German Militant Arrested After He Returns From Fighting With ISIS in Syria

January 11, 2015

Germany arrests suspected Islamic State militant after return from Syria

German police arrested a suspected supporter of the insurgent group Islamic State (IS) who was recently in Syria and raided his apartment in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, federal prosecutors said on Sunday.

The 24-year-old suspect, who has German citizenship, was suspected of having joined Islamic State during a stay in Syria from October 2013 until November 2014, a spokeswoman of the federal prosecutor general said.

There were no indications, however, that the man identified as Nils D. had concrete plans for an attack and there was also no connection to the Jan. 7-9 Islamist militant attacks in Paris in which 17 people were killed, she said.

The arrest took place on Saturday in the city of Dinslaken.

As with other west European countries, Germany is struggling to stop the radicalization of young Muslims, some of whom want to become jihadist insurgents in Syria or Iraq. Officials also worry that they might return to plot attacks on home soil.

German intelligence authorities estimate that at least 550 people have left Germany for Syria and around 180 have returned. Many are under criminal investigation.

Wednesday’s deadly attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has fueled fears of assaults on similar targets also in other European countries.

According to a report in the mass-circulation Bild am Sonntag newspaper, Western intelligence agencies have tapped conversations of senior Islamic State members in which they said the Paris attack was the start of a series in Europe.

Earlier on Sunday, a building of German newspaper Hamburger Morgenpost was the target of an arson attack and two suspects were arrested, police said. Like many other newspapers, the Hamburg daily re-printed cartoons from Charlie Hebdo after the attack on Wednesday in Paris.

You Can’t Kill An Idea: Anwar Al-Awlaki Still Inspiring Terrorist Attacks From the Grave

Scott Shane

January 11, 2015

In New Era of Terrorism, Voice From Yemen Echoes

The radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, shown in a video lecture, has proved to be a sinister and durable inspiration after his death in a C.I.A. drone strike in September 2011. Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

For more than five years now, as Western terrorism investigators have searched for critical influences behind the latest jihadist plot, one name has surfaced again and again.

In the failed attack on an airliner over Detroit in 2009, the stabbing of a British member of Parliament in London in 2010, the lethal bombing of the Boston Marathon in 2013 and now the machine-gunning of cartoonists and police officers in Paris, Anwar al-Awlaki has proved to be a sinister and durable inspiration.

Two of those four attacks took place after Mr. Awlaki, the silver-tongued, American-born imam who joined Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, was killed by a C.I.A. drone strike in September 2011.

In the age of YouTube, Mr. Awlaki’s death — or martyrdom, in the view of his followers — has hardly reduced his impact. The Internet magazine Inspire, which he oversaw along with another American, Samir Khan, has continued to spread not just militant rhetoric but also practical instructions on shooting and bomb-making.

A man in Yemen watching coverage of the attack on a satirical newspaper in Paris. Credit European Pressphoto Agency

Paris Terrorists Fell Through the Gaps in French Security Net

Patrick J. McDonnell and Brian Bennett

January 11, 2015

Fledgling Paris terrorists fell through the cracks

They were a career criminal and his girlfriend, a failed rapper and his older brother. At least two had spent time in French jails.

All seemed to fit a now-familiar profile: Disenchanted young Europeans of working-class immigrant backgrounds who become radicalized through exposure to Islamist extremists.

All were well-known to authorities, but somehow fell through security cracks in a nation that is home to Europe’s largest Muslim population — and exports a steady stream of Islamic militants abroad.

The brothers, Cherif and Said Kouachi, French born but of Algerian heritage, were on U.S. no-fly lists, and Yemeni officials had reportedly passed on intelligence that Said, 34, had trained with militants in Yemen. The younger sibling, 32, had been jailed for recruiting Islamic militants for Iraq.

Posters are hung near the Place de la Republique in Paris ahead of a mass unity rally against last week’s terrorist attacks.

Still, in a nation with strict gun-control laws, the siblings and their ex-convict confederate were able to obtain an arsenal of heavy arms and cut a swath of terror through Paris for three days, roiling the nation and killing at least 17 people — 12 on Wednesday at the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, long in extremist crosshairs for mocking Islam; a female police officer gunned down Thursday in southern Paris; and four hostages who police say were executed Friday at a kosher grocery on the city’s eastern periphery.

The rampage ended abruptly Friday during a pair of near-simultaneous police raids that left three attackers dead. But many questions — and concerns — remain.

Chief among them is whether the assailants acted on their own or under direction of Al Qaeda or another transnational terrorist network, and whether additional attacks are likely to occur in a nation that is home to multitudes of Muslim immigrants, many of whom live in overcrowded, impoverished suburbs.

Where the Pivot Went Wrong – And How To Fix It

By Joshua Kurlantzick

January 12, 2015

“The Obama administration’s Southeast Asia policy has been badly misguided.” 

Since the start of President Barack Obama’s first term, the United States has pursued a policy of rebuilding ties with Southeast Asia. By 2011 this regional focus had become part of a broader strategy toward Asia called the “pivot,” or rebalance. This approach includes shifting economic, diplomatic, and military resources to the region from other parts of the world. In Southeast Asia, a central part of the pivot involves building relations with countries in mainland Southeast Asia once shunned by Washington because of their autocratic governments, and reviving close U.S. links to Thailand and Malaysia. The Obama administration has also upgraded defense partnerships throughout the region, followed through on promises to send high-level officials to Southeast Asian regional meetings, and increased port calls to and basing of combat ships in Southeast Asia.

