks.” Mixed in with law-abiding people was a small group of criminals known as Vory V Zakone, or “thieves-inlaw,” career criminals forming the base of US domestic Eurasian organized crime.16 The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 brought thousands more émigrés fleeing social strife and dismal economic conditions. This exodus added to the existing Eurasian criminal enterprise in the US, which now saps our economy of hundreds of millions of dollars annually through sophisticated fraud schemes and public corruption.17 Fraud is prevalent with these groups, which will latch on to any crisis and

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The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013 53

turn it into profit. Recent activities in the US include mortgage fraud, money laundering, extortion, drug trafficking, auto theft, hostage taking, extortion of celebrities and sport figures, insurance fraud (e.g., staged auto accidents), medical fraud, counterfeiting, credit card forgery, and murder. Eurasian crime in the United States is big business. For example, in October 2011, law enforcement officers

arrested fifty-two individuals from an Armenian-American syndicate for health care fraud defrauding companies and their customers of more than $163 million US dollars. For the first time in 15 years, a known “thief-in-law” was arrested on a federal charge. However, Ukrainian Semion Mogilevich, one of the top ten fugitives wanted by the FBI, remains at large. Mogilevich’s organization, using

54 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013

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a front operation located outside of Philadelphia, bilked investors of nearly $150 million US dollars. Mogilevich is also wanted on arms trafficking, prostitution, extortion, and murder-forhire charges. Once in custody in Russia, he was released by government officials, and he and members of his group have since disappeared.18 Currently, the FBI participates in several international working groups to combat the influence and reach of Eurasian Organized Crime and limit its effects on all countries. These groups include the following: Eurasian Organized Crime Working Group: Acting under the auspices of the G8, this body evolved from a group established in 1994. The organization meets to discuss and jointly address the transnational aspects of Eurasian organized crime affecting member countries and the international community in general. Member countries are Canada, Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, the US, and Russia.

Central European Working Group: This group is part of a project that brings together the FBI and Central European law enforcement agencies to discuss cooperative investigative matters covering the broad spectrum of Eurasian organized crime. A principal concern is the growing presence of Russian and other Eurasian organized criminals in Central Europe and the US. Besides the FBI, the group includes law enforcement agencies and representatives from Romania, the Ukraine, Russia, Israel, Great Britain, and Belgium.

Southeast European Cooperative Initiative: The Initiative is an international organization to coordinate police and customs regional actions for preventing and combating trans-border crime.

Headquartered in Bucharest, Romania, the group has 12 fully participating

member countries and is a clearinghouse for rapid information and intelligence sharing. The group also supports specialized task forces for countering trans-border crime, such as the trafficking of people, drugs, and cars; smuggling; financial crimes; and terrorism.

In addition to participating in these efforts, the FBI has created Threat Focus Cells (TFCs). Two TFCs focus primarily on Eurasian organized crime; the first concentrates on the Semion Mogilevich organization, and the second on the Brother’s Circle criminal enterprise.

Conclusion The United States government will likely continue to cooperate with Russia and the nations of the region to combat illicit drugs and TCO, in an attempt to degrade Eurasian crime challenges within our borders. If apprehending Brothers’ Circle leaders continues to be challenging, the government can be expected to keep using designations to freeze criminal assets, expose links among entities and groups, target sympathizers and collaborators, and further attempt to protect the United States financial system from illicit activity.

•

about the author Ms. Hesterman is a retired U.S. Air Force colonel. Her most recent book is The Terrorist-Criminal Nexus: An Alliance of International Drug Cartels, Organized Crime, and Terror Groups. CT readers get a 20% discount on the book and free shipping by ordering from http://www.crcpress. com/product/isbn/9781466557611 and using code JWL23.

Endnotes Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“Organized Crime: Eurasian Criminal 1

Enterprises.” Available at: http://www.fbi. gov/about-us/investigate/organizedcrime/ eurasian. Retrieved August 6, 2013.

2 National Security Council.

Transnational Organized Crime: A Growing Threat to National and International Security. July 25, 2011.

Available at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/ administration/eop/nsc/transnationalcrime/threat. Retrieved August 6, 2013.

3 U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Combating Transnational Crime and Corruption in Europe. October 30, 2003. Available at: http://20012009.state.gov/p/inl/rls/rm/25755.htm.

Retrieved August 6, 2013.

4 Ibid.

5 Mark Galeotti. “US takes on the Russian organized crime ‘Brothers’ Circle.’ Who?” July 26, 2011. Available at: http://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress. com/2011/07/26/us-takes-on-the-russianorganized-crime-brothers-circle-who/.

Retrieved August 6, 2013.

