Terrorists in India attack could be local
Global intelligence officials say no advance warning in Mumbai assaults
November 27, 2008
LONDON - The attack on India's financial capital bears all the trademarks of al-Qaida — simultaneous assaults meant to kill scores of Westerners in iconic buildings — but clues so far point to homegrown Indian terrorists, global intelligence officials said Thursday.
Spy agencies around the world were caught off guard by the deadly attack, in which gunmen sprayed crowds with bullets, torched landmark hotels and took dozens of hostages.
"We have been actively monitoring plots in Britain and abroad and there was nothing to indicate something like this was about to happen," a British security official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of his work.
Britain is the former colonial power in India and Pakistan and closely monitors terrorist suspects in those countries.
In some ways, the attack illustrated just how fluid terrorist tactics have become since Sept. 11, 2001 — and how the threat has become more global. Al-Qaida's leaders on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border still provide inspiration but groups are becoming increasingly local.
The group that claimed responsibility, Deccan Mujahideen, was unknown to global security officials. The name suggested the group was Indian.
One of the attackers reportedly called an Indian television station, speaking the main Pakistani language of Urdu, to demand the return of Muslim lands. That was a reference to Kashmir, territory claimed by both India and Pakistan.
But Ajai Sahni, head of the New Delhi-based Institute for Conflict Management who has close ties to India's police and intelligence, said the attack was a departure from past assaults waged over Kashmir. Other such attacks had targeted Indian legislators, not Westerners.
Young Islamic extremists?
Security officials said it was too soon to make a connection to Pakistan.
"It would be premature ... to reach any hard-and-fast conclusions on who may be responsible for the attacks, but some of what we're seeing is reminiscent of past terrorist operations undertaken by groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed," a U.S. counterterrorism official said on condition of anonymity, referring to Pakistani militant groups linked to al-Qaida who have fought Indian troops in Kashmir.
Another British security official told the AP on condition of anonymity that the attack doesn't look to have been directed by al-Qaida's core leadership, which has been weakened by the deaths of several leaders and key operatives in recent months.
Al-Qaida's core leadership is believed to be fewer than 100 people now, said Rohan Gunaratna, author of "Inside Al-Qaida" and a terrorism expert at the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore.
The British security official said it appeared the attack was inspired by Islamic extremist ideology and al-Qaida propaganda popular among radicalized youths. Many of the attackers in the Mumbai assault were young.
Gunaratna said he believed the group that carried out Wednesday's attack was the Indian Mujahideen, responsible for past attacks in Mumbai.
The word "Deccan" refers to a plateau in southern India. "Mujahideen" refers to holy warriors.
"The earlier generation of terrorist groups in India were mostly linked to Pakistan," Gunaratna told the AP. "But today we are seeing a dramatic change. They are almost all homegrown groups. ... They are very angry and firmly believe that India is killing Muslims and attacking Islam."
British-based Jane's Information Group said it thought the attackers could be Indian but that taking hostages suggested a wider anti-Western agenda.
"Until now, terrorist attacks in India have targeted civilians, often in busy market or commercial areas, and in communally sensitive areas with the intention to foment unrest between Hindu and Muslim communities," said Urmila Venugopalan, Jane's South Asia analyst.
"This stands in contrast to the national issues that appeared to motivate Indian Mujahideen," Venugopalan said.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh blamed "external forces" but stopped short of blaming Pakistan. Both are nuclear-armed countries.
In September, a massive suicide truck bomb devastated the Marriott Hotel in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, killing at least 54 people, including three Americans and the Czech ambassador.
Mumbai underworld
"This type of terrorism is spreading, through Pakistan and now India, but we were all surprised by such a large-scale attack like this," said Wajid Hassan, Pakistan's High Commissioner in London. "This is no coincidence that this type of attack happened so soon after the bombing of the Marriott Hotel. People from all countries are being paid to fight this al-Qaida war. This is a war that goes beyond any nationality."
Sahni, however, said "very preliminary investigations and intelligence information would suggest that some groups based in Pakistan are the most likely.
"If there is Indian participation, it's most likely to be Students' Islamic Movement of India," he said, referring to a radical student group banned in India in 2001.
Indian intelligence officials were also investigating whether Mumbai's criminal underworld could be involved.
"It's a possibility," Sahni said. "When we say Mumbai underworld we're talking of Dawood Ibrahim."
Ibrahim is one of India's most wanted men and also the alleged mastermind behind bombings in Mumbai in 1993 that killed 257 people. He has reportedly fled Mumbai, and police now believe he lives in Pakistan. Pakistani officials have denied this.
Interpol, the global police organization, was sending a team to assist in the Mumbai investigation, NBC reported.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
IHT : Commandos storm Jewish center in Mumbai
Friday, November 28, 2008
Commandos storm Jewish center in Mumbai
By Keith Bradsher and Somini Sengupta | November 28, 2008
MUMBAI, India: Indian commandos slid down ropes from a hovering army helicopter Friday morning as security forces stormed a Jewish center that had been seized by terrorists during bloody and widespread attacks on Mumbai, India's commercial and entertainment capital.
The blue-uniformed commandos landed on the roof and soon made their way inside Nariman House, home to the Orthodox Jewish group Chabad Lubavitch. A gunbattle then broke out inside the building, with hundreds of shots being fired over the next four hours.
Elsewhere in the city, Indian Army and paramilitary commandos made their way through two charred luxury hotels, searching for survivors of the bands of gunmen who unleashed two days of chaos beginning Wednesday night.
News agencies in Mumbai reported late Friday morning that about 20 foreigners --- some carrying luggage --- had been freed from one of the hotels, the Oberoi. At the same time, an army general, N. Thamburaj, was quoted as saying two hostages were still being held in the other hotel that had come under siege, the Taj Mahal Hotel and Tower.
The general said he expected all anti-terrorist operations in Mumbai to be over by midafternoon.
Fears were growing in Mumbai that the death toll would rise past the 119 known dead. Dozens of people, and perhaps many more, remained trapped in the hotels, though it was uncertain if any were being held hostage. More than 300 were known to be wounded.
The police said 14 police officers had been killed in the city, along with seven gunmen. Nine suspects were taken into custody, they said.
There remained much mystery around the group behind the attack, which experts said was unusual in its scale, planning and boldness.
Two men who claimed to be among the gunmen called local television stations, demanding to speak with the government. They complained about the treatment of Muslims in India and about Kashmir, the disputed territory over which India and Pakistan have fought two wars.
"Are you aware how many people have been killed in Kashmir?" a caller who identified himself as Imran asked. "Are you aware how your army has killed Muslims?"
The men said they were Indian, but the attacks appeared to ratchet up tensions in an already volatile region. In a televised speech, India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, blamed forces "based outside this country" in a thinly veiled accusation that Pakistan was involved.
The attacks could threaten recent American efforts to reduce the overall enmity between Pakistan and India, which were meant to enable Pakistan to focus more military resources against the rising threat of the Taliban in its lawless tribal areas.
Mr. Singh issued a warning that seemed clearly aimed at Pakistan, which India has often accused of allowing terrorist groups to plot anti-Indian attacks.
"The group which carried out these attacks, based outside the country, had come with single-minded determination to create havoc in the commercial capital of the country," he said. "We will take up strongly with our neighbors that the use of their territory for launching attacks on us will not be tolerated, and that there would be a cost if suitable measures are not taken by them."
While many of the targets seemed to indicate a focus on tourists and Westerners, most of the victims were Indians, who had packed into the banquet halls and restaurants in the hotels, according to witnesses and officials; even street vendors in Mumbai's main train station were sprayed with bullets.
The chief minister of Maharashtra State, Vilasrao Deshmukh, told CNN-IBN, a private television channel, that six foreigners had been killed and seven wounded. Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay, is the capital of Maharashtra.
Hisashi Tsuda, 38, a businessman and father of two from Tokyo, was killed, his company announced Thursday. Brett Taylor, 49, a timber merchant from Sydney, Australia, had been staying at the Oberoi, and was confirmed dead. Antonio de Lorenzo, a businessman from Livorno, Italy, was killed at the Oberoi, according to reports quoting Italy's foreign minister, Franco Frattini.
A German, Ralph Burkei, 51, was fatally injured when he jumped out of the Taj hotel. According to several reports citing the Munich newspaper Abendzeitung, Mr. Burkei, a co-owner of an independent television production company in Munich, called a friend from his cellphone and said: "I have broken every bone in my body. If no one helps me now, I'm finished." He died on the way to the hospital.
The British authorities said one Briton had been killed and seven wounded.
The American Embassy said it was unaware of any American casualties, though at least three wounded Americans were at Bombay Hospital, one of several hospitals where the injured were being taken.
Several high-ranking law enforcement officials were reported killed, including the chief of the antiterrorism squad and a police commissioner.
Throughout Thursday, Indian soldiers and paramilitary forces fanned out across the southern tip of the city, where the attacks were focused. Normally bustling, it was deserted. Stores were shuttered. Cars sailed along the empty streets. Most offices were closed, along with the Bombay Stock Exchange.
Near Leopold Cafe, a popular restaurant that was among the first places struck Wednesday night, a bloodied shoe lay on the ground beneath a car with smashed windows.
For most of the day Thursday, smoke billowed out of the Taj hotel, one of the city's most famous landmarks. And at least two clouds of smoke issued from the hotel on Friday at midmorning.
Loud explosions were heard throughout Thursday afternoon from inside the Oberoi, also known as the Trident, which is also in South Mumbai, near the Arabian Sea. After sundown, a fire broke out on its fourth floor.
The state's highest-ranking police official, A. N. Roy, told NDTV, a private news channel, that National Security Guards commandos, aided by the police and army and navy troops, had scoured the Taj, room by room, for remaining civilians and were moving cautiously through the Oberoi because of the likelihood of hostages there.
"We are not negotiating at all," Mr. Roy told the channel. "We will get them and get them soon. We have some definite clues and leads. It was a very well-planned and very well-executed operation."
It was impossible to know precisely what was going on inside the two hotels, except that intense firefights occurred between security forces and an apparently audacious band of gunmen.
Occasionally, a curtain would part, a window would open and the figure of a guest would become visible.
Hospitals were mobbed with people searching for missing relatives, and morgues received a steady stream of bodies. Doctors said the wounded had been shot. On the shaded steps of the Regal Cinema near the main train station, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, sat a handful of dazed spectators. The cinema was closed; "A Quantum of Solace" would not be playing Thursday.
The gunmen appear to have come ashore at the Sassoon Docks, not far from the Leopold. They moved on to the train station, the old Victoria Terminus, and then opened fire on Cama and Albless Hospital — where some of their earlier victims encountered a second round of gunfire. At one point, the gunmen hijacked a police vehicle and opened fire on journalists and spectators gathered near a famous theater, the Metro Cinema.
Witnesses and security camera video of the gunmen built a portrait of them as young men dressed in jeans and trendy T-shirts, bearing rucksacks and guns. It remained unclear who they were, what they wanted, or how many survived.
Earlier on Thursday, Indian news channels received a claim of responsibility from a group called Deccan Mujahedeen; the name may refer to the Deccan Plateau, which dominates central and southern India. The name was unknown to scholars of global terrorism. Security experts said the group might not exist, or it could be a name adopted by a terror cell for this particular operation.
The casualties ran the gamut of Mumbai society. A street vendor was shot and killed near the main train station, where he sold a popular snack known as bhel puri. A manager at the Oberoi survived a bullet wound to his leg but was taken to the Cama and Albless Hospital, where a shootout erupted; he died after being transferred to a second hospital.
A chef at the Taj who had been hiding under a kitchen table for most of the night was discovered by four gunmen, made to stand up and shot from behind.
Escape attempts took place sporadically at the hotels. Before dawn on Thursday, several guests and workers managed to leave the Taj, but as gunmen opened fire on them, some fled back inside. In the late afternoon, about 10 hostages left the Oberoi.
The director general of the paramilitary National Security Guards, J. K. Dutt, told CNN-IBN television on Thursday that troops were trying to coax frightened people out of the Oberoi.
"They are in their rooms," he told the station. "They are not prepared to open their doors. As far as terrorists are concerned, we know exactly where they are."
Reuters quoted the state's deputy chief minister, R. R. Patil, as saying 100 to 200 people could be inside the Oberoi, and news agencies reported that civilians could be seen leaving the hotel Friday morning. "We cannot give you the exact figure, as many people have locked themselves inside their rooms," Mr. Patil said Thursday.
The sole British citizen confirmed dead in the Mumbai attacks spoke with the BBC a few hours before his death. The interview gives an idea of how terrifying and confusing his final moments must have been.
Andreas Liveras, a 72-year-old self-made millionaire born in Cyprus, was in Mumbai for a yacht show, family members told a Cyprus-based television station.
The BBC reached him by cell phone as he cowered in the Taj, where he had gone for dinner. As the gunmen entered, he hid under a table, then moved to a salon with hundreds of other guests. Gunfire and blasts echoed through the building.
"There must be more than 1,000 people here," he said. "There are residents and tourists and locals. We are not hiding, we are locked in here - nobody tells us anything, the doors are locked and we are inside," he said.
"All we know is the bombs are next door and the hotel is shaking every time a bomb goes off. Everybody is just living on their nerves."
The British Foreign Office in London confirmed that one Briton was among the dead in Mumbai and that it was in contact with the victim's family. Reuters reached the Cypriot Foreign Ministry, which confirmed Mr. Liveras's death on Thursday. He had been shot multiple times, the Times of London reported.
Air France issued a statement saying that 15 of its flight crew members had been unable to get out of a hotel in Mumbai. The company spokeswoman did not name the hotel or provide any details, except to say that the Paris-bound flight they were due to work on was canceled. Many international flight crews stay at the Oberoi.
The suspicions raised by the attack seemed a blow to relations between India and Pakistan, which had been recovering from a low earlier this year after India blamed the Pakistani intelligence agency for abetting the bombing of the Indian Embassy in Afghanistan. India has frequently accused Pakistan-based militant groups of fueling terrorist attacks on Indian soil, though lately it has also acknowledged the presence of homegrown Muslim and Hindu militant organizations.
Reporting was contributed by Jeremy Kahn from Mumbai, Mark McDonald from Hong Kong, Heather Timmons and Hari Kumar from New Delhi and Liz Robbins from New York.
By Keith Bradsher and Somini Sengupta | November 28, 2008
MUMBAI, India: Indian commandos slid down ropes from a hovering army helicopter Friday morning as security forces stormed a Jewish center that had been seized by terrorists during bloody and widespread attacks on Mumbai, India's commercial and entertainment capital.
The blue-uniformed commandos landed on the roof and soon made their way inside Nariman House, home to the Orthodox Jewish group Chabad Lubavitch. A gunbattle then broke out inside the building, with hundreds of shots being fired over the next four hours.
Elsewhere in the city, Indian Army and paramilitary commandos made their way through two charred luxury hotels, searching for survivors of the bands of gunmen who unleashed two days of chaos beginning Wednesday night.
News agencies in Mumbai reported late Friday morning that about 20 foreigners --- some carrying luggage --- had been freed from one of the hotels, the Oberoi. At the same time, an army general, N. Thamburaj, was quoted as saying two hostages were still being held in the other hotel that had come under siege, the Taj Mahal Hotel and Tower.
The general said he expected all anti-terrorist operations in Mumbai to be over by midafternoon.
Fears were growing in Mumbai that the death toll would rise past the 119 known dead. Dozens of people, and perhaps many more, remained trapped in the hotels, though it was uncertain if any were being held hostage. More than 300 were known to be wounded.
The police said 14 police officers had been killed in the city, along with seven gunmen. Nine suspects were taken into custody, they said.
There remained much mystery around the group behind the attack, which experts said was unusual in its scale, planning and boldness.
Two men who claimed to be among the gunmen called local television stations, demanding to speak with the government. They complained about the treatment of Muslims in India and about Kashmir, the disputed territory over which India and Pakistan have fought two wars.
"Are you aware how many people have been killed in Kashmir?" a caller who identified himself as Imran asked. "Are you aware how your army has killed Muslims?"
The men said they were Indian, but the attacks appeared to ratchet up tensions in an already volatile region. In a televised speech, India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, blamed forces "based outside this country" in a thinly veiled accusation that Pakistan was involved.
The attacks could threaten recent American efforts to reduce the overall enmity between Pakistan and India, which were meant to enable Pakistan to focus more military resources against the rising threat of the Taliban in its lawless tribal areas.
Mr. Singh issued a warning that seemed clearly aimed at Pakistan, which India has often accused of allowing terrorist groups to plot anti-Indian attacks.
"The group which carried out these attacks, based outside the country, had come with single-minded determination to create havoc in the commercial capital of the country," he said. "We will take up strongly with our neighbors that the use of their territory for launching attacks on us will not be tolerated, and that there would be a cost if suitable measures are not taken by them."
While many of the targets seemed to indicate a focus on tourists and Westerners, most of the victims were Indians, who had packed into the banquet halls and restaurants in the hotels, according to witnesses and officials; even street vendors in Mumbai's main train station were sprayed with bullets.
The chief minister of Maharashtra State, Vilasrao Deshmukh, told CNN-IBN, a private television channel, that six foreigners had been killed and seven wounded. Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay, is the capital of Maharashtra.
Hisashi Tsuda, 38, a businessman and father of two from Tokyo, was killed, his company announced Thursday. Brett Taylor, 49, a timber merchant from Sydney, Australia, had been staying at the Oberoi, and was confirmed dead. Antonio de Lorenzo, a businessman from Livorno, Italy, was killed at the Oberoi, according to reports quoting Italy's foreign minister, Franco Frattini.
A German, Ralph Burkei, 51, was fatally injured when he jumped out of the Taj hotel. According to several reports citing the Munich newspaper Abendzeitung, Mr. Burkei, a co-owner of an independent television production company in Munich, called a friend from his cellphone and said: "I have broken every bone in my body. If no one helps me now, I'm finished." He died on the way to the hospital.
The British authorities said one Briton had been killed and seven wounded.
The American Embassy said it was unaware of any American casualties, though at least three wounded Americans were at Bombay Hospital, one of several hospitals where the injured were being taken.
Several high-ranking law enforcement officials were reported killed, including the chief of the antiterrorism squad and a police commissioner.
Throughout Thursday, Indian soldiers and paramilitary forces fanned out across the southern tip of the city, where the attacks were focused. Normally bustling, it was deserted. Stores were shuttered. Cars sailed along the empty streets. Most offices were closed, along with the Bombay Stock Exchange.
Near Leopold Cafe, a popular restaurant that was among the first places struck Wednesday night, a bloodied shoe lay on the ground beneath a car with smashed windows.
For most of the day Thursday, smoke billowed out of the Taj hotel, one of the city's most famous landmarks. And at least two clouds of smoke issued from the hotel on Friday at midmorning.
