Letter the Editor - Dawn Karachi Re: Iqbal Ahmad Khan's article: Religion and the State

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

To: Editor, Dawn Karachi

This refers to Iqbal Ahmad Khan’s article: Religion and the State

1. As far as Indian Muslims are concerned, Qaid lobbied for Pakistan so that ‘Muslims must get a state of their own to safeguard their status; which status appeared highly compromised under India’s Brahmin led Congress leadership who had no place in India for Muslims as Muslims. It is surprising that he came out with his much celebrated ‘secular’ pronouncement only AFTER getting Pakistan and not before that. To some it would appear a less than transparent approach. He did not get his proclamation ratified by any public approval or even suggested such a coarse. As a democrat it was expected of him.

2. The mishandling that resulted in division of Pakistan in two separate state, was the primarily the work of the so-called secularists on both sides, Bhutto and Mujib. The Army too was not Mullah dominated. The Mullahs became scapegoat as they opposed the division at mass level.

3. If constitution is any guarantee of imposing its will on the rulers, India is the best example of its failure. A secular India is hijacked by the 3% Brahmins in the name of so-called Hindu culture. Even its democracy is greatly flawed. The question arises, how far secularism is to be trusted in the subcontinent with its many avatars.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai

ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com

www.GhulamMuhammed.Blogspot.com

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http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/editorial/religion-and-the-state-110

Religion and the state

By Iqbal Ahmad Khan 
Monday, 11 Jan, 2010

IT is not merely in Pakistan that the judiciary has adopted an uncharacteristically activist role; in other countries of South Asia too it is involved in charting new courses. 

A decision taken by the Bangladesh Supreme Court a few days ago could have far-reaching consequences for the country’s politics, society and the constitution. 

In fact, even beyond the shores of Bangladesh the decision could revive the contentious debate on the role of religion in the affairs of the state. 

The Bangladesh Supreme Court recently lifted its five-year old stay order on a landmark high court verdict declaring as illegal and unconstitutional the Fifth Amendment to the country’s constitution. The amendment had legitimised all governments that had been in power from August 1975 till April 1979 following the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on Aug 15, 1975. 

This included the government of Maj Gen Ziaur Rahman, the husband of Begum Khaleda Zia, chairperson of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (the BNP) and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed’s main political rival. The amendment replaced the principle of secularism enshrined in the constitution with that of ‘absolute trust and faith in the Almighty Allah’ as the basis of all actions. 

Gen Ziaur Rehman also did away with the constitutional provisions prohibiting the formation of communal parties and associations. A series of constitutional amendments elevated the influence of Islam on Bangladeshi politics and society. The words Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim were incorporated in the preface to the constitution. At a later date, during the rule of another general Islam was declared as the state religion. At no time, however, was the name of the country changed to incorporate ‘Islamic’ in the title. 

The Awami League government’s move which led to the supreme court’s lifting of the stay order is a continuation of the long-standing political rivalry between the incumbent Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and leader of the opposition Begum Khaleda Zia. Dynastic battles aside, if the supreme court reconfirms its decision (BNP has decided to challenge it), the implementation of the high court verdict could be the harbinger of a paradigm shift in the country’s political and social discourse. 

According to the Bangladesh law minister the ruling means that the principle of secularism would be reintroduced in the constitution, all religion-based political parties would have to remove the word ‘Islam’ from the names of their parties and the use of faith will not be allowed during electioneering. 

Apprehensive of a backlash, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina held the assurance that the words Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim would remain in the preamble to the constitution as also the declaration of Islam as the state religion. 

The territory comprising Bangladesh was once a part of Pakistan. There were more Muslims within its borders than in the western wing of the country. Yet, this religious bond was not enough to keep the two together. 

The separation was traumatic. It was accompanied by death and destruction. The religious political parties in erstwhile East Pakistan were opposed to the creation of Bangladesh. Perhaps this was one factor which prompted the founding fathers to incorporate the principles of secularism, democracy and nationalism in the constitution. 

Interestingly, prominent Muslim religious parties were also opposed to the idea of Pakistan and to the movement that led to its establishment. They forbade their followers from joining the struggle on the grounds that it was secular in character and led by western educated liberal secularists. In particular, they resented Quaid-i-Azam’s frequent pronouncements which left no doubt that he considered religion as something personal and not the business of the state. 