6 National Security Council. Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime.

July 25, 2011.Available at: http://www. whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/nsc/ transnational-crime. Retrieved August 6, 2013.

7 White House. “Remarks at White House Release of Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime.”

July 25, 2011. Available at http:// www.whitehouse.gov/the-pressoffice/2011/07/25/remarks-white-houserelease-strategy-combat-transnationalorganized-crim. Retrieved August 6, 2013.

8 U.S. Department of the Treasury.

“Treasury Imposes Sanctions on Key Members of the Yakuza and Brothers’ Circle Criminal Organizations.” February 23, 2012. Available at: http://www. treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/ Pages/tg1430.aspx. Retrieved August 6, 2013.

9 U.S. Department of the Treasury.

“Treasury Designates Brothers’ Circle Members.” June 6, 2012. Available at: http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/ press-releases/Pages/tg1605.aspx.

Retrieved August 6, 2013.

10 U.S. Department of the Treasury.

“Treasury Targets Leading Figures of Transnational Criminal Organizations.”

January 23, 2013. Available at: http:// www.treasury.gov/press-center/pressreleases/Pages/TG1827.aspx. Retrieved August 6, 2013.

11 U.S. Department of the Treasury, “Treasury Designates Brothers’ Circle Members.”

12 Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. “What Is the Brothers’ Circle?” Available at: https:// reportingproject.net/occrp/index.php/en/ ccwatch/cc-watch-indepth/1393-what-isthe-brothers-circle. Retrieved August 6, 2013.

13 Olympic Council of Asia. “OCA Executive Board Members.” Available at: http://www.ocasia.org/Council/ExeBoard. aspx. Retrieved August 6, 2013.

14 Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, “What Is the Brothers’ Circle?”

15 U.S. Department of the Treasury.

“Treasury Designates Members and Supporters of Transnational Criminal Organizations.” July 24, 2013. Available at: http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/ press-releases/Pages/jl2121.aspx. Retrieved August 6, 2013.

16 Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Organized Crime: Eurasian Criminal Enterprises.”

17 Ibid.

18 Jennifer Hesterman. The TerroristCriminal Nexus: An Alliance of International Drug Cartels, Organized Crime, and Terror Groups. CRC Press, 2013.

The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013 55

By Richard Landes

Militant Islamists in conflict with Israel (i.e., Hamas and Hezbollah) have used compliant Western media outlets to mainstream “lethal narratives” about Israeli wrongdoing (to include fictitious accounts and sensationalized accounts of actual events) in order to inhibit Israel’s potential responses to Jihadi attacks against their citizens.

Cognitive Warfare st in the 21 Century: Islamist Influence in Europe

T

hese victories against Israel, also target Western nations in general.

Palestinian “cognitive warriors” pioneered many of the techniques used by Jihadi colleagues against the West­—from the false reports of Qur’an pages being flushed down toilets at Guantanamo Bay and forged Mohammed cartoons used to incite riots to the Pallywood scenes staged

by Islamists to gain Western sympathy for their causes.1 Each time journalists immerse the West in narratives of cruel Israelis victimizing Palestinian civilians (especially children), it provokes public anger and cements an alliance of convenience between islamists and radical leftist activists in the West.2 As a result, a Muslim “street” took root in

Europe, decisively changing the balance of forces in the cognitive war on that continent.3 In the 1990s, the Muslim (often identified as “immigrant”) problem in Europe was considered a serious but minor problem in an otherwise favorable prognosis for the European Union. Yet by the mid two-thousands, analysts were predicting a Muslim Europe by century’s end.4 Indeed, in the cognitive phase of the asymmetrical war waged by Islamic supremacists, Anti-Zionism (and Anti-Americanism) were Europe’s “soft underbelly.”5 The Muhammad al Durah story, in which Israeli troops were falsely accused of murdering a boy and a French reporter appears to have knowingly reported the

false story, offers a good insight into the process, and may well be the first major Jihadi victory in its “cogwar” in Europe.* Al Durah became immensely popular in Europe making Israelis out to be Nazis. This indulgence was not cost-free, however. French news incessantly replayed misleading images of al Durah, waving the flag of Jihad in front of their Muslim population.

Consequences manifested almost immediately. The day after the footage appeared, attacks by angry Muslims on Jewish neighbors occurred throughout Western Europe.6 On October 6, 2000, rallies to protest Israeli’s murdering al Durah took place around the world.

In Paris, Muslim immigrants, joined

Counter The

56 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013

France, Place de Republique.

Editor’s note: See Vol. 5, No. 6, “Cognitive Warfare”.

The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013 57

by “anti-racist” leftist activists shouted “Death to Jews! Death to Israel!”