Yet despite this attention, the Obama administration’s Southeast Asia policy has been badly misguided. The policy has been wrong in two important ways. First, the White House has focused too much on the countries of mainland Southeast Asia, which—with the exception of Vietnam—have provided minimal strategic benefits in return. This focus on mainland Southeast Asia has distracted attention from the countries of peninsular Southeast Asia—Indonesia, the Philippines, and Singapore—that are of greater value strategically and economically. Indonesia, in particular, is a thriving democracy and an increasingly important stabilizing force in regional and international affairs. Second, increased U.S. ties with mainland Southeast Asia have facilitated political regression in the region by empowering brutal militaries, condoning authoritarian regimes, and alienating young Southeast Asian democrats. This regression is particularly apparent in Thailand. It seemed to have established a working democracy in the 1990s, but has regressed politically more than any other state in Southeast Asia over the past twenty years. In May 2014, Thailand was taken over by a military junta. Reform also has stalled in Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Malaysia. This political regression has had and will have strategic downsides for the United States as well. In the long run, young Southeast Asians—the region’s future leaders—will become increasingly anti-American and an authoritarian and unstable mainland Southeast Asia will prove a poor partner on economic and strategic issues for the United States.

THE ECONOMICS AT THE HEART OF ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS – ANALYSIS

JANUARY 12, 2015

The Israeli settlement of Ariel. Photo by Ori, Wikipedia Commons. 

Of all the hurdles to peace negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, perhaps the largest is the 150 or so Israeli settlements in the West Bank. These communities, considered illegal by the UN, are fracturing Israel’s relationship even with its allies: The pro-Israeli head of the UK parliament’s foreign affairs committee this year declared that a decision to develop a new settlement “outraged me more than anything else in my political life”.

Despite an unofficial freeze on settlement planning, in late December the Jerusalem Planning and Budget Committee set the stage for approving building permits for some 400 homes on Palestinian land in Jerusalem, and approved a plan for 1,850 more homes in a neighbourhood that sits on the border.

While they are often thought of as the result of a religious quest by Jews to claim new territory, in fact for most settlers the reasons for moving are economic – encouraged through government-planned incentive schemes to relocate. But for some, the process of living in a settlement may have a radicalizing effect.

“Quality of life”

It’s a weekday in the West Bank town of Ariel. Students share a cigarette break on the university campus. Two women walking their dogs chatter in Russian-accented Hebrew. Nothing suggests this is anything other than an ordinary Israeli town.

But while it is not known for a strong ideological bent or violent attacks on its Palestinian neighbours, jutting out some 16km east of the Green Line that divides Israel from the Occupied West Bank, this town of 19,000 is very much a settlement.

In Ariel, many residents live the Israeli commuter lifestyle. There is a direct motorway to Tel Aviv, less than 40km away, with buses running frequently to the city and less often to Jerusalem, 50km away.

A Different Perspective: Understanding the Charlie Hebdo Attack

Robert S. Leiken

January 9, 2015

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Tuesday’s attack on the Parisian satiric magazine Charlie Hebdo was performed by what one could describe as European Holy Warriors—an important point various media outlets are missing in their 24/7 coverage of this tragic event that continues to unfold before our very eyes. They are part of a larger European movement that is internally generated. Understanding this important point and what it means for Europe and eventually the United States is critical.

This European jihadi movement is not made up of “immigrants” as is commonly presumed and published. Most are home-grown children of immigrants, the so-called “second generation.” That status stands in marked contrast to the (first generation) immigrants and visitors who carried out 9/11, the perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the Subway Bomber, the Underwear Bomber, the 2002 attack on LAX, the Boston Marathon massacre, the Times Square failed bombing attack, and the planned “Millennium” attack on LAX.

The Holy Warriors targeting Europe typically have been born, bred and socialized in Europe itself. That was true of the French Algerian Khaled Kelkal, who in 1995 attacked the French transit system. It was the case in the Amsterdam murder of Theo van Gogh, the attack on the editor of the Danish cartoon, the planned attack on Frankfurt airport and the Ramstein and Hanau American army base in Germany, for all the major failed attacks in the UK, including one originating at Heathrow Airport, for the London Bombers, for Mohammed Merah, the butcher of Toulouse and, yes, for the three men who attacked Charlie Hebdorecently.

Russia’s new military doctrine: an attempt at deterrence

By Pranay Kotasthane 

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The new doctrine seeks to assert Russia’s position in the neighbourhood and salvage Putin’s position domestically

Only a few days after Ukraine moved closer to NATO, relinquishing its troubled “non-aligned” status, Russia announced its new military doctrine which was signed by President Putin on December 26, 2014.

This update has garnered a lot of attention in the US, EU, and NATO nations, which I argue was its sole objective. A few frantic reports from the US termed this new doctrine as an escalation, culminating in a “Cold War 2.0” or “The New Cold War”.

The updates in the military doctrine by themselves are cursory in nature. First, the doctrine singles out the NATO expansion in Eastern Europe as the primary threat to Russia’s national interest. As a result, military measures such as anti-missile shields, ‘global strike’ concept, plans of placing weapons in space are spotted as the dangers to watch out for. Considering the upheavals in Ukraine and fomenting troubles in Estonia, Lithuania and Moldova, this move is in line with Russia’s previous versions of the doctrine, which explicitly state that protecting Russian “compatriots”, a loose term meaning any ethnic Russian in the former CIS states is a duty of the Russian Federation.

Second, analysts have highlighted that the new doctrine is belligerent because it mentions that Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons against its enemies if it faces aggression of any type that threatens the security of the Russian State. This is again consistent with Russia’s earlier stance of retaining the right to the “first use” of nuclear weapons. Indeed, deterrence as a policy rests on the foundation of extremely destructive consequences.

