Terrorism & Security

Turkey's former Chief of Staff Gen. Ilker Basbug, center left, is surounded by security officials as he arrives at a prosecutor's office in Istanbul, Turkey, Thursday. Gen. Basburg was questioned Friday about accusations that the military funded dozens of websites aimed at undermining the Turkish government. (AP)

Turkey jails former leader of its once-exalted military

By Ariel Zirulnick, Staff writer / 01.06.12

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

Turkey's top military official until 2010 was jailed today on charges of supporting terrorism and conspiring to bring down the government. The arrest of Gen. Ilker Basburg, the former chief of general staff, is the latest in a series of arrests this year of military officials, politicians, journalists, activists, and academics, which have prompted warnings that the "democratic model" of the Middle East is sliding into authoritarianism.

The government has been investigating a series of alleged antigovernment plots within the military. Gen. Basburg was questioned today about accusations that the military funded dozens of websites aimed at undermining the Turkish government. Many other lower-ranking military officials have already been questioned, saying that they were merely acting in a chain of command, the Washington Post reports. Hundreds have been put on trial.

Under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the political clout of Turkey's military – formerly the country's most powerful institution – has been greatly reduced. For decades the military called the shots in the country, staging three coups, and kept the country relentlessly secular, forcing an Islamist prime minister to quit at one point. Last year, the nation's top four military leaders resigned in protest of the arrests of military officials, the Washington Post reports. Some 58 active generals or admirals are in jail, according to the military.

The government's successful reduction of the military's power has been popular with the public, but the "wide net" cast in investigations and the prosecution of the suspects in the coup plot cases under antiterrorism laws has concerned even those who want to see the military's influence reduced, the Wall Street Journal reports. Defendants argue that the coup plot cases are a political tool to "discredit and weaken" the military.

"The fact that prosecutors are now touching senior generals is a turning point in the democratisation process of Turkey. Many were sceptical that prosecutors would go this far," military affairs analyst Lale Kemal told Reuters. "I would not be surprised if we see some commanders resign (if Basbug is remanded in custody) but I do not expect this to bring serious instability to Turkey," she said.

Turkey's economic success and growing political influence have discouraged substantial criticism of its increasingly frequent investigations based on little evidence, broad police powers, and the arrest of lawyers, among other antidemocratic developments, The Christian Science Monitor reports. The Turkish economy was projected to grow 7.5 percent in 2011.

With that kind of success, the Turkish public has been unwilling to rock the boat by speaking out against the 100-plus journalists in prison, or any of the other recent developments, according to Reuters.

Basburg denied the charges, calling it a "tragicomedy" that the former leader of one of the world's strongest armies would face such accusations, The New York Times reports. “It is very sad, and hard to understand,” he said during the interrogation. “If authorities have failed to discover any of this misconduct that I am claimed to have committed in active duty, then all is incomprehensible.”

According to the Washington Post, the conspiracy against the government was first reported by a Turkish newspaper in 2009. The paper printed a copy of the alleged plan to damage the government's reputation, but the subsequent investigation turned up nothing concrete – the original document could not be found. The investigation resumed last year, reportedly because a military officer found the original document and sent it to the country's chief prosecutor.

According to Turkish newspaper Hurriyet Daily News, the opposition party has been outspoken about its disappointment with the investigation.

Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu commented on the arrest, saying the decision was made by political authorities and then confirmed by the court.  

Kılıçdaroğlu also said he had "no faith that specially authorized courts" would achieve justice. 

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Iraqi security forces and people, seen through smashed glass of a damaged vehicle, gather at the scene of a bomb attack in Sadr City, east of Baghdad, Iraq, Jan. 5. A wave of explosions struck two Shiite neighborhoods on Thursday, killing and injuring dozens of Iraqis, police said, and intensifying fears that insurgents are stepping up attacks after the U.S. troop withdrawal that was completed last month. (Karim Kadim/AP)

Iraq bombings, political crisis raise concerns of renewed civil war

By Ariel Zirulnick, Staff writer / 01.05.12

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

At least 50 people were killed today in two predominantly Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad, underlining Iraq's tenuous stability as a political crisis threatens to inflame stark sectarian divisions.

