Mogadishu Residents Told to Leave Somali Capital – BBC

Mogadishu’s mayor has told residents to leave the Somali capital’s war zones, amid fierce battles with insurgents. Mayor Abdurisaq Mohamed Nor said the long-anticipated government offensive may start soon, so residents should withdraw at least 2km (1.25 miles)

It is questionable whether the US-backed Transitional Federal Government’s planned offensive will be able to push al-Shabaab and allied insurgent groups out of Mogadishu. The more interesting question, however, is how and whether the government plans to consolidate its gains if the offensive actually succeeds. Historically, the TFG has had significant difficulty holding territory, ceding it back to al-Shabaab and other militant groups sometimes mere hours after clearing it. One of the TFG’s major failings has also been its inability to provide basic services to Somalis, even in areas that it claims to control.

It is somewhat unlikely, therefore, that the TFG will be able to use a nominally successful offensive to make any real difference in terms of either the government’s level of influence vis-à-vis al-Shabaab or its standing as a legitimate governing authority in the eyes of Somalis. The offensive is also almost guaranteed to generate humanitarian emergencies to compound those that already exist, a fact that will make any attempt at legitimate governance even more difficult than it was before. An offensive generating widespread displacement and collateral damage could easily accelerate the TFG’s alienation from the Somali population, weakening it further as it tries to assert its strength.

Brought to U.S., Man Is Charged With Aiding Somali Terrorists – New York Times

This past Monday, Nigerian authorities sent Mohamed Ibrahim Ahmed to the United States to face charges that he provided material support to al-Shabaab, the terrorist insurgent group fighting to overthrow the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Somalia. Ahmed is alleged to have received training from al-Shabaab and to have provided the group with approximately five thousand dollars.  The indictment also states that Ahmed was found in possession of bomb-making instructions in November 2009 and that he purchased a Kalashnikov rifle and two hand grenades.

Ahmed being tried in the US underscores the fact that Somalia and al-Shabaab have recently been looming large on the US counterterrorism radar. The US has demonstrated its intention to support the TFG in its effort take back Mogadishu, a significant step up from previous military and diplomatic support efforts, and has consistently escalated its criticism of and diplomatic action against Eritrea, who backs al-Shabaab in an effort to destabilize Ethiopia.

Trying alleged Shabaab supporters like Ahmed in US courts could be viewed as a symbolic supplement to a gradually coalescing counterterrorism strategy, a demonstration of America’s commitment to attack al-Shabaab and its support mechanisms on all fronts. It also highlights America’s willingness to work with its international partners, in this case Nigeria, to carry out that effort and pursue terrorists and their supporters through a variety of means wherever they operate.

That being said, however, the Ahmed case also showcases the limits inherent to any large-scale counterterrorism effort in which neither the US nor any viable local partner has a significant in-country presence or coercive capability. Ahmed’s arrest and prosecution are a reminder that training camps in Somalia’s south continue to operate relatively unimpeded, attracting both those seeking to carry out attacks against US-backed TFG and African Union forces in Somalia and foreign recruits who take their skills to conduct attacks abroad. In essence, Ahmed’s alleged activities are a symptom of a much larger problem that US and Somali authorities have shown little ability to solve.

To date, efforts to undermine al-Shabaab through public condemnation and diplomacy efforts, military proxy, targeted assassinations, and pressure on its state support networks have largely failed. To think that breaking al-Shabaab’s hold on southern Somalia can be achieved by prosecuting individuals allegedly supporting the group with four thousand dollars and a Kalashnikov, therefore, seems somewhat fanciful. Though targeting the individuals, terror cells, and funding networks that support al-Shabaab can be an important component of a broader counterterrorism strategy, those efforts must be coupled with a comprehensive policy that attacks the root of the problem more effectively in order to achieve results.

JihadJane, an American woman, faces terrorism charges – Washington Post

A petite, blond-haired, blue-eyed high school dropout who allegedly used the nickname JihadJane was identified Tuesday as an alleged terrorist intent on recruiting others to her cause.

