Terrorism & Security

An Indian police official stands guard at one of the two bomb blast sites in Hyderabad, India, Friday. Indian police are investigating whether a shadowy Islamic militant group was responsible for a dual bomb attack that killed 16 people outside a movie theater and a bus station in the southern city of Hyderabad, a police official said Friday. (Aijaz Rahi/AP)

Hyderabad: Indian government warned of impending terrorist attack

By Ariel Zirulnick, Staff writer / 02.22.13

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

Two bombs went off in the Indian city of Hyderabad yesterday, killing at least 16 and launching a fresh round of accusations at the government, which has been crticized for their efforts to rein in militants in the country and prevent attacks.

The two bombs, planted on bicycles, went off almost simultaneously yesterday in a market in a middle-class neighborhood in the IT hub, Reuters reports. No one has claimed responsibility. 

The Indian government said that it had received intelligence indicating an attack was in the works, and informed local police in several cities, among them Hyderabad, India's fourth most populous city, two days before the bombing. The New York Times reports that the arrest of four terrorists in October 2012 revealed that one of them had done "reconnaissance" of the same Hyderabad neighborhood that was targeted.

Bloomberg reports that it was India's deadliest bombing in almost two years. After the deadly 2008 shooting spree in Mumbai, which killed 166 people, the government vowed to make improvements to its intelligence and anti-terror operations, but there have been nine terrorist attacks since then, according to Bloomberg.

As Reuters notes, government effectiveness at preventing terrorist attacks is a major political issue in India, and the ruling Congress party has "had to fend off accusations... of being weak on security."

"The government's response is not adequate to the burning issue of terrorism. The government is taking it in a casual and usual manner," opposition party leader Venkaiah Naidu told reporters outside Parliament, reports the news agency Press Trust of India.

In this instance, the government has been particularly criticized for having prior knowledge of an attack and not doing enough to prevent it. “If you do not have any information it is an intelligence failure,” Ajit Doval, a former director of India’s Intelligence Bureau, told The New York Times. “But if you have some information, and even then you cannot prevent the event, then it is the failure of the government.”

But another former official defended the government: "These alerts are so routine that you cannot act upon these," J. N. Rai, a former official with India’s Intelligence Bureau, told the Times. "With the use of technology and online communication, it has become rather more difficult" to detect and prevent planned attacks, he said.

Press Trust of India reports that the Home Ministry sent a "specific" alert to four cities – Hyderabad, Bangalore, Coimbatore, and Hubli – yesterday morning to warn them of "probable" attacks. All states received an alert on Feb. 19 and Feb. 20, that "Pakistan-based terrorist groups may carry out attacks in a major city" to avenge Afzal Guru, who was convicted of attacking Parliament and executed earlier this month, setting off days of clashes in Kashmir, as the Monitor reported.  

Kiran Kumar Reddy, chief minister of the state of Andhra Pradesh, of which Hyderabad is the capital, defended local police's actions, saying those alerts were "general alerts which often keep coming from the Centre," according to the news agency.

N. Manoharan, an analyst at the Vivekananda International Foundation, a New Delhi-based policy research group, told Bloomberg that yesterday's attacks "have the hallmarks" of the Islamic militant group Indian Mujahideen. “This kind of communally sensitive place, the use of detonators and timers, the pattern of the bombings and the fact that bombs were placed on cycles point the finger toward Indian Mujahideen,” Mr. Manoharan said.

The Christian Science Monitor's Shivam Vij reported yesterday on the skepticism surrounding that claim: 

"We don't know who the Indian Mujahideen is, which raises suspicions about such claims," says Delhi-based human rights activist Mahtab Alam, "Every time there is a blast the police say Indian Mujahideen and then they claim they have nabbed the Indian Mujahideen masterminds, til the next blast."

The group is composed of Indian men "radicalized" by anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat state in 2002. It first came to light in 2008, after claiming several bomb attacks in cities such as New Delhi and Ahmedabad, according to Bloomberg.

India is incapable of stopping militant groups without specific, actionable intelligence, Manoharan says, and local police "are not trained or equipped well enough to meet this kind of threat."

Bloomberg reports that the country is short on police, with only one officer for every 1,037 residents. The global average is one for every 333 people, according to Human Rights Watch. The officers are often ill-trained and kept on for shifts that last 24 hours. According to the government, 600,000 vacancies remain in the police force.

Photographs of young men allegedly abducted by Mexican soldiers are seen at a desk in Iguala, in the Mexican state of Guerrero February 20, 2013. (Tomas Bravo/REUTERS)

Mexico state security officials collaborated in civilian abductions: Human Rights Watch

By Whitney Eulich, Staff writer / 02.21.13

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

The very government and security forces meant to protect Mexicans from the violence that has overwhelmed the country during its drug war played a role in the disappearance of nearly 150 people over a six-year period, with little or no investigation into the cases, Human Rights Watch announced yesterday.

