Counter-Terrorism ----- Algeria, The Other Threat Grows

The January raid on a natural gas facility in southern Algeria (near the Tunisian border) that got 70 people killed (including all the Islamic terrorist attackers) has resulted in much tighter security around the facility and all others. The foreign firms are satisfied with the new security arrangements and are allowing their citizens to return to work at the plant. Without the foreigners, full production has not been resumed and a lot of other technical work had to be postponed.

 

Oil and natural gas account for 95 percent of exports and the foreign currency needed to buy imports. Most food is imported and over the last three decades the economy has stagnated because of corruption and continued belief in centralized control. If the current leadership (who have been in power since France left in the 1960s) wants to prevent another rebellion they have to fix the economy. But as long as the leaders refuse to allow foreign investment and local entrepreneurs to operate freely economic revival is not happening. Official unemployment is 10 percent but that includes a lot of marginal jobs provided by the government. For men under 30, the government admits there is a much higher unemployment rate (over 20 percent), and these are the people who would start and sustain another revolution. Few of these young men are attracted to Islamic terrorism any more, but most want some economic and social changes and so far all the government offers are admissions that there is a problem but no real solutions. Meanwhile, oil income is shrinking because current oil and gas fields are running dry and government investment restrictions and inept management hamper efforts to find new fields. The population increases and those who do not flee the country become angrier and more impatient.

  

The government believes that 4 diplomats taken captive by Islamic terrorists in Mali in April 2012 are still alive. But there is no direct contact with the captors and trying to free the 4 is difficult. The government does not want to pay ransom, so as not to encourage more such attacks.

  

October 11, 2013: Across the border in Tunisia, soldiers raided a house near the Kasserine Pass where a terrorist leader and some followers were reported (by a local informant) to be. After an hour long gun battle the Islamic terrorists escaped, leaving behind a phone and some ammo. Tunisian border police and soldiers have spent over 4 months hunting for up to 50 Islamic terrorists who are operating near the Kasserine Pass and Mount Chaambi in the Atlas Mountains just across the border.

 

Tunisian security personnel are searching a hundred square kilometers of sparsely populated forests and mountains without much success. This is the first time Tunisia has had to deal with armed Islamic terrorists since 2007. These armed men have been active in the area since January. Some of these terrorists fled Mali earlier this year and others are from Algeria.

 

October 10, 2013: Algerian security forces on the southern borders with Mali and Libya killed 8 Islamic terrorists and captured weapons, documents, and vehicles. Unlike the operations in the Atlas Mountains up north, the border patrols have been more successful at killing and capturing Islamic terrorists.

  

Parliament is introducing stricter laws against terrorism and smuggling. The smugglers often work for Islamic terrorists, getting weapons and personnel in and out of the country. The new laws will make it easier to go after the smugglers. 

  

October 3, 2013: West of the capital a roadside bomb went off, wounding 3 civilians. In the southern oasis town of Ghardaia, violence between Arab and Berber residents over water and religion led to 4 arrests and 6 policemen wounded while breaking up riots.

  

October 2, 2013: Tunisian police arrested 4 Islamic terrorists near the Algerian border. In the last 3 days police have arrested 31 actual (armed) or suspected Islamic terrorists in Tunisia. While several dozen armed Islamic terrorists are operating in the Atlas Mountains near the Algerian border, there are hundreds more throughout the country trying to organize an uprising that would establish a religious dictatorship. Most Tunisians want nothing to do with this.

 

October 1, 2013: Last month army personnel cleared over 4,800 mines along the eastern and western borders. Many of these mines date back to the 1960s.

Counter-Terrorism ----- The Wakeup Call In Algeria

The 32 AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) terrorists who attacked an Algerian natural gas facility (at Amenas) on January 16^th initially succeeded because of inadequate security measures by the Algerian government. That’s the conclusion of a study of the incident by one of the two foreign companies (Statoil) that operates the facility. The Algerian government is saying little about the raid, much less the inability of the government to detect the raiders or prevent the attack.

