Dramatic Rise In TERROR ATTACKS Worldwide?

Innocent people across the world are now paying the price of the “Iraq effect”, with the loss of hundreds of lives directly linked to the invasion and occupation by American and British forces.

An authoritative US study of terrorist attacks after the invasion in 2003 contradicts the repeated denials of George Bush and Tony Blair that the war is not to blame for an upsurge in fundamentalist violence worldwide. The research is said to be the first to attempt to measure the “Iraq effect” on global terrorism. It found that the number killed in jihadist attacks around the world has risen dramatically since the Iraq war began in March 2003. The study compared the period between 11 September 2001 and the invasion of Iraq with the period since the invasion. The count – excluding the Arab-Israel conflict – shows the number of deaths due to terrorism rose from 729 to 5,420. As well as strikes in Europe, attacks have also increased in Chechnya and Kashmir since the invasion. The research was carried out by the Centre on Law and Security at the NYU Foundation for Mother Jones magazine.

Iraq was the catalyst for a ferocious fundamentalist backlash, according to the study, which says that the number of those killed by Islamist’s within Iraq rose from seven to 3,122. Afghanistan, invaded by US and British forces in direct response to the September 11 attacks, saw a rise from very few before 2003 to 802 since then. In the Chechnya conflict, the toll rose from 234 to 497. In the Kashmir region, as well as India and Pakistan, the total rose from 182 to 489, and in Europe from none to 297.

Two years after declaring “mission accomplished” in Iraq President Bush insisted: “If we were not fighting and destroying the enemy in Iraq, they would not be idle. They would be plotting and killing Americans across the world and within our borders. By fighting these terrorists in Iraq, Americans in uniform are defeating a direct threat to the American people.”

Mr Blair has also maintained that the Iraq war has not been responsible for Muslim fundamentalist attacks such as the 7/7 London bombings which killed 52 people. “Iraq, the region and the wider world is a safer place without Saddam [Hussein],” Mr Blair declared in July 2004. Announcing the deployment of 1,400 extra troops to Afghanistan earlier this week – raising the British force level in the country above that in Iraq – the Prime Minister steadfastly denied accusations by MPs that there was any link between the Iraq war an unravelling of security elsewhere.

Last month John Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence in Washington, said he was “not certain” that the Iraq war had been a recruiting factor for al-Qa’ida and insisted: “I wouldn’t say that there has been a widespread growth in Islamic extremism beyond Iraq, I really wouldn’t.”

Yet the report points out that the US administration’s own National Intelligence Estimate on “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States” – partially declassified last October – stated that ” the Iraq war has become the ’cause célèbre’ for jihadists … and is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives.”

The new study, by Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank, argues that, on the contrary, “the Iraq conflict has greatly increased the spread of al-Qa’ida ideological virus, as shown by a rising number of terrorist attacks in the past three years from London to Kabul, and from Madrid to the Red Sea.

“Our study shows that the Iraq war has generated a stunning increase in the yearly rate of fatal jihadist attacks, amounting to literally hundreds of additional terrorist attacks and civilian lives lost. Even when terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan is excluded, fatal attacks in the rest of the world have increased by more than one third.”

In trying to gauge the “Iraq effect”, the authors had focused on the rate of terrorist attacks in two periods – from September 2001 to 30 March 2003 (the day of the Iraq invasion) and 21 March 2003 to 30 September 2006. The research has been based on the MIPT-RAND Terrorism database.

The report’s assertion that the Iraq invasion has had a far greater impact in radicalising Muslims is widely backed security personnel in the UK. Senior anti-terrorist officials told The Independent that the attack on Iraq, and the now-discredited claims by the US and British governments about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, had led to far more young Muslims engaging in extremist activity than the invasion of Afghanistan two years previously.

Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, head of the Secret Service (MI5) said recently: “In Iraq attacks are regularly videoed and the footage is downloaded into the internet.

“Chillingly, we see the results here. Young teenagers are being groomed to be suicide bombers. The threat is serious, is growing and will, I believe, be with us for a generation.”