‘@War’ details rising military-Internet link

By Tony Perry

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A thought commonly attributed to George Orwell holds that good people can sleep at night only because rough men are awake and ready to protect them. But in the modern world, two other groups are also vital to a sound sleep: software engineers and computer geeks.

That’s the scary but well-documented thesis of “@War: The Rise of the Military-Internet Complex” by Shane Harris, a deep dive into the world of cyberwar and cyberwarriors. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks involved planes crashing into buildings; the next could be a surprise shutdown of computer systems that control the U.S. economy and government and much of its military capability.

“There is no concept of deterrence today in cyber,” a former hacker turned security executive tells Harris. “It’s a global free-fire zone.”

The U.S. military and intelligence community, Harris reports, were slow to join the cyberarms race but are now muscling up apace, only modestly slowed by the revelations by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden about domestic intelligence gathering that smacked of Big Brother.

Harris is even-handed in his references to Snowden, seeing him as neither whistle-blowing hero nor treasonous narcissist: “It turned out that the NSA, which wanted to protect computers from Wall Street to the water company, couldn’t keep a twenty-nine year-old contractor from making off with the blueprints to its global surveillance system.”

Harris, a fellow at the New America Foundation, knows his stuff: the people, the agencies, and the dizzying array of acronyms and clever mission names like Starburst, Buckshot Yankee, TAO (Tailored Access Operations) and ROC (Remote Operations Center). His reporting is thorough and his narrative is smooth in conveying that nearly everybody is spying on and hacking everybody else.

The U.S. hacked the president of Mexico to determine if he was a dupe of the drug cartels. The Chinese slipped a bug into the laptop of the U.S. secretary of Commerce during a trip to Beijing. The email of then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates was hacked.

“Chinese cyber forces, along with their counterparts in Russia, have designed technologies to hack into U.S. military aircraft,” Harris reports. “The Chinese in particular have developed a method for inserting computer viruses through the air into three models of planes that the air force uses for reconnaissance and surveillance.”

Chinese hacking is aimed not just at the U.S. military but also military contractors, including those working on the newest U.S. warplane, the Joint Strike Fighter, Harris reports. “Cyber espionage and warfare are just the latest examples in a long and, for the Chinese, proud tradition.”

Are Paris-Style Attacks the Future of Terrorism?

By Joshua Keating

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Cherif Kouachi, 32, and his brother Said Kouachi, 34.

This week’s assault on Paris does not fit into the mold of what we typically think of as a terrorist attack. The attackers employed guns, rather than bombs, fled the scene of the initial attack rather than martyring themselves, and displayed some level of tactical acumen without it being clear that they were trained professionals.

It’s not that commando-style raids have never happened. They just receive less attention than suicide bombings because they more often take place in war zones, where there’s less media coverage than in major international cities. A U.N. report released last July, in fact, found that the Taliban had shifted their tactics from improvised explosive devices to gun battles in heavily populated areas. This is one major reason for the recent increase in civilian casualties in Afghanistan. And this weekhundreds are believed to have been killed in a series of shooting raids by Boko Haram on a town in northern Nigeria.

“I would place [the Paris attack] into the ‘urban warfare’ model of attacks,” said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and co-author of a 2012 report commissioned by the U.S. Congress on the use of small arms by terrorists. “First, it’s an attack that’s designed to make use of a broader urban area as a battleground. Second, the attackers intend to survive long enough to extend this out over a couple of days, thus to prolong the terror and keep a place feeling skittish. Urban warfare attacks also often involve taking hostages in one place or another.”

The first example of such an attack on a city at peace was Mumbai in 2008, when about two dozen militants from the Pakistani group Lashkar-e-Taiba attacked multiple locations in the Indian city, firing on civilians, setting off explosives, and taking hostages. The attacks “were perceived as being hugely successful, and al-Qaida has been talking about how to emulate this for some time,” said Raffaello Pantucci, a terrorism analyst at the Royal United Services Institute in London. In 2010, intelligence services of the United States, Britain, France, and Germany claimed to have disrupted a plan to carry out “Mumbai-style” attacks on several European cities.

Exclusive: Edward Snowden on Cyber Warfare

Source Link 

By James Bamford and Tim De Chant 

08 Jan 2015 

Cyber warfare used to be the stuff of sci-fi movies and military exercises. But with the advent of the Stuxnet worm, the Sony Pictures hacking—which was allegedly carried out with the backing of the North Korean government—and this week’s assault on German government websites, large-scale cyber attacks with suspected ties to nation states are growing increasingly prevalent. 

Few people have lifted the veil on cyber warfare like Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor who leaked a massive number of documents to the press. 

Highlights from Edward Snowden's interview with NOVA 

Last June, journalist James Bamford, who is working with NOVA on a new film about cyber warfare that will air in 2015, sat down with Snowden in a Moscow hotel room for a lengthy interview. In it, Snowden sheds light on the surprising frequency with which cyber attacks occur, their potential for destruction, and what, exactly, he believes is at stake as governments and rogue elements rush to exploit weaknesses found on the internet, one of the most complex systems ever built by humans. The following is an unedited transcript of their conversation. 

James Bamford: Thanks very much for coming. I really appreciate this. And it’s really interesting—the very day we’re meeting with you, this article came out in The New York Times, seemed to be downplaying the potential damage, which they really seem to have hyped up in the original estimate. What did you think of this article today? 

Edward Snowden: So this is really interesting. It’s the new NSA director saying that the alleged damage from the leaks was way overblown. Actually, let me do that again. 

Denmark throws down $75m to build up offensive cybersecurity capabilities

By Liam Tung

January 9, 2015

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Following a serious breach at a Danish arms makers last year, the nation is to spend millions on beefing up its offensive cybersecurity capabilities.