 

The initial government investigation into the terrorist attack on Amenas did admit the operation was made possible by poor security procedures at the natural gas facility. The government later said those deficiencies were being fixed and more armed guards and better physical defenses and local intelligence collecting procedures were being implemented. No details of these new measures have been revealed, but that’s to be expected, because you don’t want potential attackers to know exactly what to expect. There is some more visible security at the facility, but what made the January attack possible was the failure of  Algerian intelligence and “outer security” (surveillance, patrols, and checkpoints around the remote facility). Other Middle Eastern nations have taken more effective security measures and the effectiveness of those efforts has been tested. Saudi Arabia has detected several major attacks, while the terrorists were still planning and organizing. In one major attack that was not detected, attackers headed for the largest Saudi refinery were stopped at the gates. At Amenas the attackers not only got to the gates but quickly shot their way through.

  

In Algeria the poor security was the result of decades of local Islamic terrorists not attacking Algerian oil and gas facilities because so many Algerians depended on the oil and gas revenue to survive.

 

Thus, a terrorist attack on these facilities would be very unpopular and hurt the terrorists, and local terrorists observed this unwritten rule. But the January attack involved only one Algerian. Most of the attackers did not care what the Algerian people thought.

 

The Amenas attack involved thirty-two men, one of whom used to work at the facility. Thus the terrorists knew the internal layout and routines. Some eight-hundred people worked (and most lived) at the facility. The terrorists concentrated on capturing one-hundred and thirty-two foreign workers (thirty-nine of whom died, plus one security guard) but most workers escaped. The terrorists failed (largely through incompetence) in blowing up the facility and twenty-nine of them were killed when the Algerian military moved in on the 17^th. Fighting was over by the 21^st, but most of the violence occurred on the 18^th and 19^th. Three of the terrorists were captured, making it possible to obtain details of how the attack was planned and carried out.

  

Several foreign countries offered to help Algeria improve its oil and gas facility security but it’s unclear how much of that assistance was accepted. Production was resumed on February 22^nd but has not returned to normal. That is expected to happen before the end of the year because the foreign companies that supply technical personnel and special services for the facility have agreed that the new security measures are adequate and have allowed their personnel (all non-Algerian) to return.

Iranian universities constructing eight submarines

Isfahan University of Technology in cooperation with three other universities has designed eight military and civil submarines.

The construction operations of the submarines are underway, Mehr news agency reported. They have a variety of uses, including tourism, exploration, defense, and laying cables.

Iran's Deputy Defense Minister Mohammad Eslami announced earlier this month that the country plans to unveil the first indigenous submarine within the next few months.

Iran - The Local Bully And The False Front

Another round of nuclear disarmament talks have failed and Iran is accused of using the talks to delay more severe action to halt Iranian nuclear weapons development efforts. Iran was offered free nuclear fuel and the lifting of sanctions in return for shutting down the nuclear weapons program. Iran refused and insisted it wants to keep its nuclear fuel processing facilities and admitted that it was expanding these operations. With this facility Iran can make both nuclear power plant fuel and the more highly enriched uranium needed for nuclear weapons (which, officially, Iran denies working on.) In response the commander of American military forces (CENTCOM) in the region went on record that this latest negotiation failure makes American military action more likely and that the U.S. has detailed plans for that. 

Recent opinion polls in the Middle East show that Moslems no longer admire Iran. The poll showed that in most Moslem nations over 70 percent of the population now has a hostile attitude towards Iran. Until a few years ago it was quite the opposite. But Iran’s cynical support for the Syrian dictatorship (while supporting all the other Arab Spring rebels) and continuing efforts to develop nuclear weapons (which most Moslems agree would be used to threaten other Moslems) has cost Iran dearly in the opinion polls. Since the 1979 revolution in Iran and the takeover of the government by Islamic conservatives in the 1980s, most Moslems accepted Iranian claims that it was fighting the foreign (non-Moslem) influences responsible for all the bad things (poor education, low economic growth, despotic government and falling behind the rest of the world in technical and cultural development) happening in the Moslem world. By now most Moslems realize (and some even admit to outsiders) that the causes of all these problems is internal. Iran is now seen for what is has been for thousands of years; the local bully. 