The new report, entitled “Mexico’s Disappeared: The Enduring Cost of a Crisis Ignored,” documents some 249 cases of disappearances between December 2006 and 2012, with 149 providing “compelling evidence” that state security officials were involved. The involvement is not limited to Mexico’s notoriously corrupt local police, but includes evidence of participation by members of all security branches, including the Army, federal and local police, and the oft-lauded Navy.

In more than 60 cases, the human rights group found proof of collaboration between state agents and crime syndicates. One example cited in the report was the case of 19 construction workers “arbitrarily” taken into police custody in May 2011, only to be handed over to an organized crime group. The men have not been seen since then, and Human Rights Watch postulates in cases like this security forces and crime groups work together to disappear citizens in order to extort their families.

But the 249 cases investigated in the report do not represent the entirety of Mexico’s population that has gone missing over the past six years.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Atty. Gen. Jesus Murillo Karam said in late 2012 that thousands of people were disappeared during President Felipe Calderón’s six-year term in office.

This week, a senior government official placed the number of disappeared in Mexico at 27,000. Human Rights Watch, however, finds the government’s tally incomplete, reports The New York Times. “Among other problems, the list fails to distinguish how many were eventually found or how many people left by choice,” though it is a good indicator of the scale of the problem, The NY Times notes.

"President Peña Nieto has inherited one of the worst crises of disappearances in the history of Latin America," said José Vivanco, the Americas director of Human Rights Watch. Countries like Argentina, which is still dealing with the repercussions of the state’s role in the disappearance of citizens during its military dictatorship that ended in 1983, illustrate the long-term implications of such activity.

According to The Christian Science Monitor, President Calderón, who left office in December, attempted to fight organized crime head on, with often deadly results. An estimated 70,000 people died in Mexico since 2006.

President Calderón, of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), made fighting drug cartels the cornerstone of his administration – a calculation he made clear by donning Army fatigues and telling the nation he meant business in January 2007, just a month after taking office. While Mexicans largely hailed this courageous move to send thousands of military personnel to root out organized crime from urban pockets and tiny pueblos alike, they quickly wearied from the unthinkable slaughter and its impact on society.

Human Rights Watch has called on the new administration of Enrique Peña Nieto, which began in December 2012, to account for those who are missing. It recommended reforming the military justice system and creating a national database that could link the missing with the thousands of bodies that have been left unidentified during Mexico’s drug-war violence.

The Wall Street Journal reports that President Peña Nieto has taken some steps to change the nature of fighting crimes since taking office.

… Mr. Peña Nieto has folded the ministry that used to be in charge of the Federal Police into the Interior Ministry. Mr. Peña Nieto also has plans to form a 10,000-strong militarized police force, called a Gendarmerie, similar Spain's Guardia Civil or France's National Gendarmerie to patrol rural areas.

A separate Christian Science Monitor story notes that although Peña Nieto hasn’t backed away from using the military to fight crime, his administration has “promised a more multi-faceted approach.”

A Human Rights Watch delegation presented copies of its report to representatives of the current administration, which responded by saying it is “working to prevent disappearances and improve search methods,” reports the LA Times.

But Nik Steinberg, an author of the report, said, "As positive as that is, none of this can work until the government starts to do what the previous government never did and determines who is responsible and brings them to justice.”

Investigating crimes and bringing justice to victims is an ongoing challenge in Mexico. According to The Christian Science Monitor, the Mexican justice system has the capacity to pursue some 4,000 cases of homicide each year.  But given the ongoing drug war, homicides have gone up to close to 25,000 annually, overwhelming the justice system and its resources to try all types of crimes.  

President Peña Nieto has also taken steps to address the needs of victims through legislation such as The General Law of Victims, which passed this year after stalling under Calderón’s administration. According to The Monitor:

To start, the law makes “victim” a legally recognized entity. It provides for a victim’s right to respectful treatment, a full investigation of the crime, and the awarding of damages whenever possible.

The law also demands the creation of a new National System of Attention to Victims to aid victims in various capacities, a national victims’ registry, and a fund to dole out reparations – ostensibly to be paid for with cash and property seized from criminals.

Critics, including other victims' groups, say the law is flawed. In a statement, the victims’ advocate group Mexico S.O.S. highlighted what it sees as the law’s failings. For one thing, the group says, it only covers victims of federal crimes, not state and local crimes. And it creates a scheme in which the state must pay out damages caused by a criminal. What's more, they argue that the law defines “victim” in terms that are unnecessarily sweeping and vague. 