In Afghanistan the most active of the Taliban commanders, Mullah Dadullah, acknowledged how the Iraq war has influenced the struggle in Afghanistan.

“We give and take with the mujahedin in Afghanistan”, he said. The most striking example of this has been the dramatic rise in suicide bombings in Afghanistan, a phenomenon not seen through the 10 years of war with the Russians in the 1980s.

The effect of Iraq on various jihadist conflicts has been influenced according to a number of factors, said the report. Countries with troops in Iraq, geographical proximity to the country, the empathy felt for the Iraqis and the exchange of information between Islamist groups. “This may explain why jihadist groups in Europe, Arab countries, and Afghanistan were more affected by the Iraq war than other regions”, it said.

Russia, like the US, has used the language of the “war on terror” in its actions in Chechnya, and al-Qa’ida and their associates have entrenched themselves in the border areas of Pakistan from where they have mounted attacks in Kashmir, Pakistan and India.

Statistics for the Arab-Israel conflict also show an increase, but the methodology is disputed in the case of Palestinian attacks in the occupied territories and settler attacks on Palestinians.

* The US is joining the Iraqi government in a diplomatic initiative inviting Iran and Syria to a “neighbours meeting” on stabilising Iraq, the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday. The move reflects a change of approach by the Bush administration, which previously had resisted calls to include Iran and Syria in such talks.

TERRORISM: For All To Fight?

 

By slow degrees, the seriousness of the insurgency in Southern Thailand is entering mainstream consciousness. The International Herald Tribune files a report which first emphasizes its seriousness then describes its most eerie characteristic, its anonymity. First the seriousness.

Some are already calling it war, a brutal Muslim separatist insurgency in southern Thailand that has taken as many as 2,000 lives in three years, with almost- daily bombings, drive-by shootings, arson and beheadings. It is a conflict the government admits it is losing. A harsh crackdown and martial law in recent years seem only to have fueled the insurgency, generating fear and anger and undermining moderate Muslim voices. … The insurgents seem to be taking their war to a new stage, pitting local Buddhists against Muslims by attacking symbols of Buddhism — Thailand’s dominant faith — with flamboyant brutality.

Now the anonymity.

The insurgency is all the more difficult to combat because it does not show its face. Unlike similar movements around the world, this one has not set out its demands or published a manifesto. It is a collection of violent groups without an identifiable central leadership. … “We are fighting a ghost,” said Chidchanok Rahimmula, a lecturer in security at Prince of Songkhla University. …

People are afraid now to stand close to a government official or a soldier or police officer, she said, potential targets of bullets or bombs.

“When we are in a restaurant, if we see a soldier or policeman nearby we hurry to leave,” Chidchanok said. “In the shops near the university, if a soldier or policeman comes to buy something, the owner says, ‘ Quickly just buy something and leave.’”

Southern Thailand, she said, had become “a kingdom of terror, a kingdom of fear.”

“We really wonder about their identity and how they can be doing this,” she said of the insurgents. “They are destroying their own society. They kill the teachers. They kill the teachers who teach their own children.”

But the anonymity that the International Herald Tribune describes is only partial.  Much is known about some of those who are causing the trouble. The International Crisis Group has listed out the known insurgent groups. But less is known about their goals: is it separatism or a Caliphate; about their funding and who ultimately directs the insurgency.

Armed separatist groups have been active there since the late 1960s, with particularly virulent violence in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The largest and most effective group of several operating then was PULO (Patani United Liberation Organization), which called for an independent Islamic state but whose thrust was more ethno-nationalist than Islamist. … But new strains then appeared, with four particularly significant groups emerging or re-emerging, and major violence erupting in early 2004. The major groups active today include: BRN-C (Barisan Revolusi National-Coordinate, National Revolutionary Front-Coordinate); Pemuda, a separatist youth movement; GMIP (Gerakan Mujahidin Islam Patani, Patani Islamic Mujahidin Group), established by Afghanistan veterans in 1995, committed to an independent Islamic state; and New PULO, established in 1995 as an offshoot of PULO and the smallest of the active armed groups, is fighting for an independent state.