Loud explosions were heard throughout Thursday afternoon from inside the Oberoi, also known as the Trident, which is also in South Mumbai, near the Arabian Sea. After sundown, a fire broke out on its fourth floor.
The state's highest-ranking police official, A. N. Roy, told NDTV, a private news channel, that National Security Guards commandos, aided by the police and army and navy troops, had scoured the Taj, room by room, for remaining civilians and were moving cautiously through the Oberoi because of the likelihood of hostages there.
"We are not negotiating at all," Mr. Roy told the channel. "We will get them and get them soon. We have some definite clues and leads. It was a very well-planned and very well-executed operation."
It was impossible to know precisely what was going on inside the two hotels, except that intense firefights occurred between security forces and an apparently audacious band of gunmen.
Occasionally, a curtain would part, a window would open and the figure of a guest would become visible.
Hospitals were mobbed with people searching for missing relatives, and morgues received a steady stream of bodies. Doctors said the wounded had been shot. On the shaded steps of the Regal Cinema near the main train station, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, sat a handful of dazed spectators. The cinema was closed; "A Quantum of Solace" would not be playing Thursday.
The gunmen appear to have come ashore at the Sassoon Docks, not far from the Leopold. They moved on to the train station, the old Victoria Terminus, and then opened fire on Cama and Albless Hospital — where some of their earlier victims encountered a second round of gunfire. At one point, the gunmen hijacked a police vehicle and opened fire on journalists and spectators gathered near a famous theater, the Metro Cinema.
Witnesses and security camera video of the gunmen built a portrait of them as young men dressed in jeans and trendy T-shirts, bearing rucksacks and guns. It remained unclear who they were, what they wanted, or how many survived.
Earlier on Thursday, Indian news channels received a claim of responsibility from a group called Deccan Mujahedeen; the name may refer to the Deccan Plateau, which dominates central and southern India. The name was unknown to scholars of global terrorism. Security experts said the group might not exist, or it could be a name adopted by a terror cell for this particular operation.
The casualties ran the gamut of Mumbai society. A street vendor was shot and killed near the main train station, where he sold a popular snack known as bhel puri. A manager at the Oberoi survived a bullet wound to his leg but was taken to the Cama and Albless Hospital, where a shootout erupted; he died after being transferred to a second hospital.
A chef at the Taj who had been hiding under a kitchen table for most of the night was discovered by four gunmen, made to stand up and shot from behind.
Escape attempts took place sporadically at the hotels. Before dawn on Thursday, several guests and workers managed to leave the Taj, but as gunmen opened fire on them, some fled back inside. In the late afternoon, about 10 hostages left the Oberoi.
The director general of the paramilitary National Security Guards, J. K. Dutt, told CNN-IBN television on Thursday that troops were trying to coax frightened people out of the Oberoi.
"They are in their rooms," he told the station. "They are not prepared to open their doors. As far as terrorists are concerned, we know exactly where they are."
Reuters quoted the state's deputy chief minister, R. R. Patil, as saying 100 to 200 people could be inside the Oberoi, and news agencies reported that civilians could be seen leaving the hotel Friday morning. "We cannot give you the exact figure, as many people have locked themselves inside their rooms," Mr. Patil said Thursday.
The sole British citizen confirmed dead in the Mumbai attacks spoke with the BBC a few hours before his death. The interview gives an idea of how terrifying and confusing his final moments must have been.
Andreas Liveras, a 72-year-old self-made millionaire born in Cyprus, was in Mumbai for a yacht show, family members told a Cyprus-based television station.
The BBC reached him by cell phone as he cowered in the Taj, where he had gone for dinner. As the gunmen entered, he hid under a table, then moved to a salon with hundreds of other guests. Gunfire and blasts echoed through the building.
"There must be more than 1,000 people here," he said. "There are residents and tourists and locals. We are not hiding, we are locked in here - nobody tells us anything, the doors are locked and we are inside," he said.
"All we know is the bombs are next door and the hotel is shaking every time a bomb goes off. Everybody is just living on their nerves."
The British Foreign Office in London confirmed that one Briton was among the dead in Mumbai and that it was in contact with the victim's family. Reuters reached the Cypriot Foreign Ministry, which confirmed Mr. Liveras's death on Thursday. He had been shot multiple times, the Times of London reported.
Air France issued a statement saying that 15 of its flight crew members had been unable to get out of a hotel in Mumbai. The company spokeswoman did not name the hotel or provide any details, except to say that the Paris-bound flight they were due to work on was canceled. Many international flight crews stay at the Oberoi.
The suspicions raised by the attack seemed a blow to relations between India and Pakistan, which had been recovering from a low earlier this year after India blamed the Pakistani intelligence agency for abetting the bombing of the Indian Embassy in Afghanistan. India has frequently accused Pakistan-based militant groups of fueling terrorist attacks on Indian soil, though lately it has also acknowledged the presence of homegrown Muslim and Hindu militant organizations.
Reporting was contributed by Jeremy Kahn from Mumbai, Mark McDonald from Hong Kong, Heather Timmons and Hari Kumar from New Delhi and Liz Robbins from New York.
CNN : Some captives freed from Mumbai hotel
Friday, November 28, 2008
Some captives freed from Mumbai hotel
November 28, 2008
MUMBAI, India (CNN) -- At least 25 guests, including at least one infant, were escorted out from a Mumbai hotel and quickly herded into waiting vans Friday. Many of them who appeared to be foreigners.
Earlier, the Italian Foreign Ministry had said seven Italian citizens, including a mother and a toddler, were among the hostages inside the Trident hotel.
It was not clear how many people remained inside the hotel.
It was initially believed the guests had been escorted out of The Oberoi, one of two luxury hotels that was attacked more than a day ago, and where an unknown number of guests were still being held by gunmen.
The flurry of activity at the Trident came as members of India's premier counterterrorist force were seeking to end standoffs at two luxury hotels and Jewish center that were attacked late Wednesday.
At least 125 people have died, and more than 300 injured from attacks that began late Wednesday night at seven locations across the Indian financial hub.
J.K. Dutt, the director general of India's National Security Guard, told CNN's sister network in India, CNN-IBN, that one gunman at The Oberoi was killed at 1 a.m. Friday (2:30 p.m. ET), but he said he did not know how many remained.
Still, if earlier reports that had put the total number of attackers holed up in the hotel at two were correct, that would leave one.
Outside the Oberoi, activity was occurring, but police asked the news media not to divulge what it was.
As many as 20 people were thought to be inside the hotel Thursday night, an official said.
Among the hostages inside the Oberoi were seven Italian citizens, including a mother and a toddler, the Italian Foreign Ministry said.
Outside the Taj Mahal early Friday, members of the news media were asked to turn off their lights, but it was not clear what that signified.
Early Friday, a general directing the operation at the hotel told reporters that 15 to 20 hostages remained inside the building, and that all of them were safe. He said two or three gunmen, one of whom was wounded, remained inside the Taj as well.
But outside the Taj Mahal, distraught relatives of guests holed up inside expressed frustration at the way the rescue effort was being handled.
"I have been here since three in the morning on Thursday, that's nearly 30 hours and, as of now, I have whatsoever no information as to what's being done to rescue them," said one woman, whose sister and niece were locked in their room in the Taj Mahal.
She said her relatives had been eating food from the refrigerator in the room.
Explosions and gunfire were heard sporadically at both the Taj Mahal and Hotel Oberoi throughout Thursday. It was not clear what caused the explosions.
Though fires erupted at both hotels, both appeared early Friday to have been extinguished.
At Chabad house -- a nearby Jewish center -- two or three gunmen were believed to be remaining inside, Dutt said. CNN-IBN reported that all the hostages had been freed.
For hours, gunfire and grenades had been tossed from inside the structure toward anyone approaching the building -- three such explosions occurred in four hours.
But just before dawn, several jeeploads of police, firetrucks and at least one ambulance pulled up to the five-story structure.
And as dawn broke, three helicopter passes over 40 minutes dropped about two dozen soldiers onto its roof.
After the last drop, five or six heavy explosions and small-arms fire could be heard.
Other soldiers took positions on adjacent buildings, which had been evacuated Thursday night.
Dozens of onlookers crowded into terraces of nearby buildings and watched as the scene unfolded, punctuated by gunfire and explosions.
Rabbi Josh Runyan, spokesman for Chabad-Lubavitch International, said Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg, 29, and his wife, Rivka, 28, were believed to still be in the house. He said the couple's son was safe and with family in Mumbai.
Earlier Thursday, Johny Joseph, chief secretary of the state of Maharashtra -- of which Mumbai is the capital -- said two women and a child were seen escaping from the building. CNN-IBN reporter Raksha Shetty also said three hostages escaped -- apparently a caretaker, a cook and a child.
Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper, reported later that Sandra Samuel -- a cook for the center who had barricaded herself in a room in the house -- said she grabbed Holtzberg's 2-year-old son and fled the building with another person.
"I just grabbed the baby and ran out," Samuel told Haaretz.
The death toll from the series of coordinated attacks was at 125, including at least six foreigners, the director-general of police's office said. Fourteen police were among the dead. In all, some 327 people were wounded.
In a nationally televised address on Thursday, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the attackers were foreigners, but he did not say where he believed they were from.
"The well-planned and very orchestrated attacks, probably with external linkages, were intended to create a sense of panic by choosing high-profile targets and indiscriminately killing innocent foreigners," Singh said.
"It is evident that the group which carried out these attacks, based outside the country, had come with single-minded determination to create havoc in the financial capital of the country," he added.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Thursday that a team of British foreign office officials and metropolitan police had arrived in Mumbai. "The most important function is obviously a consular function -- to identify all the British victims, to liaise with all of the victims -- some of whom may still be trapped in the hotels -- and also ensure on the police side, that all expertise is offered to the Indian authorities," he said.
The identity of the attackers remained a mystery. CNN-IBN quoted police sources as saying they believed there were some 26 gunmen, most of them young.
State media Press Trust of India, citing Union Cabinet Minister Kapil Sibal, reported the gunmen had worked for months to prepare, even setting up "control rooms" in the two luxury hotels that were targeted.
Officially, the Indian authorities were saying no one had claimed responsibility, although the Deccan mujahideen took credit in e-mails sent to several Indian news outlets.
Deccan refers to the Deccan Plateau that makes up the majority of the southern part of the country. "Deccan" is an Anglicized form of "dakkhin," which means south.
Mujahideen translates into "those engaged in the struggle for jihad." While "jihad" in Islam can mean any endeavor that requires dedication, the term has taken on a militant tone in recent years.
Police say the attackers came by boats to the waterfront near the Gateway of India monument.
Nine suspects have been arrested in connection with the attacks, and seven are fishermen, police said. Police also found a boat loaded with explosives near the Taj Mahal, also located on the waterfront.
The gunmen hijacked cars -- including a police van -- and split into at least three groups to carry out the attacks, police said.
One group headed toward the Cafe Leopold, a popular hangout for Western tourists, firing indiscriminately at passers-by on the street. They then opened fire and lobbed grenades at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station, a Victorian building.
As police rushed to the scene of the attacks, gunmen attacked the Cama Hospital.
Two other groups attacked the Oberoi and Taj Mahal, police said.
The Indian navy, stepping up patrols on the country's western coast after the attack, was questioning the crew of the MV Alpha, a ship they detained with the help of the Indian coast guard, British authorities said. The authorities said they believe the attacks originated from this ship, which they believe is from Karachi, Pakistan.
The British authorities also said three speedboats -- carrying weapons and militants -- traveled along the Indian coast from the ship to Mumbai and launched the attack.
However, Karachi police said have no evidence the attackers departed from their city, Waseem Ahmad, the police chief, said.
Earlier, the Indian coast guard and navy were also searching for a small boat in the Arabian Sea, officials said.
Interpol announced Thursday that it would send a delegation led by its secretary general to India to meet with senior law enforcement officials here.
"When such coordinated and planned terrorist attacks are carried out against international targets and when a country's head of government states there are suspected 'external linkages', the police in the country concerned require international assistance," said Interpol's Secretary General Ronald K. Noble.
India has suffered a number of attacks in recent years, including a string of bombs that ripped through packed Mumbai commuter trains and platforms during rush hour in July 2006. About 209 people were killed in that attack.
In July, a series of synchronized bomb blasts in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad left 49 dead and more than 100 wounded, police said.
November 28, 2008
MUMBAI, India (CNN) -- At least 25 guests, including at least one infant, were escorted out from a Mumbai hotel and quickly herded into waiting vans Friday. Many of them who appeared to be foreigners.
Earlier, the Italian Foreign Ministry had said seven Italian citizens, including a mother and a toddler, were among the hostages inside the Trident hotel.
It was not clear how many people remained inside the hotel.
It was initially believed the guests had been escorted out of The Oberoi, one of two luxury hotels that was attacked more than a day ago, and where an unknown number of guests were still being held by gunmen.
The flurry of activity at the Trident came as members of India's premier counterterrorist force were seeking to end standoffs at two luxury hotels and Jewish center that were attacked late Wednesday.
At least 125 people have died, and more than 300 injured from attacks that began late Wednesday night at seven locations across the Indian financial hub.
J.K. Dutt, the director general of India's National Security Guard, told CNN's sister network in India, CNN-IBN, that one gunman at The Oberoi was killed at 1 a.m. Friday (2:30 p.m. ET), but he said he did not know how many remained.
Still, if earlier reports that had put the total number of attackers holed up in the hotel at two were correct, that would leave one.
Outside the Oberoi, activity was occurring, but police asked the news media not to divulge what it was.
As many as 20 people were thought to be inside the hotel Thursday night, an official said.
Among the hostages inside the Oberoi were seven Italian citizens, including a mother and a toddler, the Italian Foreign Ministry said.
Outside the Taj Mahal early Friday, members of the news media were asked to turn off their lights, but it was not clear what that signified.
Early Friday, a general directing the operation at the hotel told reporters that 15 to 20 hostages remained inside the building, and that all of them were safe. He said two or three gunmen, one of whom was wounded, remained inside the Taj as well.
But outside the Taj Mahal, distraught relatives of guests holed up inside expressed frustration at the way the rescue effort was being handled.
"I have been here since three in the morning on Thursday, that's nearly 30 hours and, as of now, I have whatsoever no information as to what's being done to rescue them," said one woman, whose sister and niece were locked in their room in the Taj Mahal.
She said her relatives had been eating food from the refrigerator in the room.
Explosions and gunfire were heard sporadically at both the Taj Mahal and Hotel Oberoi throughout Thursday. It was not clear what caused the explosions.
Though fires erupted at both hotels, both appeared early Friday to have been extinguished.
At Chabad house -- a nearby Jewish center -- two or three gunmen were believed to be remaining inside, Dutt said. CNN-IBN reported that all the hostages had been freed.
For hours, gunfire and grenades had been tossed from inside the structure toward anyone approaching the building -- three such explosions occurred in four hours.
But just before dawn, several jeeploads of police, firetrucks and at least one ambulance pulled up to the five-story structure.
And as dawn broke, three helicopter passes over 40 minutes dropped about two dozen soldiers onto its roof.
After the last drop, five or six heavy explosions and small-arms fire could be heard.
Other soldiers took positions on adjacent buildings, which had been evacuated Thursday night.
Dozens of onlookers crowded into terraces of nearby buildings and watched as the scene unfolded, punctuated by gunfire and explosions.
Rabbi Josh Runyan, spokesman for Chabad-Lubavitch International, said Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg, 29, and his wife, Rivka, 28, were believed to still be in the house. He said the couple's son was safe and with family in Mumbai.
Earlier Thursday, Johny Joseph, chief secretary of the state of Maharashtra -- of which Mumbai is the capital -- said two women and a child were seen escaping from the building. CNN-IBN reporter Raksha Shetty also said three hostages escaped -- apparently a caretaker, a cook and a child.
Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper, reported later that Sandra Samuel -- a cook for the center who had barricaded herself in a room in the house -- said she grabbed Holtzberg's 2-year-old son and fled the building with another person.
"I just grabbed the baby and ran out," Samuel told Haaretz.
The death toll from the series of coordinated attacks was at 125, including at least six foreigners, the director-general of police's office said. Fourteen police were among the dead. In all, some 327 people were wounded.
In a nationally televised address on Thursday, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the attackers were foreigners, but he did not say where he believed they were from.
"The well-planned and very orchestrated attacks, probably with external linkages, were intended to create a sense of panic by choosing high-profile targets and indiscriminately killing innocent foreigners," Singh said.
"It is evident that the group which carried out these attacks, based outside the country, had come with single-minded determination to create havoc in the financial capital of the country," he added.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Thursday that a team of British foreign office officials and metropolitan police had arrived in Mumbai. "The most important function is obviously a consular function -- to identify all the British victims, to liaise with all of the victims -- some of whom may still be trapped in the hotels -- and also ensure on the police side, that all expertise is offered to the Indian authorities," he said.
The identity of the attackers remained a mystery. CNN-IBN quoted police sources as saying they believed there were some 26 gunmen, most of them young.
State media Press Trust of India, citing Union Cabinet Minister Kapil Sibal, reported the gunmen had worked for months to prepare, even setting up "control rooms" in the two luxury hotels that were targeted.
Officially, the Indian authorities were saying no one had claimed responsibility, although the Deccan mujahideen took credit in e-mails sent to several Indian news outlets.
Deccan refers to the Deccan Plateau that makes up the majority of the southern part of the country. "Deccan" is an Anglicized form of "dakkhin," which means south.
Mujahideen translates into "those engaged in the struggle for jihad." While "jihad" in Islam can mean any endeavor that requires dedication, the term has taken on a militant tone in recent years.
Police say the attackers came by boats to the waterfront near the Gateway of India monument.
Nine suspects have been arrested in connection with the attacks, and seven are fishermen, police said. Police also found a boat loaded with explosives near the Taj Mahal, also located on the waterfront.
The gunmen hijacked cars -- including a police van -- and split into at least three groups to carry out the attacks, police said.
One group headed toward the Cafe Leopold, a popular hangout for Western tourists, firing indiscriminately at passers-by on the street. They then opened fire and lobbed grenades at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station, a Victorian building.
As police rushed to the scene of the attacks, gunmen attacked the Cama Hospital.
Two other groups attacked the Oberoi and Taj Mahal, police said.
The Indian navy, stepping up patrols on the country's western coast after the attack, was questioning the crew of the MV Alpha, a ship they detained with the help of the Indian coast guard, British authorities said. The authorities said they believe the attacks originated from this ship, which they believe is from Karachi, Pakistan.
The British authorities also said three speedboats -- carrying weapons and militants -- traveled along the Indian coast from the ship to Mumbai and launched the attack.
However, Karachi police said have no evidence the attackers departed from their city, Waseem Ahmad, the police chief, said.
Earlier, the Indian coast guard and navy were also searching for a small boat in the Arabian Sea, officials said.