Peña Nieto conceded the law “still needs to be improved” and has asked lawmakers to work up reforms.

Reuters reports that family members of some of the disappeared "have asked for soldiers guilty of rights abuses to be judged like civilians." Mexico’s Supreme Court has approved such measures.

"To us it just seems that the military is untouchable," Laura Orozco, who says she witnessed her brother's military-led abduction, told Reuters. "They're bulletproof."

In this November 2012 photo, US and Chinese national flags are hung outside a hotel in Beijing. The Chinese Ministry of Defense released a statement on its website Wednesday arguing that the new report, released by US security firm Mandiant, provides thin support for its assertion that Chinese state forces were behind online attacks against some 150 victims, mostly US-based sites, writes Reuters. (Andy Wong/AP/File)

State role in cyberespionage campaign? China says report 'lacks technical proof' (+video)

By Arthur Bright, Staff writer / 02.20.13

China's government says that an extensive report on an alleged ongoing cyberespionage campaign by Chinese military hackers – which included a broad array of business targets – "lacks technical proof" of state involvement.

The Chinese Ministry of Defense released a statement on its website Wednesday arguing that the new report, released by US security firm Mandiant, provides thin support for its assertion that Chinese state forces were behind online attacks against some 150 victims, mostly US-based sites, writes Reuters.

"The report, in only relying on linking IP [Internet protocol] address to reach a conclusion the hacking attacks originated from China, lacks technical proof," the statement said.
"Everyone knows that the use of usurped IP addresses to carry out hacking attacks happens on an almost daily basis." 

"Second, there is still no internationally clear, unified definition of what consists of a 'hacking attack'. There is no legal evidence behind the report subjectively inducing that the everyday gathering of online [information] is online spying," it added.

The Mandiant report, released Tuesday, provides one of the most extensive cases yet for the Chinese government's involvement in online theft of data on a massive scale. The report documents the deeds of a large group of hackers, dubbed "APT1" by the firm, as they cracked the servers of 141 companies in 20 major industries and successfully stole many terabytes of data. Mandiant traced almost all of APT1's routes online back to Shanghai, and some even more specifically to a region in the city where a cyber-focused unit of the Chinese military, Unit 61398, is located.

Although possibly a military enterprise, APT1 appears to be focused toward corporate profit ends. The report notes that hackers' targets included a broad range of business types, including information technology, aerospace, financial services, agriculture, energy, and health care, and that information stolen included product specs, manufacturing procedures, and business plans. That sort of information, writes The Associated Press, could provide China's various state-owned megacorporations with major bargaining leverage and competitive advantages in the global marketplace.

Companies in fields from petrochemicals to software can cut costs by receiving stolen secrets. An energy company bidding for access to an oil field abroad can save money if spies can tell it what foreign rivals might pay. Suppliers can press customers to pay more if they know details of their finances. For China, advanced technology and other information from the West could help speed the rise of giant state owned companies seen as national champions.

Although the report asserts that "the sheer scale and duration of sustained attacks against such a wide set of industries from a singularly identified group based in China leaves little doubt about the organization behind APT1," some cyberespionage experts note that it's still a step short of proving the involvement of Unit 61398 and the Chinese military. Dell Secureworks cybersecurity expert Joe Stewart told The Christian Science Monitor, "There’s what we suspect and what we can prove."

“We still don’t have any hard proof that ... APT1 is coming out of that [Unit 61398's 12-story] building, other than a lot of weird coincidence pointing that direction. To me, it’s not hard evidence,” he said.

But, as the Mandiant report notes, the other valid possibility that the evidence supports seems "unlikely": that "[a] secret, resourced organization full of mainland Chinese speakers with direct access to Shanghai-based telecommunications infrastructure is engaged in a multi-year, enterprise scale computer espionage campaign right outside of Unit 61398’s gates, performing tasks similar to Unit 61398’s known mission."

Regardless, the report has brought Unit 61398 into the limelight, and the unit has locked down security in response. Agence France-Presse reports that one of its photographers, along with another international photographer, was briefly held by soldiers after shooting video outside the unit's headquarters.

Six Chinese soldiers in uniform pulled the AFP photographer out of a car and brought him to the guardhouse, where they searched his bag and seized his camera's memory card before allowing him to leave with a warning.

Speaking in English, the apparent leader of the group told him no photography was allowed since it was a military installation.