The most obvious point here is that if profiling was ever an effective counterterrorism tool in the past, which is doubtful, it’s certainly safe to say that it is less of one now. “JihadJane” is not a confused and maladjusted youth, and she didn’t travel to Pakistan for radicalization or train in Somali terrorist camps. She isn’t a poorly integrated immigrant from the Arab world, a highly educated engineer frustrated with the lack of economic opportunity, in her thirties or below, or even male. This case highlights the fact that increased access to global communication networks essentially means that anyone, anywhere can be exposed to or even immersed in jihadist ideology and can gain access to jihadist communities around the world. Though it seems unlikely that counterterrorism officials will react by throwing out the profiling playbook altogether, this case clearly underlines profiling’s inherent limitations.

That being said, the law enforcement community and the American public should probably not take this case as an invitation to panic under the assumption that terrorists are hiding around every corner, posing as waitresses and soccer moms while planning global jihad. The Post article quotes J. Patrick Rowan, former chief of the Justice Department’s national security division,

If nothing else, it’s another reminder to the FBI of the obligation to run down every lead and every threat, because they can’t be too far-fetched.

In the long run taking this approach could be as counterproductive as relying on profiling measures or remaining generally complacent. Running down “every lead and every threat” is not only impossible, it also threatens to create other vulnerabilities by using up valuable resources and manpower chasing phantoms and rumors. The thought that homegrown terrorists can blend into mainstream society and plan attacks right under our noses is certainly a frightening one, and the FBI and other counterterrorism authorities should be commended for their work on this case and others like it. However, it is also important that we do not let occurrences such as this makes us more open to overreaction bred on paranoia and fear. Such overreaction would ultimately, over time, make us less secure.

While experts do not believe Iran has the intellectual capacity to manufacture the fuel rods required for its research reactor in Tehran as it claims is its aim, it is capable of making enough enriched uranium for a weapon “within six months or less,” states a March 3^rd report from the Institute for Science and International Security.  According to ISIS,

In a breakout scenario using low enriched uranium, Natanz could currently produce enough weapon-grade uranium for a weapon in six months or less.

How is this alarming rate possible?  Uranium enrichment is a nonlinear process, meaning the input required is not equivalent to the output.   Enriching higher grade uranium requires fewer centrifuges, of which Natanz alone houses 8,000.  Its capacity is as high as 54,000.

So far, Iran has enriched enough uranium 235 for two atomic bombs from its natural state of .7 percent to 4 percent.  This Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) is certainly shy of the 90 percent required for weapon-grade levels, but the process to get from .7 percent to 4 percent is more cumbersome than, for example, enriching it from 4 percent to 20.  Reports the New York Times,

A practical illustration of nonlinearity is that Iran — or any other nuclear hopeful — needs increasingly few centrifuges to make uranium 235 increasingly potent. For instance, one industry blueprint features 3,936 centrifuges for enriching up to 4 percent, 1,312 centrifuges to 20 percent, 546 centrifuges to 60 percent and just 128 centrifuges to 90 percent — the level needed for a bomb.

Iran has most recently received international attention for its decision to enrich its 4 percent stockpile to 20 percent.  Admittedly, an Obama administration official states, Iran ‘“is heading more and more in the direction of seeking a weapons capability.”’

But perhaps this decision to enrich its stockpile internally is a political maneuver, an effort to escalate tension between Iran and the West.  After all, experts point out, Iran is moving at a slow pace to create the fuel its reactor in Tehran depends on for power.  Despite the fact that the reactor’s fuel supply is likely to run out within months, at the current pace, it will be five to seven years before the adequate level is available.  Statements from the Iranian representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also signal political posturing,

‘We have opened a window of opportunity for the others to prove their political will to come and to have a deal on the nuclear fuel.’

Regardless, ISIS writes:

If Iran succeeds in producing a large stock of 19.75 percent LEU, in a worst-case scenario, the [Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant] is large enough to turn this LEU into sufficient weapon-grade uranium for a weapon within a month.