Interpol announced Thursday that it would send a delegation led by its secretary general to India to meet with senior law enforcement officials here.
"When such coordinated and planned terrorist attacks are carried out against international targets and when a country's head of government states there are suspected 'external linkages', the police in the country concerned require international assistance," said Interpol's Secretary General Ronald K. Noble.
India has suffered a number of attacks in recent years, including a string of bombs that ripped through packed Mumbai commuter trains and platforms during rush hour in July 2006. About 209 people were killed in that attack.
In July, a series of synchronized bomb blasts in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad left 49 dead and more than 100 wounded, police said.
Craig Murray : Rashid Rauf Murdered
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Rashid Rauf Murdered
November 26, 2008
There is a highly sensible article in today's Times by Patrick Mercer MP about the possible death of Rashid Rauf (whose family are denying his demise).
[link | mirror]
New Labour remains so bent on its simple minded pursuit of a foreign policy based on brute violence, that questions of legality are simply ignored. The Conservatives - in this case Mr Mercer - must again be congratulated for resisting simple populism and standing up for the fabric of legality that must underpin freedom.
To put it bluntly, if Rashid Rauf was indeed killed by US action in Pakistan, then he was murdered. He was killed on no legal authority. US attacks into Pakistan and Syria (which Obama supports) have no legal basis. Rauf was a UK citizen. We do not have the death penalty. Does New Labour accept as a matter of policy that the US can simply murder British citizens abroad at will? The government must be pressed hard on this question.
If Rauf has been killed, the question arises as to why. He was the primary source for information on the famous so-called liquid bomb plot to blow up airlines, which sparked the greatest over-reaction of government measures in the entire debacle of the War on Terror. Ultimately 80% of those arrested in connection with the "Liquid bomb plot" were released without charge, and the jury found that, while a small group did have terrorist intentions, there was no organised plan or airline bomb plot.
That is extraordinary, but even more extraordinary is that the prime informant, the alleged major al-Qaida terrorist, Rashid Rauf, "escaped" from the custody of the Pakistani intelligence services and MI6, apparently by simply walking out of his cell.
Let us add to this the further strangenesss that Rauf had originally left the UK after a warrant was issued for his arrest as a suspect in the murder of his uncle, a death with no apparent political or terrorist motive. Yet the UK authorities failed to request his extradition from Pakistan when he was in custody there, even though they were involved in his interrogation, and he was still wanted for murder in the UK.
So if Rauf was murdered (and his family are denying his death) was it because he was a terror suspect, or because the intelligence agencies were covering their tracks? Was the reason that the UK government did not want to extradite him to testify in the UK, the same reason he had to be silenced by his murder?
November 26, 2008
There is a highly sensible article in today's Times by Patrick Mercer MP about the possible death of Rashid Rauf (whose family are denying his demise).
[link | mirror]
New Labour remains so bent on its simple minded pursuit of a foreign policy based on brute violence, that questions of legality are simply ignored. The Conservatives - in this case Mr Mercer - must again be congratulated for resisting simple populism and standing up for the fabric of legality that must underpin freedom.
To put it bluntly, if Rashid Rauf was indeed killed by US action in Pakistan, then he was murdered. He was killed on no legal authority. US attacks into Pakistan and Syria (which Obama supports) have no legal basis. Rauf was a UK citizen. We do not have the death penalty. Does New Labour accept as a matter of policy that the US can simply murder British citizens abroad at will? The government must be pressed hard on this question.
If Rauf has been killed, the question arises as to why. He was the primary source for information on the famous so-called liquid bomb plot to blow up airlines, which sparked the greatest over-reaction of government measures in the entire debacle of the War on Terror. Ultimately 80% of those arrested in connection with the "Liquid bomb plot" were released without charge, and the jury found that, while a small group did have terrorist intentions, there was no organised plan or airline bomb plot.
That is extraordinary, but even more extraordinary is that the prime informant, the alleged major al-Qaida terrorist, Rashid Rauf, "escaped" from the custody of the Pakistani intelligence services and MI6, apparently by simply walking out of his cell.
Let us add to this the further strangenesss that Rauf had originally left the UK after a warrant was issued for his arrest as a suspect in the murder of his uncle, a death with no apparent political or terrorist motive. Yet the UK authorities failed to request his extradition from Pakistan when he was in custody there, even though they were involved in his interrogation, and he was still wanted for murder in the UK.
So if Rauf was murdered (and his family are denying his death) was it because he was a terror suspect, or because the intelligence agencies were covering their tracks? Was the reason that the UK government did not want to extradite him to testify in the UK, the same reason he had to be silenced by his murder?
Filed under
Craig Murray,
MI6,
Rashid Rauf
by Winter Patriot
on Wednesday, November 26, 2008
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Times : A death that plays into terrorists' hands
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
A death that plays into terrorists' hands
We cannot respect human rights at home and be complicit in the killing of suspects abroad
Patrick Mercer | November 26, 2008
Last Friday, a number of people with links to al-Qaeda were killed by a missile fired from a pilotless US drone on the Pakistan- Afghanistan border. It is thought that among the five dead was Rashid Rauf, a British citizen, who was suspected of being involved in a number of alleged terrorist plots and was being closely monitored by our intelligence services.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has not yet confirmed whether Rauf was the target of the attack. But whether he was or not, this strike raises significant questions about this Government's counter-terrorism policy and I shall be calling for clarification from the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, about British counter-terrorism operations in these circumstances.
I base my own experience on many tours in Northern Ireland and the Balkans as a regular soldier when I was involved in operations that led to the death and capture of terrorists - in short, where British troops were expected to act as judge, jury and executioner. Counter-terrorist operations had to be wholly within the law; if our enemies saw an opportunity to doubt their legality, they were never slow to exploit it.
The world of intelligence is murky - necessarily so. There is a series of carefully enforced procedures governing the passing of British intelligence to other agencies when it might lead to the death or torture of suspects. But as Richard Beeston wrote in The Times yesterday of US operations inside Pakistan: “As long as terrorist suspects... are being killed or live in fear of being killed [London] is quite happy to see the policy continue.” It is certainly possible that British intelligence services were in some way complicit in Rauf's death. Our forces do informally share information with intelligence services, such as those of Pakistan and the US.
I will not recite at length the arguments about the need to operate within the law other than to cite the chaos that ensued when the world was made to believe that British Forces were pursing a “shoot to kill” policy in Northern Ireland. Clearly, martyrdom is an important tool for the terrorist and once security forces step outside the law, the advantage passes from us to them.
All of this suggests a contradiction between what the Government says and what happens in practice, between courtroom justice and battlefield justice. It is unrealistic to expect our intelligence services to do anything other than co-operate fully with allies who are doing their best to defend the British people, unless they are given firm guidance to the contrary. The Government must decide whether, when framing counter-terrorism laws, it wishes them to reflect what the security services actually do, or some higher legal principle. My experience is that if laws won't work they must be challenged, not simply accepted.
It has been disturbing to watch the Government twist and turn as it tries to design counter-terrorist legislation that will be truly effective. The UK does not use the death penalty or torture those whom we think might hold crucial information. Under the framework of the European Convention on Human Rights, judges in Strasbourg have prevented the deportation of terrorist suspects where there is a real risk of their being tortured abroad, regardless of the risk they pose to us and however undesirable they are considered to be.
Whether or not they have helped or hindered the fight against terrorism, these are our laws, agreed to and debated by Parliament.
If our Government is not allowed to deport an individual when there is a real risk of their being tortured abroad, surely our intelligence services should not be allowed to supply intelligence to other nations that don't hold such high standards?
What is the point of having strict human rights protections and lengthy debates in Parliament about counter-terrorism legislation if, in practice, they are ignored? What is the point of negotiating memorandums of understanding with countries such as Jordan, Lebanon and Libya - in which those governments undertake not to torture terror suspects deported from Britain - which have not been used since 2005?
We are left with the mess of control orders and the sort of nonsense that surrounded the prosecution of Abu Hamza. Despite all the Government's new terror legislation, he was eventually prosecuted for soliciting murder under a law from 1861.
The Government must make up its mind. Either our laws are helping the fight against terrorism, in which case they must be honoured in practice, or they are hindering the fight and they must be changed - and we must have an honest public and parliamentary debate about them.
I have no sympathy with terrorists, but my experience taught me that they must be fought within the law.
Each extrajudicial killing will hand a propaganda victory to our enemies that could outweigh any military benefits achieved by destroying the target. At times this is hard and frustrating, but the battle against terrorism cannot be won by bombs and bullets alone.
Patrick Mercer is Conservative MP for Newark & Retford and a former Shadow Minister for Security
We cannot respect human rights at home and be complicit in the killing of suspects abroad
Patrick Mercer | November 26, 2008
Last Friday, a number of people with links to al-Qaeda were killed by a missile fired from a pilotless US drone on the Pakistan- Afghanistan border. It is thought that among the five dead was Rashid Rauf, a British citizen, who was suspected of being involved in a number of alleged terrorist plots and was being closely monitored by our intelligence services.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has not yet confirmed whether Rauf was the target of the attack. But whether he was or not, this strike raises significant questions about this Government's counter-terrorism policy and I shall be calling for clarification from the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, about British counter-terrorism operations in these circumstances.
I base my own experience on many tours in Northern Ireland and the Balkans as a regular soldier when I was involved in operations that led to the death and capture of terrorists - in short, where British troops were expected to act as judge, jury and executioner. Counter-terrorist operations had to be wholly within the law; if our enemies saw an opportunity to doubt their legality, they were never slow to exploit it.
The world of intelligence is murky - necessarily so. There is a series of carefully enforced procedures governing the passing of British intelligence to other agencies when it might lead to the death or torture of suspects. But as Richard Beeston wrote in The Times yesterday of US operations inside Pakistan: “As long as terrorist suspects... are being killed or live in fear of being killed [London] is quite happy to see the policy continue.” It is certainly possible that British intelligence services were in some way complicit in Rauf's death. Our forces do informally share information with intelligence services, such as those of Pakistan and the US.
I will not recite at length the arguments about the need to operate within the law other than to cite the chaos that ensued when the world was made to believe that British Forces were pursing a “shoot to kill” policy in Northern Ireland. Clearly, martyrdom is an important tool for the terrorist and once security forces step outside the law, the advantage passes from us to them.
All of this suggests a contradiction between what the Government says and what happens in practice, between courtroom justice and battlefield justice. It is unrealistic to expect our intelligence services to do anything other than co-operate fully with allies who are doing their best to defend the British people, unless they are given firm guidance to the contrary. The Government must decide whether, when framing counter-terrorism laws, it wishes them to reflect what the security services actually do, or some higher legal principle. My experience is that if laws won't work they must be challenged, not simply accepted.
It has been disturbing to watch the Government twist and turn as it tries to design counter-terrorist legislation that will be truly effective. The UK does not use the death penalty or torture those whom we think might hold crucial information. Under the framework of the European Convention on Human Rights, judges in Strasbourg have prevented the deportation of terrorist suspects where there is a real risk of their being tortured abroad, regardless of the risk they pose to us and however undesirable they are considered to be.
Whether or not they have helped or hindered the fight against terrorism, these are our laws, agreed to and debated by Parliament.
If our Government is not allowed to deport an individual when there is a real risk of their being tortured abroad, surely our intelligence services should not be allowed to supply intelligence to other nations that don't hold such high standards?
What is the point of having strict human rights protections and lengthy debates in Parliament about counter-terrorism legislation if, in practice, they are ignored? What is the point of negotiating memorandums of understanding with countries such as Jordan, Lebanon and Libya - in which those governments undertake not to torture terror suspects deported from Britain - which have not been used since 2005?
We are left with the mess of control orders and the sort of nonsense that surrounded the prosecution of Abu Hamza. Despite all the Government's new terror legislation, he was eventually prosecuted for soliciting murder under a law from 1861.
The Government must make up its mind. Either our laws are helping the fight against terrorism, in which case they must be honoured in practice, or they are hindering the fight and they must be changed - and we must have an honest public and parliamentary debate about them.
I have no sympathy with terrorists, but my experience taught me that they must be fought within the law.
Each extrajudicial killing will hand a propaganda victory to our enemies that could outweigh any military benefits achieved by destroying the target. At times this is hard and frustrating, but the battle against terrorism cannot be won by bombs and bullets alone.
Patrick Mercer is Conservative MP for Newark & Retford and a former Shadow Minister for Security
Filed under
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Patrick Mercer,
Rashid Rauf
by Winter Patriot
on Wednesday, November 26, 2008
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NYT : Obama Plans to Retain Gates at Defense Department
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Obama Plans to Retain Gates at Defense Department
By PETER BAKER and THOM SHANKER | November 25, 2008
WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama has decided to keep Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in his post, a show of bipartisan continuity in a time of war that will be the first time a Pentagon chief has been carried over from a president of a different party, Democrats close to the transition said Tuesday.
Mr. Obama’s advisers were nearing a formal agreement with Mr. Gates to stay on for perhaps a year, the Democrats said, and they expected to announce the decision as early as next week, along with other choices for the national security team. The two sides have been working out details on how Mr. Gates would wield authority in a new administration.
The move will give the new president a defense secretary with support on both sides of the aisle in Congress, as well as experience with foreign leaders around the world and respect among the senior military officer corps. But two years after President Bush picked him to lead the armed forces, Mr. Gates will now have to pivot from serving the commander in chief who started the Iraq war to serving one who has promised to end it.
In deciding to ask Mr. Gates to stay, Mr. Obama put aside concerns that he would send a jarring signal after a political campaign in which he made opposition to the war his signature issue in the early days. Some Democrats who have advised his campaign quietly complained that he was undercutting his own message and risked alienating war critics who formed his initial base of support, especially after tapping his primary rival, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, for secretary of state.
But advisers argued that Mr. Gates was a practical public servant who was also interested in drawing down troops in Iraq when conditions allow.
“From our point of view, it looks pretty damn good because of continuity and stability,” said an Obama adviser, who insisted on anonymity to discuss confidential deliberations. “And I don’t think there are any ideological problems.”
Associates said Mr. Gates was torn between a desire to retire to a home in Washington State and a sense of duty as the military faces the daunting challenges of reducing forces in Iraq and increasing them in Afghanistan.
As Mr. Obama moved closer to assembling his national security team Tuesday, he lost a top candidate for director of the Central Intelligence Agency. John O. Brennan, an agency veteran who was widely seen as the front-runner, withdrew from consideration amid concerns that he was linked to controversial intelligence programs authorized by Mr. Bush.
In a letter to Mr. Obama, Mr. Brennan said he did not want those concerns to be a “distraction” for the incoming administration. At the same time, he vigorously defended his record and called himself a “strong opponent” of the harsh interrogation methods the agency used in recent years, including waterboarding, the practice of making a suspect experience the sensation of drowning.
The developments came as Mr. Obama prepared to begin unveiling his national security team after the long Thanksgiving weekend. Besides formally announcing his nomination of Mrs. Clinton as secretary of state, Mr. Obama was expected to appoint Gen. James L. Jones, a retired Marine commandant and NATO supreme commander, as his national security adviser.
Other front-runners have emerged in recent days, including Adm. Dennis Blair, retired from the Navy, for director of national intelligence; Susan E. Rice, a former assistant secretary of state, for ambassador to the United Nations; James B. Steinberg, a former deputy national security adviser, for deputy secretary of state; and Thomas E. Donilon, a former chief of staff at the State Department, for deputy national security adviser.
The team is shaping up as one of experience more than change, figures with long résumés but at times conflicting backgrounds. Nothing reflects that more than keeping a Republican-appointed defense secretary. Although Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Gerald R. Ford made no change at the top of the Pentagon when they took office, no president has kept a defense secretary from a predecessor in another party, Donald Ritchie, a Senate historian, said.
Mr. Gates, who served as C.I.A. director under the first President Bush, would not have to be reconfirmed by the Senate. The prospect of retaining him generated praise from the military establishment and Capitol Hill, where he is viewed as a pragmatist who turned the Pentagon around after the tumultuous tenure of Donald H. Rumsfeld.
But it also stirred a debate inside Mr. Obama’s circles, where some advisers worried that the decision to turn to a Republican appointee — something President Bill Clinton did in naming William S. Cohen to the defense post in 1997 — would reinforce the notion that Democrats could not manage the military. “It makes them look like they’re too wimpy to be trusted to run the building,” said one adviser who asked not to be named.
Keeping Mr. Gates after a polarizing campaign on the war also seemed incongruous to some. “I really can’t begin to understand from a political point of view how Barack Obama, a person who got the nomination because he ran against the Iraq war, can keep around the guy who’s been in charge of it for the last two years,” said Loren B. Thompson, head of the Lexington Institute, a research organization.
Mr. Gates talked with Mr. Obama’s team about how to make the arrangement work. One adviser familiar with the discussions said the final issue was the choice of senior Pentagon personnel and whether a small circle of Gates advisers would remain.
Obama advisers have talked about Richard J. Danzig, a former Navy secretary, as a possible deputy and heir apparent to Mr. Gates, but some acknowledged that the prospect could raise concerns. If Mr. Danzig is sitting down the hall from the secretary’s office and seen as Mr. Obama’s real choice, some said, then his presence could undercut Mr. Gates’s authority.
But Mr. Gates has shown an ability to manage the Pentagon even with a small inner circle. When he took over from Mr. Rumsfeld after the 2006 midterm elections, Mr. Gates did not bring a single new aide. And the senior military officer corps will remain unchanged at the start of the administration, including Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Admiral Mullen made an unannounced trip to Chicago on Friday for a 45-minute meeting with Mr. Obama on a wide range of national security issues, Pentagon officials said. Before going, Admiral Mullen received approval from both Mr. Gates and Mr. Bush, the officials said.
The decision by Mr. Brennan to pull out of consideration for a senior intelligence job surprised specialists and lawmakers, some of whom questioned whether he had been forced by Mr. Obama’s team to withdraw. Mr. Obama’s office denied pushing Mr. Brennan aside.
The episode underscored how the C.I.A.’s secret detention program remained an incendiary issue. Mr. Brennan, who will continue to work on Mr. Obama’s transition team, was a senior adviser during the campaign and said an Obama administration would ban coercive interrogation.
Yet a group of psychologists posted a letter on the Internet last weekend calling for Mr. Obama to pass over Mr. Brennan, quoting a 2006 interview in which he seemed to defend C.I.A. operations after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Stephanie Cutter, an Obama spokeswoman, said, “John Brennan has served our nation with honor and is a man of talent and integrity,” adding that Mr. Obama “is grateful for John’s continuing assistance as a valuable member of our transition team.”
Jeff Zeleny and Mark Mazzetti contributed reporting.
By PETER BAKER and THOM SHANKER | November 25, 2008
WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama has decided to keep Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in his post, a show of bipartisan continuity in a time of war that will be the first time a Pentagon chief has been carried over from a president of a different party, Democrats close to the transition said Tuesday.