In his famous address of Aug 11, 1947 to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan the Quaid showed them the way forward. He said, “You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed — that has nothing to do with the business of the state…. You will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the state.” 

The Quaid never referred to Pakistan as the Islamic Republic. 

It did not take the religious lobby too long to collude with civil and military officials to have the name of the country changed from the Republic of Pakistan to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. It worked hand in glove with the military dictatorship in the brutal crackdown in East Pakistan. It became another military dictator’s handmaiden in an attempt to establish a theocratic-authoritarian state in Pakistan, completely at variance with the teachings of the father of the nation. 

The disastrous outcome of this lethal combination has been the destruction of democracy and the proliferation of violent extremism. At the social level it has bred intolerance, rigidity and an anti-modernist sentiment. In combination these trends are feverishly straining at the seams of the state. 

Jinnah and the other leaders of the freedom movement were wise men. They were also realistic and pragmatic. They understood what would work in a pluralistic and diverse society which formed the Pakistani nation. Instead of paying heed to their advice we courted misery (Ashura and Lakki Marwat bloodbaths) by succumbing to the agenda of religious bigots and anti-democratic forces. It is still not too late to redeem ourselves.

The writer is a former high commissioner to Bangladesh.

ghazalakhan27@hotmail.com 

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Comments posted on The Indian Express website over Tavleen Singh’s article: Can there be peace in South Asia?

Tavleen Singh has deeply felt how cornered we are with our security challenged by forces that we cannot address LOGICALLY (albeit our logic). Our own responses are arbitrary, including our 26/11 demands on Pakistan. Our peace gestures to Pakistan are just that; gesture without 'substance' -- substance that Shashi Tharoor asked for. Tavleen's own logic is flawed when she wants Pak to be friends, with the 800 pound gorilla: Kashmir overshadowing. India just fails to see that. We managed for 62 years by the force of arms, among other things. But the parameters are now changed. The same hordes that descended from North throughout our history have been disturbed andIndia stands as a soft option to them. India is treasure trove to them too. They do not need the pretext of Jihad or Islam. They want revenge. Pakistan state itself is a shadow state. They cannot protect themselves. How can they make a joint stand with India? There is no legitimacy. US itself is under trouble. India must make peace with its ‘enemies’.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/can-there-be-peace-in-south-asia/565524/0

Can there be peace in South Asia?

Tavleen Singh

Tags : tavleensingh, column   Posted: Sunday , Jan 10, 2010 at 0316 hrs

ON a cold and foggy evening last week, I went to see Shashi Tharoor. The objective of my visit was to glean from our Minister of State for External Affairs his views on whether we can hope for peace in South Asia more this year than we did last year. The shadow of 26/11 loomed large over 2009. And, every time our Prime Minister made the smallest conciliatory noise we (including me) had a fit.

Last year was a bad one for Indian foreign policy in general. Our Ministry of External Affairs seemed hopelessly weak when responding to Pakistan’s belligerence and denials on 26/11. In Afghanistan, despite the Americans discovering ISI involvement in the bombing of our embassy in Kabul, we came up with a less than robust response. The Chinese made so many incursions into Arunachal Pradesh that we lost count. Emboldened by this they then ordered our Prime Minister to cancel his visit to Arunachal and made menacing noises when the Dalai Lama announced a visit to Tawang. “China’s stand on the so-called Arunachal Pradesh is consistent. We firmly oppose the Dalai Lama visiting the so-called Arunachal Pradesh,” said Jiang Yu, spokeswoman ofChina’s Foreign Ministry.

When I met the Minister, my first question was why India always behaved in such a namby-pamby fashion in the face of open hostility. He smiled indulgently and pointed out that I should pay more attention to ‘substance’. The Prime Minister ignored Chinese objections on Arunachal and so did the Dalai Lama. The Minister seemed convinced that there was nothing for us to worry about on the Chinese front.

When the talk turned to Pakistan, the Minister said that all India wanted was some clear indication that the men responsible for 26/11 would be punished and we would start talking peace again. “We would like some reassurance that the Pakistan government recognises that the enemies of India are also the enemies of Pakistan.”