Mainstream journalists apparently thought this information was not newsworthy.7 Lethal journalism had at once incited violence against democratic, civil society, with false accusations and muffled the sounds of the consequences of those claims.

That day, an alliance of great concern to the global public sphere in the 21st century, was confirmed.8 The narrative of Israelis as Nazi Goliaths and Palestinians as innocent Davids was advanced.

Nothing could be denied the Davids: suicide bombing was not terrorism, merely resistance. That alliance, spreading from revolutionary to “progressive” circles, was manifest at the “anti-racism” conference at Durban (August-September, 2001) under UN auspices. It legitimated identification of the Israelis with the Nazis.

One cannot imagine a more spectacular cognitive victory than for the “weak,” in an asymmetrical war against an enemy

more powerful than themselves to get their enemy’s progressive elites to adopt your grand narrative which targets them.

When Osama bin Laden, in an act of mass murder directed at civilians, brought down the twin towers in NYC, not just Islamic supremacists, but many “progressive” activists in the West cheered enthusiastically.9 Meanwhile, Western prisons’ population of Mujahidin, many of whom had first been called to their vocation by seeing images brought to them by Western journalists, grew.10 Under the aegis of this approval of Jihadi aggression against Israel and the USA, a European Muslim “youth” (largely second generation immigrants) became increasingly aggressive in a wide range of venues. The first attacks were on Jews: from individuals, to groups, to communities. French officials publicly denied the facts and were generally not scrutinized by press. Many jews departed previously mixed communities.

This low-grade but constant warfare continued and received attention every

Outside the U.N. “anti-racism” conference in Durban.

58 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013

time the new “Muslim Street” participated in massive demonstrations with Western secular leftists with whom they shared a revolutionary narrative. To them, the USA and Israel were the incarnation of evil: the “great and little Satan.” These demonstrations grew exponentially in the period between the Spring 2002 Israeli attack on Jenin and the press’s fascination with an invented massacre, through the winter of 2003 protests against President George W. Bush’s war in Iraq.11 In the Parisian demonstrations of that year, a contingent of French Jews from a far-left Zionist party protesting the war were chased and beaten with metal bars by Muslim “immigrants.” The police did not take action. The media failed to report it, despite having footage of the attack. Shortly thereafter, some of the first modern attacks on European infidels began (Madrid, March 2004, London, July 2005), proving that Jihad targeted not just the Israelis and the Americans.

The anarchy in the French zones urbaines sensibles (ZUS), demonstrated that that government had allowed a hostile takeover by a mafia-like political culture with a strong radical Islamist component.12 This situation came to the attention of the public during Ramadan 2005, with a false, “lethal narrative” about French police killing two Arabs.

Young men from the ZUS shouting Allahu Akhbar!, using advanced social networking techniques, ignited France with rioting and vandalism in cities across the country.

Meanwhile, law enforcement agencies behaved as if they were paralyzed by fear that footage of them harming a rioting Arab would trigger an immediate escalation to the contest for power. This official inaction was a cogwar victory for the insurgents. It took over three weeks to put down the rampage of the continent’s new warriors. The media, which had

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French areas of rioting in 2005. contributed to the mobilization of these “youth” with lethal narratives about Israeli Jews victimizing Muslims saw no need to report any relevance of Islam to the images of Muslim rioting.13 In addition, some academics, apparently out of “political correctness” claimed that the violence reflected French discrimination against immigrants, rather than a tribalistic warrior ethos spreading in their midst.14 One French academic quietly told me: “the Arabs in France act as if they have a knife to our throats, and we act as if they have a knife to our throats.” Accurate or not, bringing about this type of dynamic is the purpose of cogwar efforts.

The successful Ramadan intifada of November 2005 set the stage for coercing Western observance of shariah laws.

No images of the Prophet Mohammed can be disseminated. Whether centrally planned or not, this was another cogwar success: three cartoons (created by Islamist agitators) including one caricaturing Mohammad as a pig, caused rioting across Europe. Threats of violence: from assassination attempts on those involved in publishing other Mohammed cartoons, to wearing mock suicide belts at protests manipulated public policy.

Public discussion and analysis of Islam has been self-censored. The submission of Westerners to elements of shariah essentially constitutes a voluntary adherence to the rules of the Dhimma.

When the Catholic Pope quoted a medieval emperor saying Islam was “inherently violent” in 2006, thousands of Muslims rioted and deaths were reported

60 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013

around the world. Yet, rather than point out the absurdity of lethally rioting to protest being called violent, many public figures in the West criticized the Pope for his “provocation.”