Mr. Obama’s advisers were nearing a formal agreement with Mr. Gates to stay on for perhaps a year, the Democrats said, and they expected to announce the decision as early as next week, along with other choices for the national security team. The two sides have been working out details on how Mr. Gates would wield authority in a new administration.
The move will give the new president a defense secretary with support on both sides of the aisle in Congress, as well as experience with foreign leaders around the world and respect among the senior military officer corps. But two years after President Bush picked him to lead the armed forces, Mr. Gates will now have to pivot from serving the commander in chief who started the Iraq war to serving one who has promised to end it.
In deciding to ask Mr. Gates to stay, Mr. Obama put aside concerns that he would send a jarring signal after a political campaign in which he made opposition to the war his signature issue in the early days. Some Democrats who have advised his campaign quietly complained that he was undercutting his own message and risked alienating war critics who formed his initial base of support, especially after tapping his primary rival, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, for secretary of state.
But advisers argued that Mr. Gates was a practical public servant who was also interested in drawing down troops in Iraq when conditions allow.
“From our point of view, it looks pretty damn good because of continuity and stability,” said an Obama adviser, who insisted on anonymity to discuss confidential deliberations. “And I don’t think there are any ideological problems.”
Associates said Mr. Gates was torn between a desire to retire to a home in Washington State and a sense of duty as the military faces the daunting challenges of reducing forces in Iraq and increasing them in Afghanistan.
As Mr. Obama moved closer to assembling his national security team Tuesday, he lost a top candidate for director of the Central Intelligence Agency. John O. Brennan, an agency veteran who was widely seen as the front-runner, withdrew from consideration amid concerns that he was linked to controversial intelligence programs authorized by Mr. Bush.
In a letter to Mr. Obama, Mr. Brennan said he did not want those concerns to be a “distraction” for the incoming administration. At the same time, he vigorously defended his record and called himself a “strong opponent” of the harsh interrogation methods the agency used in recent years, including waterboarding, the practice of making a suspect experience the sensation of drowning.
The developments came as Mr. Obama prepared to begin unveiling his national security team after the long Thanksgiving weekend. Besides formally announcing his nomination of Mrs. Clinton as secretary of state, Mr. Obama was expected to appoint Gen. James L. Jones, a retired Marine commandant and NATO supreme commander, as his national security adviser.
Other front-runners have emerged in recent days, including Adm. Dennis Blair, retired from the Navy, for director of national intelligence; Susan E. Rice, a former assistant secretary of state, for ambassador to the United Nations; James B. Steinberg, a former deputy national security adviser, for deputy secretary of state; and Thomas E. Donilon, a former chief of staff at the State Department, for deputy national security adviser.
The team is shaping up as one of experience more than change, figures with long résumés but at times conflicting backgrounds. Nothing reflects that more than keeping a Republican-appointed defense secretary. Although Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Gerald R. Ford made no change at the top of the Pentagon when they took office, no president has kept a defense secretary from a predecessor in another party, Donald Ritchie, a Senate historian, said.
Mr. Gates, who served as C.I.A. director under the first President Bush, would not have to be reconfirmed by the Senate. The prospect of retaining him generated praise from the military establishment and Capitol Hill, where he is viewed as a pragmatist who turned the Pentagon around after the tumultuous tenure of Donald H. Rumsfeld.
But it also stirred a debate inside Mr. Obama’s circles, where some advisers worried that the decision to turn to a Republican appointee — something President Bill Clinton did in naming William S. Cohen to the defense post in 1997 — would reinforce the notion that Democrats could not manage the military. “It makes them look like they’re too wimpy to be trusted to run the building,” said one adviser who asked not to be named.
Keeping Mr. Gates after a polarizing campaign on the war also seemed incongruous to some. “I really can’t begin to understand from a political point of view how Barack Obama, a person who got the nomination because he ran against the Iraq war, can keep around the guy who’s been in charge of it for the last two years,” said Loren B. Thompson, head of the Lexington Institute, a research organization.
Mr. Gates talked with Mr. Obama’s team about how to make the arrangement work. One adviser familiar with the discussions said the final issue was the choice of senior Pentagon personnel and whether a small circle of Gates advisers would remain.
Obama advisers have talked about Richard J. Danzig, a former Navy secretary, as a possible deputy and heir apparent to Mr. Gates, but some acknowledged that the prospect could raise concerns. If Mr. Danzig is sitting down the hall from the secretary’s office and seen as Mr. Obama’s real choice, some said, then his presence could undercut Mr. Gates’s authority.
But Mr. Gates has shown an ability to manage the Pentagon even with a small inner circle. When he took over from Mr. Rumsfeld after the 2006 midterm elections, Mr. Gates did not bring a single new aide. And the senior military officer corps will remain unchanged at the start of the administration, including Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Admiral Mullen made an unannounced trip to Chicago on Friday for a 45-minute meeting with Mr. Obama on a wide range of national security issues, Pentagon officials said. Before going, Admiral Mullen received approval from both Mr. Gates and Mr. Bush, the officials said.
The decision by Mr. Brennan to pull out of consideration for a senior intelligence job surprised specialists and lawmakers, some of whom questioned whether he had been forced by Mr. Obama’s team to withdraw. Mr. Obama’s office denied pushing Mr. Brennan aside.
The episode underscored how the C.I.A.’s secret detention program remained an incendiary issue. Mr. Brennan, who will continue to work on Mr. Obama’s transition team, was a senior adviser during the campaign and said an Obama administration would ban coercive interrogation.
Yet a group of psychologists posted a letter on the Internet last weekend calling for Mr. Obama to pass over Mr. Brennan, quoting a 2006 interview in which he seemed to defend C.I.A. operations after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Stephanie Cutter, an Obama spokeswoman, said, “John Brennan has served our nation with honor and is a man of talent and integrity,” adding that Mr. Obama “is grateful for John’s continuing assistance as a valuable member of our transition team.”
Jeff Zeleny and Mark Mazzetti contributed reporting.
Filed under
Barack Obama,
Robert Gates
by Winter Patriot
on Wednesday, November 26, 2008
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Telegraph : Rashid Rauf was linked to al-Qaeda's number two Ayman al-Zawahiri
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Rashid Rauf was linked to al-Qaeda's number two Ayman al-Zawahiri
A British al-Qaeda suspect reportedly killed by a US missile strike in a Pakistani tribal area was linked to the group's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, according to officials.
By Isambard Wilkinson in Islamabad | November 24, 2008
Rashid Rauf and a Saudi militant called Abu Zubair al-Masri were among five killed in a missile attack in North Waziristan on Saturday.
Rauf, a British national, was alleged to have been the mastermind of an al-Qaeda plot to blow up passenger aircraft in mid-air after they left London bound for the United States.
There was no independent corroboration of his death but local Pakistani intelligence officials and US intelligence officials believed he was dead, according to a senior Pakistani military source.
Kamal Shah, the senior civil servant in the interior ministry, said: "There is no independent confirmation but Rauf is believed to be dead." Hashmat Habib, Rauf's lawyer, said that villagers in Rauf's ancestral village in Mirpur district in Kashmir, had gathered to offer condolences to his client's family.
The military source claimed that the operation had been conducted entirely using US intelligence assets.
He said that Pakistani intelligence had known that Rauf was "moving between North and South Waziristan".
"This has come from their (America's) end. Both of them [Rauf and Misri] were being tracked. We were not involved in this attack," he said.
Pakistan has officially protested to the United States that missile strikes violate its sovereign territory, although some officials say there was a tacit understanding between the two militaries to allow such action.
"In fact, for some time now the US has totally by-passed our [intelligence] agencies," he added.
A Pakistani intelligence official said that the US believed that Rauf was staying with a group connected to Zawahiri. Zawahiri is believed by American officials to operate from Pakistan's lawless, tribal border areas.
A US missile strike was launched against him in the tribal agency of Bajaur in 2006 but he escaped unharmed.
The information minister, Sherry Rehman, confirmed that Rauf and Misri were targeted in the raid. She did not elaborate.
Rehman reiterated her government's complaint that missile attacks, apparently launched from unmanned aircraft, are fanning anti- Americanism and Islamic extremism tearing at both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"It would have been better if our authorities had been alerted for local action," said Ms Rehman. "Drone incursions create a strong backlash."
Rauf, who is of Pakistani origin, has been on the run since last December, when he escaped from police escorting him back to jail after an extradition hearing in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad.
Britain was seeking his extradition ostensibly as a suspect in the 2002 killing of his uncle there, but Rauf had allegedly been in contact with a group in Britain planning to smuggle liquid explosives onto trans-Atlantic flights and also with a suspected al-Qaeda mastermind of the plot in Afghanistan.
A British al-Qaeda suspect reportedly killed by a US missile strike in a Pakistani tribal area was linked to the group's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, according to officials.
By Isambard Wilkinson in Islamabad | November 24, 2008
Rashid Rauf and a Saudi militant called Abu Zubair al-Masri were among five killed in a missile attack in North Waziristan on Saturday.
Rauf, a British national, was alleged to have been the mastermind of an al-Qaeda plot to blow up passenger aircraft in mid-air after they left London bound for the United States.
There was no independent corroboration of his death but local Pakistani intelligence officials and US intelligence officials believed he was dead, according to a senior Pakistani military source.
Kamal Shah, the senior civil servant in the interior ministry, said: "There is no independent confirmation but Rauf is believed to be dead." Hashmat Habib, Rauf's lawyer, said that villagers in Rauf's ancestral village in Mirpur district in Kashmir, had gathered to offer condolences to his client's family.
The military source claimed that the operation had been conducted entirely using US intelligence assets.
He said that Pakistani intelligence had known that Rauf was "moving between North and South Waziristan".
"This has come from their (America's) end. Both of them [Rauf and Misri] were being tracked. We were not involved in this attack," he said.
Pakistan has officially protested to the United States that missile strikes violate its sovereign territory, although some officials say there was a tacit understanding between the two militaries to allow such action.
"In fact, for some time now the US has totally by-passed our [intelligence] agencies," he added.
A Pakistani intelligence official said that the US believed that Rauf was staying with a group connected to Zawahiri. Zawahiri is believed by American officials to operate from Pakistan's lawless, tribal border areas.
A US missile strike was launched against him in the tribal agency of Bajaur in 2006 but he escaped unharmed.
The information minister, Sherry Rehman, confirmed that Rauf and Misri were targeted in the raid. She did not elaborate.
Rehman reiterated her government's complaint that missile attacks, apparently launched from unmanned aircraft, are fanning anti- Americanism and Islamic extremism tearing at both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"It would have been better if our authorities had been alerted for local action," said Ms Rehman. "Drone incursions create a strong backlash."
Rauf, who is of Pakistani origin, has been on the run since last December, when he escaped from police escorting him back to jail after an extradition hearing in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad.
Britain was seeking his extradition ostensibly as a suspect in the 2002 killing of his uncle there, but Rauf had allegedly been in contact with a group in Britain planning to smuggle liquid explosives onto trans-Atlantic flights and also with a suspected al-Qaeda mastermind of the plot in Afghanistan.
Filed under
Abu Zubair al-Masri,
drones,
Rashid Rauf
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on Tuesday, November 25, 2008
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Assyrian News Agency : Plot Thins In The War On Terror
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Plot Thins In The War On Terror
from Investors Business Daily | November 25, 2008
Rashid Rauf, mastermind of the 2006 trans-Atlantic airline bomb plot, became the latest al-Qaida casualty when a missile launched from a Predator drone struck a tribesman's house in the village of Alikhel in North Waziristan.
If Rauf believed he had found sanctuary there, he was sadly mistaken. There have been at least 20 such strikes in the last three months as the Bush administration seeks to thwart the ability of militants to fuel the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan and deny al-Qaida plotters a safe haven.
The attack on Rauf, which also killed Egyptian al-Qaida operative Abu Zubair al-Masri, came within days of another strike in the Bannu district, deeper in Pakistani territory and outside the lawless tribal areas.
Among those killed in that attack, according to Radio Australia, was Abdullah Azam al-Saudi, an Arab whom U.S. intelligence officials identified as the main link between al-Qaida's senior command and Taliban networks in the Pakistani border region.
Rauf was the architect of the "liquid bomb" plot that now forces travelers to limit fluids to 3.5 ounces in carry-on baggies. He was arrested in 2006 in Pakistan in the bomb plot and was headed back to jail in Islamabad after an extradition hearing, when authorities allowed him to stop and pray at a mosque uncuffed.
The plot targeted seven flights from Heathrow Airport in London to New York, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, Toronto and Montreal operated by United Airlines, Air Canada and American Airlines. The plan was for different passengers to carry peroxide-based liquid explosive in drinks and other containers and detonators disguised as electronic devices and combine them on board.
Also biting the dust in recent days was Hajji Hammadi, a senior al-Qaida in Iraq leader who was chosen as the emir of Karmah in eastern Anbar province by none other than Abu Musab al-Zarqawi himself. He led an al-Qaida unit in the second battle of Fallujah, where more than 2,000 al-Qaida in Iraq and other insurgents were killed clearing the city.
Hammadi had "connections with the country's legacy al-Qaida leadership" and was "responsible for planning and conducting multiple attacks on coalition forces, Iraqi police, Iraqi government officials and Iraqi citizens," according to U.S. military spokesmen.
Karmah was one of the last areas brought under control by U.S. and Iraqi forces as part of the Anbar Awakening.
Hammadi fell victim to hunter-killer teams of Task Force 88 earlier this month and was the fourth senior al-Qaida leader killed in Iraq and neighboring Syria over the past six weeks. U.S. special operations forces also killed Abu Qaswarah al-Skani, al-Qaida in Iraq's second in command, during a raid in Mosul.
On Oct. 27, Task Force 88 conducted a daylight raid into Syria in an attempt to capture Abu Ghadiya, al-Qaida's senior facilitator and logistics coordinator for foreign fighters entering Iraq. He died in the ensuing firefight.
Abu Ghazwan, once senior commander in the regions north of Baghdad, was killed in a raid by Iraqi soldiers and the Sons of Iraq on Nov. 7. In 2006 and 2007, this key al-Masri associate led attempts to take control of Baghdad.
The idea that the U.S. hasn't taken the battle to the enemy sanctuaries in Syria and Pakistan, or that we are losing control of Afghanistan, isn't exactly accurate. The terrorists we fight are scurrying about as we lift the remaining rocks they hide under, but there's no place for them to run.
from Investors Business Daily | November 25, 2008
Rashid Rauf, mastermind of the 2006 trans-Atlantic airline bomb plot, became the latest al-Qaida casualty when a missile launched from a Predator drone struck a tribesman's house in the village of Alikhel in North Waziristan.
If Rauf believed he had found sanctuary there, he was sadly mistaken. There have been at least 20 such strikes in the last three months as the Bush administration seeks to thwart the ability of militants to fuel the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan and deny al-Qaida plotters a safe haven.
The attack on Rauf, which also killed Egyptian al-Qaida operative Abu Zubair al-Masri, came within days of another strike in the Bannu district, deeper in Pakistani territory and outside the lawless tribal areas.
Among those killed in that attack, according to Radio Australia, was Abdullah Azam al-Saudi, an Arab whom U.S. intelligence officials identified as the main link between al-Qaida's senior command and Taliban networks in the Pakistani border region.
Rauf was the architect of the "liquid bomb" plot that now forces travelers to limit fluids to 3.5 ounces in carry-on baggies. He was arrested in 2006 in Pakistan in the bomb plot and was headed back to jail in Islamabad after an extradition hearing, when authorities allowed him to stop and pray at a mosque uncuffed.
The plot targeted seven flights from Heathrow Airport in London to New York, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, Toronto and Montreal operated by United Airlines, Air Canada and American Airlines. The plan was for different passengers to carry peroxide-based liquid explosive in drinks and other containers and detonators disguised as electronic devices and combine them on board.
Also biting the dust in recent days was Hajji Hammadi, a senior al-Qaida in Iraq leader who was chosen as the emir of Karmah in eastern Anbar province by none other than Abu Musab al-Zarqawi himself. He led an al-Qaida unit in the second battle of Fallujah, where more than 2,000 al-Qaida in Iraq and other insurgents were killed clearing the city.
Hammadi had "connections with the country's legacy al-Qaida leadership" and was "responsible for planning and conducting multiple attacks on coalition forces, Iraqi police, Iraqi government officials and Iraqi citizens," according to U.S. military spokesmen.
Karmah was one of the last areas brought under control by U.S. and Iraqi forces as part of the Anbar Awakening.
Hammadi fell victim to hunter-killer teams of Task Force 88 earlier this month and was the fourth senior al-Qaida leader killed in Iraq and neighboring Syria over the past six weeks. U.S. special operations forces also killed Abu Qaswarah al-Skani, al-Qaida in Iraq's second in command, during a raid in Mosul.
On Oct. 27, Task Force 88 conducted a daylight raid into Syria in an attempt to capture Abu Ghadiya, al-Qaida's senior facilitator and logistics coordinator for foreign fighters entering Iraq. He died in the ensuing firefight.
Abu Ghazwan, once senior commander in the regions north of Baghdad, was killed in a raid by Iraqi soldiers and the Sons of Iraq on Nov. 7. In 2006 and 2007, this key al-Masri associate led attempts to take control of Baghdad.
The idea that the U.S. hasn't taken the battle to the enemy sanctuaries in Syria and Pakistan, or that we are losing control of Afghanistan, isn't exactly accurate. The terrorists we fight are scurrying about as we lift the remaining rocks they hide under, but there's no place for them to run.
Filed under
Abdullah Azam al-Saudi,
Abu Ghadiya,
Abu Ghazwan,
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,
drones,
Hajji Hammadi,
Rashid Rauf
by Winter Patriot
on Tuesday, November 25, 2008
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Guardian : Rauf did not die in US attack, say fugitive's family
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Rauf did not die in US attack, say fugitive's family
by Saeed Shah in Islamabad | November 25, 2008
The family of Rashid Rauf, the British terror suspect who reportedly died last week in a US missile strike in Pakistan, have claimed he was not killed in the attack.
Speaking through Rauf's lawyer, Hashmat Malik, the family of Rauf's wife in Pakistan said that the body had not been handed over to them and the authorities were not responding to their questions.
Rauf's death had been revealed by unnamed Pakistani intelligence agents, the usual source of information on the casualties of American strikes in the country's wild tribal area.
"It's all a concocted story," said Malik. "We're sure that it is not Rashid Rauf."
Rauf escaped from Pakistani custody in December last year in mysterious circumstances, on his way back from a court appearance in the city of Rawalpindi.
Many suspect that he bribed the police to let him go, but the family maintains that it was a ruse, so that he could be "disappeared" into the hands of Pakistani intelligence. Nothing was subsequently heard of him, until the news that he had died in North Waziristan.