As I drove off into the dark and foggy night, I mulled over war and peace inSouth Asia at the start of the second decade of the 21st century. By the time I got home, I was in a mood of dark depression. Things are very bad. And even if we do start peace talks with Pakistan, they could end up being no more useful than all those other rounds of engagement in the past sixty years. South Asia is the epicentre of worldwide jihad and after the United States and Israel, there is no country the jihadis hate more than India. If, Allah forbid, Pakistan’s nuclear bombs fall into the hands of the sort of people who planned and executed 26/11, the Indian sub-continent could simply cease to exist. We must do everything to prevent such a horrible eventuality.

As someone who believes that the United States is India’s friend because it is in that country’s best interests and our own, I think we must strengthen that friendship. And, hope that President Obama has some way of controllingPakistan’s nukes. At the same time we must try and find some way of trusting the Pakistan government. It is true that neither the Pakistani army nor the government of President Zardari have done much since the attack on Mumbai to inspire trust. If Ajmal Kasab had not been caught alive and if CCTV footage of the attack on the Taj and Oberoi had not traced telephone calls back to Pakistanwe might still be hearing nothing but denials of Pakistani involvement. But, do we have any choice except to try and find someone in Pakistan to talk to?

Having said this let me add that if a new process of dialogue does begin, the rules of engagement must be new ones or the exercise will be pointless. The attack on Mumbai was a defining moment. An act of war. There is a possibility that some elements of the Pakistani army were involved. We need to know if this is true. The ten who came to Mumbai were pawns guided at every step by those who sat in Pakistan watching the attack on television and openly taking pleasure in its success. A peace process can only begin when the Pakistani government tells us who these men were and whether they will be punished.

Ever since Atal Bihari Vajpayee took that bus to Lahore ten years ago, every gesture of peace India has made has been treated with contempt. Even today every time the Indian government mentions Islamist terrorism, Pakistanresponds with Kashmir. It is an absurd response since the attack on Mumbai made it abundantly clear that the worldwide jihad has goals that go far beyondKashmir. This is something that we can and must talk to Pakistan about. Whose side is Pakistan on when it comes to the jihad?

CIA bomber struck moments before pat-down search -The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/09/AR2010010900758.html?hpid=topnews