There were at least four explosions across Baghdad. The first attack took place in Sadr City, in northeast Baghdad, and killed at least a dozen people. A half-hour later, another bomb went off nearby, killing one, the Guardian reports. The neighborhood of Kadhamiya, home to an important Shiite shrine, was blasted by a pair of almost simultaneous bombs two hours later. Yesterday there were a series of attacks on the homes of police officers and a member of a Sunni militia with ties to the government.

No group has claimed responsibility for the bombings yet, but The New York Times reports that they "appear similar" to previous attacks carried out by the Sunni militant group Al Qaeda in Iraq. On Dec. 22, AQI staged a series of explosions throughout the capital that killed more than 60 people. 

Two days before those attacks, the Monitor's Dan Murphy warned of the growing parallels between trendlines of violence today, and the situation at the height of Iraq's civil war. 

Politics was seen as a zero-sum game, and if you didn't fight, you could only lose. While horrific suicide attacks were carried out by Sunni jihadis well outside the Iraqi mainstream, they were enabled by a broader Sunni community willing to look the other way as attacks were plotted against their confessional enemies. On the Shiite side, death squads targeting former Baathists and Sunnis operated with near impunity, with many Shiites tolerating the killing as justifiable payback for decades of abuse under Saddam.

The current political crisis erupted just days after the US military completed its withdrawal in mid-December, with lawmakers from the main Sunni bloc, Iraqiya, boycotting the parliament and cabinet. Shiite Prime Minister Nour al-Maliki accused the top Sunni politician, Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, of organizing death squads against political opponents. Sunnis, a religious minority, accused Mr. Maliki of blocking them from participating in the US-backed powersharing government that is intended to ease sectarian tensions. The Guardian reports that Iraqiya's participation is considered crucial to preventing another civil war like the one that broke out years ago, at the height of the US invasion.

In late December, Maliki issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Hashemi, on terror charges. Hashemi denied the charges but fled to the semi-autonomous Kurdish north.

In a Foreign Policy interview with Uri Friedman, Hashemi said Iraq's prime minister had turned from building a democracy to building an autocratic regime and implied that Maliki is becoming a new Sadaam Hussein.

"Now everything is in his hands: the ministry of defense, the ministry of the interior, intelligence, national security," Hashemi claimed. He wants his case transferred to Kurdistan because he doesn't think Iraq's judicial system is independent. Instead of judiciary authorities responding to his appeal, the vice president notes, Maliki himself shot down the request during his press conference yesterday, calling instead for Kurdish officials to hand over Hashemi. "The judicial system is really in his pocket," Hashemi argued.  

The Kurdish north, far removed from the chaos of the rest of the country, is anxiously watching the political posturing in Baghdad, The New York Times reports from Irbil.

The end of the American military role here is an anxious turning point for the Kurds, who were protected by the United States for 20 years, beginning after the Persian Gulf war of 1991, with a humanitarian operation and no-fly zone that halted Saddam Hussein’s killing machine. Now, the consolidation of power by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki evokes painful memories of Kurdish suffering at the hands of a powerful central government in Baghdad. It also places the Kurds in the delicate position of acting as peacemakers between warring Shiite and Sunni Arab factions, a battle in which their own future is at stake. Iraq is still plagued by a deadly Sunni Muslim insurgency and Shia militias nearly nine years after the US-led invasion.

Mr. Murphy wrote that the Kurds are being looked to as potential allies of Iraq's Sunnis, at least as a way of balancing out the growing power of Iraq's Shiites under Maliki. 

The irony that the independence-minded Kurds like Kurdish President Massoud Barzani, repeatedly victimized by Saddam Hussein's Sunni Arab-dominated Iraq, are now being asked to shore up Sunni Arabs, should be lost on no one. But it's just one measure of how dangerous the situation has become, with the minority parties growing increasingly alarmed at the power Maliki is accruing for himself and the failure of Iraq's putative political institutions to rein him in. While the Kurds put group interests in front of national ones, they'd prefer a balancing of powers in the rest of Iraq, rather than the emergence of a single, strong Shiite Arab leader who might make their prerogatives his next target. 