"There was no reason for him to be in North Waziristan, he has no link with al-Qaida or the Taliban," said Malik. "The entire family is hopeful that he is still alive. He might have met his death, but not through this strike."
The lawyer said that the family believed that if Rauf is dead, the Pakistani security agencies had killed him after his "escape".
Although he was considered a main suspect in the plot to blow up transatlantic airliners in 2006, British police had sought Rauf's extradition over a separate case.
He was accused of belonging to a banned militant organisation in Pakistan that has close links to al-Qaida.
by Saeed Shah in Islamabad | November 25, 2008
The family of Rashid Rauf, the British terror suspect who reportedly died last week in a US missile strike in Pakistan, have claimed he was not killed in the attack.
Speaking through Rauf's lawyer, Hashmat Malik, the family of Rauf's wife in Pakistan said that the body had not been handed over to them and the authorities were not responding to their questions.
Rauf's death had been revealed by unnamed Pakistani intelligence agents, the usual source of information on the casualties of American strikes in the country's wild tribal area.
"It's all a concocted story," said Malik. "We're sure that it is not Rashid Rauf."
Rauf escaped from Pakistani custody in December last year in mysterious circumstances, on his way back from a court appearance in the city of Rawalpindi.
Many suspect that he bribed the police to let him go, but the family maintains that it was a ruse, so that he could be "disappeared" into the hands of Pakistani intelligence. Nothing was subsequently heard of him, until the news that he had died in North Waziristan.
"There was no reason for him to be in North Waziristan, he has no link with al-Qaida or the Taliban," said Malik. "The entire family is hopeful that he is still alive. He might have met his death, but not through this strike."
The lawyer said that the family believed that if Rauf is dead, the Pakistani security agencies had killed him after his "escape".
Although he was considered a main suspect in the plot to blow up transatlantic airliners in 2006, British police had sought Rauf's extradition over a separate case.
He was accused of belonging to a banned militant organisation in Pakistan that has close links to al-Qaida.
AFP : British-Pakistani terror suspect still alive: lawyer
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
British-Pakistani terror suspect still alive: lawyer
November 24, 2008
LONDON (AFP) — British-Pakistani terror suspect Rashid Rauf is still alive, his lawyer told the BBC on Monday, saying reports that he had died in a US missile attack in Pakistan were "fake."
The alleged Al-Qaeda mastermind of a 2006 transatlantic jet bombing conspiracy was reportedly killed at the weekend in a US raid in a northwestern border district that is a known stronghold of Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.
"We don't believe that this story is true... It is a fake story," lawyer Hashmat Ali Habib told BBC radio, adding: "We still believe that my client, Rashid, is alive."
He noted that requests for Rauf's body to be returned to his family had not been answered. "This is a new technique of the government to dispose of the cases like Rashid or other missing people," he said.
Rauf died Saturday when a missile hit a tribesman's house in the village of Alikhel, a Pakistani security official told AFP.
The strike site is in a lawless tribal territory and militants there usually surround the place after such attacks, preventing access of government representatives or the army, before burying the bodies themselves.
Rauf was arrested in 2006 in Pakistan over the bomb plot and 24 people were detained in Britain in a major swoop.
A day later a massive security operation at Heathrow Airport resulted in mass cancellations for several days, amid fears of a terrorist attack using liquid explosives on London flights bound for North America.
The Foreign Office said Saturday it was probing reports that Rauf had been killed. "We are currently investigating this at the moment, but we do not have any information," a spokesman said.
November 24, 2008
LONDON (AFP) — British-Pakistani terror suspect Rashid Rauf is still alive, his lawyer told the BBC on Monday, saying reports that he had died in a US missile attack in Pakistan were "fake."
The alleged Al-Qaeda mastermind of a 2006 transatlantic jet bombing conspiracy was reportedly killed at the weekend in a US raid in a northwestern border district that is a known stronghold of Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.
"We don't believe that this story is true... It is a fake story," lawyer Hashmat Ali Habib told BBC radio, adding: "We still believe that my client, Rashid, is alive."
He noted that requests for Rauf's body to be returned to his family had not been answered. "This is a new technique of the government to dispose of the cases like Rashid or other missing people," he said.
Rauf died Saturday when a missile hit a tribesman's house in the village of Alikhel, a Pakistani security official told AFP.
The strike site is in a lawless tribal territory and militants there usually surround the place after such attacks, preventing access of government representatives or the army, before burying the bodies themselves.
Rauf was arrested in 2006 in Pakistan over the bomb plot and 24 people were detained in Britain in a major swoop.
A day later a massive security operation at Heathrow Airport resulted in mass cancellations for several days, amid fears of a terrorist attack using liquid explosives on London flights bound for North America.
The Foreign Office said Saturday it was probing reports that Rauf had been killed. "We are currently investigating this at the moment, but we do not have any information," a spokesman said.
Online News (Pakistan) : Rashid Rauf’s wife demands Govt to hand over dead body
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Rashid Rauf’s wife demands Govt to hand over dead body
November 23, 2008
PESHAWAR: Rashid Rauf's wife Umat-ul-Warood has urged Government to hand over dead body of her husband for burial, who died during a American drone attack on Saturday.
Sources informed here on Sunday, that the kin of Rashid Rauf (a Proclaimed Offender of London plane conspiracy case) arrived in Peshawar from Bahawalpur to receive the dead body.
On the other hand, Government sources has expressed their ignorance relating to the arrival of Rashid Rauf's relative to collect his dead body.
It was also noted that Rashid Rauf was residing in C-Block of model town Bahawalpur and his other relatives were also residing in Bahawalpur and Azad Kashmir. He has two daughters Nisbah Fatima of 2 years and Saleh Khalid of 3 years respectively
It is worth-while mentioning here that Rashid Rauf the suspected ringleader of a 2006 plot to blow up trans-atlantic airliners using liquid explosives by using liquid explosive was among the 5 who were killed in a another missile [strike] by US drones in North Waziristan on Saturday.
November 23, 2008
PESHAWAR: Rashid Rauf's wife Umat-ul-Warood has urged Government to hand over dead body of her husband for burial, who died during a American drone attack on Saturday.
Sources informed here on Sunday, that the kin of Rashid Rauf (a Proclaimed Offender of London plane conspiracy case) arrived in Peshawar from Bahawalpur to receive the dead body.
On the other hand, Government sources has expressed their ignorance relating to the arrival of Rashid Rauf's relative to collect his dead body.
It was also noted that Rashid Rauf was residing in C-Block of model town Bahawalpur and his other relatives were also residing in Bahawalpur and Azad Kashmir. He has two daughters Nisbah Fatima of 2 years and Saleh Khalid of 3 years respectively
It is worth-while mentioning here that Rashid Rauf the suspected ringleader of a 2006 plot to blow up trans-atlantic airliners using liquid explosives by using liquid explosive was among the 5 who were killed in a another missile [strike] by US drones in North Waziristan on Saturday.
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Umat-ul-Warood
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NYT : Airstrike Kills Qaeda-Linked Militant in Pakistan
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Airstrike Kills Qaeda-Linked Militant in Pakistan
By ISMAIL KHAN and JANE PERLEZ | November 22, 2008
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A British militant who was a liaison to Al Qaeda and was a main suspect in the plot to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners in 2006 was killed Saturday in a missile strike by an American aircraft in northern Pakistan, senior Pakistani and American officials said.
The militant, Rashid Rauf, was among the five people killed in the attack by a remotely piloted aircraft in North Waziristan, close to the Afghan border, the officials said. He is perhaps the best-known of the figures killed in an American airstrike campaign there that has intensified since August and has caused increased strains between the United States and Pakistan.
In August 2006, Mr. Rauf, a Briton of Pakistani descent, was detained in Pakistan, leading to the arrest of 25 suspects in Britain in connection with what prosecutors said was a plot to destroy seven airliners headed for the United States and Canada. This September, a British jury convicted three of eight defendants of conspiracy to commit murder, failing to reach verdicts on the more serious charge of using beverage bottles filled with liquid explosives to blow up the aircraft.
But Mr. Rauf was not among those defendants. All terrorism charges against him in that case were dropped in December 2006. A year later, he slipped out of his handcuffs and ran from his guards after a court hearing in Islamabad, Pakistan, on a separate case in which he faced extradition to Britain.
Pakistani officials confirmed on Saturday that Mr. Rauf was the main target of the American missile strike, with Abu Zubair al-Masri, an operative of Al Qaeda. “Rashid Rauf and al-Masri were the targets and have apparently been killed in the missile strike,” a senior government official said.
In Washington, an American official confirmed the death of Mr. Rauf. “There are good reasons to believe, as the Pakistanis have said, that this major terrorist is gone,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Residents in the village of Alikhel, in the Mirali area of North Waziristan, said two missiles hit the well-guarded compound of a Taliban commander, Maulvi Khaliq Noor, Saturday morning. Three children were wounded in the attack, the residents said.
Brought up in Britain by parents who were Pakistani immigrants from Kashmir, Mr. Rauf, 27, settled in southern Punjab Province in Pakistan in 2002. He married into a family at the center of the Army of Muhammad, an outlawed Islamist group.
When Pakistani authorities arrested him in August 2006, the interior minister at the time, Aftab Ahmed Sherpao, called him “a key Al Qaeda operative.” Mr. Rauf was described at the time as being instrumental in devising the airline plot.
The British police, who had the group in Britain under surveillance at the time, complained that the Pakistani police arrested Mr. Rauf too early and forced them to round up the suspects in Britain before enough incriminating evidence had been gathered.
Mr. Rauf’s escape was particularly embarrassing to the government because it showed police laxity a day after Pervez Musharraf, who was president then, had announced that the security forces had thwarted the militants and that stability was returning to Pakistan.
Mr. Rauf was wanted in Britain as a suspect in the murder of an uncle who was stabbed in Birmingham in April 2002.
The missile strike in North Waziristan on Saturday was the third by the Americans in almost three days. Since August, there have been more than two dozen strikes by remotely piloted aircraft, including one last week that hit a settled area in the North-West Frontier Province outside the tribal region.
American military commanders have declared the strikes successful in eliminating important Qaeda and Taliban figures.
But the Pakistani authorities have protested that the strikes are an infringement of national sovereignty and harm the government’s efforts to persuade the Pakistani public that the war against the militants is in the country’s interest.
Many Pakistanis argue that the American missile strikes are responsible for the suicide bomb attacks that have struck law enforcement targets, funerals and politicians in the North-West Frontier Province and in Islamabad, the capital.
After the strike on Saturday, a Taliban spokesman, Ahmadullah Ahmadi, said that no foreigners had been killed.
“Americans have killed innocent people and none of them were foreigners,” he said in a statement issued on behalf of a top militant commander, Hafiz Gul Bahadar, in Miram Shah, the main town in North Waziristan.
Mr. Ahmadi said the militants would seek revenge. “We will avenge the death of innocent people by striking in settled areas” against security forces, he said.
Thom Shanker contributed reporting from Washington.
By ISMAIL KHAN and JANE PERLEZ | November 22, 2008
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A British militant who was a liaison to Al Qaeda and was a main suspect in the plot to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners in 2006 was killed Saturday in a missile strike by an American aircraft in northern Pakistan, senior Pakistani and American officials said.
The militant, Rashid Rauf, was among the five people killed in the attack by a remotely piloted aircraft in North Waziristan, close to the Afghan border, the officials said. He is perhaps the best-known of the figures killed in an American airstrike campaign there that has intensified since August and has caused increased strains between the United States and Pakistan.
In August 2006, Mr. Rauf, a Briton of Pakistani descent, was detained in Pakistan, leading to the arrest of 25 suspects in Britain in connection with what prosecutors said was a plot to destroy seven airliners headed for the United States and Canada. This September, a British jury convicted three of eight defendants of conspiracy to commit murder, failing to reach verdicts on the more serious charge of using beverage bottles filled with liquid explosives to blow up the aircraft.
But Mr. Rauf was not among those defendants. All terrorism charges against him in that case were dropped in December 2006. A year later, he slipped out of his handcuffs and ran from his guards after a court hearing in Islamabad, Pakistan, on a separate case in which he faced extradition to Britain.
Pakistani officials confirmed on Saturday that Mr. Rauf was the main target of the American missile strike, with Abu Zubair al-Masri, an operative of Al Qaeda. “Rashid Rauf and al-Masri were the targets and have apparently been killed in the missile strike,” a senior government official said.
In Washington, an American official confirmed the death of Mr. Rauf. “There are good reasons to believe, as the Pakistanis have said, that this major terrorist is gone,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Residents in the village of Alikhel, in the Mirali area of North Waziristan, said two missiles hit the well-guarded compound of a Taliban commander, Maulvi Khaliq Noor, Saturday morning. Three children were wounded in the attack, the residents said.
Brought up in Britain by parents who were Pakistani immigrants from Kashmir, Mr. Rauf, 27, settled in southern Punjab Province in Pakistan in 2002. He married into a family at the center of the Army of Muhammad, an outlawed Islamist group.
When Pakistani authorities arrested him in August 2006, the interior minister at the time, Aftab Ahmed Sherpao, called him “a key Al Qaeda operative.” Mr. Rauf was described at the time as being instrumental in devising the airline plot.
The British police, who had the group in Britain under surveillance at the time, complained that the Pakistani police arrested Mr. Rauf too early and forced them to round up the suspects in Britain before enough incriminating evidence had been gathered.
Mr. Rauf’s escape was particularly embarrassing to the government because it showed police laxity a day after Pervez Musharraf, who was president then, had announced that the security forces had thwarted the militants and that stability was returning to Pakistan.
Mr. Rauf was wanted in Britain as a suspect in the murder of an uncle who was stabbed in Birmingham in April 2002.
The missile strike in North Waziristan on Saturday was the third by the Americans in almost three days. Since August, there have been more than two dozen strikes by remotely piloted aircraft, including one last week that hit a settled area in the North-West Frontier Province outside the tribal region.
American military commanders have declared the strikes successful in eliminating important Qaeda and Taliban figures.
But the Pakistani authorities have protested that the strikes are an infringement of national sovereignty and harm the government’s efforts to persuade the Pakistani public that the war against the militants is in the country’s interest.
Many Pakistanis argue that the American missile strikes are responsible for the suicide bomb attacks that have struck law enforcement targets, funerals and politicians in the North-West Frontier Province and in Islamabad, the capital.
After the strike on Saturday, a Taliban spokesman, Ahmadullah Ahmadi, said that no foreigners had been killed.
“Americans have killed innocent people and none of them were foreigners,” he said in a statement issued on behalf of a top militant commander, Hafiz Gul Bahadar, in Miram Shah, the main town in North Waziristan.
Mr. Ahmadi said the militants would seek revenge. “We will avenge the death of innocent people by striking in settled areas” against security forces, he said.
Thom Shanker contributed reporting from Washington.
The Times : Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda deputy brands Barack Obama a 'house negro'
Friday, November 21, 2008
Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda deputy brands Barack Obama a 'house negro'
From Times Online | November 19, 2008
Al-Qaeda today invoked the speeches of Malcolm X in a propaganda exercise designed to divide African-Americans, accusing Barack Obama of being a "house negro".
In his first video message to Mr Obama since the Illinois senator was elected on November 4, Ayman Zawahiri attempted to vilify the president-elect in comparison with the black power radical, whom he described as an "honourable" African-American.
His message, entitled The departure of Bush and arrival of Obama, appeared to have been carefully choreographed. It was staged in front of pictures of Mr Obama praying at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem during a pre-election visit to Israel, and Malcolm X, who was murdered in 1965.
As Osama bin Laden's deputy spoke, old footage of the black power leader's speeches was played in the background. In one of the speeches, Malcolm X used the term "house negroes" in reference to domestic slaves who were considered more docile towards their masters than the field slaves.
“It is true about you and people like you . . . what Malcolm X said about the house negroes,” he said, naming Colin Powell, the former Secretary of State, and his successor, Condoleezza Rice.
“You represent the opposite to honourable Black Americans like . . . Malcolm X."
He scolded Mr Obama for “choosing to be an enemy of Islam and Muslims”, saying that the Muslim “nation had bitterly received” the US President-elect's pledge of support for Israeli security and the peace process with the Palestinians.
“You have chosen to stand in the ranks of the enemies of Muslims and pray the prayer of the Jews, although you claim that your mother is Christian,” Mr Zawahiri added.
Also in his video, he threatened to work towards Mr Obama's removal if he went ahead with his proposals to withdraw troops from Iraq in order to concentrate on Afghanistan, urging him to remember "the fate" of President Bush, President Musharraf of Pakistan and Afganistan's former Soviet occupiers.
The recording came after an interview, broadcast on Sunday, in which Mr Obama said that he would push ahead with his campaign promise to begin pulling troops out of Iraq and switch the military focus to Afghanistan.
“What you have announced before . . . that you will withdraw [US] troops from Iraq [and send them] to Afghanistan is a policy that is doomed to failure,” Mr Zawahiri said in the message, made available by the SITE Intelligence Group.
"If you still want to be stubborn about America’s failure in Afghanistan, then remember the fate of Bush and Pervez Musharraf, and the fate of the Soviets and British before them,” he added.
Mr Obama refused to comment, declining to get into a "tit for tat with a terrorist group", according to CNN.
The tape was not unexpected. Intelligence officials and Mr Obama's campaign team have been bracing themselves for terrorist groups to take advantage of the presidential transition period.
Both President Bush and Mr Obama have acknowledged that extremists could stage attacks to destabilise the period, which ends when Mr Obama is inaugurated on January 20.
From Times Online | November 19, 2008
Al-Qaeda today invoked the speeches of Malcolm X in a propaganda exercise designed to divide African-Americans, accusing Barack Obama of being a "house negro".
In his first video message to Mr Obama since the Illinois senator was elected on November 4, Ayman Zawahiri attempted to vilify the president-elect in comparison with the black power radical, whom he described as an "honourable" African-American.
His message, entitled The departure of Bush and arrival of Obama, appeared to have been carefully choreographed. It was staged in front of pictures of Mr Obama praying at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem during a pre-election visit to Israel, and Malcolm X, who was murdered in 1965.
As Osama bin Laden's deputy spoke, old footage of the black power leader's speeches was played in the background. In one of the speeches, Malcolm X used the term "house negroes" in reference to domestic slaves who were considered more docile towards their masters than the field slaves.
“It is true about you and people like you . . . what Malcolm X said about the house negroes,” he said, naming Colin Powell, the former Secretary of State, and his successor, Condoleezza Rice.
“You represent the opposite to honourable Black Americans like . . . Malcolm X."
He scolded Mr Obama for “choosing to be an enemy of Islam and Muslims”, saying that the Muslim “nation had bitterly received” the US President-elect's pledge of support for Israeli security and the peace process with the Palestinians.