An excavator is used to search for survivors after the Syrian Army launched a missile on the rebel-held Jabal Badro district in the city of Aleppo Tuesday. The missile strike, a rarity in a fight more commonly fought with shells and airstrikes, highlights increasing doubts about a diplomatic resolution to the nearly two-year-old conflict. (Hamid Khatib/Reuters)

Has the door shut on a diplomatic solution to Syria's conflict?

By Whitney Eulich, Staff writer / 02.19.13

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

Yesterday, as the European Union voted against easing an arms embargo on Syria, Syrian regime troops reportedly launched a missile at rebels in Aleppo. The missile strike, a rarity in a fight more commonly fought with shells and airstrikes, highlights increasing doubts about a diplomatic resolution to the nearly two-year-old conflict.

“The odds are very high that, for better or worse, armed men will determine Syria’s course for the foreseeable future,” Frederic C. Hof, a former senior State Department official and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told The New York Times.

In the absence of a United Nations resolution prohibiting such actions, Russia continues to provide financial support and weapons to the Syrian regime, as does Iran, reports The Independent. Meanwhile, although Britain has argued for strengthening the military capabilities of select rebel groups, most Western countries, including the United States, have refused, insisting that the potential consequences of arming anti-regime fighters in Syria are too risky.

“[Y]ou don’t know where weapons might end up, and what the consequences are if those weapons are used against civilians, against Israel, against American interests,” an anonymous official told the Times.

EU foreign ministers decided yesterday to uphold the arms embargo for another three months, but included a clause that would allow for non-weapons aid and technical assistance “for the protection of civilians.” “There is no shortage of arms in Syria,” said Luxembourgian Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, according to The Associated Press. “With more arms, there are more killed, more atrocities.”

A UN report released yesterday, which estimates that the conflict has claimed 70,000 lives, accuses both sides of committing war crimes.

"We identified seven massacres during the [past six months], five on the government side, two on the armed opponents side," said Carla del Ponte, a former International Criminal Court chief prosecutor who is part of the UN investigatory team.

The UN continues to push for a diplomatic resolution to the bloody civil war, with the recent report noting that “Syria’s civil war is becoming increasingly sectarian and the behavior of both sides is growing more and more radicalized,” according to AP. The report pushed for the international community to stop supplying weapons and for antiregime forces to stop working with foreign fighters.

Regardless of whether the conflict ends through diplomatic channels or by force, many international observers agree that an end to fighting in Syria “is not on the horizon,” reports Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Syria “is in the process not of transitioning but disintegrating,” Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Middle East office, told The New York Times.

The Times notes that with election season past, and a new team of national security advisers, it’s possible the US could reopen the debate on providing more than nonlethal assistance in Syria. “As the situation evolves, as our confidence increases, we might revisit it,” a senior administration official told the Times.

But Trudy Rubin, a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, fears that even with a new secretary of State, US ideas for bringing the Syrian conflict to an end feel all too familiar.

A failed Syrian state also would provide a power vacuum into which outside jihadis could flow, permitting them to radicalize local Islamists and obtain dangerous weapons from captured regime arsenals. And once a state collapses – as we know from the Iraq experience – it is very difficult to rebuild.

[Secretary of State John Kerry] understands this danger and warned last week about an "implosion" of the Syrian state….

Syrian activists have repeatedly put forth plans for identifying and vetting moderate military opposition leaders, and monitoring the delivery of antiaircraft and antitank weapons. This would offset the plentiful weapons flowing from the Arab Gulf to jihadi groups that empower them to lead the fighting, and might enable the opposition to break the military stalemate.

Last spring, Kerry talked of arming the rebels. Now, instead of charting a new strategy, he seems limited to repeating past (failed) efforts, urging Moscow to help him ease Assad into exile. Meantime, the regime's planes bomb cities and towns into rubble, and the Syrian state rapidly collapses. The longer this goes on, the worse the outcome will be.

Presidential candidate and former finance minister Uhuru Kenyatta arrives to take part in a televised debate between presidential candidates, in Nairobi, Kenya, Monday. The International Criminal Court ruled Friday that Kenyatta is eligible to run for the presidency next month, despite claims that he is ineligible due to charges of crimes against humanity. (Khalil Senosi/AP)

Kenyan court clears Kenyatta for presidential bid, despite war crime charges

By Whitney Eulich, Staff writer / 02.15.13

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

Kenya’s high court ruled today that former finance minister Uhuru Kenyatta is eligible to run for the presidency next month, despite claims that he is ineligible due to charges of crimes against humanity.

On March 4, Kenya will hold its first presidential election since 2007, when the disputed victory of President Mwai Kibaki led to weeks of violence, more than 1,200 deaths, and some 300,000 people displaced from their homes, reported The Christian Science Monitor at the time. Mr. Kenyatta and his running mate William Ruto are both accused of inciting the unrest, and were deemed a part of those “most responsible” for the post-election ethnic violence, according to former head prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno Ocampo. Both men have denied wrongdoing.