Islamic supremacists continue to assert themselves: from torturing a French Jew to death over a matter of weeks, to killing three school children and a parent, to the regular rape of infidel girls15 to plundering police stations where Muslims have been detained.16 When international leaders remain publicly silent about these incidents, that is a victory of cognitive warfare.

When citizens feel obligated to censor their speech or censor discussion of Islam, major cogwar victories have been achieved. Accusations of “Islamophobia” against people who speak critically of any aspect of Islam including Muslims,17 has created an atmosphere of omerta in which Jihadis of all stripes deploy and engage in hostile public behavior under cover of Western society’s predisposition to accommodate.18 Some assert that “the vast majority” of Muslims are moderate and assimilate into Western culture. Some claim the opposite. Sadly, we have no way of knowing even the most approximate percentage of extremists involved. Until we pay closer attention and encourage critical analysis of the subject and truly free speech, we can expect a deteriorating situation.

Conclusion Among the angry demonstrations of Islamists, some of the ones with the widest appeal, that gave Islamist aggression the most legitimacy, were the ones ignited by Western media reporting. That reporting has presented as news, in the most indignant tones of moral opprobrium, lethal narratives of Palestinians against Israelis. With each such demonstration in the West:

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A Melbourne protest. Photo courtesy of Zombietime.

London Police at Al Durah Protest 2000.

from the USA, to Europe, the discourse became more openly toxic: from calling the Israelis Nazis in 2000, to the calling on the Nazis to exterminate the Jews in 2009.19 Rather than distance themselves from this display of hatred, radical leftist activist groups in the West chanted “We are Hamas!”20 Apparently the enemy of my enemy can be treated as a friend.

The demonstrators at the al-Durah rally of 2000 in London were relatively contained. By 2009, anti-Zionist demonstrators chased police through the streets of central London.

There are multiple reasons why Islamist ideology was able to spread so rapidly in so many forms in the West.21 Perhaps the most remarkable phenomenon of Western 21st century news media outlets, is the startling imbalance between the way it broadcasts material that incites Muslims to hatred and violence on one hand, and the way it under-publishes evidence of these alleged misdeeds on the other.

This issue is worth study; including the

62 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013

role played by hyper-self-critical Jews in the dynamic.22 I believe that as long as Europeans demonstrate hunger for stories about Jews behaving badly— from blood libels to Palestinian lethal narratives—they remain vulnerable to a cognitive war that threatens to destroy them. Only when Europeans genuinely renounce anti-Semitism can they survive as democracies.

•

about the author Dr. Landes is a professor at Boston University. He is author of Heaven on Earth: The Varieties of the Millennial Experience (Oxford 2011) and co-editor of Paranoid Apocalypse: A HundredYear Retrospective on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (NYU, 2011), his upcoming book is entitled They’re so Smart Cause We’re so Stupid. His documentaries are available at: www. seconddraft.org/index.php?option=com_co ntent&view=category&layout=blog&id= 58&Itemid=159

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Endnotes On the forged cartoons see Hjörtur Gudmundsson “Scandinavian Update,” Brussels Journal, June 14, 2006; http:// www.brusselsjournal.com/node/668. On the flushed Qur’ans, “Newsweek retracts Qur’an Story,” CNN, May 17, 2005; http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/ asiapcf/05/16/newsweek.quran/. On 1

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Pallywood-style staging in Syria and Egypt, see Landes, “Pallywood in Egypt,” Augean Stables, August 9, 2003; http:// www.theaugeanstables.com/2013/08/09/ pallywood-in-egypt-what-does-this-tell-usabout-what-they-think-of-us/.

2 David Horowitz, Unholy Alliance (2004), Jamie Glasov, United in Hate (2009), Andrew McCarthy, The Grand Jihad (2010). See also Judith Butler affirming that Hamas and Hizbullah are part of the global progressive left, Landes, “Judith Butler, the Adorno Prize, and the Moral State of the “Global Left,” Augean Stables, August 31, 2012; http://www. theaugeanstables.com/2012/08/31/judithbutler-the-adorno-prize-and-the-moralstate-of-the-global-left/.

3 The term “Muslim Street” is used both by its critics and its supporters: Ömer Taspinar, “The Muslim Street,” Brooking Institution, March/April 2003: http://www.brookings.edu/research/ opinions/2003/03/middleeast-taspinar; Moez Mobeen, “Western civilization is not universal,” Pakistan Observer, October 2, 2012: http://pakobserver.net/ detailnews.asp?id=175965. There is a American Muslim website and magazine entitled, The Muslim Street: http:// www.muslimstreet.net/. I mean the term as a parallel to the “Arab Street,” which represents a potentially violent presence that intimidates governments: Mohamed Zayani, “Courting and containing the Arab street: Arab public opinion, the Middle East and U.S. public diplomacy,” The Free Library, 22 March 2008; http://www.thefreelibrary.com/ Courting and containing the Arab street: Arab public opinion, the...-a0185487492.