Denmark is equipping its intelligence services for the first time with the tools and skills that will allow it conduct cyber-offensive operations, according to a recent report in Danish publication Politiken.

The Danish government has allocated DKK 465m ($73.6m) up to 2017 to ensure the Defence Intelligence Services (FE) are capable of launching cyber-attacks this year, a move away from its current focus on defence only. It's a sizeable spend for the country: byy way of comparison, the UK - whose population is around 11 times larger than Denmark's - spends around £93m ($140m) on its cyber-offensive and defensive capabilities every year.

It's unclear from the report exactly what offensive capabilities Denmark wants its intelligence agents to have. The move is apparently outlined in a defence bill and in a report from the Ministry of Defence that recommended such capabilities be given to the FE.

ZDNet has asked the Danish Ministy of Defence for more details on the capabilities.

News of the planned offensive capabilities follows the release of Denmark's new national strategy for cyber and information security in December. Most of the initiatives outlined in the strategy however discuss better cyber-preparedness by government agencies, their suppliers, and private sector critical infrastructure providers. Danish defence minister Nikolaj Wammen said of the threats facing the country: "there are external actors exploiting the internet to spy on Denmark and to steal trade secrets."

If Denmark is building up its cyber-offensive capabilities, it joins a growing list of nations whose intelligence services have used malware to spy on foreign targets or, as in the case of Stuxnet, used it to target other countries' national infrastructure. Sweden's armed forces in 2013 urged the government to give it with offensive cyber-capabilities in order to keep in step with other nations already using such tactics.

Drones: Can we make in India?

By Admin-Artemis 

http://logos.nationalinterest.in/2015/01/870/

Indigenously designed and manufactured UAVs might be right around the corner. Indeed, by leveraging our pool of software engineers and applying the lessons learned from the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), such UAV programs could serve as ideal flagships for the entire ‘Make in India’ brand. However, loosening the government’s hold on the local defense space and encouraging more private players to enter is key.

While government departments have done a great deal to develop local defense capabilities up till now, a question mark still remains over their ability to deliver competitive world-class projects in a timely fashion. The ever-present elephant in the room, the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), is a prime example, and has taken over two decades to develop. In the context of UAVs, the LCA should act as an introductory exercise in building experience in flight dynamics, sensors, simulation, hardware and composite materials.

The LCA’s Achilles heel has undoubtedly been the locally-developed Kaveri engine. Luckily, UAVs could give the Kaveri a new lease of life, since they require less from their engines than manned aircraft. Indeed, the DRDOs latest project, the AURA unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV), is set to employ this engine. Conversely, UAVs make ideal test beds for further engine development since pilot risk is not a factor when testing the operational limits of the engine.

For its own efforts, the government should not necessarily shy away from hiring foreign talent either. The advanced HAL HF24 ground strike aircraft from the 1960s is a prime example of how our government fast tracked progress by bringing in a team of German engineers. If rapid progress is to be made in a similar way, these high-tech specialists should also be allowed a certain degree of freedom from restrictive and often time consuming bureaucratic procedures.

India’s promising beginning: the HAL HF-24 Marut – now all but forgotten

Cumulative Warfare: War by Statistics

By James R. Holmes

January 10, 2015

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Life is cumulative — usually. War may unfold sequentially, but that’s the exception to the rule.

Or at least that’s the basic idea behind a lecture the Naval Diplomat delivered this week on “cumulative” operations such as air power, certain modes of naval operations, and insurgency and counterinsurgency. In keeping with the nonlinear nature of the subject matter, I wrote the lecture first before superimposing a thesis on it afterward. Admittedly, this inverts the customary pattern in social-science research. Standard practice has you write the conclusion first and retrofit the evidence and arguments to it!!!

But I digress, as usual. Used in this context, of course, the term cumulative comes from Admiral J. C. Wylie, a fellow NWC alumnus and one of my predecessors on the Newport faculty. Wylie distinguishes cumulative endeavors from sequential ones, in which each tactical action occurs after and depends on the one that came before. It’s a linear approach to strategy. Sequential enterprises can be plotted on the map using vectors or curves leading to some geographic objective. But, notes the author,

[T]here is another way to prosecute a war. There is a type of warfare in which the entire pattern is made up of a collection of lesser actions, but these lesser or individual actions are not sequentially interdependent. Each individual one is no more than a single statistic, an isolated plus or minus, in arriving at the final result.

Parsing Wylie’s somewhat arcane language, what he means is that individual actions are dispersed from one another in space, and in all likelihood in time as well. Plotting cumulative campaigns on the map or nautical chart is like dipping your fingers in paint and splattering it on the paper. No action is connected to another. Few yield massive effects. Over time, though, a cumulative campaign can wear down an enemy if prosecuted zealously, employing sufficient resources, and if directed against something that enemy holds dear.

Think about it. Strength is a product of material resources and resolve. Cumulative campaigns chip away at both factors. Drive either to zero and strength is zero. If Clausewitz has war-by-algebra, it seems Wylie has war-by-statistics.

US military back in Iraq to train troops, but this time it's different

By Loveday Morris

January 9, 2015

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CAMP TAJI, Iraq — Years after the U.S. military tried to create a new army in Iraq — at a cost of over $25 billion — American trainers have returned to help rebuild the country’s fighting force.

But this time, things are different.

With the Iraqis dependent on their own logistics, there is a shortage of weapons and ammunition available for training. For the time being, soldiers at Camp Taji are restricted to shouting “bang bang” to simulate firing during exercises. And, mindful of how Iraqi troops fled their positions last June during a major offensive by Islamic Stateextremists, U.S. trainers have added some new elements to boot camp.