Polls put Kenyatta in a close second behind Prime Minister Raila Odinga, Reuters reports. If he wins Kenya’s presidency, he will be the second sitting president facing trial at the ICC in The Hague, according to a separate Reuters report. Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir is facing trial for war crimes in the Darfur region, and after rebuffing the ICC, he faces an international arrest warrant. He has cost his country more than $450 million in international development funds.

There could also be diplomatic and economic repercussions for Kenya – East Africa’s strongest economy – if it elects someone charged by the ICC:

Several embassies in Nairobi told Reuters it cannot be business as usual when dealing with an ICC indictee.

But they will be reluctant to unravel long-held diplomatic, trade and military ties with one of Africa's more stable democracies and an anchor of stability in a volatile area….

"Choices have consequences," [United States] Assistant Secretary Johnnie Carson said, hammering home the same point at least five times during a 40-minute conference call.

Carson did not mention names but the message was clear: there would be implications for Kenya's relations with the world if the Kenyatta-Ruto alliance wins.

"We live in an interconnected world and people should be thoughtful about the impact that their choices have on their nation, on their region, on the economy," Carson said.

The Kenyan court’s ruling, determined by a panel of five judges, said it lacked “jurisdiction to deal with a question relating to the election of a president,” according to Kenya-based Capital FM News. That decision must be made by the Supreme Court, though it is unclear if today’s decision will be appealed considering the election is only three weeks away.

The NGOs that brought the case to the high court “argued that ... any person committed to trial at The Hague-based ICC would not be able to properly carry out their duties of running the country, while the honor and integrity of the public office would also be damaged,” reports Capital FM News.

Kenyatta’s supporters celebrated in the streets after the court’s ruling was announced, reports the BBC.

Per Kenyan election law, if no candidate wins an absolute majority on March 4, there will be a second round of voting. Many predict this scenario will play out, and that Kenyatta will face Mr. Odinga in the second-round vote.

However, barring any delays, Kenyatta and Mr. Ruto’s ICC trials would start just days after the runoff. According to Reuters:

Kenyatta and Ruto both say they intend to comply with their summonses to appear before the court in The Hague and answer charges. But if Kenyatta wins the vote, many Kenyans expect him to refuse to appear, like Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who spurned the court when it charged him with war crimes over the conflict in Sudan's Darfur region.

If a newly-elected Kenyatta were to refuse to appear before the ICC, "you don't need a PhD in international relations to know the options open to us," a Western diplomat said, predicting serious consequences.

Herman Nackaerts, center, Deputy Director General and Head of the Department of Safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, talks to media after his arrival from Iran at Vienna's Schwechat airport, Austria,Thursday, Feb. 14, 2013. (Ronald Zak/AP)

One step forward, one step back on Iran's nuclear program

By Ariel Zirulnick, Staff writer / 02.14.13

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

United Nations nuclear agency inspectors concluded a one-day visit to Tehran without a solution for restarting stalled inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities and without concrete plans for another meeting to discuss a deal.

The team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) most immediately seeks access to the Parchin military complex outside Tehran, where Iran is suspected by the IAEA to be working toward nuclear weapon capability, but left with no guarantees it would be allowed to do so.

“We will work hard now to try and resolve the remaining differences, but time is needed to reflect on a way forward,” IAEA chief inspector Herman Nackaerts said today, after arriving back in Vienna, Bloomberg reports.

However, his Iranian counterpart, IAEA envoy Ali Asghar Soltanieh, made a somewhat more optimistic pronouncement. “Some differences were overcome and we agreed on certain points," he said. He also alluded to a future meeting. Meanwhile, a headline from Press TV, Iran's English-language news service, read: "Iran, IAEA reach basic agreement."

Iran's nuclear program has been surrounded by mixed signals in recent weeks. As the Monitor's Scott Peterson reported yesterday, Iran has taken a number of steps lately that seem to indicate it is slowing down its nuclear progress, possibly to avoid reaching the point at which Israel would feel compelled to retaliate. It has converted some of its higher-grade enriched uranium into reactor fuel, taking it out of the mix for use in potential nuclear weapons, and seems to have made no strides forward in its development of longer-range weapons that could carry a nuclear warhead.

But it also announced yesterday, as Iranian officials met with IAEA inspectors, the installation of a new generation of centrifuges for enriching uranium, which could "significantly speed up its accumulation of material that the West fears could be used to develop a nuclear weapon," Reuters reports.