The bully is also fond of telling tall tales. Iran says it is mass producing copies of the American ScanEagle UAV. This is a low-tech, commercially available UAV that contains no classified components. Iran released photos of their production facility, but did not present any of the completed UAVs. Iran could have built a ScanEagle clone without copying from one they had obtained (either from a crash or the black market). The ScanEagle assembly line picture could have simply been Photoshopped, a technique Iran has been caught using numerous times. Another recent Photoshop based scam was a government claim that it had developed a stealth fighter. Photos of the prototype (on the ground and in the air) were quickly ripped apart by aeronautical engineers. Most of this pathetic (to Western eyes) nonsense is for internal consumption, especially by the many Iranians who do not have Internet access.  

The government continues to arrest journalists considered too outspoken on reform of the current government. The religious dictatorship has become less tolerant of criticism in the last year, as the new sanctions cause more unhappy Iranians. The government doesn’t want anyone reporting on this baleful development. The economic woes are less of a problem for the ruling clerics and their families. Loyal businessmen are also being isolated from the economic difficulties. But everyone else (about 80 percent of the population) is feeling the pain. 

The government won’t admit that the country has gone into recession since the new sanctions (because of the nuclear weapons program) that have cut oil income in half and made important much more expensive. The cost of living has gone up, often way up, for most Iranians and the government is trying to play down this unpopular trend. Officially inflation was 27 percent and unemployment 16 percent last year. Both numbers are considered lowball fictions the government is using to delay popular unrest. 

March 3, 2013: The government admitted that it was installing 3,000 more productive centrifuges for enriching uranium. This change has been rumored for months. 

February 28, 2013: The government expelled 32 Pakistanis living and working illegally in the southeast (where many Sunni Baluchi tribesmen live and have many kin across the border in Pakistan.) Illegal residents of Iran are being identified, rounded up and deported in response to the recession brought on by the new sanctions that began last year. 

February 24, 2013:  The government announced the discovery of new uranium ore deposits, which will be exploited with a newly built mine. 

February 23, 2013: President Ahmadinejad said that starting in the new year (which in Iran begins on March 21st) the government will sharply cut expenses and increase taxes to deal with the sharp (over 50 percent) drop in oil revenue). 

February 21, 2013: Spanish police arrested three Iranians and accused them of spying for the Iranian government. One of those arrested worked for the Iranian embassy and all three were accused to joining a local group that aided Iranian emigrants who had settled in Spain. The three reported which of these Iranian exiles was active in opposing the current government of Iran. With this knowledge the Iranians could pressure any kin the exiles had in Iran to get the Iranian in Spain to halt the anti-Iranian government activity. A few days earlier Nigeria arrested three Nigerian Islamic terrorists and accused them of planning attacks on the American and Israeli embassies at the behest of Iran. 

February 18, 2013: Iran apparently made a third attempt to launch a working satellite into orbit, and failed again. This time the rocket malfunctioned and did not get very far. The government has not made an official announcement on this.

Iran - Return To Empire

Many Iranians consider Iraq and Afghanistan as part of “greater Iran” because both those areas were once part of an Iranian empire (along with most of Pakistan and a large chunk of Central Asia). Since the violently anti-Shia (and anti-Iran) governments were removed from Afghanistan (in 2001) and Iraq (in 2003) Iran has expanded its influence there at the government and ground level. Diplomatic relations were improved and much charity work was undertaken. But the charity came with strings; recipients were restricted to those who were pro-Iran, or willing to be. This made it much easier to recruit spies and terrorists, or just mobilize a large pro-Iran (or anti-American) demonstration. Iran has always preferred the long game and knows that if it keeps at it, eventually Iraq and Afghanistan will become, if not part of Iran, than very cooperative with Iran.

