September 27, 2006
Clinton and his record
Here is extended take on former President Clinton's sharp exchange with Chris Wallace, which appears in today's Wall Street Journal. You can read it at that link for free.
Here are some quick additional thoughts:I don't think that Clinton's rage was calculated or planned. Wallace said that off-camera Clinton threatened to fire his aides if he had to endure another television interview like that one. Also, his incoherent anger did not advance the positive case for his record (capturing Ramzi Youssef, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, in 1995, stopping the Millenium plots in 1999, arming the Predator spy drone plane in 2000 and so on).It was accusatory, contradictory and times flat wrong. I could make a better case for his Administration than he did. Still, his base wants to give him credit for his passion, not his pure reason. That is not a hopeful sign for them or the country.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 01:38 AM
August 13, 2005
Why He Left and Why it Matters
When Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick interviewed now former finance minister Binyamin Netanyahu, she thought he was struggling with something. It turned out to be his momentous decision to resign. Her column is the best analysis of that decision and its consequences that I have seen. She doesn't mention it, but I know that she has worked for Netanyahu and knows him relatively well. Her view: Netanyahu is acting out of principle and she may well be right. She is right about one other thing that she barely touches on: The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, National Review and the major blogs have all but ignored the Gaza pullout or the national security consequences (for the United States) of creating a terrorist state with its own seaport and a land border with Egypt, which has funded terrorist operations in the past. What if Gaza becomes an al Qaeda haven? What will be the political consequences if the next president has to take military action for the mistakes of the Bush Administration?
Posted by Richard Miniter at 03:41 PM
August 11, 2005
The al Qaeda video
The U.S. news media are only showing bits of the al Qaeda video recently aired on al Arabiyya. Here is a link to the full video, with English subtitles supplied by Memri, the invaluable Israeli translation outfit.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 09:55 PM
August 04, 2005
Zarqawi's Mentor
This article by my Iraqi friend Nibras Kazimi is worth reading. The CIA and Jordanian intel decide to do something "clever" by releasing Zarqawi's mentor from prison and having him go on al-Jazeera to denounce his former acolyte. And of course it backfires. Good detail on the current state of ideological development inside al Qaeda and radical Islam too.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 05:41 PM
July 27, 2005
The Master of Terrorism
Hassan al-Turabi, the former speaker of the Sudanese parliament—the architecture of which is nearly identical to the Israeli Knesset (I guess the architect was fairly confident that the two nations' officials would never visit each other)—and later enemy of government and inciter-in-chief of the butchers of Darfur, is now hailed as "the pope of terrorism" in the Weekly Standard.
Most readers of this site will know most of the facts in this piece, but there are few noteworthy surprises: the connections between Saddam Hussein and the radical Islamist thinker and that the express purpose of the infamous Popular and Islamic Conferences in Khartoum—which included every murder-minded Muslim terror group in the world and every major Arab intelligence service—was to weld together the Islamists and the seemingly secular Arab Nationalists. This pokes a pretty big hole in the idea that Salafis like Osama bin Laden and secular socialists like Saddam Hussein would never form alliances of convenience. I have never met Turabi on my various visits to Sudan (though I tried to see him when he was under house arrest), but I did talk to a number of his friends and former associates. Gutbi, who when I met him in 2002 was the head of Sudan's intelligence services, said that Turabi was bored of bin Laden because he could only talk about two subjects, jihad and horses. So Turabi's extensive help for bin Laden was nothing personal, just business. For whatever that it worth. Gutbi did not mention what Turabi thought of Iraq, but he personally hated it. He and his wife were followed constantly by the secret police and he, as Sudan's ambassador, was forbidden to leave Baghdad. Turabi's son used to go to horse races with bin Laden, who plugged his ears when the horns sounded because music is "un-Islamic." Neither Turabi nor his son covered their ears. Sure, they were radicals who believed that killing infidels just gives them another chance to convert to Allah, but sometimes a horse race is just a horse race. Other friends of Turabi fill in other details. The onetime Peace and Development Minister (the man in charge of