CIA bomber struck moments before pat-down search

By R. Jeffrey Smith, Joby Warrick and Ellen Nakashima

Washington Post Staff Writer 
Saturday, January 9, 2010; 9:11 AM

The Jordanian doctor arrived in a red station wagon that came directly fromPakistan and sped through checkpoints at a CIA base in Afghanistan before stopping abruptly at an improvised interrogation center. Outside stood one of the CIA's top experts on al-Qaeda, ready to greet the doctor and hear him describe a way to kill Ayman al-Zawahiri, the organization's number two and a man long at the top of U.S. target lists.
The Jordanian exited the car with one hand in his pocket, according to the accounts of several U.S. officials briefed on the incident. An American security guard approached him to conduct a pat-down search and asked him to remove his hand. Instead, the Jordanian triggered a switch.
A sharp "CLMMMP" coincided with a brief flash and a small puff of smoke as thousands of steel pellets shredded glass, metal, cement and flesh in every direction.
A moment that CIA officials in Washington and Afghanistan had hoped would lead to a significant breakthrough in the fight against al-Qaeda instead became the most grievous single blow against the agency in the counter-terror war.
Virtually everyone within sight of the suicide bomb died immediately, including the CIA al-Qaeda expert; a 30-year old CIA analyst; an interpreter and two other CIA officers; the two contract guards; the Jordanian's handler and the car's driver. At least six others standing in the carport and nearby were wounded by pellets that had first perforated the vehicle, including the CIA's second-in-command inside Afghanistan, who is now reportedly fighting for his life.
Those at the scene on Dec. 30 had been trying to strike a balance between respect for their informant -- best demonstrated, in the regional tradition, by direct personal contact -- and caution, illustrated by the attentiveness of the security guards, according to CIA officials.
But more than a dozen current and former government officials interviewed for this article said they could not account in full for what they called a breach of operational security: In an age of suicide bombers, advance pat-downs and other precautions are common, and meetings are deliberately kept small and remote. None of these sources would agree to be identified by name, in many cases because of their former or current work as covert operatives.
Several intelligence sources said the principal mistake was in trusting the bona fides of the Jordanian doctor, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, who had never previously been invited to the base. The meeting was arranged with help from an allied intelligence officer from Jordan, who was among those waiting at the site for Balawi to arrive and was himself killed by the pellets.
"You get somebody who has helped you and is incredibly important for the information he's going to potentially provide, these are prize possessions," said a former CIA field officer. "Somebody comes and it's like a celebration that they're coming. It's good to make them feel welcome. It's good to make them feel important."
The man who would prove to be a deadly attacker, the former officer said, "was heralded as a superstar asset. . . . So you get an important visitor coming. So you go out and meet him. . . . Is it bad tradecraft? Of course."
But several other intelligence officials and veterans also said they worried that those at the base in Afghanistan's Khost province -- and those in Washington who helped to plan the meeting -- might have lost perspective amid an urgent clamor to kill al-Qaeda leaders in an agency traditionally more adept at the collection and analysis of intelligence than at assassination.
"The tradecraft that was developed over many years is passe," complained a recently retired senior intelligence official, also with decades of experience. "Now it's a military tempo where you don't have time for validating and vetting sources. . . . All that seems to have gone by the board. It shows there are not a lot of people with a great deal of experience in this field. The agency people are supporting the war-fighter and providing information for targeting, but the espionage part has become almost quaint."
Most of those who died were not case officers practiced at dealing directly with sources and typically placed at greatest risk, but either support officers, such as security guards or interpreters, or targeters and analysts -- those who direct the case officers and produce intelligence reports.
"It's not sloppiness," this former official added. "We just don't have time for it. Who wants to be known as the guy who turned away the tip that could have helped us get Osama bin Laden?"
CIA officials denied that such a breach occurred, noting that the bomber detonated the device at the moment he was about to be searched and when most of the victims were many yards away. "Security precautions were taken," said a senior official. "A tested source was brought in by a trusted friend and he had promising leads. These were all reasons to allow him to come on the base."
'Photograph-type evidence'
The man who instigated the unusual gathering at Forward Operating Base Chapman had been the subject of hopeful speculation for weeks. But until the afternoon of Dec. 30, none of the Americans at the base had laid eyes on him.
A darkly handsome 32-year-old, Balawi had captured the attention of analysts from Kabul to CIA headquarters with his claim of direct knowledge about Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda leader second only to Osama bin Laden and the brains behind the network's longstanding efforts to obtain nuclear and biological weapons.
After a Jordanian authorities incarcerated him briefly in January 2009 because of his extremist Web postings, Balawi had traveled to Pakistan in March, ostensibly for medical studies. He subsequently sent tantalizing information by e-mail to Jordanian intelligence officials, who shared them with the Americans. The messages included descriptions of the results ofU.S. missile attacks on al-Qaeda and Taliban training camps and safe houses, including details about victims and facilities that no one knew outside a small circle of intelligence analysts and the terrorists themselves.
Senior CIA officials in Washington who were receiving updates on the man's reports were impressed by "irrefutable proof" that he had been in the presence of al-Qaeda's top leaders, one of the officials said. The proof included "photograph-type evidence," the official said.
In 2008, Balawi had declared on an Internet site that he wished to "be a bomb" so he could destroy Israelis for their treatment of Palestinians. His family has said they were unaware of any help he was providing to the Jordanian government, noting that his prison stay left him agitated and visibly stressed. But Jordanian analysts found his missives to be compelling. "We made an effort to lure him in and verify the information he had," a senior Jordanian government official said.
Ultimately, agency officials decided that a face-to-face meeting was necessary, but the border region is so dangerous that the CIA had no safe houses of its own for rendezvous with informants, according to several intelligence officials who have transited the region.
A CIA official said that senior agency officials in Washington were aware of the plan to meet him and supported it.
The CIA base at Khost is one of only two in Afghanistan that the agency controls directly; the others are all located within larger military bases that provide more layered security under American control. Its strength -- and also its vulnerability -- stems from its location less than 10 miles from the Pakistani border and the tribal region of North Waziristan, where a Taliban faction known as the Haqqani network reportedly is headquartered.
Current and former officials who have visited the base describe it as a targeting center for Predator strikes and other operations inside Pakistan, some involving Pashtun tribesmen loyal to the West who are accustomed to traversing the porous border for intelligence-gathering, bomb-targeting and other missions.
An intelligence official authorized by the CIA to speak on background about Balawi's suicide bombing called it "an important base, and [being] chief there is an important assignment. You don't get that one unless you know your stuff -- and the CIA had a world-class expert on al-Qaeda and counter-terrorism operations running the place."
The official was referring to a nearly 20-year agency veteran killed in the attack, a 45-year-old woman with three children. At the CIA's request, the Post has agreed not to use her name in this article.
A former reports officer in the agency's directorate of intelligence, she started tracking al-Qaeda before the Sept. 2001 attacks, spent nearly 10 years in the agency's counter-terrorism center and had several brief tours in Afghanistan before landing in Khost six months ago.
"People in the field are more engaged. She wanted to see that, to see the problems up close, and be on the cutting edge," said a former senior intelligence officer with whom she discussed the assignment.
The others who died included Jeremy Wise, one of the security guards, a 35-year old former Navy SEAL who was remembered at a Virginia Beach memorial service last Thursday as a good-humored father to his young son; Dane Clark Paresi, a 46-year old former Special Forces soldier who saw duty in Iraq and elsewhere in southwest Asia and was the second CIA-contracted security guard; a 30-year-old CIA analyst and Rockford, Ill., native named Elizabeth Hanson, whose academic background was in Russian literature; and CIA officer Scott Roberson, a 39-year-old former Atlanta police detective.
Harold Brown, another CIA officer and 37-year-old Fairfax, Va. father of three, also perished; he arrived in Afghanistan last April for a one-year term. His father said the government never explained the circumstances of his son's death, but that his son was among "the best this country had . . . . And they believed in what they were doing."
Out of sight of Taliban spies
At the Khost base, several officials said, the outer gate is presumed to be closely watched by Taliban spies, so the car carrying Balawi did not stop there. The driver was directed to a relatively empty corner of the compound, away from the main CIA buildings, to the makeshift interrogation center.
CIA officials have been particularly pained by what they call misinformed suggestions that Balawi was able to set off his bomb in the midst of an adoring throng. One emphasized that having different specialists at the meeting was reasonable and that Balawi "was about to be searched and he knew it. Had he been able to get closer -- and he couldn't -- he would have done even more damage."
The same official also cautions against second-guessing the episode from a distance, explaining that "the individuals with the best, first-hand knowledge of exactly what transpired are either dead or wounded."
Staff writer Peter Finn and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