“We are giving classes on the will to fight,” said Command Sgt. Maj. Michael Grinston, who instructed Iraqi troops in 2006 and 2007 and is now overseeing the U.S. training program. There is also more focus on training senior officers.

The new U.S. program, which began late last month, aims to give 5,000 Iraqi soldiers basic weapons and tactics training within six to eight weeks. The U.S. military hopes to eventually build a force capable of mounting counteroffensives against the Islamic State, which has taken control of large swaths of northern and western Iraq.

But a day at Camp Taji, where a small group of reporters was allowed access to the program this week for the first time, highlighted the challenges.

Bipartisan National Security Policy is vital

NN Vohra

Jan 12 2015

PART-1

Excerpts from the presentations at theRoundtable on National Security, Key Challenges Ahead, organised by The Tribune National Security Forum in collaboration with the Indian Council of World Affairs

In the obtaining global security environment, our country’s foremost concern is to protect and safeguard our territorial integrity and ensure the safety and security of all our citizens. Sustained development and progress are possible only if there is peace and normalcy within the realm.

We are a large country, with land boundaries of over 15,000 km, maritime frontiers of over 7,500 km, open skies all around and multiple threats from various quarters. I shall reflect briefly on certain aspects of internal security.

The maintenance of national security faces serious challenges on many fronts, among which are:

Pakistan’s continuing proxy war in Jammu and Kashmir.

Activities of the Pakistan-based jihadi terrorist groups which have established their networks in various parts of India, particularly in the hinterland.

Activities of the Naxal groups which have established “liberated” zones in large areas, where their writ runs.

Organised crime and mafia groups, drug cartels, and fake currency networks whose unlawful activities are causing enormous damage.

Considering the serious security challenges faced by the country, it is urgently necessary that we must have a reliable security management apparatus which safeguards all important arenas of activity which would, inter alia, include food security, water security, economic security, energy security, science and technology security, environmental security and so on.

It is relevant to note that in the management of matters relating to internal and external security, a rather clear line has developed in the past decades. Thus, the Ministry of Defence is responsible for the defence of India and the Ministry of Home Affairs is responsible for internal security. And then there are a number of central agencies like the Intelligence Bureau, Research and Analysis Wing, Joint Intelligence Centre, and several other institutions which provide important information and support to the Home and Defence Ministries and other authorities involved in security management at the central level.

One approach to security

In the years past, the Centre-State relations in the arena of security management have been largely based on periodic consultations. Such arrangements are inadequate in the obtaining security environment in which terrorists strike at will, with total surprise and lightning speed. If our response has to be prompt and effective, there is no scope whatsoever for any time being lost in consultations. On the contrary, it is of vital importance that we lose no more time in building the capacity to prevent, pre-empt and, whenever a situation arises, to effectively respond without any loss of time.

And this leads me to the next question — do we have a national policy and a supporting security management apparatus which can deliver an immediate response to a sudden terrorist strike anywhere in the country? The answer is that, so far, we do not have a cohesive National Security Policy which is fully agreed to between the Centre and the States. We also do not have a countrywide logistical framework, manned by thorough professionals, which has the capacity of speedily responding to any arising emergency.

Thinning patience

January 12 , 2015

Fifth Column - Gwynne Dyer

The language of the immigration debate in Germany has got extreme. German Chancellor Angela Merkel attacked the anti-immigration movement in her New Year speech, saying its leaders have "prejudice, coldness, even hatred in their hearts."

The "anti-Islamisation" protests all across Germany fizzled out in the end. About 18,000 people showed up at one rally in Dresden, where the weekly protests by the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West (Pegida) began last October, but that hardly counted because there are few Muslims in Dresden. Anti-immigrant sentiment in Western countries is always highest where there are few or no immigrants. In big German cities that do have large immigrant populations, the counter-demonstrators outnumbered the Pegida protesters ten-to-one. But the debate is not over.

Germany is taking in more immigrants than ever before: more than 6,00,000 this year. That's not an intolerable number for a country of 82 million, but it does mean that if current trends persist, the number of foreign-born residents will almost double in just ten years. That will take some getting used to - and there's another thing. A high proportion of the new arrivals in Germany are Muslim refugees. Two-thirds of those 6,00,000 newcomers in 2014 were from other countries of the European Union. They have the legal right to come under EU rules, and there's really nothing Germany can do about it. Besides, few of the EU immigrants are Muslims.

Hard road

The other 2,00,000, however, are almost all refugees who are seeking asylum in Germany. The number has almost doubled in the past year, and will certainly grow even larger this year. And the great majority of the asylum-seekers are Muslims. This is not a Muslim plot to colonize Europe. It's just that a large majority of the refugees in the world are Muslims. At least three-quarters of the world's larger wars are civil wars in Muslim countries like Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and Libya. It is easy to mock the fears of the "Pegida" - only five per cent of Germany's population is Muslim. But nine per cent of the children born in Germany in recent years have Muslim parents because of the higher birth rates of Middle Eastern immigrants.

A decisive shift - The changing concept of the public intellectual

Prabhat Patnaik

January 12 , 2015

The term, "public intellectuals", used to refer simply to intellectuals who addressed the public at large, instead of confining themselves to addressing only a small group of professional peers. They had their own specific views, their own political leanings, and even affiliations to particular political parties. The public was supposed to know these leanings and affiliations, but whether it knew these or not was not considered to be of any particular significance. The presumption was that the public, exposed to different views coming from intellectuals of different persuasions, would sift through them to make up its own mind on major issues. Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, both ardent Leftists, were public intellectuals par excellence in this sense during my student days.