4 In the mid aughts (‘00s), a whole series of books appeared that delineated the threat: Bat-Ye’or, Eurabia (2005), Mark Steyn, America Alone (2006), Bruce Bawer, While Europe Slept (2006), Melanie

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London Police at Al Durah Protest.

Phillips, Londonistan (2006). Most of these authors were dismissed as conspiracy theorists and fringe figures. Remarks by weighty scholars like Bernard Lewis (“Europa wird islamisch,” Die Welt, April 19, 2006: http://www.welt.de/print-welt/ article211310/Europa-wird-islamisch. html), and Walter Laqueur (The Last Days of Europe, 2007) were also dismissed.

5 On the relationship, see Andrei Markovits, Uncouth Nation (2007), chap. 5.

6 The “new anti-semitism” of the 21st century produced the first round of book-length warnings about Europe’s weaknesses in 2002: Taguieff, Rising from the Muck (2002), Emmanuel Brenner et al. Les territoires perdus de la République (2002), Phyllis Chesler, The New antiSemitism (2003). Among the first to track it was Shumel Trigano, “Une atmosphere d’insécurité,” Observatoire du monde juif 1:1 (Nov. 2001), pp. 2-9 with graph showing October spike; http://obs. monde.juif.free.fr/pdf/omj01.pdf.

7 None of the major papers reported the chants; we know about it from a passing

eye-witness, Marie Brenner, “France’s Scarlet Letter,” Vanity Fair, June 2003; http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/ features/2003/06/france-muslim-jewishpopulation.

8 Virtually every book that tracks this red-green alliance comes from the 21st century (as do almost all the examples they analyze), see above, n.

2. This does not mean that the pieces of this alliance were not already there beforehand (e.g., the joint comparison of Israel with the Nazis which goes back to Soviet disinformation campaigns in the aftermath of the 1967 war, or the fellowtraveling of Foucault with Khoumeini), just that, with the 21st century, the alliance goes mainstream on the left. See Landes, “From Useful Idiot to Useful Infidel,” Terrorism and Political Violence 25:4 (2013), forthcoming.

9 “They did it, we wanted it.”

Landes, “Baudrillard on 9-11,” Augean Stables, May 30, 2006; http://www. theaugeanstables.com/?p=401. German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, “the

greatest work of art imaginable for the whole cosmos,” Terry Castle, “The unsettling question of the sublime,” Encyclopedia of 9-11, http://nymag. com/news/9-11/10th-anniversary/ karlheinz-stockhausen/; Clemens Heni, Schadenfreude (2011).

10 John Rosenthal, “The French Path to Jihad,” Policy Review, 139 (September 2006); http://www.hoover.org/ publications/policy-review/article/6855.

11 Horowitz, Unholy Alliance, chap. 18.

This topic needs extensive documentation and research.

12 Emmanuel Brenner et al., Les territoires perdus de la République (2003) chronicles the process whereby France lost control of the ZUS first by losing control of the schools which provided the main process whereby second-generation immigrants became socialized to a civil polity. The Muslim component was invisible to most Europeans because their specialists were busy telling them that Islamism (political Islam) was declining, e.g., Jules Kepel, Jihad: Expansion et déclin de l’islamisme, 19702000 published three days after 9-11.

13 “Politics in France is heading to the right and I don’t want rightwing politicians back in second, or even first place because we showed burning cars on television,” said Jean-Claude Dassier, the head of TF1, one of France’s major news agencies. Claire Cozens, “French TV boss admits censoring riot coverage,” Guardian, November 10, 2005.

14 See the collection of essays up at the SSRC website, all variants on a same theme: despite the predominance of Muslim youth rioting, it had little or nothing to do with Islam: http:// riotsfrance.ssrc.org/. Not one article mentions that the riots began during Ramadan.

15 On the Ilan Halimi affair, see Nidra Poller, “The Murder of Ilan Halimi,” Wall Street Journal, February

23, 2006; http://online.wsj.com/ article/SB114064452021880485. html; Melanie Phillips, “The Rochdale sex ring shows the horrific consequences of Britain’s ‘Islamophobia’ witch-hunt,” Daily Mail, May 9, 2012: http://www. dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2141930/ The-Rochdale-sex-ring-shows-horrificconsequences-Britains-Islamophobiawitch-hunt.html#ixzz28DDhMbfE; Soren Kern, “‘Rape Jihad’ Against Children,” Gatestone, July 1, 2013; http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3846/ britain-child-grooming.