“You have chosen to stand in the ranks of the enemies of Muslims and pray the prayer of the Jews, although you claim that your mother is Christian,” Mr Zawahiri added.
Also in his video, he threatened to work towards Mr Obama's removal if he went ahead with his proposals to withdraw troops from Iraq in order to concentrate on Afghanistan, urging him to remember "the fate" of President Bush, President Musharraf of Pakistan and Afganistan's former Soviet occupiers.
The recording came after an interview, broadcast on Sunday, in which Mr Obama said that he would push ahead with his campaign promise to begin pulling troops out of Iraq and switch the military focus to Afghanistan.
“What you have announced before . . . that you will withdraw [US] troops from Iraq [and send them] to Afghanistan is a policy that is doomed to failure,” Mr Zawahiri said in the message, made available by the SITE Intelligence Group.
"If you still want to be stubborn about America’s failure in Afghanistan, then remember the fate of Bush and Pervez Musharraf, and the fate of the Soviets and British before them,” he added.
Mr Obama refused to comment, declining to get into a "tit for tat with a terrorist group", according to CNN.
The tape was not unexpected. Intelligence officials and Mr Obama's campaign team have been bracing themselves for terrorist groups to take advantage of the presidential transition period.
Both President Bush and Mr Obama have acknowledged that extremists could stage attacks to destabilise the period, which ends when Mr Obama is inaugurated on January 20.
Filed under
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MSNBC : Al-Qaida No. 2 insults Obama with race epithet
Friday, November 21, 2008
Al-Qaida No. 2 insults Obama with race epithet
In first video since election, he says president-elect does bidding of whites
November 19, 2008
CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader slurred Barack Obama with a demeaning racial term for a black American who does the bidding of whites in a new Web message posted Wednesday.
Ayman al-Zawahri's speech was al-Qaida's first reaction to Obama's election victory — and it suggested the terror network is worried the new American leader could undermine its rallying cry that the United States is an enemy oppressor.
Obama has been welcomed by many in the Middle East who hope he will end what they see as American aggression against Muslims and Arabs under President George W. Bush. Some believe his race and Muslim family connections could make him more understanding of the developing world's concerns.
Al-Zawahri dug into U.S. racial history to try to directly knock down that belief and argue Obama will be no more sympathetic than white leaders to what the al-Qaida leader called "the oppressed" of the world.
He said Obama was the "direct opposite of honorable black Americans" like Malcolm X, the 1960s Muslim African-American rights leader, who is known among some in the Arab world and seen as a symbol of anti-imperialism.
Al-Zawahri also called Obama — along with secretaries of state Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice — "house Negroes."
Reference to slavery
The video included old footage of speeches by Malcolm X in which he explains the term, saying black slaves who worked in their white masters' house were more servile than those who worked in the fields. Malcolm X used the term to criticize black leaders he accused of not standing up to whites and discrimination.
Speaking in Arabic, al-Zawahri used the phrase "abeed al-beit," which literally translates as "house slaves." But in the video message, posted on Islamic militant Web sites Wednesday, al-Qaida supplied English subtitles of the speech that translated the phrase as "house Negroes."
In Washington, White House press secretary Dana Perino said the tape is a reminder that al-Qaida is irrational.
"What we have here is more despicable and pathetic comments by al-Qaida terrorists," Perino said. "And in America, we are going to have a smooth transition from one administration to the next, and that will be a period of change in our country. What won't change is our commitment as a country to fighting terrorism. And I think that these comments just remind everybody of the kind of people that we're dealing with."
There was no immediate reaction from Obama's transition team.
'Heart full of hate'
The 11-minute, 23-second video featured an audio message by al-Zawahri, played over a still image of the al-Qaida No. 2.
The video graphics underlined the contrast al-Zawahri aimed to show: On one side of the screen was a photo of Obama wearing a Jewish skullcap and meeting Jewish leaders. On the other side was a photo of Malcolm X praying in a mosque. Interspersed was footage of Malcolm X talking of a "worldwide revolution" against the "Western power structure."
Al-Zawahri addressed "all the world's weak and oppressed," and warned them: "America has put on a new face, but its heart full of hate, mind drowning in greed and spirit which spreads evil, murder, repression and despotism continue to be the same as always."
Accuses Obama of turning back on heritage
He accused Obama of turning his back on his heritage to gain power.
"You were born to a Muslim father, but you chose to stand in the ranks of the enemies of the Muslims, and pray the prayer of the Jews, although you claim to be Christian, in order to climb the rungs of leadership in America," he said.
"It appears that you continue to be captive to the same criminal American mentality towards the world and towards the Muslims," he said.
Jeremy Binnie, an analyst with Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Center, said al-Zawahri's message suggests al-Qaida leaders are worried "that Obama could be effective in rebuilding America's image."
"They hated Bush, but Bush was good for them in many ways because he was such a polarizing figure. But Obama seems at the moment to be a more uniting figure," Binnie said. "Al-Qaida very much would like the U.S. to stay with its old policies that put it in opposition to much of the Muslim world."
Warning on Afghanistan
Al-Zawahri proclaimed Obama's victory a sign that Americans had realized the failure of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He urged Islamic militants everywhere to continue their jihad, or holy war, saying, "Your enemy's stagger has begun, so don't stop hitting him."
Al-Zawahri said Obama's plan to shift troops to Afghanistan is doomed to failure, because Afghans will resist.
"Be aware that the dogs of Afghanistan have found the flesh of your soldiers to be delicious, so send thousands after thousands to them," he said.
Al-Zawahri specifically addressed al-Qaida fighters in Iraq, saying, "your enemy has admitted defeat," and that as U.S. troops withdraw, "you must persevere, for victory is in an hour of perseverance."
He also told Islamic militants in Somalia, who have been capturing towns in an advance against the tenuous central government, "don't put down your weapons before the Mujahed state of Islam ... has been set up in Somalia."
In first video since election, he says president-elect does bidding of whites
November 19, 2008
CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader slurred Barack Obama with a demeaning racial term for a black American who does the bidding of whites in a new Web message posted Wednesday.
Ayman al-Zawahri's speech was al-Qaida's first reaction to Obama's election victory — and it suggested the terror network is worried the new American leader could undermine its rallying cry that the United States is an enemy oppressor.
Obama has been welcomed by many in the Middle East who hope he will end what they see as American aggression against Muslims and Arabs under President George W. Bush. Some believe his race and Muslim family connections could make him more understanding of the developing world's concerns.
Al-Zawahri dug into U.S. racial history to try to directly knock down that belief and argue Obama will be no more sympathetic than white leaders to what the al-Qaida leader called "the oppressed" of the world.
He said Obama was the "direct opposite of honorable black Americans" like Malcolm X, the 1960s Muslim African-American rights leader, who is known among some in the Arab world and seen as a symbol of anti-imperialism.
Al-Zawahri also called Obama — along with secretaries of state Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice — "house Negroes."
Reference to slavery
The video included old footage of speeches by Malcolm X in which he explains the term, saying black slaves who worked in their white masters' house were more servile than those who worked in the fields. Malcolm X used the term to criticize black leaders he accused of not standing up to whites and discrimination.
Speaking in Arabic, al-Zawahri used the phrase "abeed al-beit," which literally translates as "house slaves." But in the video message, posted on Islamic militant Web sites Wednesday, al-Qaida supplied English subtitles of the speech that translated the phrase as "house Negroes."
In Washington, White House press secretary Dana Perino said the tape is a reminder that al-Qaida is irrational.
"What we have here is more despicable and pathetic comments by al-Qaida terrorists," Perino said. "And in America, we are going to have a smooth transition from one administration to the next, and that will be a period of change in our country. What won't change is our commitment as a country to fighting terrorism. And I think that these comments just remind everybody of the kind of people that we're dealing with."
There was no immediate reaction from Obama's transition team.
'Heart full of hate'
The 11-minute, 23-second video featured an audio message by al-Zawahri, played over a still image of the al-Qaida No. 2.
The video graphics underlined the contrast al-Zawahri aimed to show: On one side of the screen was a photo of Obama wearing a Jewish skullcap and meeting Jewish leaders. On the other side was a photo of Malcolm X praying in a mosque. Interspersed was footage of Malcolm X talking of a "worldwide revolution" against the "Western power structure."
Al-Zawahri addressed "all the world's weak and oppressed," and warned them: "America has put on a new face, but its heart full of hate, mind drowning in greed and spirit which spreads evil, murder, repression and despotism continue to be the same as always."
Accuses Obama of turning back on heritage
He accused Obama of turning his back on his heritage to gain power.
"You were born to a Muslim father, but you chose to stand in the ranks of the enemies of the Muslims, and pray the prayer of the Jews, although you claim to be Christian, in order to climb the rungs of leadership in America," he said.
"It appears that you continue to be captive to the same criminal American mentality towards the world and towards the Muslims," he said.
Jeremy Binnie, an analyst with Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Center, said al-Zawahri's message suggests al-Qaida leaders are worried "that Obama could be effective in rebuilding America's image."
"They hated Bush, but Bush was good for them in many ways because he was such a polarizing figure. But Obama seems at the moment to be a more uniting figure," Binnie said. "Al-Qaida very much would like the U.S. to stay with its old policies that put it in opposition to much of the Muslim world."
Warning on Afghanistan
Al-Zawahri proclaimed Obama's victory a sign that Americans had realized the failure of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He urged Islamic militants everywhere to continue their jihad, or holy war, saying, "Your enemy's stagger has begun, so don't stop hitting him."
Al-Zawahri said Obama's plan to shift troops to Afghanistan is doomed to failure, because Afghans will resist.
"Be aware that the dogs of Afghanistan have found the flesh of your soldiers to be delicious, so send thousands after thousands to them," he said.
Al-Zawahri specifically addressed al-Qaida fighters in Iraq, saying, "your enemy has admitted defeat," and that as U.S. troops withdraw, "you must persevere, for victory is in an hour of perseverance."
He also told Islamic militants in Somalia, who have been capturing towns in an advance against the tenuous central government, "don't put down your weapons before the Mujahed state of Islam ... has been set up in Somalia."
Filed under
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Barack Obama
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on Friday, November 21, 2008
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Foreign Affairs : Renewing American Leadership
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Renewing American Leadership
By Barack Obama | From Foreign Affairs, July/August 2007
Summary: After Iraq, we may be tempted to turn inward. That would be a mistake. The American moment is not over, but it must be seized anew. We must bring the war to a responsible end and then renew our leadership -- military, diplomatic, moral -- to confront new threats and capitalize on new opportunities. America cannot meet this century's challenges alone; the world cannot meet them without America.
Barack Obama is a Democratic Senator from Illinois and a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.
COMMON SECURITY FOR OUR COMMON HUMANITY
At moments of great peril in the last century, American leaders such as Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy managed both to protect the American people and to expand opportunity for the next generation. What is more, they ensured that America, by deed and example, led and lifted the world -- that we stood for and fought for the freedoms sought by billions of people beyond our borders.
As Roosevelt built the most formidable military the world had ever seen, his Four Freedoms gave purpose to our struggle against fascism. Truman championed a bold new architecture to respond to the Soviet threat -- one that paired military strength with the Marshall Plan and helped secure the peace and well-being of nations around the world. As colonialism crumbled and the Soviet Union achieved effective nuclear parity, Kennedy modernized our military doctrine, strengthened our conventional forces, and created the Peace Corps and the Alliance for Progress. They used our strengths to show people everywhere America at its best.
Today, we are again called to provide visionary leadership. This century's threats are at least as dangerous as and in some ways more complex than those we have confronted in the past. They come from weapons that can kill on a mass scale and from global terrorists who respond to alienation or perceived injustice with murderous nihilism. They come from rogue states allied to terrorists and from rising powers that could challenge both America and the international foundation of liberal democracy. They come from weak states that cannot control their territory or provide for their people. And they come from a warming planet that will spur new diseases, spawn more devastating natural disasters, and catalyze deadly conflicts.
To recognize the number and complexity of these threats is not to give way to pessimism. Rather, it is a call to action. These threats demand a new vision of leadership in the twenty-first century -- a vision that draws from the past but is not bound by outdated thinking. The Bush administration responded to the unconventional attacks of 9/11 with conventional thinking of the past, largely viewing problems as state-based and principally amenable to military solutions. It was this tragically misguided view that led us into a war in Iraq that never should have been authorized and never should have been waged. In the wake of Iraq and Abu Ghraib, the world has lost trust in our purposes and our principles.
After thousands of lives lost and billions of dollars spent, many Americans may be tempted to turn inward and cede our leadership in world affairs. But this is a mistake we must not make. America cannot meet the threats of this century alone, and the world cannot meet them without America. We can neither retreat from the world nor try to bully it into submission. We must lead the world, by deed and by example.
Such leadership demands that we retrieve a fundamental insight of Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedy -- one that is truer now than ever before: the security and well-being of each and every American depend on the security and well-being of those who live beyond our borders. The mission of the United States is to provide global leadership grounded in the understanding that the world shares a common security and a common humanity.
The American moment is not over, but it must be seized anew. To see American power in terminal decline is to ignore America's great promise and historic purpose in the world. If elected president, I will start renewing that promise and purpose the day I take office.
MOVING BEYOND IRAQ
To renew American leadership in the world, we must first bring the Iraq war to a responsible end and refocus our attention on the broader Middle East. Iraq was a diversion from the fight against the terrorists who struck us on 9/11, and incompetent prosecution of the war by America's civilian leaders compounded the strategic blunder of choosing to wage it in the first place. We have now lost over 3,300 American lives, and thousands more suffer wounds both seen and unseen.
Our servicemen and servicewomen have performed admirably while sacrificing immeasurably. But it is time for our civilian leaders to acknowledge a painful truth: we cannot impose a military solution on a civil war between Sunni and Shiite factions. The best chance we have to leave Iraq a better place is to pressure these warring parties to find a lasting political solution. And the only effective way to apply this pressure is to begin a phased withdrawal of U.S. forces, with the goal of removing all combat brigades from Iraq by March 31, 2008 -- a date consistent with the goal set by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. This redeployment could be temporarily suspended if the Iraqi government meets the security, political, and economic benchmarks to which it has committed. But we must recognize that, in the end, only Iraqi leaders can bring real peace and stability to their country.
At the same time, we must launch a comprehensive regional and international diplomatic initiative to help broker an end to the civil war in Iraq, prevent its spread, and limit the suffering of the Iraqi people. To gain credibility in this effort, we must make clear that we seek no permanent bases in Iraq. We should leave behind only a minimal over-the-horizon military force in the region to protect American personnel and facilities, continue training Iraqi security forces, and root out al Qaeda.
The morass in Iraq has made it immeasurably harder to confront and work through the many other problems in the region -- and it has made many of those problems considerably more dangerous. Changing the dynamic in Iraq will allow us to focus our attention and influence on resolving the festering conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians -- a task that the Bush administration neglected for years.
For more than three decades, Israelis, Palestinians, Arab leaders, and the rest of the world have looked to America to lead the effort to build the road to a lasting peace. In recent years, they have all too often looked in vain. Our starting point must always be a clear and strong commitment to the security of Israel, our strongest ally in the region and its only established democracy. That commitment is all the more important as we contend with growing threats in the region -- a strengthened Iran, a chaotic Iraq, the resurgence of al Qaeda, the reinvigoration of Hamas and Hezbollah. Now more than ever, we must strive to secure a lasting settlement of the conflict with two states living side by side in peace and security. To do so, we must help the Israelis identify and strengthen those partners who are truly committed to peace, while isolating those who seek conflict and instability. Sustained American leadership for peace and security will require patient effort and the personal commitment of the president of the United States. That is a commitment I will make.
Throughout the Middle East, we must harness American power to reinvigorate American diplomacy. Tough-minded diplomacy, backed by the whole range of instruments of American power -- political, economic, and military -- could bring success even when dealing with long-standing adversaries such as Iran and Syria. Our policy of issuing threats and relying on intermediaries to curb Iran's nuclear program, sponsorship of terrorism, and regional aggression is failing. Although we must not rule out using military force, we should not hesitate to talk directly to Iran. Our diplomacy should aim to raise the cost for Iran of continuing its nuclear program by applying tougher sanctions and increasing pressure from its key trading partners. The world must work to stop Iran's uranium-enrichment program and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. It is far too dangerous to have nuclear weapons in the hands of a radical theocracy. At the same time, we must show Iran -- and especially the Iranian people -- what could be gained from fundamental change: economic engagement, security assurances, and diplomatic relations. Diplomacy combined with pressure could also reorient Syria away from its radical agenda to a more moderate stance -- which could, in turn, help stabilize Iraq, isolate Iran, free Lebanon from Damascus' grip, and better secure Israel.
REVITALIZING THE MILITARY
To renew American leadership in the world, we must immediately begin working to revitalize our military. A strong military is, more than anything, necessary to sustain peace. Unfortunately, the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps, according to our military leaders, are facing a crisis. The Pentagon cannot certify a single army unit within the United States as fully ready to respond in the event of a new crisis or emergency beyond Iraq; 88 percent of the National Guard is not ready to deploy overseas.
We must use this moment both to rebuild our military and to prepare it for the missions of the future. We must retain the capacity to swiftly defeat any conventional threat to our country and our vital interests. But we must also become better prepared to put boots on the ground in order to take on foes that fight asymmetrical and highly adaptive campaigns on a global scale.
We should expand our ground forces by adding 65,000 soldiers to the army and 27,000 marines. Bolstering these forces is about more than meeting quotas. We must recruit the very best and invest in their capacity to succeed. That means providing our servicemen and servicewomen with first-rate equipment, armor, incentives, and training -- including in foreign languages and other critical skills. Each major defense program should be reevaluated in light of current needs, gaps in the field, and likely future threat scenarios. Our military will have to rebuild some capabilities and transform others. At the same time, we need to commit sufficient funding to enable the National Guard to regain a state of readiness.
Enhancing our military will not be enough. As commander in chief, I would also use our armed forces wisely. When we send our men and women into harm's way, I will clearly define the mission, seek out the advice of our military commanders, objectively evaluate intelligence, and ensure that our troops have the resources and the support they need. I will not hesitate to use force, unilaterally if necessary, to protect the American people or our vital interests whenever we are attacked or imminently threatened.
We must also consider using military force in circumstances beyond self-defense in order to provide for the common security that underpins global stability -- to support friends, participate in stability and reconstruction operations, or confront mass atrocities. But when we do use force in situations other than self-defense, we should make every effort to garner the clear support and participation of others -- as President George H. W. Bush did when we led the effort to oust Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1991. The consequences of forgetting that lesson in the context of the current conflict in Iraq have been grave.
HALTING THE SPREAD OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS
To renew American leadership in the world, we must confront the most urgent threat to the security of America and the world -- the spread of nuclear weapons, material, and technology and the risk that a nuclear device will fall into the hands of terrorists. The explosion of one such device would bring catastrophe, dwarfing the devastation of 9/11 and shaking every corner of the globe.