Whether these intellectuals were professionally "front-ranking", whether they were "morally upright", whether they had "impeccable integrity" were matters which were ideallysupposed not to affect the public's receptivity to their views; all that was supposed to matter was the intellectual substance of these views themselves. This, no doubt, was not the case in reality, where the intellectual's persona did matter; but the public being influenced by the personal qualities of an intellectual in assessing the worth of his or her intellectualposition was seen as a shortcoming, an instance of a thoroughly avoidable ad hominemreasoning.

Of late, however, a very different concept of a public intellectual has begun to emerge, which believes that a public intellectual must not have any affiliation to a political party, for that undermines the "autonomy" and "objectivity" of the intellectual. But "affiliation to a political party" can take a multitude of forms including even implicit ones, such as mere sympathy for a party, or making common cause with it, or refusing in principle to make common cause with its enemies (as Sartre had done vis-à-vis the French Communist Party); hence this second concept of a public intellectual which demands lack of affiliation with a political party must entail in practice that such an intellectual should have no notable political leanings.

What this means is that a public intellectual in this sense must take positions on each issue separately, and entirely on the basis of "rational arguments" and "unassailable" ethical considerations, without having any "ulterior" motive of any kind. And since the absence of ulterior motives must be demonstrably so, such an intellectual must strive for "credibility" with the public at large, which necessarily means inter alia being even-handed in his or her attitude towards the failings of both the Right and the Left.

OF BROKEN PROMISES AND DRY POWDER KEGS

Joginder Singh

Monday, 12 January 2015

The Pakistani Defence Minister has accused India of waging a low-intensity war against his country, when, in fact, it is Pakistan that has used proxy fighters against India, in violation of its bilateral commitments

There is nothing unusual about the pot calling the kettle black. It was prevalent even during Biblical times. In the Gospel of Matthew 7:3, Jesus, during a discourse on judgementalism, asks, while delivering the Sermon on the Mount: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”

It is through this prism that Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif’s statement vis-à-visIndia must be viewed. On January 3, Mr Asif said that, “India wants to keep us busy in a low-intensity war or low-intensity engagement on our eastern border. They are pursuing the same tactics of keeping our forces busy on all fronts.” He then added: “In the past six-seven months, we have tried to better our ties with India so that peace can prevail. But it seems that they do not understand this language... I believe, we will now communicate with India in the language they understand”.

History teaches us that neither men nor nations learn much from the past. Despite having suffered crushing military victories not once, but on four occasions, at Indian hands, Pakistan has not learnt a lesson. And since it has not learnt from the mistakes of the past, it is doomed to repeat them. Perhaps, it’s time to remind Pakistan that India took 93,000 prisoners during the 1971 war that led to the liberation of Bangladesh. The text of the surrender agreement is now public property, jointly owned by the Governments of India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

The document is on display in the National Museum in New Delhi. It reads: “The Pakistan Eastern Command agree to surrender all Pakistan Armed Forces in Bangladesh to Lieutenant-General Jagjit Singh Aurora, General Officer Commanding in Chief of Indian and Bangladesh forces in the Eastern Theatre. This surrender includes all Pakistan land, air and naval forces as also all paramilitary forces and civil armed forces. These forces will lay down their arms and surrender at the places where they are currently located to the nearest regular troops under the command of Lieutenant-General Jagjit Singh Aurora.

LOGGING INTO TERROR

Pavan Duggal

http://www.dailypioneer.com/sunday-edition/sunday-pioneer/special/logging-into-terror.html

Cyber criminals and terrorists are increasingly using social media networks with impunity for not just the dissemination of their designs and intentions, but more significantly for the purpose of crowd sourcing and further giving effect to their illegal designs

The year 2014 proved to be a golden year for cyber criminals. Not only has cyber crime emerged as the number one challenge for all stakeholders but more significantly, cyber crime as a value proposition has started getting permeated in the Internet ecosystem values. There is an old age saying that wherever there is nectar, honeybees will go there. This dictum is demonstrated accurately in the phenomenon of emerging cyber criminals and cyber crime. Given the fact that social media is today a major component of people’s lives, it is but natural to expect that cyber criminals would also permeate social networks. However, the adoption and seamless integration of terror related approaches with social media have been more prolific in the past one year. 

The recent arrest of Mehdi Masroor Biswas, creator of the highly influential Twitter account @ShamiWitness on the grounds of misusing a Twitter handle and for disseminating the terror philosophy of an organisation is only a case in point. This goes to show that this case is nothing but the tip of the iceberg. All over India, social media networks below the subcutaneous level have been fragmented by terror networks. Cyber criminals and terrorists are increasingly using social media networks with impunity for not just the dissemination of their designs and intentions, but more significantly for the purposes of crowd sourcing and further giving effect to their illegal designs.

No wonder, social media has also been plagued by an increased role by fundamentalists so as to further the cause of fundamentalism. More significantly, cyber terrorists are now increasingly using social media for reaching out to the target audience and for indoctrinating innocent young minds. In India, the advent of unregulated use of ethical hacking schools as institutions has further had a triggered effect. Every year, India is producing thousands of trained ethical hackers. However, in the absence of a regulatory mechanism on how to monitor the activities of these trained ethical hackers, these Indian trained personnel become fertile hunting grounds for cyber criminals and cyber terrorists.

Along with cyber terrorism, cyber naxalism is a big challenge which has already started impacting countries like India. We find that cyber criminals with their illegal intentions are also increasingly using social media for the purpose of propagating cyber naxalism-related thought processes and perspectives. No wonder, social media is now a double-edged sword. Even the inventors of social media could never have envisaged that it could be used in such a potent manner by cyber criminals and cyber terrorists. Unfortunately, the law appears to be a sitting duck when it comes to giving a helping hand to prevent and regulate the misuse of social media for fundamentalism and terrorist purposes.