16 At this point, the US administration has the most extensive formal restraints on discussing radical Islam: Ryan Mauro, “See no Radical Islam, Hear no Radical Islam,” Frontpage, May 17, 2010; http:// frontpagemag.com/2010/ryan-mauro/seeno-radical-islam-hear-no-radical-islam/.

17 Amnesty International, ““Choice and Prejudice: Discrimination

Against Muslims in Europe,”; http:// www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ EUR01/001/2012/en/85bd60545273-4765-9385-59e58078678e/ eur010012012en.pdf; critiqued by Søren Kern, “Amnesty International and Muslim Discrimination in Europe,: Gatestone Institute, May 10, 2012: http://www.gatestoneinstitute. org/3056/amnesty-international-muslimdiscrimination-europe.

18 Paul Marshall and Nina Shea, Silenced (2013); reviewed by Paul Berman in the New Republic, “The Thought Police,” New Republic, April 5, 2012; http:// www.newrepublic.com/article/books/ magazine/101716/islam-blasphemyfreedom-speech?page=0,0#.

19 See the blog photo-essay “January 10, 2009: The Intifada is globalized as the Gaza War becomes a world war,” Zomblog, January 16, 2009; online: http://www.zombietime.com/

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20 “‘We are all Hamas’: the real voice of its messengers in London,” Adloyada, January 12, 2009; http://adloyada. typepad.com/adloyada/2009/01/we-areall-hamas-the-real-voice-of-its-messengerin-london.html.

21 Here, I think, the work of Pascal Bruckner is particularly insightful into the peculiar bent of a post-colonial “tyranny of penitence” for the Western imperial past, The Tyranny of Guilt (2006).

22 Alvin Rosenfeld, “Progressive Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism,” AJC Publication, 2006: http://www. ajc.org/atf/cf/%7B42D75369-D5824380-8395-D25925B85EAF%7D/ PROGRESSIVE_JEWISH_ THOUGHT.PDF.

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Reliable face recognition is something many are searching for. For further information please contact: Investor Relations, Jared Mitchell.

Managing Director, ProActive Capital www.ProActiveCapital.com Direct: 646.863.6274

The Counter Terrorist Magazine proudly announces the launch of the ASIA PACIFIC edition A new resource for US and European companies looking at the huge market in Asia is the ASIA PACIFIC edition of the Counter Terrorist Magazine. A subset of the current publication, the ASIAN edition will be an ezine and will be published by Counter Terrorism Practitioner CTP. The Singaporean company holds an annual conference in November every year, and the magazine will be launched on that date. As a licensing body for professionals, the company is in an excellent position to bring in the quality readership in Asia that the magazine enjoys in Europe and the USA. Edited by Munies Pillai, the Director of Advertising is Mr. Derick Ding and the Director of Operations is Mr. Yaniv Peretz. The magazine will provide at least 3 articles specifically directed at the ASIA PACIFIC market and local advertisers in addition to the companies that advertise in the US edition. By 2014, China’s homeland security & public safety market alone will replace the U.S.’s, to become the world’s largest national homeland security & public safety market. Not to mention the many and numerous countries that can provide much needed replacement for the cutbacks in US Homeland Security spending. China’s homeland security & public safety market grew from $40 Billion in 2011 to $45 Billion in 2012, and will reach $58 Billion by 2015. Forecasts predict that the market will reach $105 Billion by 2020, several times the US market.

“We are not only looking at China,” states Yaniv Peretz of CTP. “ We also have Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea and the entire Pacific area that we reach. We expect this to be a big success. We are proud to be representing the Counter Terrorist whose fine content is often read and mentioned here.”

For further information please call Henry Morgenstern on 305-401-6906 at SSI – Miami Florida.

68 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013

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When you want to transport your M4 without being harassed by anti-gun zealots, 5.11’s Covrt M4 pack provides the solution. This nylon rifle bag fits an M4 with a collapsed stock and includes an internal barrel catch muzzle trap to hold the rifle in position. It has an ambidextrous cross body shoulder strap and a QuickTact accessory strap. It measures 28.5” x 12” x 6.25”. www.511tactical.com The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013 69

Counter

SSI

advertiser index

The

october/november 2013 Volume 6 • Number 5

Journal for Law Enforcement, Intelligence & Special Operations Professionals To request detailed product information, visit our website www.thecounterterroristmag.com/advertising.asp or scan this code. Select the appropriate Reader Service Number (RSN) on the web-form and submit your contact information. Individual advertiser’s websites are also provided below for your convenience.”