As George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn have warned, our current measures are not sufficient to meet the nuclear threat. The nonproliferation regime is being challenged, and new civilian nuclear programs could spread the means to make nuclear weapons. Al Qaeda has made it a goal to bring a "Hiroshima" to the United States. Terrorists need not build a nuclear weapon from scratch; they need only steal or buy a weapon or the material to assemble one. There is now highly enriched uranium -- some of it poorly secured -- sitting in civilian nuclear facilities in over 40 countries around the world. In the former Soviet Union, there are approximately 15,000-16,000 nuclear weapons and stockpiles of uranium and plutonium capable of making another 40,000 weapons -- all scattered across 11 time zones. People have already been caught trying to smuggle nuclear material to sell on the black market.
As president, I will work with other nations to secure, destroy, and stop the spread of these weapons in order to dramatically reduce the nuclear dangers for our nation and the world. America must lead a global effort to secure all nuclear weapons and material at vulnerable sites within four years -- the most effective way to prevent terrorists from acquiring a bomb.
This will require the active cooperation of Russia. Although we must not shy away from pushing for more democracy and accountability in Russia, we must work with the country in areas of common interest -- above all, in making sure that nuclear weapons and material are secure. We must also work with Russia to update and scale back our dangerously outdated Cold War nuclear postures and de-emphasize the role of nuclear weapons. America must not rush to produce a new generation of nuclear warheads. And we should take advantage of recent technological advances to build bipartisan consensus behind ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. All of this can be done while maintaining a strong nuclear deterrent. These steps will ultimately strengthen, not weaken, our security.
As we lock down existing nuclear stockpiles, I will work to negotiate a verifiable global ban on the production of new nuclear weapons material. We must also stop the spread of nuclear weapons technology and ensure that countries cannot build -- or come to the brink of building -- a weapons program under the auspices of developing peaceful nuclear power. That is why my administration will immediately provide $50 million to jump-start the creation of an International Atomic Energy Agency-controlled nuclear fuel bank and work to update the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. We must also fully implement the law Senator Richard Lugar and I passed to help the United States and our allies detect and stop the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction throughout the world.
Finally, we must develop a strong international coalition to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and eliminate North Korea's nuclear weapons program. Iran and North Korea could trigger regional arms races, creating dangerous nuclear flashpoints in the Middle East and East Asia. In confronting these threats, I will not take the military option off the table. But our first measure must be sustained, direct, and aggressive diplomacy -- the kind that the Bush administration has been unable and unwilling to use.
COMBATING GLOBAL TERRORISM
To renew American leadership in the world, we must forge a more effective global response to the terrorism that came to our shores on an unprecedented scale on 9/11. From Bali to London, Baghdad to Algiers, Mumbai to Mombasa to Madrid, terrorists who reject modernity, oppose America, and distort Islam have killed and mutilated tens of thousands of people just this decade. Because this enemy operates globally, it must be confronted globally.
We must refocus our efforts on Afghanistan and Pakistan -- the central front in our war against al Qaeda -- so that we are confronting terrorists where their roots run deepest. Success in Afghanistan is still possible, but only if we act quickly, judiciously, and decisively. We should pursue an integrated strategy that reinforces our troops in Afghanistan and works to remove the limitations placed by some NATO allies on their forces. Our strategy must also include sustained diplomacy to isolate the Taliban and more effective development programs that target aid to areas where the Taliban are making inroads.
I will join with our allies in insisting -- not simply requesting -- that Pakistan crack down on the Taliban, pursue Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants, and end its relationship with all terrorist groups. At the same time, I will encourage dialogue between Pakistan and India to work toward resolving their dispute over Kashmir and between Afghanistan and Pakistan to resolve their historic differences and develop the Pashtun border region. If Pakistan can look toward the east with greater confidence, it will be less likely to believe that its interests are best advanced through cooperation with the Taliban.
Although vigorous action in South Asia and Central Asia should be a starting point, our efforts must be broader. There must be no safe haven for those who plot to kill Americans. To defeat al Qaeda, I will build a twenty-first-century military and twenty-first-century partnerships as strong as the anticommunist alliance that won the Cold War to stay on the offense everywhere from Djibouti to Kandahar.
Here at home, we must strengthen our homeland security and protect the critical infrastructure on which the entire world depends. We can start by spending homeland security dollars on the basis of risk. This means investing more resources to defend mass transit, closing the gaps in our aviation security by screening all cargo on passenger airliners and checking all passengers against a comprehensive watch list, and upgrading port security by ensuring that cargo is screened for radiation.
To succeed, our homeland security and counterterrorism actions must be linked to an intelligence community that deals effectively with the threats we face. Today, we rely largely on the same institutions and practices that were in place before 9/11. We need to revisit intelligence reform, going beyond rearranging boxes on an organizational chart. To keep pace with highly adaptable enemies, we need technologies and practices that enable us to efficiently collect and share information within and across our intelligence agencies. We must invest still more in human intelligence and deploy additional trained operatives and diplomats with specialized knowledge of local cultures and languages. And we should institutionalize the practice of developing competitive assessments of critical threats and strengthen our methodologies of analysis.
Finally, we need a comprehensive strategy to defeat global terrorists -- one that draws on the full range of American power, not just our military might. As a senior U.S. military commander put it, when people have dignity and opportunity, "the chance of extremism being welcomed greatly, if not completely, diminishes." It is for this reason that we need to invest with our allies in strengthening weak states and helping to rebuild failed ones.
In the Islamic world and beyond, combating the terrorists' prophets of fear will require more than lectures on democracy. We need to deepen our knowledge of the circumstances and beliefs that underpin extremism. A crucial debate is occurring within Islam. Some believe in a future of peace, tolerance, development, and democratization. Others embrace a rigid and violent intolerance of personal liberty and the world at large. To empower forces of moderation, America must make every effort to export opportunity -- access to education and health care, trade and investment -- and provide the kind of steady support for political reformers and civil society that enabled our victory in the Cold War. Our beliefs rest on hope; the extremists' rest on fear. That is why we can -- and will -- win this struggle.
REBUILDING OUR PARTNERSHIPS
To renew American leadership in the world, I intend to rebuild the alliances, partnerships, and institutions necessary to confront common threats and enhance common security. Needed reform of these alliances and institutions will not come by bullying other countries to ratify changes we hatch in isolation. It will come when we convince other governments and peoples that they, too, have a stake in effective partnerships.
Too often we have sent the opposite signal to our international partners. In the case of Europe, we dismissed European reservations about the wisdom and necessity of the Iraq war. In Asia, we belittled South Korean efforts to improve relations with the North. In Latin America, from Mexico to Argentina, we failed to adequately address concerns about immigration and equity and economic growth. In Africa, we have allowed genocide to persist for over four years in Darfur and have not done nearly enough to answer the African Union's call for more support to stop the killing. I will rebuild our ties to our allies in Europe and Asia and strengthen our partnerships throughout the Americas and Africa.
Our alliances require constant cooperation and revision if they are to remain effective and relevant. NATO has made tremendous strides over the last 15 years, transforming itself from a Cold War security structure into a partnership for peace. But today, NATO's challenge in Afghanistan has exposed, as Senator Lugar has put it, "the growing discrepancy between NATO's expanding missions and its lagging capabilities." To close this gap, I will rally our NATO allies to contribute more troops to collective security operations and to invest more in reconstruction and stabilization capabilities.
And as we strengthen NATO, we must build new alliances and partnerships in other vital regions. As China rises and Japan and South Korea assert themselves, I will work to forge a more effective framework in Asia that goes beyond bilateral agreements, occasional summits, and ad hoc arrangements, such as the six-party talks on North Korea. We need an inclusive infrastructure with the countries in East Asia that can promote stability and prosperity and help confront transnational threats, from terrorist cells in the Philippines to avian flu in Indonesia. I will also encourage China to play a responsible role as a growing power -- to help lead in addressing the common problems of the twenty-first century. We will compete with China in some areas and cooperate in others. Our essential challenge is to build a relationship that broadens cooperation while strengthening our ability to compete.
In addition, we need effective collaboration on pressing global issues among all the major powers -- including such newly emerging ones as Brazil, India, Nigeria, and South Africa. We need to give all of them a stake in upholding the international order. To that end, the United Nations requires far-reaching reform. The UN Secretariat's management practices remain weak. Peacekeeping operations are overextended. The new UN Human Rights Council has passed eight resolutions condemning Israel -- but not a single resolution condemning the genocide in Darfur or human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. Yet none of these problems will be solved unless America rededicates itself to the organization and its mission.
Strengthened institutions and invigorated alliances and partnerships are especially crucial if we are to defeat the epochal, man-made threat to the planet: climate change. Without dramatic changes, rising sea levels will flood coastal regions around the world, including much of the eastern seaboard. Warmer temperatures and declining rainfall will reduce crop yields, increasing conflict, famine, disease, and poverty. By 2050, famine could displace more than 250 million people worldwide. That means increased instability in some of the most volatile parts of the world.
As the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases, America has the responsibility to lead. While many of our industrial partners are working hard to reduce their emissions, we are increasing ours at a steady clip -- by more than ten percent per decade. As president, I intend to enact a cap-and-trade system that will dramatically reduce our carbon emissions. And I will work to finally free America of its dependence on foreign oil -- by using energy more efficiently in our cars, factories, and homes, relying more on renewable sources of electricity, and harnessing the potential of biofuels.
Getting our own house in order is only a first step. China will soon replace America as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Clean energy development must be a central focus in our relationships with major countries in Europe and Asia. I will invest in efficient and clean technologies at home while using our assistance policies and export promotions to help developing countries leapfrog the carbon-energy-intensive stage of development. We need a global response to climate change that includes binding and enforceable commitments to reducing emissions, especially for those that pollute the most: the United States, China, India, the European Union, and Russia. This challenge is massive, but rising to it will also bring new benefits to America. By 2050, global demand for low-carbon energy could create an annual market worth $500 billion. Meeting that demand would open new frontiers for American entrepreneurs and workers.
BUILDING JUST, SECURE, DEMOCRATIC SOCIETIES
Finally, to renew American leadership in the world, I will strengthen our common security by investing in our common humanity. Our global engagement cannot be defined by what we are against; it must be guided by a clear sense of what we stand for. We have a significant stake in ensuring that those who live in fear and want today can live with dignity and opportunity tomorrow.
People around the world have heard a great deal of late about freedom on the march. Tragically, many have come to associate this with war, torture, and forcibly imposed regime change. To build a better, freer world, we must first behave in ways that reflect the decency and aspirations of the American people. This means ending the practices of shipping away prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far-off countries, of detaining thousands without charge or trial, of maintaining a network of secret prisons to jail people beyond the reach of the law.
Citizens everywhere should be able to choose their leaders in climates free of fear. America must commit to strengthening the pillars of a just society. We can help build accountable institutions that deliver services and opportunity: strong legislatures, independent judiciaries, honest police forces, free presses, vibrant civil societies. In countries wracked by poverty and conflict, citizens long to enjoy freedom from want. And since extremely poor societies and weak states provide optimal breeding grounds for disease, terrorism, and conflict, the United States has a direct national security interest in dramatically reducing global poverty and joining with our allies in sharing more of our riches to help those most in need. We need to invest in building capable, democratic states that can establish healthy and educated communities, develop markets, and generate wealth. Such states would also have greater institutional capacities to fight terrorism, halt the spread of deadly weapons, and build health-care infrastructures to prevent, detect, and treat deadly diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and avian flu.
As president, I will double our annual investment in meeting these challenges to $50 billion by 2012 and ensure that those new resources are directed toward worthwhile goals. For the last 20 years, U.S. foreign assistance funding has done little more than keep pace with inflation. It is in our national security interest to do better. But if America is going to help others build more just and secure societies, our trade deals, debt relief, and foreign aid must not come as blank checks. I will couple our support with an insistent call for reform, to combat the corruption that rots societies and governments from within. I will do so not in the spirit of a patron but in the spirit of a partner -- a partner mindful of his own imperfections.
Our rapidly growing international AIDS programs have demonstrated that increased foreign assistance can make a real difference. As part of this new funding, I will capitalize a $2 billion Global Education Fund that will bring the world together in eliminating the global education deficit, much as the 9/11 Commission proposed. We cannot hope to shape a world where opportunity outweighs danger unless we ensure that every child everywhere is taught to build and not to destroy.
There are compelling moral reasons and compelling security reasons for renewed American leadership that recognizes the inherent equality and worth of all people. As President Kennedy said in his 1961 inaugural address, "To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required -- not because the communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich." I will show the world that America remains true to its founding values. We lead not only for ourselves but also for the common good.
RESTORING AMERICA'S TRUST
Confronted by Hitler, Roosevelt said that our power would be "directed toward ultimate good as well as against immediate evil. We Americans are not destroyers; we are builders." It is time for a president who can build consensus here at home for an equally ambitious course.
Ultimately, no foreign policy can succeed unless the American people understand it and feel they have a stake in its success -- unless they trust that their government hears their concerns as well. We will not be able to increase foreign aid if we fail to invest in security and opportunity for our own people. We cannot negotiate trade agreements to help spur development in poor countries so long as we provide no meaningful help to working Americans burdened by the dislocations of a global economy. We cannot reduce our dependence on foreign oil or defeat global warming unless Americans are willing to innovate and conserve. We cannot expect Americans to support placing our men and women in harm's way if we cannot show that we will use force wisely and judiciously. But if the next president can restore the American people's trust -- if they know that he or she is acting with their best interests at heart, with prudence and wisdom and some measure of humility -- then I believe the American people will be eager to see America lead again.
I believe they will also agree that it is time for a new generation to tell the next great American story. If we act with boldness and foresight, we will be able to tell our grandchildren that this was the time when we helped forge peace in the Middle East. This was the time we confronted climate change and secured the weapons that could destroy the human race. This was the time we defeated global terrorists and brought opportunity to forgotten corners of the world. And this was the time when we renewed the America that has led generations of weary travelers from all over the world to find opportunity and liberty and hope on our doorstep.
It was not all that long ago that farmers in Venezuela and Indonesia welcomed American doctors to their villages and hung pictures of JFK on their living room walls, when millions, like my father, waited every day for a letter in the mail that would grant them the privilege to come to America to study, work, live, or just be free.
We can be this America again. This is our moment to renew the trust and faith of our people -- and all people -- in an America that battles immediate evils, promotes an ultimate good, and leads the world once more.
By Barack Obama | From Foreign Affairs, July/August 2007
Summary: After Iraq, we may be tempted to turn inward. That would be a mistake. The American moment is not over, but it must be seized anew. We must bring the war to a responsible end and then renew our leadership -- military, diplomatic, moral -- to confront new threats and capitalize on new opportunities. America cannot meet this century's challenges alone; the world cannot meet them without America.
Barack Obama is a Democratic Senator from Illinois and a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.
COMMON SECURITY FOR OUR COMMON HUMANITY
At moments of great peril in the last century, American leaders such as Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy managed both to protect the American people and to expand opportunity for the next generation. What is more, they ensured that America, by deed and example, led and lifted the world -- that we stood for and fought for the freedoms sought by billions of people beyond our borders.
As Roosevelt built the most formidable military the world had ever seen, his Four Freedoms gave purpose to our struggle against fascism. Truman championed a bold new architecture to respond to the Soviet threat -- one that paired military strength with the Marshall Plan and helped secure the peace and well-being of nations around the world. As colonialism crumbled and the Soviet Union achieved effective nuclear parity, Kennedy modernized our military doctrine, strengthened our conventional forces, and created the Peace Corps and the Alliance for Progress. They used our strengths to show people everywhere America at its best.
Today, we are again called to provide visionary leadership. This century's threats are at least as dangerous as and in some ways more complex than those we have confronted in the past. They come from weapons that can kill on a mass scale and from global terrorists who respond to alienation or perceived injustice with murderous nihilism. They come from rogue states allied to terrorists and from rising powers that could challenge both America and the international foundation of liberal democracy. They come from weak states that cannot control their territory or provide for their people. And they come from a warming planet that will spur new diseases, spawn more devastating natural disasters, and catalyze deadly conflicts.
To recognize the number and complexity of these threats is not to give way to pessimism. Rather, it is a call to action. These threats demand a new vision of leadership in the twenty-first century -- a vision that draws from the past but is not bound by outdated thinking. The Bush administration responded to the unconventional attacks of 9/11 with conventional thinking of the past, largely viewing problems as state-based and principally amenable to military solutions. It was this tragically misguided view that led us into a war in Iraq that never should have been authorized and never should have been waged. In the wake of Iraq and Abu Ghraib, the world has lost trust in our purposes and our principles.
After thousands of lives lost and billions of dollars spent, many Americans may be tempted to turn inward and cede our leadership in world affairs. But this is a mistake we must not make. America cannot meet the threats of this century alone, and the world cannot meet them without America. We can neither retreat from the world nor try to bully it into submission. We must lead the world, by deed and by example.
Such leadership demands that we retrieve a fundamental insight of Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedy -- one that is truer now than ever before: the security and well-being of each and every American depend on the security and well-being of those who live beyond our borders. The mission of the United States is to provide global leadership grounded in the understanding that the world shares a common security and a common humanity.
The American moment is not over, but it must be seized anew. To see American power in terminal decline is to ignore America's great promise and historic purpose in the world. If elected president, I will start renewing that promise and purpose the day I take office.
MOVING BEYOND IRAQ
To renew American leadership in the world, we must first bring the Iraq war to a responsible end and refocus our attention on the broader Middle East. Iraq was a diversion from the fight against the terrorists who struck us on 9/11, and incompetent prosecution of the war by America's civilian leaders compounded the strategic blunder of choosing to wage it in the first place. We have now lost over 3,300 American lives, and thousands more suffer wounds both seen and unseen.
Our servicemen and servicewomen have performed admirably while sacrificing immeasurably. But it is time for our civilian leaders to acknowledge a painful truth: we cannot impose a military solution on a civil war between Sunni and Shiite factions. The best chance we have to leave Iraq a better place is to pressure these warring parties to find a lasting political solution. And the only effective way to apply this pressure is to begin a phased withdrawal of U.S. forces, with the goal of removing all combat brigades from Iraq by March 31, 2008 -- a date consistent with the goal set by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. This redeployment could be temporarily suspended if the Iraqi government meets the security, political, and economic benchmarks to which it has committed. But we must recognize that, in the end, only Iraqi leaders can bring real peace and stability to their country.
At the same time, we must launch a comprehensive regional and international diplomatic initiative to help broker an end to the civil war in Iraq, prevent its spread, and limit the suffering of the Iraqi people. To gain credibility in this effort, we must make clear that we seek no permanent bases in Iraq. We should leave behind only a minimal over-the-horizon military force in the region to protect American personnel and facilities, continue training Iraqi security forces, and root out al Qaeda.