India was one of the earliest nations in the world to have enacted a detailed provision on cyber terrorism. Section 66F was inserted in the earlier Information Technology Act, 2000, by virtue of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008. The said provision defined in detail the offence of cyber terrorism, which was made a heinous offence punishable with imprisonment which may extend to imprisonment for life. However, while the said Section was implemented in 2008, its invocation was not done in various cases for a variety of reasons. It is only in the recent Bangalore Mehdi Masroor Biswas case that Section 66F has been invoked. However, this case has demonstrated loopholes in the law and also how cyber criminals are a far more intelligent lot. They manage to exploit the loopholes in the law and try to limit their potential exposure to legal liability. Thus, the advent of new social media networks like Twitter and Facebook has demonstrated that Section 66F has remained a limited mandate provision and needs to be substantially increased in its ambit and scope so as to cover newly emerging and innovative misuses of social media by cyber criminals and cyber terrorists.

Millions rally for unity against terrorism in France

January 12, 2015

More than a million people surged through the boulevards of Paris behind dozens of world leaders walking arm-in-arm on Sunday in a rally for unity described as the largest demonstration in French history. Millions more marched around the country and the world to repudiate three days of terror that killed 17 people and changed France.

Amid intense security and with throngs rivalling those that followed the liberation of Paris from the Nazis, the city became “the capital of the world” for a day, on a planet increasingly vulnerable to such cruelty.

More than 40 world leaders headed the somber procession. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas; Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov setting aside their differences with a common rallying cry — We stand together against barbarity, and we are all Charlie.

At least 1.2 million to 1.6 million people streamed slowly through the streets behind them and across France to mourn the victims of deadly attacks on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, a kosher supermarket and police officers violence that tore deep into the nation’s sense of security in a way some compared to Sept. 11 in the United States.

“Our entire country will rise up toward something better,” French President Francois Hollande said.

Details of the attacks continued to emerge, with new video showing one of the gunmen pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group and detailing how the attacks were going to unfold. That gunman, Amedy Coulibaly, was also linked to a new shooting, two days after he and the brothers behind the Charlie Hebdo massacre were killed in nearly simultaneous police raids.

The attacks tested France’s proud commitment to its liberties, which authorities may now curtail to ensure greater security. Marchers recognized this as a watershed moment.

“It’s a different world today,” said Michel Thiebault, 70.

Illustrating his point, there were cheers Sunday for police vans that wove through the crowds a rare sight at the many demonstrations that the French have staged throughout their rebellious history, when protesters and police are often at odds.

Many shed the aloof attitude Parisians are famous for, helping strangers with directions, cheering and crying together. Sad and angry but fiercely defending their freedom of expression, the marchers honored the dead and brandished pens or flags of other nations.

Giant rallies were held throughout France and major cities around the world, including London, Madrid and New York all attacked by al-Qaeda-linked extremists as well as Cairo, Sydney, Stockholm, Tokyo and elsewhere.

In Paris, the Interior Ministry said “the size of this unprecedented demonstration makes it impossible to provide a specific count,” noting that the crowds were too big to fit on the official march route and spread to other streets.

Later, the ministry said 3.7 million marched throughout France, including roughly between 1.2 million and 1.6 million in Paris but added that a precise count is impossible given the enormity of the turnout.

“I hope that at the end of the day everyone is united. Everyone Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists,” said marcher Zakaria Moumni. “We are humans first of all, and nobody deserves to be murdered like that. Nobody.”

On Republic Square, deafening applause rang out as the world leaders walked past, amid tight security and an atmosphere of togetherness amid adversity. Families of the victims, holding each other for support, marched in the front along with the leaders and with journalists working for the Charlie Hebdo newspaper. Several wept openly.

“Je Suis Charlie” “I Am Charlie,” read legions of posters and banners. Many waved editorial cartoons, the French tricolour and other national flags.

America in a tangle over aid to Pakistan

NARAYAN LAKSHMAN

January 12, 2015

APTHE BASICS: “The deeper question that the transactions provoke is about the quality of the bilateral relationship given that U.S. lawmakers have routinely attempted to ramp up or suspend aid.” Picture shows Pakistani army troops riding military vehicles following an operation against the Taliban in North Waziristan. File photo

Several ambiguities exist in the discourse on how much — or how little — money has flowed from Washington to Islamabad and under what conditions

The U.S.’ complex relationship with Pakistan was back in the spotlight last week when it became evident to beltway policy-wallahs that a private diplomatic conversation between the American Ambassador in Islamabad and the Pakistani Finance Minister had been twisted into a formal press release hinting at the promise of $532 million in aid under a now-expired Act.

In two successive daily press briefings the State Department was quick to stoutly deny that the U.S. Congress had been notified about any such funds for Islamabad, and to spell out the minutiae of the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Act (KLB), also known as the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009, under which the U.S. is authorised to finance its South Asian friend to the tune of $7.5 billion between 2010 and 2014.

Ambiguities

Yet, apart from the apparent misreading of Ambassador Richard Olson’s comments, which some in U.S. officialdom generously characterised as a “publication mistake,” the episode has revealed several ambiguities in the broader discourse, in terms of how much — or how little — money has flowed from Washington to Islamabad under the rubric of the KLB, and under what conditions.

On the question of aid conditionality, officials in the U.S. went to great lengths to emphasise last week that not once since Hillary Clinton’s assurances in March 2011 had the State Department provided “certification” that the government of Pakistan was “continuing to cooperate with U.S. efforts to dismantle nuclear weapons-related material supplier networks and make significant efforts to combat terrorist groups.”