The sanctions are hurting in politically uncomfortable ways. The sharp drop in oil exports has seen the cost of imports more than double (because of the loss of oil income and plunging value of the Iranian rial). Oil accounts for 80 percent of exports (the source of foreign currency to buy foreign goods) and half the government budget. In order to keep unrest down, the government allowed imports to climb from $39.1 billion to over $60 billion in the last seven years. Now that is being reversed, and Iranians are encouraged to be more self-sufficient. This is not popular. Not only are popular imports (consumer goods and foods not produced in Iran) more expensive, or unavailable, but many essential raw materials or components needed for local manufacturing are missing as well, causing factories to shut and increasing (to nearly 30 percent) unemployment. Inflation is 25 percent and increasing. Even using smugglers doesn’t help, because there is a lot less money available to pay the foreign suppliers (who won’t take Iranian currency).

One foreign country where Iranian cash is still popular is Syria, where thousands of Iranian military and intelligence personnel try to keep the Assad dictatorship in power. Rebels report (and pass on cell phone pictures) of cash seized from captured soldiers or pro-government militiamen. Some Iranians have been captured as well, but Iran is apparently pouring a lot more money into Syria and, because of the sanctions, it can no longer afford to send dollars and other foreign currencies. Few of the Iranians are involved in direct combat, and many are serving as bodyguards for senior government officials (Syrians can no longer be trusted for this sort of work.)

The loss of Iranian oil is not being felt in the global oil market. Libya, Iraq and Saudi Arabia are pumping more oil and the rapidly growing American and Canadian production of oil and gas from shale formations is sharply reducing demand in North America. In the past, Iran thought oil export sanctions would not work because of growing demand and tight supplies. That situation no longer applies and the growing use of shale based oil and gas world-wide will keep supply ahead of demand for some time to come. Iran is trying several schemes to circumvent the oil export sanctions, but it finding that the sanctions quickly catch up.

The EU (European Union) has imposed additional sanctions on trade with Iran. The restrictions make it more difficult for banks and suppliers (of just about everything) to deal with Iran. The huge increase in sanctions this year have overwhelmed Iran’s extensive smuggling network. More of the smugglers are being caught or driven out of the business because of increased scrutiny (by financial regulators and customs inspectors).

President Ahmadinejad is now feuding with the judiciary (which is directly controlled by the senior clerics who have veto power over anything the elected government does), which will not all him to visit a prison where one of his senior aides is being held.

Iran continues to deny it had anything to do with Cyber War type attacks on Western banks and Saudi Arabian oil operations. The attacks have been low grade stuff and the release of a vicious virus (that deleted hard drive data on over 30,000 Saudi PCs) in August are believed to be the work of a small group of amateur hackers (who support Islamic terrorism and Iran). Iran is developing a Cyber War ability, but mainly to defend itself. Meanwhile, Iran, Syria and Lebanon are still suffering from stealthy software that monitors what happens on infected PCs. This “Flame” software is believed to have been created by the United States and Israel.

The government has denied that it has agreed to secret talks with the United States over the sanctions and Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

October 24, 2012: The army and air force announced plans for a large-scale exercise on the Iraqi border.

October 23, 2012: Sudan reported that one of their ammunition factories blew up and blamed an Israeli air raid. Many Sudanese believe the bombed factory actually belongs to Iran and was part of an Iranian weapons smuggling effort that supplies Islamic terrorists throughout the Middle East. Israeli officials refused to comment. Israel did carry out a similar raid 18 months ago. Israel repeated its criticism of Iranian weapons smuggling via Sudan, which Iran denies.

October 22, 2012: Two European satellite TV and radio providers invoked sanctions on Iran and halted delivery of Iranian programming outside Iran. Syria and Iran then began quietly jamming BBC, France 24, Deutsche Welle and the Voice of America broadcasts, via radio and satellite, to Iran and Syria (who denied they were jamming). There is ample evidence that the jamming is coming from Syria and Iran.