Police bundle George Galloway on plane from Egypt back to UK

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/2010/01/09/police-bundle-george-galloway-on-plane-from-egypt-back-to-uk-86908-21953591/

Police bundle George Galloway on plane from Egypt back to UK

Jan 9 2010 David Taylor

GEORGE GALLOWAY has been deported from Egypt and banned from ever returning to the country.

The Respect MP was bundled into a plane by plain-clothes police officers yesterday as he attempted to cross the border from Gaza.

Record columnist Galloway was leading a convoy taking humanitarian aid to the troubled Strip between Israel and Egypt.

The firebrand politician and colleague Ron McKay were arrested after returning to Egypt to aid seven members of the Viva Palestine convoy who had been detained.Back in London last night, defiant Galloway said: "It is a badge of honour to be deported by a dictatorship.

"I've been thrown out of better joints than that."

He said the aid workers whose arrest sparked the confrontation had been freed and were being allowed to leave the country.

And he vowed to continue organising aid convoys to Gaza. He said: "That means going though the Israeli naval blockade but that's been done before and will be done again."

Galloway's aid convoy of 550 people from 17 countries was caught up in violent scenes on Tuesday, which they blamed on "heavy-handed policing".

The group's spokeswoman said 55 convoy members were injured.

She added: "Mr Galloway and Turkish MPs struck a deal with Egyptian authorities, part of which was that the seven detainees were released without charge.

"On the enforced drive to Cairo, news came through of the imminent arrest of the seven but, when Mr Galloway demanded to return to Rafah, permission was denied."

Now Egypt has declared Galloway persona non grata, accusing him of incitement after he criticised Cairo for delaying the aid convoy.