A moment of reprieve in Pakistan

BASHARAT PEER

January 12, 2015

The world might have never heard about Shafqat Hussain had Pakistan not briefly lifted its moratorium on executions. His case reflects a flagrant disregard for local and international rights and the harsh realities of Pakistan’s justice system

The night of the Pakistani Taliban massacre of schoolchildren in Peshawar, the Pakistan Army bombed Northern Waziristan. The next day, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lifted the moratorium on executions, which has been in place since 2008, for terrorism-related cases. Within two weeks of the massacre, Pakistan had hanged seven convicted terrorists. Six had been convicted of participating in the attempted assassination of then President Pervez Musharraf in 2003; the seventh was on the death row for his involvement in an attack on the Pakistan Army headquarters in 2009. Media reports now put the figure of those executed as between eight and 10 persons.

Last week, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, the Interior Minister of Pakistan, announced at a press conference that Pakistan intends to hang about 500 prisoners convicted of terrorism-related offences within the next three weeks. Mr. Khan said that intelligence reports have predicted attempts at reprisals for the executions. “But we should not let our guard down if we want to avenge the victims of the Peshawar attack,” he said.

Pakistan has more than 8,000 people on death row. Its courts award death penalty for 27 types of offences, including murder, rape, kidnapping, drug trafficking, and blasphemy, and several terrorism-related crimes. In 2013, according to Amnesty International, Pakistan sentenced 226 people to death, compared to 80 in the United States. Yet the moratorium on death penalty had ensured that no such sentence was executed since 2008 with the exception of a soldier. (Military personnel are exempted from the moratorium.)Hussain’s journey

The executions of five more men have been scheduled for January 14, at Karachi Central Jail. All have been convicted of sectarian murders. There was also to have been a sixth, Shafqat Hussain, until, under immense public pressure, the government stayed his execution earlier this week. Hussain has been on death row since he was convicted, a decade ago, a few months before turning 14, of killing a seven-year-old boy.

Hussain’s journey mirrors the path hundreds of thousands of rural poor in South Asia take to its energetic, growing cities in search of work. He grew up in Neelam valley in Pakistan-controlled-Kashmir. Hussain dropped out of school after his father, a farmer, had a stroke and was unable to work. His beautiful mountain valley had no work to offer. In early 2004, when he was 13 years old, he left his village with a friend and made the long journey across multiple cultures, weather systems, and 1,300 miles to the megacity of Karachi.

Photographs are a luxury for the South Asian poor. The sole picture of Hussain is a portion torn out of a group photograph taken before he moved to Karachi: a wiry boy in a white shirt and a thick black mop of hair. His long, oval face is tense; his green eyes stare self-consciously into the camera.

Karachi is a centrifugal construction site of a city. Hussain found work as a watchman for a half-built apartment complex in the North Nazimabad area. He kept an eye on the building materials and slept at the construction site at night. After the apartment block was complete, Hanif Memon, a cloth merchant, and his family were among the first tenants to move in. Memon’s wife would often leave her children with Shafqat while she ran errands.Claims and charges

Pak courts offer army the power it used to seize

Declan Walsh

Jan 12, 2015

LONDON: After Taliban gunmen massacred dozens of schoolchildren in Peshawar last month, Pakistan's two most powerful men convened an emergency meeting at army headquarters. Their body language, captured in a government-released photo, was revealing: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif looked glum and ill at ease, while the man beside him, Gen. Raheel Sharif, the army chief, lectured confidently. 

To many Pakistanis, the symbolism was rich and unambiguous. After a tumultuous year, Mr. Sharif's government may still be hanging on, extending a nearly seven-year stretch of civilian rule. But otherwise, Pakistan's generals are back in the driver's seat. 

Under General Sharif, who took his post in late 2013 and is not related to the prime minister, the army has transformed its fortunes: triumphing over the government in a series of bruising public clashes, bringing unruly critics in the news media to heel, and winning broad support for a drive against Islamist militants in their tribal stronghold. 

Now, the military has claimed a victory that may turn out to be the most significant of all, allowing the generals deep inroads into an institution that has hounded them in recent years: Pakistan's judiciary. 

A constitutional amendment passed by Parliament on Tuesday empowered military courts to try suspected Islamist militants, opening the way for a rapid but rough-hewed judicial process that could move defendants from arrest to execution in a matter of weeks. 

The military, responding to public anger over the Peshawar killings, is moving fast: On Friday, it announced the establishment of nine new courts, with a promise that they would start work soon.

"The optics are very clear," said Salman Raja, a prominent lawyer who said he was hastily brushing up on military law. "The military is calling all of the shots." 

Among analysts and legal experts, the military courts have raised a slew of worries about the erosion of fundamental rights, the sidelining of the civilian judiciary and the prospect of soldiers' wielding untrammeled power in a country with a long history of military takeovers. 

But this time, Pakistan's generals have not grabbed power from the politicians. It was practically handed to them. 

Save for a handful of religious parties, much of the political system supports the military courts — even the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party, which has long presented itself as a bulwark against an overbearing military. 

Many party stalwarts looked anguished as they voted against their consciences to support the military courts on Tuesday; some wept openly. "A little bit of me died today," said Aitzaz Ahsan, the party's leader in the Senate. 

Yet the vote went ahead — a powerful indictment, critics said, of a political class that seemed to be admitting not only that the country's judicial system was broken, but also that it was incapable of fixing it. 

"They seemed to capitulate with a sigh of relief," said Mr. Raja, the lawyer. "They feel the need to fight another day — or maybe not."