October 19, 2012: A bomb went off in a Christian neighborhood in the Lebanese capital, killing a senior security official (and seven others) who was openly anti-Syria (and anti-Assad and anti-Iran). This angered many Lebanese who are still bitter about decades of Syrian interference in Lebanese affairs. Hezbollah has long used non-Shia allies, as well as Syrian agents, to carry out attacks on political rivals. This attack led to more gunfire between pro and anti-Syria factions in Lebanon. Iran is believed to have approved the attack, as they do any major Hezbollah operation. Iran media blamed Israel and the U.S. for the attack, which is a normal reaction in Iran (which blames Israel and the United States for the rebellion in Syria). Most Iranians consider it their right (and responsibility), as the regional superpower to interfere in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and anywhere else in the area. What Iranians do not like is their government spending a lot of money on these operations. The billions spent to prop up Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Assad dictatorship in Syria is not popular at all.

A suicide bomber set off his explosives at the entrance to a mosque near the Pakistani border, killing himself and two guards.

October 18, 2012: The United States announced rewards for the capture of two senior al Qaeda officials believed hiding out in Iran. Al Qaeda financier Muhsin al Fadhli now has a $7 million price on his head and $5 million for his deputy Adel Radi Saqr al Wahabi al Harbi.

October 17, 2012: Turkey is prosecuting two Iranians for espionage.

October 16, 2012: The government claims that Iranian UAVs, flying out of Lebanon, have made dozens of recon sorties over Israel. An Iranian UAV was shot down over Israel on the 9^th and Israel doubts that any other Iranian UAVs have been able to sneak in undetected.

The Mad Mullah Republic of Iran develops plans for deliberate Gulf oil spill

Iran's 'elite' Revolutionary Guards have developed plans to damage an oil tanker in the Gulf to create an environmental disaster, German magazine Spiegel reported on Sunday.

Citing Western intelligence sources, the weekly said the top-secret plan, codenamed "Dirty Water", is aimed at blocking the oil-rich Gulf to shipping and forcing Western countries to become involved in a huge clean-up operation.

Spiegel said the Revolutionary Guards believe this in turn would prompt Western nations to suspend sanctions imposed over Iran's nuclear programme which have started to hit the economy hard this year.

The plan, developed by the head of the Guards, General Mohammad Ali Jafari, and Admiral Ali Fadavi, head of the force's navy division, would also "punish" Arab states around the Gulf for their support of the West and Israel, the report said.

A clean-up operation could only take place with Iranian technical help, requiring a temporary lifting of sanctions, the plan says, according to Spiegel.

Jafari and Fadavi have passed the plan to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who would have the final say on whether to implement it, Spiegel said.

Iraq to stop Iran flights over suspicions of Syria arms

Visiting Iraq's Minister Foreign Hoshyar Zebari takes a seat during a meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, on June 15, 2012.

Iraq is determined to stop and search flights from Iran over its territory which are suspected of carrying weapons to Syria, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said in comments reported on Sunday.

"We have assured US officials that the Iraqi government is determined to land (Iranian) flights and carry out random searches," Zebari said, quoted by Arabic daily Al-Hayat.

The Iraqi minister added that his government had told Tehran "to stop the flights and stop arming or financing the (Syrian regime) or any other party to the conflict." Zebari said Iraq would not "not accept being a transit point or passage way for... arming or financing" the Syrian conflict.

Last week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pushed Baghdad to deliver on pledges to stop such flights during a meeting with Iraqi Vice President Kudayr al-Khuzaie.

Clinton reported "some encouraging first steps," citing an incident in which Iraqi authorities stopped a North Korean flight from crossing its air space while on its way to Syria over suspicions it was carrying arms and advisers.

Zebari said the flights first started in March and were stopped after the Iraqis called on the Iranians to do so. By late July, however, the flights resumed.

"They (the Iranians) said they were not carrying weapons or ammunition but pilgrims, visitors and other things," said Zebari, adding that "just to be sure, we will land these planes." Washington has been calling on Baghdad to ensure that all Iranian planes flying over its air space are ordered to land and checked for weapons.

Tehran has told Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki the planes are carrying humanitarian aid to Syria, where the opposition has been fighting since last year to oust President Bashar al-Assad.

But many in the US government suspect the planes are ferrying military equipment to the Assad regime.