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In this photo, Arab League monitors check Al-Sabil area, in Daraa, Syria, on Tuesday. The Arab League called Tuesday for an emergency meeting to discuss whether to withdraw the group's monitors from Syria, where security forces are still killing protesters despite the observers' presence, an Arab official said. (SANA/AP)

Arab League's Syria mission faces mounting criticism

By Ariel Zirulnick, Staff writer / 01.04.12

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

Syrian and international activists are raining criticism on the controversial Arab League mission that was dispatched to Syria last week to monitor government compliance with orders to end its crackdown on the country's opposition movement. Last week the outcry focused on the dubious human rights record of the general heading the mission. This week there are concerns that the observers are being misled by the government.

The key question: Is the mission merely a facade to make it seem like the international community is taking action in Syria, or does it just need time because of the difficult circumstances?

Britain-based activist Rami Abdul-Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and activist Mustafa Osso in Syria told the Associated Press that government officials are "changing neighborhood signs to confuse the monitors, taking them to areas loyal to the regime and painting army vehicles to look like those of the police — in order to claim the army has pulled out of flashpoint regions."

Arab League Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi admitted that violence continues, but wouldn't denounce the mission, citing the release of political prisoners and the withdrawal of tanks from cities, The Los Angeles Times reports.

"Yes, there is still shooting, and yes, there are still snipers," Mr. Arabi said from the league's Cairo headquarters. But the mission found it "hard to say who is shooting whom," he added.

The Local Coordination Committees, one of the leading anti-Assad groups, said in a statement to Arabi that the observers lacked professionalism. The group estimated that almost 400 people had been killed since the observers began arriving in Syria last month, Agence France-Presse reports.

Opposition groups say that the mission – consisting of about 70 monitors on the ground, with 30 more coming soon – is too small and easily "misled" to provide an accurate account to the Arab League, according to the LA Times.

"Either the Arab observers are blind or they are working for the regime," said an activist in Homs, where observers went first. The man, who said his name was Abu Rami, said there were "checkpoints 'full of soldiers' in the city and tanks hidden on its outskirts that could be back inside within minutes. … 'This is not a withdrawal'."

According to Reuters, activists report having difficulty meeting with monitors out of earshot of the monitors' government security escorts. Activist Mohammed Abul-Khair told the news agency that he managed to get information on detainees and suspected detention centers to the monitors who said "they had found it hard to meet activists until now, but appeared sympathetic."

Others said the team seemed unprepared or unwilling. They said the monitors had set up an office in a government-controlled area hard for activists to reach, and complained that many observers did not bring cameras or notepads on visits.

"I don't think they are sympathetic, I think they are afraid," said activist Abu Faisal, also present at the meeting. "We wanted to take them to one of the narrow alleys where there had been a lot of shelling. They wouldn't go past the buildings where there were snipers.

Both France and the US voiced concerns about the mission as well. French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé said monitors needed to be able to act independently, without Syrian security forces present. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the US is worried about reports of soldiers masquerading as police officers and putting out notices about the arrival of observers in order to lure members of the opposition into the streets.

The head of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), an armed faction of the opposition, threatened yesterday to ratchet up attacks on government forces if the monitors did not begin showing progress, Reuters reports. "If we feel they (the monitors) are still not serious in a few days, or at most within a week, we will take a decision which will surprise the regime and the whole world," said Col. Riad al-Asaad.

Asaad, whose FSA is an umbrella group of armed factions, said he was waiting for the League's report on its first week before deciding whether to make a "transformative shift" that he said would mark a major escalation against the security forces.

"Since they (the monitors) entered, we had many more martyrs," he said, speaking by telephone from his safe haven in southern Turkey. "Is it in the Syrian people's interest to allow the massacre to continue?"