This is not the Galloway's first brush with Egyptian authorities. He spent the night in a cell there in 2006 after an anti-war event.

Muslims question full-body search of woman in head scarf - Detroit News

THIS IS AN ULTIMATE CHALLENGE TO ISLAMIC NORMS ON MODESTY. MUSLIM WOMEN MUST BOYCOTT COMMERCIAL AIR TRAVEL. OR FLY PRIVATE EXCLUSIVE AIR SERVICE.

GHULAM MUHAMMED, MUMBAI

http://detnews.com/article/20100107/METRO01/1070413/Muslims-question-full-body-search-of-woman-in-head-scarf

Last Updated: January 07. 2010 1:00AM

Muslims question full-body search of woman in head scarf

Dearborn native says she was told she was singled out by security

Oralandar Brand-Williams / The Detroit News

Detroit -- A national Muslim civil rights group is asking the Transportation Security Administration for clarification on whether Muslim women wearing Islamic head scarves, or hijabs, will be singled out for additional security checks after a traveler said she was targeted for a "humiliating" full-body search at an airport Tuesday.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations office in Washington, D.C., sent the letter via e-mail Wednesday after a Muslim woman Tuesday from Washington's Dulles International Airport to Los Angeles said she was asked to remove her hijab and then put through a full-body pat-down search when she refused to take off the scarf.

She said she did consent to a search. The woman told CAIR officials her clothes, luggage, laptop computer and cell phone were searched and tested for bomb-making materials.

Nadia Hassan, 40, of Maryland said she was patted down in front of her daughter, 5, and several male TSA staffers.

"It was very humiliating. It was very uncomfortable," Hassan told The Detroit News via a telephone interview from California. "I didn't say anything. I didn't want to cause any trouble. ... I'm an American. I'm not a foreigner. My country is treating me this way?"

Hassan, a Dearborn native, said she was told by one of the TSA guards that "I was singled out because I was wearing the hijab" and that the search was part of new rules that went into effect Tuesday. A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the TSA, did not comment on the incident but said TSA screeners do not single out Muslim women wearing head scarves.

"The Transportation Security Administration's current procedures for the screening of bulky clothing or headwear -- which have been in effect since 2007 -- remain unchanged. The wearing of a hijab itself does not automatically trigger security checks," said Sarah Horowitz in a written statement to The News. "To ensure the highest level of security, passengers wearing loose fitting or bulky clothing -- including headwear -- may be subject to additional screening."

CAIR National Director Nihad Awad wrote to TSA Acting Director Gale D. Rossides on Wednesday, saying, "If this troubling new policy is indeed in effect, it represents religious profiling in its most egregious form. We respectfully request that you clarify whether Islamic head scarves will now trigger automatic secondary screening for Muslim travelers.

"If so, does this new policy apply to all those who wear religious head coverings, such as Sikh men, Catholic nuns and Orthodox Jewish women, or will it apply exclusively to Muslim travelers?"

TSA officials did not return calls.

bwilliams@detnews.com (313) 222-2027

Comments posted on Brookings website over Bruce Riedel’s article: Al Qaida’s Yemen Connection, America and the Global Islamic Jihad

http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2009/1230_terrorism_yemen_riedel.aspx?comments=1

Comments posted on Brookings website over Bruce Riedel’s article: Al Qaida’s Yemen Connection, America and the Global Islamic Jihad

Jan 4, 201011:10 AM

The way 'failed states' are popping up, one recalls Powell's comments, you broke it, you own it. US will have to be alert to moves by vested interests to drag it into ever widening quagmire of failed states, in the name of its own 'security' and the ghosts of demons around the world, ever ready to attack the US and its pet 'Ally'. The Muttalab incident should point to a virtual civil war raging within the circle of US agencies confronting each other with differing or even divergent views on America's security. The more strong the US is portrayed, the more it is becoming prone to face challenges testing its reach and tenacity. Obama must go for a drastic change. He may decide to move the goal post.