The South Asia Analysis Group thinks the chief foreign influence comes from Pakistan, and in particular groups based in Waziristan, where al-Qaeda is resurrecting itself in a new Dark Tower. In their view, Thais trained in Waziri madrasas provide the principal stimulus for the fighting in Southern Thailand. The strategic importance of Pakistan in the War on Terror was brought home by a leaked British intelligence report that literally thousands of jihadis were in Britain waiting to strike. It also asserted that Southwest Asia had surpassed the Middle East as the incubator of terrorism.

Entitled Extremist Threat Assessment, the document, which was drawn up this month, also discloses that Afghanistan, where more than 7,000 British troops will be based by the end of May, is expected to supersede Iraq as the location for terrorists planning Jihad against the West.

But finding out who masterminds the southern Thai insurgency would only get halfway. The remainder of the problem is what to do about it. Suppose it were true that Pakistan were the source of the terrorism? Lost in the criticism of US efforts in Iraq is the sad fact that no one, not the British nor anyone else, has found a way to “get at” terrorist havens without crossing borders. Against these threats — in Iran, Waziristan and elsewhere — how far will diplomacy and engagement go against shutting down the jihadis breeding sites? There is no escape from fighting terrorism and those who fancy themselves so much smarter than President Bush may now come forward and propose something a little more specific than a mere schedule of withdrawal as a strategy. Maybe the UN could convene a meeting to find a solution, but the proceedings will probably go something like this.

“You have heard why we are here. Anyone who has a good plan for ridding us of the cat will please tell of it. The meeting is open to all.”

“Let us all run at him suddenly when he is not looking for us, and each give him a bite. That would surely kill him,” said one brave mouse.

“But how many of us do you think he would kill?” said another mouse. “I will not risk my life nor that of my family.” “Nor I”; “nor I”; “nor I,” said many other mice.

“Let us steal his food and starve him to death,” suggested another.

“That will only make him hungrier for mice,” they replied. “That will never do.”

“I wish we might drown him,” said another; “but I don’t know how we could get him into the water.”

At last a little gray mouse with a squeaky voice went up to the front and spoke:

“I have a plan that will surely work. If we could know when the cat is coming, we could get out of his way. He steals in upon us so quietly, that we can not escape. Let us find a little bell and a string. Let us put the bell on the string and tie the string around the cat’s neck. As soon as we hear the bell, we can run and get out of the cat’s way.”

“A very good plan,” said Mr. Longtail. “We will ask our leader to say which mouse shall put the bell on the cat’s neck.”

At this there was a great outcry. One said, “I am so little that I can not reach high enough to bell the cat.” Another said, “I have been very sick and am too weak to lift the bell”; and so the excuses came pouring in.

At last Mr. Graypate called to the crowd, “Silence! I shall choose no one. Who will offer to bell the cat?”

It was very quiet in the meeting. One after another of the younger mice went out. None but the older ones were left. At last they too went sadly home. No one would bell the cat.

Who will neutralize Iran and clean up the problem in Waziristan?

Top Reasons The Republican Leadership Is Losing The Terror War?

As We are going through both National and International News bulletins for our daily Bloggs and News Posting, We came across this article from “RYAN77″,
It’s an article We want to share, We are not making any judgements or comments on it, is just an article:

1. Those responsible for 9/11 are still at large.Despite having unlimited power and resources, the Republican Adminstration and Congressional leadership in this country have been unable to bring to justice anyone directly responsible for the execution of the largest act of terrorism on American soil.

2. Republicans believe killing terrorists will eradicate terrorism.
Republicans believe the war on terrorism can be won in the same way we won the war on Nazi Germany – by killing or capturing enough enemy combatants to force the enemy into submission.