Enriched uranium can fuel nuclear power plants, Iran's stated aim, or, if refined to a high degree, provide material for bombs, which the West suspects is Tehran's real purpose - something Iran strenuously denies.

If deployed successfully, new-generation centrifuges could refine uranium several times faster than the model Iran now has.

 …

[Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization] said the new machines were specifically for lower-grade enrichment of uranium to below 5 percent purity.

Nuclear proliferation expert Mark Hibbs at the Carnegie Endowment told Reuters that the centrifuge announcement may be less a sign of a leap forward and more about gathering "bargaining chips" before the next round of negotiations.

According to The New York Times, Iran's Fars News Agency reported that the new centrifuges would only enrich uranium to a 5-percent purity level – shy of the 20-percent level that alarms the international community because of the ease with which it can then be further enriched to a nuclear weapons-grade level.

The outcome of yesterday's talks are surely being parsed for signs of how talks later this month will go. On Feb. 26, Iran will meet in Kazakhstan with the so-called P5+1 – the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany – to resume multilateral talks on its nuclear work that ground to a halt last year. European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who has been in attendance at P5+1 talks, yesterday urged Iran to come to the talks open to negotiation, Reuters reports.

"We hope that Iran will come to this negotiation with flexibility and that we can make substantial progress," Ms. Ashton said at a UN meeting. The Iranian envoys in attendance retorted that the "dual track" being pursued by the international community – simultaneous negotiations and harsh sanctions – was "a futile exercise in the sense that ... exerting pressure on Iran will definitely derail the efforts on the diplomatic track."

This August 2004 satellite image shows the military complex at Parchin, Iran, about 19 miles southeast of Tehran. The UN nuclear agency team are in Tehran today attempting to restart talks on Iran's disputed nuclear program, which has spurred international penalties in the past. (DigitalGlobe - Institute for Science and International Security/AP/File)

Will Iran allow UN nuclear inspection? (+video)

By Ariel Zirulnick, Staff writer / 02.13.13

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

United Nations nuclear agency investigators are in Tehran today attempting to restart talks on Iran's disputed nuclear program, which has spurred international penalties in the past. But even as Iran shows signs of curbing the growth of its stockpiles of enriched uranium, some fear its willingness to open up to international inspection remains unchanged.

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told reporters yesterday that Iran might grant the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) a long-requested inspection of the Parchin military complex, which the agency believes may be the site of nuclear weapon development. Iranian resistance to allowing inspectors into Parchin has been a central stumbling block to negotiations in the past.

“Discussion over visiting Parchin could be part of a deal” with the IAEA, Mr. Mehmanparast said, according to the Associated Press. “The prospect of reaching an agreement with the agency is bright, if Iran’s nuclear rights are recognized."

IAEA director general Yukiya Amano said earlier in the week, however, that "the outlook is not bright" for getting access to Parchin, The New York Times reports.

These talks come two weeks ahead of another round of international talks on Iran's nuclear program, the so-called P5 + 1 talks that involve the United States, France, Britain, Russia, China (the five permanent UN Security Council members), and Germany. Those negotiations stalled after three rounds of talks and this time around, Iran insists it is "only going to listen" to offers from the six powers and offer no new proposals of its own, AP reports. 

The IAEA team wants to reach an agreement on how a probe of Iran's contentious nuclear program should be conducted. The IAEA wants it to be open-ended, but Iran wants there to be limitations, according to AP. Herman Nackaerts, the leader of the IAEA Tehran team, said "differences remain," even after more than a year of meetings. 

Iran insists that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes only and it therefore has the right to have such a program. As Fars News Agency notes, Tehran has repeatedly referred to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's fatwa against nuclear weapons as proof that it is not pursuing weapon capabilities. 

Mehman-Parast also reiterated that a religious edict from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei banning nuclear bombs is binding on Tehran and suggested this should defuse concerns about Iranian nuclear ambitions. 

"There is nothing more important in defining the framework for our nuclear activities than the leader's fatwa," Mehman-Parast said. "This fatwa is our operational instruction." 

Khamenei's fatwa, according to a September 2012 report by the Fars news agency, prohibited the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons and said they contradict "Islamic beliefs and the principles of the Islamic Republic of Iran". 

RECOMMENDED MONITOR SPECIAL REPORT: Iran's Iron Ayatollah: Why Khamenei distrusts the US and what that means for nuclear talks 

However, Iran's resistance to IAEA inspections has made the international community doubt its nuclear intentions. 

Tehran announced today that it was converting some of its enriched uranium into reactor fuel which, if done in large enough quantities, could limit its supposed weapons capabilities and be seen as a measure of good faith, The New York Times reports. 