—Ghulam Muhammed

http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2009/1230_terrorism_yemen_riedel.aspx

Al Qaeda’s Yemen Connection, America and the Global Islamic Jihad

Terrorism, Middle East, Islamic World

Bruce Riedel, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy

The Brookings Institution

DECEMBER 30, 2009 —

The attempt to destroy Northwest Airlines flight 253 en route from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day underscores the growing ambition of al Qaeda's Yemen franchise, which has grown from a largely Yemeni agenda to become a player in the global Islamic jihad in the last year. Since merging with the al Qaeda franchise in Saudi Arabia last January and renaming itself Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), it has stepped up operations in Yemen itself, struck into Saudi Arabia, and now operates on the global stage. The weak Yemeni government of President Ali Abdallah Salih, which has never fully controlled the country and now faces a host of growing problems, will need significant American support to defeat AQAP.

·                               

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Protesters shout slogans as they march on a street in the southern Yemeni town of Radfan.

 alt="Protesters shout slogans as they march on a street in the southern Yemeni town of Radfan." v:shapes="_x0000_i1030">
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Reuters/STR New

Al Qaeda has long been active in Yemen, the original homeland of Osama bin Laden's family, and one of its first major terror attacks was conducted in Aden in 2000, when an al Qaeda cell nearly sank the USS Cole. A year ago, the al Qaeda franchises in Saudi Arabia and Yemen merged after the Saudi branch had been effectively repressed by the Saudi authorities under the leadership of Deputy Interior Minister Prince Muhammad bin Nayif. The new AQAP showed its claws last August, when it almost assassinated the prince with a suicide bomber who had passed through at least two airports on the way to his attempt on Nayif. 

The same bombmakers who produced that device probably also manufactured the bomb that Omar al Farooq Abdulmutallab used on Flight 253. In claiming credit for the Detroit attack, AQAP highlighted how they had built a bomb that "all the advanced, new machines and technologies and the security boundaries of the world's airports" had failed to detect. They praised their "mujahedin brothers in the manufacturing sector" for building such a "highly advanced device," and promised that more such attacks will follow. 

Yemen has sought to repress al Qaeda off and on for the last decade, with little success. The Saleh government has other more immediate problems on its plate, in particular a rebellion among Shia Zaydi tribes known as Houthis in the north that has escalated in the last two months with attacks by the rebels into Saudi territory. The southern part of the country, which only merged with the north in 1990 and fought a bitter civil war in 1994 when it tried to break away, is hostile to the Saleh government and is looking for a chance to split off again. The economy is weak and heavily dependent on dwindling oil reserves, and the majority of the 23 million Yemenis are illiterate and poor. 

The Obama administration has offered Saleh additional military assistance, and has encouraged the government to strike hard at al Qaeda hideouts in the last few weeks. The attacks have killed some AQAP leaders, but it is unclear exactly how serious a blow these attacks have inflicted on the group as a whole. AQAP has vowed revenge for the strikes, which it blames on an alliance between America, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Saleh government. 

AQAP has also provided refuge for the Yemeni-American cleric Shaykh Anwar al-Awlaki. Al-Awlaki was in contact with U.S. Army Major Nidal Hassan, who killed 13 soldiers at Fort Hood in Texas on November 5, 2009. In an interview with Al Jazeera released on December 23, Awlaki said he had encouraged Nidal to kill his fellow soldiers because they were preparing to go to Afghanistan and were part of the Zionist-Crusader alliance that al Qaeda says it is fighting. The next day, December 24, Awlaki was reported to be among those killed in a Yemeni-American strike on the AQAP leadership, but that is still unconfirmed. In claiming credit for the Christmas Day airline attack, AQAP also lauded the Fort Hood massacre and urged other American Muslims to emulate Nidal Hassan. 

Al Qaeda has always found weak and failing states like Yemen to be its best staging bases and sanctuaries. Along with Pakistan, Afghanistan and Somalia, Yemen offers an ideal location to operate with little outside interference. The president has been right to focus additional resources on combating AQAP, but the battle has just begun. If the Yemeni state becomes further destabilized, bin Laden’s cadre in the Arabian Peninsula will have more room to operate. 

The attack on the Amsterdam-Detroit flight also shows that al Qaeda remains obsessed with striking the American airline industry, a target it has gone after repeatedly since 1999. If AQAP has now been told by the al Qaeda core leadership to take on the job, we can probably assume that other al Qaeda franchises in North Africa, Iraq, Southeast Asia and elsewhere have also been pressed to attack.