Page

Ad/Company • website and/or email........................................................................................................ RSN Number

35 53 75 34 13 34 29 4 15 22 22 45 24 74 2 54 23 19 67 37 64 64 14 61 3 44 11 26 39 65 59 20 33 64 43 45 76 44 38 71 51 73 7 25 27 63 28 41

8th Annual Homeland Security Conference • www.terrorconference.com.................................................. 177 Adams Industries • www.adamsindustries.com................................................................................................ 308 Adamson Police Products • www.policeproducts.com............................................................................ 116 ALLRed - Armadillo Tactical Gear • www.armadillotacticalgear.com...................................................... 131 American Public University • www.amuonline.com/counter-terrorist...................................................... 211 American Tactical Imports Inc. AmChar • www.amcharlaw.com........................................................... 331 Asia edition CTMAG • sales@counterterrorismpractitioner.com................................................................ 255 Barrett Firearms Manufacturing • www.barrett.net/training................................................................. 121 BioStat LLC • www.biostatllc.com........................................................................................................... 271 Center for Rural Development • www.preventivestrategies.net............................................................... 265 CRC Press/Taylor & Francis • www.crcpress.com.................................................................................. 133 Cyalume Technologies Inc. • www.visipad.com..................................................................................... 305 Diamond Back Tactical • www.diamondbacktactical.com....................................................................... 74 Elite K9 • www.elitek9.com.................................................................................................................... 277 Fechheimer Brothers Company - Vertx • www.vertx.com..................................................................... 170 Frazer, Ltd • www.frazerbilt.com........................................................................................................... 221 Golden Engineering • www.goldenengineering.com.............................................................................. 83 Golight Inc • www.golight.com.............................................................................................................. 285 GovSec West • www.govsecwest.com.................................................................................................... 257 Icor Technology • www.icortechnology.com........................................................................................... 81 IDGA Government IT Reform • www.governmentitreform.com............................................................... 113 IDGA Modern Warrior Demo Days • www.modernwarriordemodays.com............................................. 115 J & N Tactical • www.jntactical.com....................................................................................................... 155 K9 Cop Magazine • www.k9copmagazine.com..................................................................................... 279 Lenco Industries Inc. • www.lencoarmor.com......................................................................................... 13 Lithos Robotics • www.lithosrobotics.com.............................................................................................. 307 LRAD • www.lradx.com/LE.................................................................................................................... 319 Mattracks • www.mattracks.com........................................................................................................... 297 Milipol • www.mspce.com..................................................................................................................... 168 NTOA • www.ntoa.org.......................................................................................................................... 329 Patriot3 • www.patriot3.com................................................................................................................. 301 Platesmart • www.platesmart.com......................................................................................................... 125 PoliceOne • www.policeoneacademy.com.............................................................................................. 335 PoliceTraining.net • ww.policetraining.net............................................................................................. 191 Portable Vehicle Barrier - SSI PVB • www.ssipvb.com.......................................................................... 226 Reconyx • www.reconyx.com................................................................................................................ 303 San Francisco Police Credit Union • www.sfpcu.org............................................................................. 148 Southern New Hampshire University • www.snhu.edu/ct.................................................................... 111 Southern Police Equipment • www.southernpoliceequipment.com.......................................................... 343 SSI Advanced Homeland Security training in Israel • www.homelandsecurityssi.com........................... 215 SSI MACTAC • www.homelandsecurityssi.com......................................................................................... 228 SSI Personal Security • contact@homelandsecurityssi.com...................................................................... 295 Tactical Products Gear Inc. • www.tacprogear.com............................................................................... 101 Tactical Products Group Inc. • www.tacprogroup.com........................................................................... 145 Tex Shield Inc • info@tex-shield.com..................................................................................................... 29 The Grand Deception • www.granddeception.com................................................................................ 262 Thorshield - G Squared Consulting • www.thorshield.com.................................................................... 97 Trident Consulting Group • www.tridentconsultinggroup.org.................................................................. 99

70 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013

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Since 2005, SSI has taken nearly 500 First Responders to Israel and shown them the basics of the Israel security concept.

Thanks in part to that program, we are better able to defend ourselves in the United States. In response to demand, we are now offering a once-in-a-lifetime experience covering the following advanced subjects:

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Phone: 866-573-3999 Fax: 866-573-2090 info@homelandsecurityssi.com Circle 50 on Reader Service Card Circle 215 on Reader Service Card

The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013 71

Training Review

Scorpion XIV

By Andrew Balcombe

S

corpion XIV is the Polish Commando Group (JWK) predeployment exercise for rotation into Taskforce 50 in Afghanistan. The exercise encompasses a number of scenarios the operators are likely to encounter in Afghanistan, including high-risk arrest operations at night, ambushes, live-fire drills, use of close air support, artillery coordination, and patrolling. Each scenario reflects a situation previous taskforces have encountered.