At a news conference on Tuesday in Tehran, Ramin Mehmanparast, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, was asked to comment on a news report that Iranian scientists had converted some uranium enriched to 20 percent purity into fuel for a research reactor in Tehran. The spokesman said that the “work is being done” and that details had been sent to the I.A.E.A., which is based in Vienna.

…

Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium is believed by Western negotiators and international inspectors to be of far lower purity than is required to make nuclear weapons. Diplomats in Vienna said on Tuesday that enriched uranium converted into reactor fuel is hard to convert into fuel for weapons.

Some analysts argue that, by slowing the growth of its stockpile, Tehran could delay the moment when it acquires enough 20 percent enriched uranium to set off a response by Israel, which has signaled readiness to attack Iran’s nuclear sites.

Reuters reports that the window of opportunity for negotiations is particularly small as Iran's "stockpile is currently projected to reach a level intolerable to Israel in mid-year" and it is facing a delicate domestic political moment as Iranian presidential elections will take place in June. But conversion is "one way for Iran to slow the growth" of its stockpile.

"Iran averted a potential crisis last year by converting some 100 kilograms of its 20-percent enriched uranium into fuel, suggesting to some that it was carefully keeping below the threshold set by Israel, while still advancing its nuclear technology," Reuters reports.

An Egyptian protester covers his face as he stands during clashes with riot police, not seen, near the presidential palace in Cairo, Monday. (Khalil Hamra/AP)

Two years later, Egyptians' euphoria over Mubarak's fall a distant memory (+video)

By Whitney Eulich, Staff writer / 02.12.13

• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

Protesters demanding the resignation of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi clashed with police yesterday on the second anniversary of the overthrow of autocratic former leader Hosni Mubarak.

“The people want to bring down the regime,” protesters chanted outside the presidential palace yesterday, where police used water hoses and tear gas to break up the small crowds, reports the Associated Press. Demonstrators were also present in other symbolic places across the city: outside the chief prosecutor's office, where protesters called for justice for those who were killed by security forces during the 2011 uprisings to oust Mr. Mubarak; and in Tahrir Square, the main rallying point for Egyptians during the 18 days of protest that eventually led to Mubarak’s resignation after 30 years in power.

For the next 17 months, Egypt was led by a military council, under which violence continued. Last June, The Muslim Brotherhood’s President Morsi won Egypt’s first free and fair elections.

But democracy has not reaped the peace, security, or economic stability many called for during the uprisings two years ago, The Christian Science Monitor’s Dan Murphy reports in a recent in-depth report:

Today, all that euphoria seems almost a quaint memory. Months of resistance to Morsi's rule culminated in late January with furious protesters and angry mobs doing battle with government forces across much of the country: in Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square; at a nearby luxury hotel; and in the gritty port cities of Suez, Ismailiya, and Port Said along the Suez Canal, Egypt's economic lifeline.

In the canal zone, Morsi was forced to declare a state of emergency, and called the military out into the streets, granting them the sort of arrest and prosecution powers that Mr. Mubarak's state not long ago was using to control the Brothers. The violence has had an anarchic edge, fueled by defiance against a state that Morsi now symbolizes but without any core political message beyond calls for justice for the martyrs.

"Mubarak with a beard," says Mohamed al-Mesri, a young protester in Cairo, of Morsi.

All this has no doubt shaken Morsi's confidence and that of anyone around him who expected the Brotherhood to ease comfortably into power and set about the business of achieving its long-held dream: to mold Egypt into a state that looks to the Quran rather than modern history in crafting its laws and institutions.

Yesterday, Ahmed Mohamed, an engineering student who had joined protesters outside the presidential palace, told the AP, "[o]f course I feel disappointed. Every day it's getting worse. The economy is even worse and all government institutions are collapsing. Morsi won't even acknowledge this."

Mubarak was sentenced to life in jail last year for the role he played in the death of protesters during the 2011 uprisings. Two years later, some opposition party members are calling for Morsi to stand trial for the deaths of some 60 people killed when antigovernment demonstrations broke out in January, reports Reuters. The public prosecutor has said there is no evidence to tie Morsi to those deaths.

Amid yesterday’s violence, presidential spokesman Yasser Ali spoke on state TV late last night. "Violence will burn the fingers of those who call for it and use it.... The presidency supports the continuation of peaceful protests and freedom of expression but any attempt to veer off peaceful protesting will be dealt with firmly,” Mr. Ali said, according to Reuters.

Fouad Ajami, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, wrote in an opinion for the Wall Street Journal that during his decades of autocratic rule, "a toxic brew poisoned the life of Egypt – a mix of anti-modernism, anti-Americanism, and anti-Zionism."