Bali Bomber Mastermind Dulmatin ‘Killed in Shoot-out’ – Timesonline

Dulmatin, a senior figure in the Southeast Asian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah, was killed during a police counterterrorism raid in Pamulang today. Dulmatin, who participated in the Bali bombing in 2002, was a highly sought-after terror suspect and the third fugitive that Indonesian police have killed since 2005. Dulmatin was an explosives expert believed to have helped assemble and detonate the bombs used in the 2002 Bali attacks. He was the last of the Bali bombers to have evaded capture.

Experts Urge Keeping Two Options for Terror Trials – New York Times

An article in yesterday’s New York Times noted that though several congressional Republicans have publicly equated a tough anti-terrorism stance with a commitment to try all foreign terrorism suspects before military tribunals, some high-ranking former Bush Administration counterterrorism officials believe that the option to try suspects in civilian courts should always be available. The article quotes a top legal adviser to the NSC under Bush as saying,

This rush to military commissions is based on premises that are not true. I think it is neither appropriate nor necessary to limit terrorism cases to either military commissions alone or federal trials alone.

These former officials note that civilian criminal trials preserve a number of options that are not available in the military court system, including the ability to threaten charges against a defendant’s friends or family members to coerce cooperation and the ability to charge defendants with crimes unrelated to terrorism. Najibullah Zazi’s cooperation and guilty plea, delivered after prosecutors threatened family members with obstruction charges, is cited as a case in point. Using the civilian prosecution process facilitates cooperation with America’s foreign partners, many of whom are more willing to extradite terror suspects to be tried in civilian courts than to turn them over for indefinite detention and military trials.

An important issue that these former Bush officials are raising, to their credit, is that the measure of whether one prosecution method or another should be used or excluded in trying foreign terror suspects should not be exclusively political or rhetorical, but also practical. In the effort to paint Miranda rights and civilian trials as an earned luxury that foreign terror suspects should not be afforded, many have lost sight of the fact that civilian prosecution is also a versatile counterterrorism tool that has proven effective in dozens of cases.

To suggest that there are cases where civilian trials are never appropriate, as Sens. John McCain and Joseph I. Lieberman have done in their recent proposal banning civilian trials for “high-value” terror suspects, suggests that, by law, all of the useful and practical tools available to prosecutors in civilian courts should be swept off the table. It also implicitly suggests that military tribunals are more successful than civilian trials in terms of putting dangerous terrorists behind bars and keeping them there, an implication that past experience does not in any way support.

The important point to be underscored here is that a successful counterterrorism strategy should be based not political or ideological motivations that limit our ability to use effective and legitimate tools at our disposal, but on level-headed evaluation of how to use all of our capabilities in concert to make America safer. Using a balanced, adaptive, and multidisciplinary approach to prosecuting terror suspects makes America and its ability to counter terrorism stronger, not weaker. To suggest otherwise, as these former Bush Administration officials have rightly pointed out, risks lessening our capabilities and limiting our options to our own detriment.

McChrystal eyes securing Kandahar – CNN.com

The top U.S. general in Afghanistan vowed that coalition forces “are absolutely going to secure Kandahar,” as security efforts expand in the country’s south.
….
The push to secure Kandahar from what McChrystal calls a “menacing Taliban presence” is part of a larger counterinsurgency effort in the country’s south, started last month in Marjah in southern Helmand province.

Long a bastion of pro-Taliban sentiment and awash with the opium used to fund the insurgency, the Marjah region has been known as the heroin breadbasket of Afghanistan and as a place where the Taliban had set up a shadow government.

I seem to have underestimated Gen. McChrystal. I thought he really had bought into the whole population-centric COIN model. But what he is doing right now is actually pursuing what seems to be a much more strategically sound concept. Instead of clear-hold-build for key population centers, he seems to be adopting a strategy that is focused on denying victory to the insurgents by sequentially displacing them from their strongholds. He is, in short, undermining THEIR clear-hold-build strategy.

Now, if that is all he is doing, it is obviously doomed to failure since all this does is set up a whack-a-mole dynamic, but if coupled with a robust negotiation effort — one that reaches up to relatively senior levels — you create the possibility for significant defections from the insurgency. And while I would be happy to defer to others with more ground knowledge, my impression of Afghan society is that endemic warfare at least over the past 30 years has made this sort of defection a common and acceptable behavior.