The morass in Iraq has made it immeasurably harder to confront and work through the many other problems in the region -- and it has made many of those problems considerably more dangerous. Changing the dynamic in Iraq will allow us to focus our attention and influence on resolving the festering conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians -- a task that the Bush administration neglected for years.
For more than three decades, Israelis, Palestinians, Arab leaders, and the rest of the world have looked to America to lead the effort to build the road to a lasting peace. In recent years, they have all too often looked in vain. Our starting point must always be a clear and strong commitment to the security of Israel, our strongest ally in the region and its only established democracy. That commitment is all the more important as we contend with growing threats in the region -- a strengthened Iran, a chaotic Iraq, the resurgence of al Qaeda, the reinvigoration of Hamas and Hezbollah. Now more than ever, we must strive to secure a lasting settlement of the conflict with two states living side by side in peace and security. To do so, we must help the Israelis identify and strengthen those partners who are truly committed to peace, while isolating those who seek conflict and instability. Sustained American leadership for peace and security will require patient effort and the personal commitment of the president of the United States. That is a commitment I will make.
Throughout the Middle East, we must harness American power to reinvigorate American diplomacy. Tough-minded diplomacy, backed by the whole range of instruments of American power -- political, economic, and military -- could bring success even when dealing with long-standing adversaries such as Iran and Syria. Our policy of issuing threats and relying on intermediaries to curb Iran's nuclear program, sponsorship of terrorism, and regional aggression is failing. Although we must not rule out using military force, we should not hesitate to talk directly to Iran. Our diplomacy should aim to raise the cost for Iran of continuing its nuclear program by applying tougher sanctions and increasing pressure from its key trading partners. The world must work to stop Iran's uranium-enrichment program and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. It is far too dangerous to have nuclear weapons in the hands of a radical theocracy. At the same time, we must show Iran -- and especially the Iranian people -- what could be gained from fundamental change: economic engagement, security assurances, and diplomatic relations. Diplomacy combined with pressure could also reorient Syria away from its radical agenda to a more moderate stance -- which could, in turn, help stabilize Iraq, isolate Iran, free Lebanon from Damascus' grip, and better secure Israel.
REVITALIZING THE MILITARY
To renew American leadership in the world, we must immediately begin working to revitalize our military. A strong military is, more than anything, necessary to sustain peace. Unfortunately, the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps, according to our military leaders, are facing a crisis. The Pentagon cannot certify a single army unit within the United States as fully ready to respond in the event of a new crisis or emergency beyond Iraq; 88 percent of the National Guard is not ready to deploy overseas.
We must use this moment both to rebuild our military and to prepare it for the missions of the future. We must retain the capacity to swiftly defeat any conventional threat to our country and our vital interests. But we must also become better prepared to put boots on the ground in order to take on foes that fight asymmetrical and highly adaptive campaigns on a global scale.
We should expand our ground forces by adding 65,000 soldiers to the army and 27,000 marines. Bolstering these forces is about more than meeting quotas. We must recruit the very best and invest in their capacity to succeed. That means providing our servicemen and servicewomen with first-rate equipment, armor, incentives, and training -- including in foreign languages and other critical skills. Each major defense program should be reevaluated in light of current needs, gaps in the field, and likely future threat scenarios. Our military will have to rebuild some capabilities and transform others. At the same time, we need to commit sufficient funding to enable the National Guard to regain a state of readiness.
Enhancing our military will not be enough. As commander in chief, I would also use our armed forces wisely. When we send our men and women into harm's way, I will clearly define the mission, seek out the advice of our military commanders, objectively evaluate intelligence, and ensure that our troops have the resources and the support they need. I will not hesitate to use force, unilaterally if necessary, to protect the American people or our vital interests whenever we are attacked or imminently threatened.
We must also consider using military force in circumstances beyond self-defense in order to provide for the common security that underpins global stability -- to support friends, participate in stability and reconstruction operations, or confront mass atrocities. But when we do use force in situations other than self-defense, we should make every effort to garner the clear support and participation of others -- as President George H. W. Bush did when we led the effort to oust Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1991. The consequences of forgetting that lesson in the context of the current conflict in Iraq have been grave.
HALTING THE SPREAD OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS
To renew American leadership in the world, we must confront the most urgent threat to the security of America and the world -- the spread of nuclear weapons, material, and technology and the risk that a nuclear device will fall into the hands of terrorists. The explosion of one such device would bring catastrophe, dwarfing the devastation of 9/11 and shaking every corner of the globe.
As George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn have warned, our current measures are not sufficient to meet the nuclear threat. The nonproliferation regime is being challenged, and new civilian nuclear programs could spread the means to make nuclear weapons. Al Qaeda has made it a goal to bring a "Hiroshima" to the United States. Terrorists need not build a nuclear weapon from scratch; they need only steal or buy a weapon or the material to assemble one. There is now highly enriched uranium -- some of it poorly secured -- sitting in civilian nuclear facilities in over 40 countries around the world. In the former Soviet Union, there are approximately 15,000-16,000 nuclear weapons and stockpiles of uranium and plutonium capable of making another 40,000 weapons -- all scattered across 11 time zones. People have already been caught trying to smuggle nuclear material to sell on the black market.
As president, I will work with other nations to secure, destroy, and stop the spread of these weapons in order to dramatically reduce the nuclear dangers for our nation and the world. America must lead a global effort to secure all nuclear weapons and material at vulnerable sites within four years -- the most effective way to prevent terrorists from acquiring a bomb.
This will require the active cooperation of Russia. Although we must not shy away from pushing for more democracy and accountability in Russia, we must work with the country in areas of common interest -- above all, in making sure that nuclear weapons and material are secure. We must also work with Russia to update and scale back our dangerously outdated Cold War nuclear postures and de-emphasize the role of nuclear weapons. America must not rush to produce a new generation of nuclear warheads. And we should take advantage of recent technological advances to build bipartisan consensus behind ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. All of this can be done while maintaining a strong nuclear deterrent. These steps will ultimately strengthen, not weaken, our security.
As we lock down existing nuclear stockpiles, I will work to negotiate a verifiable global ban on the production of new nuclear weapons material. We must also stop the spread of nuclear weapons technology and ensure that countries cannot build -- or come to the brink of building -- a weapons program under the auspices of developing peaceful nuclear power. That is why my administration will immediately provide $50 million to jump-start the creation of an International Atomic Energy Agency-controlled nuclear fuel bank and work to update the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. We must also fully implement the law Senator Richard Lugar and I passed to help the United States and our allies detect and stop the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction throughout the world.
Finally, we must develop a strong international coalition to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and eliminate North Korea's nuclear weapons program. Iran and North Korea could trigger regional arms races, creating dangerous nuclear flashpoints in the Middle East and East Asia. In confronting these threats, I will not take the military option off the table. But our first measure must be sustained, direct, and aggressive diplomacy -- the kind that the Bush administration has been unable and unwilling to use.
COMBATING GLOBAL TERRORISM
To renew American leadership in the world, we must forge a more effective global response to the terrorism that came to our shores on an unprecedented scale on 9/11. From Bali to London, Baghdad to Algiers, Mumbai to Mombasa to Madrid, terrorists who reject modernity, oppose America, and distort Islam have killed and mutilated tens of thousands of people just this decade. Because this enemy operates globally, it must be confronted globally.
We must refocus our efforts on Afghanistan and Pakistan -- the central front in our war against al Qaeda -- so that we are confronting terrorists where their roots run deepest. Success in Afghanistan is still possible, but only if we act quickly, judiciously, and decisively. We should pursue an integrated strategy that reinforces our troops in Afghanistan and works to remove the limitations placed by some NATO allies on their forces. Our strategy must also include sustained diplomacy to isolate the Taliban and more effective development programs that target aid to areas where the Taliban are making inroads.
I will join with our allies in insisting -- not simply requesting -- that Pakistan crack down on the Taliban, pursue Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants, and end its relationship with all terrorist groups. At the same time, I will encourage dialogue between Pakistan and India to work toward resolving their dispute over Kashmir and between Afghanistan and Pakistan to resolve their historic differences and develop the Pashtun border region. If Pakistan can look toward the east with greater confidence, it will be less likely to believe that its interests are best advanced through cooperation with the Taliban.
Although vigorous action in South Asia and Central Asia should be a starting point, our efforts must be broader. There must be no safe haven for those who plot to kill Americans. To defeat al Qaeda, I will build a twenty-first-century military and twenty-first-century partnerships as strong as the anticommunist alliance that won the Cold War to stay on the offense everywhere from Djibouti to Kandahar.
Here at home, we must strengthen our homeland security and protect the critical infrastructure on which the entire world depends. We can start by spending homeland security dollars on the basis of risk. This means investing more resources to defend mass transit, closing the gaps in our aviation security by screening all cargo on passenger airliners and checking all passengers against a comprehensive watch list, and upgrading port security by ensuring that cargo is screened for radiation.
To succeed, our homeland security and counterterrorism actions must be linked to an intelligence community that deals effectively with the threats we face. Today, we rely largely on the same institutions and practices that were in place before 9/11. We need to revisit intelligence reform, going beyond rearranging boxes on an organizational chart. To keep pace with highly adaptable enemies, we need technologies and practices that enable us to efficiently collect and share information within and across our intelligence agencies. We must invest still more in human intelligence and deploy additional trained operatives and diplomats with specialized knowledge of local cultures and languages. And we should institutionalize the practice of developing competitive assessments of critical threats and strengthen our methodologies of analysis.
Finally, we need a comprehensive strategy to defeat global terrorists -- one that draws on the full range of American power, not just our military might. As a senior U.S. military commander put it, when people have dignity and opportunity, "the chance of extremism being welcomed greatly, if not completely, diminishes." It is for this reason that we need to invest with our allies in strengthening weak states and helping to rebuild failed ones.
In the Islamic world and beyond, combating the terrorists' prophets of fear will require more than lectures on democracy. We need to deepen our knowledge of the circumstances and beliefs that underpin extremism. A crucial debate is occurring within Islam. Some believe in a future of peace, tolerance, development, and democratization. Others embrace a rigid and violent intolerance of personal liberty and the world at large. To empower forces of moderation, America must make every effort to export opportunity -- access to education and health care, trade and investment -- and provide the kind of steady support for political reformers and civil society that enabled our victory in the Cold War. Our beliefs rest on hope; the extremists' rest on fear. That is why we can -- and will -- win this struggle.
REBUILDING OUR PARTNERSHIPS
To renew American leadership in the world, I intend to rebuild the alliances, partnerships, and institutions necessary to confront common threats and enhance common security. Needed reform of these alliances and institutions will not come by bullying other countries to ratify changes we hatch in isolation. It will come when we convince other governments and peoples that they, too, have a stake in effective partnerships.
Too often we have sent the opposite signal to our international partners. In the case of Europe, we dismissed European reservations about the wisdom and necessity of the Iraq war. In Asia, we belittled South Korean efforts to improve relations with the North. In Latin America, from Mexico to Argentina, we failed to adequately address concerns about immigration and equity and economic growth. In Africa, we have allowed genocide to persist for over four years in Darfur and have not done nearly enough to answer the African Union's call for more support to stop the killing. I will rebuild our ties to our allies in Europe and Asia and strengthen our partnerships throughout the Americas and Africa.
Our alliances require constant cooperation and revision if they are to remain effective and relevant. NATO has made tremendous strides over the last 15 years, transforming itself from a Cold War security structure into a partnership for peace. But today, NATO's challenge in Afghanistan has exposed, as Senator Lugar has put it, "the growing discrepancy between NATO's expanding missions and its lagging capabilities." To close this gap, I will rally our NATO allies to contribute more troops to collective security operations and to invest more in reconstruction and stabilization capabilities.
And as we strengthen NATO, we must build new alliances and partnerships in other vital regions. As China rises and Japan and South Korea assert themselves, I will work to forge a more effective framework in Asia that goes beyond bilateral agreements, occasional summits, and ad hoc arrangements, such as the six-party talks on North Korea. We need an inclusive infrastructure with the countries in East Asia that can promote stability and prosperity and help confront transnational threats, from terrorist cells in the Philippines to avian flu in Indonesia. I will also encourage China to play a responsible role as a growing power -- to help lead in addressing the common problems of the twenty-first century. We will compete with China in some areas and cooperate in others. Our essential challenge is to build a relationship that broadens cooperation while strengthening our ability to compete.
In addition, we need effective collaboration on pressing global issues among all the major powers -- including such newly emerging ones as Brazil, India, Nigeria, and South Africa. We need to give all of them a stake in upholding the international order. To that end, the United Nations requires far-reaching reform. The UN Secretariat's management practices remain weak. Peacekeeping operations are overextended. The new UN Human Rights Council has passed eight resolutions condemning Israel -- but not a single resolution condemning the genocide in Darfur or human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. Yet none of these problems will be solved unless America rededicates itself to the organization and its mission.
Strengthened institutions and invigorated alliances and partnerships are especially crucial if we are to defeat the epochal, man-made threat to the planet: climate change. Without dramatic changes, rising sea levels will flood coastal regions around the world, including much of the eastern seaboard. Warmer temperatures and declining rainfall will reduce crop yields, increasing conflict, famine, disease, and poverty. By 2050, famine could displace more than 250 million people worldwide. That means increased instability in some of the most volatile parts of the world.
As the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases, America has the responsibility to lead. While many of our industrial partners are working hard to reduce their emissions, we are increasing ours at a steady clip -- by more than ten percent per decade. As president, I intend to enact a cap-and-trade system that will dramatically reduce our carbon emissions. And I will work to finally free America of its dependence on foreign oil -- by using energy more efficiently in our cars, factories, and homes, relying more on renewable sources of electricity, and harnessing the potential of biofuels.
Getting our own house in order is only a first step. China will soon replace America as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Clean energy development must be a central focus in our relationships with major countries in Europe and Asia. I will invest in efficient and clean technologies at home while using our assistance policies and export promotions to help developing countries leapfrog the carbon-energy-intensive stage of development. We need a global response to climate change that includes binding and enforceable commitments to reducing emissions, especially for those that pollute the most: the United States, China, India, the European Union, and Russia. This challenge is massive, but rising to it will also bring new benefits to America. By 2050, global demand for low-carbon energy could create an annual market worth $500 billion. Meeting that demand would open new frontiers for American entrepreneurs and workers.
BUILDING JUST, SECURE, DEMOCRATIC SOCIETIES
Finally, to renew American leadership in the world, I will strengthen our common security by investing in our common humanity. Our global engagement cannot be defined by what we are against; it must be guided by a clear sense of what we stand for. We have a significant stake in ensuring that those who live in fear and want today can live with dignity and opportunity tomorrow.
People around the world have heard a great deal of late about freedom on the march. Tragically, many have come to associate this with war, torture, and forcibly imposed regime change. To build a better, freer world, we must first behave in ways that reflect the decency and aspirations of the American people. This means ending the practices of shipping away prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far-off countries, of detaining thousands without charge or trial, of maintaining a network of secret prisons to jail people beyond the reach of the law.
Citizens everywhere should be able to choose their leaders in climates free of fear. America must commit to strengthening the pillars of a just society. We can help build accountable institutions that deliver services and opportunity: strong legislatures, independent judiciaries, honest police forces, free presses, vibrant civil societies. In countries wracked by poverty and conflict, citizens long to enjoy freedom from want. And since extremely poor societies and weak states provide optimal breeding grounds for disease, terrorism, and conflict, the United States has a direct national security interest in dramatically reducing global poverty and joining with our allies in sharing more of our riches to help those most in need. We need to invest in building capable, democratic states that can establish healthy and educated communities, develop markets, and generate wealth. Such states would also have greater institutional capacities to fight terrorism, halt the spread of deadly weapons, and build health-care infrastructures to prevent, detect, and treat deadly diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and avian flu.
As president, I will double our annual investment in meeting these challenges to $50 billion by 2012 and ensure that those new resources are directed toward worthwhile goals. For the last 20 years, U.S. foreign assistance funding has done little more than keep pace with inflation. It is in our national security interest to do better. But if America is going to help others build more just and secure societies, our trade deals, debt relief, and foreign aid must not come as blank checks. I will couple our support with an insistent call for reform, to combat the corruption that rots societies and governments from within. I will do so not in the spirit of a patron but in the spirit of a partner -- a partner mindful of his own imperfections.
Our rapidly growing international AIDS programs have demonstrated that increased foreign assistance can make a real difference. As part of this new funding, I will capitalize a $2 billion Global Education Fund that will bring the world together in eliminating the global education deficit, much as the 9/11 Commission proposed. We cannot hope to shape a world where opportunity outweighs danger unless we ensure that every child everywhere is taught to build and not to destroy.
There are compelling moral reasons and compelling security reasons for renewed American leadership that recognizes the inherent equality and worth of all people. As President Kennedy said in his 1961 inaugural address, "To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required -- not because the communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich." I will show the world that America remains true to its founding values. We lead not only for ourselves but also for the common good.
RESTORING AMERICA'S TRUST
Confronted by Hitler, Roosevelt said that our power would be "directed toward ultimate good as well as against immediate evil. We Americans are not destroyers; we are builders." It is time for a president who can build consensus here at home for an equally ambitious course.
Ultimately, no foreign policy can succeed unless the American people understand it and feel they have a stake in its success -- unless they trust that their government hears their concerns as well. We will not be able to increase foreign aid if we fail to invest in security and opportunity for our own people. We cannot negotiate trade agreements to help spur development in poor countries so long as we provide no meaningful help to working Americans burdened by the dislocations of a global economy. We cannot reduce our dependence on foreign oil or defeat global warming unless Americans are willing to innovate and conserve. We cannot expect Americans to support placing our men and women in harm's way if we cannot show that we will use force wisely and judiciously. But if the next president can restore the American people's trust -- if they know that he or she is acting with their best interests at heart, with prudence and wisdom and some measure of humility -- then I believe the American people will be eager to see America lead again.
I believe they will also agree that it is time for a new generation to tell the next great American story. If we act with boldness and foresight, we will be able to tell our grandchildren that this was the time when we helped forge peace in the Middle East. This was the time we confronted climate change and secured the weapons that could destroy the human race. This was the time we defeated global terrorists and brought opportunity to forgotten corners of the world. And this was the time when we renewed the America that has led generations of weary travelers from all over the world to find opportunity and liberty and hope on our doorstep.
It was not all that long ago that farmers in Venezuela and Indonesia welcomed American doctors to their villages and hung pictures of JFK on their living room walls, when millions, like my father, waited every day for a letter in the mail that would grant them the privilege to come to America to study, work, live, or just be free.
We can be this America again. This is our moment to renew the trust and faith of our people -- and all people -- in an America that battles immediate evils, promotes an ultimate good, and leads the world once more.
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