Yet it is only against the backdrop of the sordid political landscape of today's Egypt—the hooliganism of the young, the lawlessness, the fault line between a feeble secular camp and a cynical Muslim Brotherhood bent on monopolizing political power—that the true work of the Mubarak tyranny can be fully appreciated. The "deep state" he presided over—a Ministry of Interior with nearly two million functionaries, a police force that ran amok—is Mubarak's true legacy.

The disorder today in Egypt's streets is taken by some as proof that the despot knew what he was doing, and that Egyptians are innately given to tyranny. But that view misses the damage that this man and his greedy family and retainers inflicted on a nation of more than 80 million people that once had nobler ideas of its place in the world….

The economy is wrecked and the government has run down its foreign reserves as it attempts to maintain a system of costly subsidies. A $4.8 billion International Monetary Fund loan was tentatively agreed on, but the government was unwilling to put through the austerity measures required by the loan. Only the remittances of Egyptians abroad, an impressive total of $19 billion in 2012, averted catastrophe. The ruling bargain that had the Egyptians give up their freedom for bread, and for the handouts of the state, still obtains. The old regime fell, but its ways endure.

Egypt’s Ahram online has a series of first-person “untold stories” from the 2011 revolution, and the BBC has put together a mosaic of voices on “life since Mubarak” to commemorate the two-year anniversary.

French troops take up positions to secure foreigners being evacuated during exchanges of fire with jihadists in Gao, northern Mali, Sunday, Feb. 10, 2013. (Jerome Delay/AP)

French, Malian troops regain control of Gao after rebels raid by canoe (+video)

By Tom A. Peter, Correspondent / 02.11.13

French and Malian troops on Monday said they are in control of the strategic city of Gao once again after fighting that was described as the most serious escalation of the conflict since French forces entered Mali in late January. The clashes took place on Sunday when Islamist rebel forces infiltrated Gao and attacked Malian and French forces there. 

The clash may indicate that the war in Mali has moved into a new phase of guerrilla war after the French managed to liberate Gao with an aerial bombing campaign and almost no fighting on the ground, reports The New York Times.  

Rebels from the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), claimed responsibility for the attack, as well as a suicide bombing that took place on Saturday. The group had been in control of Gao for 10 months prior to the arrival of French forces. In a statement by the group, the group sounded prepared and ready to conduct an insurgent campaign.

“Today God’s faithful successfully attacked the Malian army, which let the enemies of Islam come to Gao,” said MUJAO spokesman Abou Walid Sahraoui in an article by Agence France-Presse. “The combat will continue until victory, thanks to God's protection. The mujahedeen are in the city of Gao and will remain there."

As French forces work to flush out and destroy the remaining MUJAO and rebel bases in the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains in northeastern Mali, Sunday’s attack has raised concerns that both Malian and French troops may be susceptible to insurgent attacks. The Malian Army appears to be too weak to maintain security of recaptured areas, and there are large, open areas surrounding French troops that “now look vulnerable to guerrilla activity,” Reuters reports. Additionally, the arrival of an African security force has been delayed, leaving fewer forces available to secure the territory. 

French and Malian officials say it is still too early to establish a death toll from Sunday’s fighting, but they have reported that rebels entered the city by crossing the Niger River with canoes, hid in an empty police station, placed snipers on surrounding buildings, and attacked once Malian troops arrived, reports Al Jazeera. On Monday morning a French helicopter fired on the building and since this afternoon there has been a “tense calm” in Gao. 

Amid concerns that more rebels may have infiltrated the city and are now hiding among the population, Malian troops are conducting house-to-house searches. French officials estimate that about a dozen fighters took part in the attack and said they are unable to confirm if any of them had been killed. The BBC reports that Malian soldiers initially responded to the attack and French forces only provided assistance when rebels began using heavy weapons, such as rocket-propelled grenades. 

France has already begun planning its exit from Mali, once a former French colony. France24 reports that “France is anxious to hand over its military operation to African-led UN peacekeepers,” and officials have already announced plans to exit the country by March. 

Meanwhile, Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, said in a televised interview on Sunday that the French are now fighting in Mali because of their support of Libyan rebels during the fight to oust Muammar Gaddafi. 

“France is fighting against those in Mali whom it had once armed in Libya against Gaddafi in violation of the embargo ordered by the UN Security Council,” said Mr. Lavrov, in an article by Russia’s RT. “France is marching across Mali with relative ease, virtually in a parade manner, occupying positions abandoned by the terrorists. It will soon liberate the whole of the state. The question is: Where are these guys no one had been able to subdue? They may turn out to be fine in the neighboring countries, where expeditionary decisions will have to be made.”