Though he probably won’t say it out of fear of offending to power pop-centric COIN lobby in the United States, it looks to me increasingly as if McChrystal has adopted a clear enemy-centric COIN model. And if that is the case, the force ratios — flawed as they are in any case — become largely irrelevant.

Opinion: It’s Still George Bush’s World – AOL News

Even more than a year after his inauguration, President Barack Obama’s foreign policy agenda is still largely devoted to fixing the messes he inherited from Bush. And that’s likely to continue to be the case for quite some time to come, unless Obama makes a more fundamental break with the failed policies of his predecessor.

I think Michael Cohen is being overly generous to Obama in this column.  The reality is that Obama is not “largely devoted to fixing the messes he inherited from Bush.”  Obama did indeed promise that is what he would do once in office, but the reality is that Obama is not so much fixing the messes as he is institutionalizing them.

I’ve hammered on this point many times in the past, most notable here: Bernard I. Finel: The Victory of the Neoconservatives, where I concluded:  

Obama’s apparent diagnosis of Bush’s foreign policy is not that it was wrongheaded — imperialistic and unachievable — but rather that it was implemented incompetently. Now with better public diplomacy and a retooled military, the policy of remaking the world in our own image — at the point of a gun if necessary — can proceed apace.

Largely for political reasons, this continuity tends to get ignored.  Good liberals like Cohen, eager to identify the best in Obama, tend to see Obama as trapped by the legacy of past mistakes.  That in short, Obama really wants to get away from a Bush-style foreign policy, but just can’t due to GOP obstructionism on things like Guantanamo and contingent challenges like the worsening situation in Afghanistan in early 2009.  Conservatives, by contrast, are mostly looking to score points by making Obama seem sort on terrorism and naive. 

But the reality is that there is probably more continuity between the Bush foreign policy and Obama’s foreign policy than we have seen since Nixon transitioned to Ford.  If you really walk through systematically all the presidential transitions since 1952, the level of continuity between Bush and Obama is quite exceptional.  The only other really close case might be Reagan to Bush (41), but heck Bush was Reagan’s VP.  Consider by contrast past party switches — Truman to Eisenhower, Eisenhower to Kennedy, Johnson to Nixon, Ford to Carter, Carter to Reagan, Bush (41) to Clinton, Clinton to Bush (43)  — I think one can make a quite compelling case that the continuity between Bush and Obama has been stronger than in any of those past cases.

Sure, there are some differences.  The Russia policy “reset” may yet turn out to be significant.  But where are the other differences?  We need to consider some of the key areas of foreign policy:

Afghanistan — a major escalation, but one using Bush’s favored generals and a doctrine of military occupation and societal transformation.  Indeed, Obama didn’t even wait for his reviews on Afghanistan to be complete before he loaded the dice by firing Gen. McKiernan and appointing Petraeus protege Gen. McChrystal in his place to bring an Iraq-style surge to Afghanistan.

Defense policy — Obama retained Bush’s Secretary of Defense (!), and has allowed strategic planning in the Department, including the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review to be built on Bush’s 2008 National Defense Strategy.  No surprise that in broad outlines the department is continuing in the direction set in the late Bush Administration.

War on terror — A change in terminology, true.  But in terms of policy, we’ve seen almost complete continuity.  Obama has escalated airstrikes in Pakistan, but even that was just building on a trend from the end of the Bush Administration.

Civil-Military relations — Obama has continued the Bush direction of turning much of the national security establishment over to retired military officers.  Retired Admiral Dennis Blair is Director of National Intelligence.  Gen. James Jones is National Security Advisor.  Retired General Karl Eikenberry is U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan.  He’s allowed Gen. Stanley McChrystal to intervene in the policy process at numerous points — from the creation of a lobbying effort in the United States (his “strategic assessment” team) to open criticism of the Vice President.

Rule of law — Obama has essentially ruled out holding anyone accountable for numerous violations of U.S. law under the Bush Administration.  And Obama continues to claim the power to detain individuals indefinitely without charge and to order targeted killings with no transparency or recourse.