Deliberate Apprehension Scenario Intelligence located a suspected insurgent leader in a village in Ghazni province. Taskforce 50 (TF50) was tasked with arresting him. After the unit finalized its operations plan, the unit commander requested approval from the taskforce commander. POLSOF Command and the ISAF regional command gave the go-ahead.

In the command container, the intel officer relayed information to the commander. The chief of staff provided the commander with situational awareness, such as where each element of his taskforce was, as well as where adjacent unit personnel were. There were time constraints for planning, but details were still critical. In addition, a liaison officer represented the taskforce commander to POLSOFCOM higher command, other taskforces, and agencies.

When intel indicated the location of the target, the recon unit caught a ride with a mixed armored patrol of Polish infantry.

The recon element was inserted and confirmed the target’s location and set up

From protecting the homeland... to protecting you.

JWK operators detain and interview a terrorist. Photo: Andrew Balcombe. clandestine observation posts. Operators rotated manning the observation post in shifts, so that the target area was constantly under surveillance.

The command center or “controlling element” used the recon team’s feedback to update information while all elements of the operation stood ready to act at a moment’s notice if necessary. The intel was examined by the commander and sent to the planners. The recon team at the observation post suggested the best route for approach and provided specific details of the target and environment.

Meanwhile, the direct action (DA) team used the recon intel to determine appropriate tactics, such as whether they would employ a roof team and what type of weapons and entry tools they would require. They also used the information to prepare the supporting units, which in this case were elements of the Polish infantry, who stood in place of the usual Afghan PRC. In the field, the recon observers sought to determine who was with the suspect, which in turn affected the taskforce’s plan.

If there were women and children at the

72 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013

suspect’s house, female personnel would join the operation to provide searches and thus minimize offense to the locals.

Interpreters were also informed how they would integrate into the operation.

The JWK operators treated this is a police operation. They considered evidence collection and preservation crucial in order to carry out the process of law.

Pre-Mission Briefing Before the mission began, all TF50 combat element participants crammed into a small command room. They were observed by evaluators from POLSOFCOM to determine whether each of the taskforce’s elements met the accreditation standards for operational deployment to Afghanistan.

The operators and support staff were told who the suspect was: a man in charge of 40 fighters who had conducted indirect mortar, 107 mm rocket, and small arms fire on FOB Ghazni, along with IED attacks on local Afghan government personnel. The team discussed the enemy’s most dangerous course of action and

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44 The Counter Terrorist ~ August/September 2013

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The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2013 73

his most probable courses of action when confronted with the DA element. Objectives were set: capture or kill the suspect, destroy any weapons caches, recover evidence and information, and so on.

The Mission A replica of an Afghan residential compound surrounded by a wall appeared green under night vision goggles. Dark figures moved in front of the wall and then disappeared behind it. There was the sound of window shutters and doors being forced open with hooligan tools and sledgehammers.

The DA team entered and identified themselves to the occupants. They cleared each room. A figure appeared just behind the front wall, and two more deployed to the roof of the compound. After about five minutes, a long burst of automatic weapons fire erupted from the building opposite and was answered by the JWK operators HK 416s, M249 Minimi machine guns, and 40

mm grenade launchers.

The hostile gunmen were killed, but before dying, they hit one of the operators in the leg. A medic was tasked to deal with the wounded operator. A quick reaction force with armored personnel carriers (APCs) rolled onto the target area with EOD operators and an ambulance APC. Inside the compound, a narrow hallway led to a central living area with two bedrooms branching off from it. Inside one of the bedrooms, two male occupants were cuffed. Biometric data was taken from them, and they were questioned while EOD personnel joined other operators to search the compound inside and out for evidence and explosives.

Outside the compound, operators observed the area from different positions.

Inside the house, a female occupant with a baby sat in one of the bedrooms. She was moved to another area by a female attachment to the team.

The EOD element soon located

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explosives hidden under the floorboards.

A simulated explosive charge (flash bang) was placed near the hidden cache and detonated from outside. Inside the courtyard, another explosive cache was discovered hidden in a dog kennel and dealt with in the same manner.

The two males’ separate interviews revealed that they were, in fact, wanted men. Thus, they were extracted for a detailed interrogation. The entry team exfiltrated with the recon element in APCs and Humvees carrying confiscated evidence and intelligence materials. It was a job well done; the JWK operators were certified for deployment in their special operations role.

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