3. Republicans do not understand, and refuse to acknowledge, the causes of terrorism and global Anti-American hatred.

Republicans believe every country on earth should adopt American values and American style democracy. And if they refuse, we have the right – or obligation – to impose them through military force. Republicans believe American leaders have the authority to place rules, regulations, and restrictions that are in America’s best interests on any country we choose and, if necessary, inact punishments for not following them. Republicans are either unwilling or incapable of understanding the overwhelming arrogance and hypocrisy of American foreign policies and how those perceptions fuel worldwide hatred of America and Americans.

4. Republicans will never entertain withdrawing or reducing financial and military support for Israel. Because Republicans are in bed with powerful Jewish special interests they can never, and will never, be able to use the threat of nonsupport as a tool to force Israel to make the kind of concessions necessary for creating a permanent resolution to the Israeli/Palastinan conflict.

5. Republicans refuse to invade the countries from which terrorists operate – and the terrorists know it.
It is a fact that 19 of the 21 Sept. 11th hijackers were citizens of Saudi Arabia and obtained finaning for the attacks through Saudi banks and businesses. It is also common knowledge the high-ranking Al-Queda operatives, and even Osama bin Laden himself, have found safe harbor in Pakistan and continue to plot their attacks from within Pakistan’s borders. Republicans say things like: “We will make no distinction between the terrorists themselves and the countries who harbor them”, but they don’t really mean it.

6. Republicans do not understand Muslims and believe Christianity is “right” and Islam is “wrong”.
When a Christian blows up an abortion clinic because of his religious beliefs, you don’t hear Republicans calling the bomber a “Christian Terrorist”. Republicans view the religion of Christianity as inherently good and the religion of Islam as inherently evil and consequently, either intentionally or unintentionally, place themselves above Muslims because of it which causes them to underestimate them.

7. Republicans are not smart enough to defeat terrorists.
The frightening effectiveness of 21st century terrorism lies in its inability to be controled through traditional military tactics. Sadly, anyone with a couple dozen 5-gallon gas cans and a running vehicle can be a suicide bomber. It takes no planning, no time, no money, and no skill to carry out. It requires only willingness and motivation. And it cannot be predicted nor prevented. All the money in the world and the entire United State armed forces cannot stop a 19-year-old from strapping himself with 30 pounds of explosives and walking into a crowded shopping district and blowing himself up. The war on terrorism is a war of minds – not of weapons. And when it comes to war, Republicans are long on muscle and short on brains.

8. In fighting the war on terrorism, Republicans have refused to consider the opinions of the American people.
When arguing for a constitutional ammendment to ban same-sex marriage, Republicans almost always cite polls showing Americans overwhelmingly support for defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman as their primary justification for passing the ammendment. Shouldn’t the will of the American People be considered just as important when it comes to fighting the war on terror? After all, we’re the ones being murdered by the terrorists. Apparently not to Republicans. Despite polls showing a clear majority of Americans support a redeployment out of Iraq and are strongly oppossed to increasing troop levels there, Republican lawmkers have refused to listen and continue to insist on pursuing a flawed narrow strategy of “staying the course”.

9. Republicans have incompentent leadership.
From George Bush to Dick Cheney to Donald Rumsfeld to Tom Delay to Michael Brown to General Casey the current Republican Party has proved over and over again they are incapable of providing competent leadership to handle largescale problems – either foreign or domestic. Over the last 7 years, the handling of any crisis large or small by the Republican Party produced a neverending laundry list of failures on the part of its leadership.

10. Republicans refuse to adapt.
By definition, a “Conservative” is a person reluctant to change. Even as we are losing the war on terrorism right before our very eyes, the Republican leadership in Washington has refused to make any substantial changes to its general war strategy of staying the course. I believe it was Albert Einstein who once said “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result each time”. By that definition, the entire Bush Adminstration would be certifiable lunatics. With every possible indication that we are pursuing a failed war strategy that will inevitably end in our defeat, the Republican Party is either refusing to change its strategy or incapable of formulating a new strategy.

Either way is sufficient evidence they shouldn’t be trusted to win the war on terror.