The head of the Arab Parliament, an advisory board to the Arab League, called for the monitors to be pulled out of Syria, CNN reports via Egypt's state-run MENA news agency. "What is happening allows the Syrian regime a cover for the exercise of its inhumane practices under the Arab League's watch," Ali Salem al-Deqbasi said in a statement.

But some others in the international community say that the mission should be looked at in the context of its alternatives – specifically the absence of any so far.

"I can understand very well that people are impatient. They want to see immediate results, that immediately the violence stops. So I think although the mission has not produced what the opposition, the peaceful opposition would have liked, it's too early to draw the conclusion that it's a failure," said Nikolaos Van Dam, a Syria analyst and former Dutch diplomat in the Middle East, according to a separate Reuters report.

"I would suggest to wait and see. If the mission comes to the conclusion that it is as bad, or even half as bad, as the opposition has been describing, this is already quite something. It could be reported to the UN Security Council," Mr. Van Dam said.

The league has called an "urgent" meeting on Jan. 7 to review the mission's work, Voice of America reports.

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Black smoke is seen from Homs refinery in Syria last month, after a Syrian pipeline carrying oil from the east of the country to a refinery in Homs was blown up. Since the uprising began in mid-March, there have been at least five pipeline explosions. (Reuters)

Syria pipeline explodes as Arab League mission limps on

By Tom A. Peter, Correspondent / 01.03.12

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

The Syrian government blamed terrorists for the explosion of a gas pipeline in central Syria on Tuesday.

As the country has spiraled deeper into war between his regime and his domestic opponents, President Bashar al-Assad has accused terrorist groups and foreign agitators of causing the violence. Opposition groups say that Mr. Assad is playing to people’s fears and seeking to use incidents like this explosion as a ploy to strengthen his base of support.

The explosion occurred in the town of Rastan in Homs province, one of the most violent in Syria. Since the uprising began in mid-March, there have been at least five pipeline explosions, reports Xinhua. With the situation in Syria increasingly resembling a civil war, The Daily Telegraph reports that it remains unclear who was behind the pipeline attacks.

News of the pipeline incident came as the Arab League monitoring team in Syria faces mounting allegations that it has done little to improve the situation since its arrival last week. On Monday the head of the Arab League admitted that Syrian forces are still killing protesters.

“The Arab League has fallen victim to the regime's typical traps, in which observers have no choice but to witness regime-staged events, and move about the country only with the full knowledge of the regime,” said a statement by the Local Coordinating Committees, a group of Syrian activists, reported by the Associated Press. “This has rendered the observers unable to work or move independently or in a neutral manner.”

France’s foreign minister has publicly stated he is “skeptical” of the mission, but members of the Arab League have defended it, saying that it has resulted in the withdrawal of tanks from cities and the release of political prisoners. Nabil al-Arabi, chief of the Arab League, told Agence France-Presse that he planned to raise concerns about on-going violence with Assad, saying, “the aim is to stop the shooting and protect civilians.” Still he added that “it is difficult to say who is firing on whom.”

The Arab monitoring mission has also taken considerable criticism for appointing Lt. Gen. Muhammad Ahmed al-Dabi of Sudan, an Arab League member, as the head of the Syria delegation. The general formerly ran Sudan’s military intelligence agency; human rights activists have accused him of enforcing brutal government crackdowns. Mr. Dabi’s history has led to questions whether he can objectively assess the situation in Syria, which he has thus far downplayed.

“I don’t know if they looked into his background,” said Faisal Mohammed Salih, a columnist with the Sudanese newspaper Al Akhbar in an interview with The New York Times. “This is a human rights mission. They should have chosen someone who is sensitive to human rights issues. Military men in the Arab world should be the last choice for such missions.”

Amid the ongoing bloodshed, some are now wondering if the situation will require the intervention of international forces to bring an end to the fighting.

“I don't think they [the Arab League observers] are capable of doing anything. A different strategy that would rely on the Syrian people themselves to be able to mount their own uprising to overthrow the regime could have been the real strategy. Otherwise the affairs of running Syria and undertaking change in the country are going to be left, like in Libya, to NATO,” said Asad Abukhalil, a professor of political science at California State University during an interview with Al Jazeera.

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