On several of these issues, Obama could have affirmatively chosen to break with his predecessor without needing any additional funding or authorities from Congress.  Obama isn’t trapped by Bush’s policies, he has chosen instead to endorse a surprisingly large number of them.  Now it is possible that Bush’s policies are indeed wiser than many of us thought or realized at the time, but let’s not let Obama off the hook.  Whether we like it or not, a bloated defense budget, an imperial world view, and the accretion of executive power are not just legacies of President George W. Bush, but rather are the essence of Obama’s foreign policy orientation.

Recent studies led by University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists show that the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is not as impermeable as once believed.  It is instead leaking the large amounts of methane gas (30 times more potent than carbon dioxide) it stores.

This is particularly concerning because, unlike many other deposits, it exists in shallow waters.  When methane is released at deeper levels of the ocean it has time to oxidize and convert to carbon dioxide before reaching the surface.  Methane from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf has no time for this process.  As a result, research shows that the Shelf is emitting 7 teragrams of methane in to the atmosphere (about 1.1 million tons) annually.  This number is equal to the amount of methane released from the rest of the ocean.  And while the levels of methane are typically 8 to 10 percent higher in the Arctic compared to the rest of the world, data shows the levels in the air above the Shelf to be another 5 to 10 percent higher than that.

It is difficult to project the effects of this release, the scientists admit, but the warming globe only hastens the process.  Throughout history there have been times when the Shelf existed above sea level, frozen and impermeable.  But as sea levels rise and the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is submerged, the 12 to 15 degree increase in temperature accelerates its melting.

If all goes according to plan, the 2010 Iraqi Parliamentary elections will take place on March 7^th. Elections were previously scheduled to be held in January, but Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi forced a delay by vetoing the election law in November 2009. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s State of Law party is expected to win a plurality of the 325 seats currently up for grabs, but the lead-up to the election has been mired in controversy and growing sectarian tension.

This tension very nearly boiled over into an electoral crisis with the disqualification of over 500 candidates accused of having a connection to Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party. This decision would appear to be an attempt to extend the efforts toward de-Baathification of the Iraqi government, but without any constitutional justification. Instead, the removal of these candidates has served to fuel the argument that Shiite Iraqis are attempting to block Sunnis from participating in the legislative process. Among those candidates barred from participating is Saleh al-Mutlaq, who was in the number two slot on the ballot for the secular Sunni-Shia coalition partym, Iraqiya. Al-Mutlaq and former Sunni Prime Minister Ayad Al-Allawi are allied in the party, and Al-Allawi has warned that this decision would mobilize those seeking to exploit sectarian tensions.

Further threatening the vote is the increase in violence that has been observed in the days leading up to the election and even during early voting sessions for security forces. Iraqi soldiers and police officers were granted a brief reprieve in order to cast their ballots so that they can be out in full force on Sunday to fend off threats vowed by sectarian groups seeking to derail the process. Baquba, a city north of Baghdad that continues to serve as a setting for clashes between Sunni insurgents and US forces, was host to multiple suicide attacks on March 3^rd and 4^th with a total of over 70 casualties. Despite the pervasive threats against voting stations and voters, Iraqi policemen have vowed to see the election through, saying “Even if they hit a polling station somewhere we will have it open within 30 minutes and people will continue to vote.”

It is important to remember that politics in Iraq do not exist in isolation from the Iranian regime, particularly due to the belief by Iraqi Sunnis that they are being marginalized by the Shiites. According to Gen. Ray Odierno, two of the individuals responsible for blocking Parliamentary candidates are closely linked to Iran. One of these men, Ahmed Chalabi, previously served as a key source for the Bush Administration in the months preceding the 2003 invasion but is considered to have supplied false information. Sunnis in Iraq fear the possibility of a Shia-led Parliament being unduly influenced by the overwhelmingly Shiite Islamic Republic of Iran.

There are of course concerns about voter fraud and polling irregularities that are often overshadowed by security fears. It is no small accomplishment for Iraqis to be participating in the electoral process, despite its imperfections. US Ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill succinctly summed up the 2010 elections, saying “The real test of democracy is not so much the behavior of the winners; it will be the behavior of the losers.”