the two things that Sudan doesn't have much of) is a charming man named Ghazi. He points out that Turabi changed after a sudden beating in a Canadian airport; after that, his thoughts were more erratic and less connected. This was the reason that Turabi was pushed out of power in 1996; he could no longer be trusted to follow government policy and was endlessly scheming against his onetime student, President Bashir. (Anyway, any serious consideration of Turabi needs to take account of this beating and of the feminist views of his wife). Another friend of Turabi's said that he is more fond of revolution than rule; that is why he fomented the crisis in Darfur that has killed and displaced millions. The role of Turabi and perhaps al Qaeda in causing the misery in Darfur is also largely unexplored. Thomas Joscelyn's piece in the Standard would have been improved if he offered a fuller picture of the master of terrorism.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 10:45 PM
June 15, 2005
Zarqawi's car bomb maker arrested
Wanna buy a car bomb? $18,000. And remember, these are "friend prices." Those other jihadis, they pay more. Ask around the baazar. Terrorists who know shop here... Jassim Hazan Hamadi al-Bazi, also known by his al Qaeda name, Abu Ahmed, made and sold a variety of bombs and weapons for our enemies in Iraq. Now he is in Iraqi custody—and many lives have been saved as a result. Check out this story in Britain's Guardian newspaper. Dare I say it? One more sign that we are winning.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 08:35 PM
June 08, 2005
Eye-gouging terrorists at Gitmo
Here is what Gitmo is really like. This report in the Washington Times, based on interviews with two U.S. Army ""block guards" who served in Guantanimo Bay, Cuba, shows what the military has to put up with. Don't expect this article to be too widely circulated. Bear this in mind when you wonder why they are hooded and shackled when transported.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 01:28 PM
There They Go Again
Ceci Connolly of the Washington Post charges that some 100 prisoners in US military custody have died at their hands. No evidence is offered, except vague "Pentagon reports." If Connolly has such a scoop, why not, ahem, write for the front page of the Post? But really, it is unfair to question her.. I guess when the military isn't busy targeting journalists, "outsourcing" the hunt for bin Laden to locals, rendering terrorists to the tender mercies of their home country's intelligence service, they have a few moments to kill poor, innocent al Qaeda members. Somebody call Amnesty International.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 12:12 PM
June 07, 2005
Prisoners abuse Korans 3 times more often than guards
That is actually a fair summary of Gen. Hood's report, as John "Hindrocket" Hinderaker explains here. He also details the extraordinary political correctness and carefulness with which the militarty handles these terrorists captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan and elsewhere. This is the best article on the phony "Koran abuse" scandal that I've seen. By the way, when did the Koran become a protected item in American law? Where is the ACLU demanding a separation
of mosque and state?
Posted by Richard Miniter at 03:41 PM
Last Man Out
Here is part one of truly riveting story of a Canadian man's escape from the south tower of the World Trade Center on 9-11. He was one of only four people who were working above the floors where the plane struck to make it out alive. It is a gripping read.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 07:00 AM
June 04, 2005
Iran and al Qaeda
This is a big story. While Gary Metz over at Regime Change Iran, Michael Leeden at the American Enterprise Institute and I have been trying to get the media's attention about the growing links between Iran and al Qaeda, the issue has mostly drawn yawns from the MSM. Maybe this Associated Press dispatch signals a coming change. Worth reading.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 10:00 PM
May 28, 2005
Zarqawi surrounded in a village home?
Zarqawi reported taken refuge in Abu Shallal, a village north of Baghdad, according a report from the
Posted by Richard Miniter at 02:14 PM
May 25, 2005
In the Mail
My friend, in the Washington sense of the word, Joel Rosenberg, has sent along an advance copy of his latest thriller, The Ezekiel Option. I have not read it yet, but I know that Joel's bestseller The Last Jihad was a real page-turner. It appears in book stores in July 2005.
Also in the mail, Gary C. Schroen's First In: An Insider's account of how the CIA spearheaded the war on terror in Afghanistan. Schroen ran Operation Jawbreaker, which hunted bin Laden in the days after 9-11. The pictures alone should answer the question, "why haven't we caught bin Laden yet." I actually looking forward to reading Schroen's book, which one CIA source tells me in "the most detailed description of a field operation written by a participant
that" he has ever seen. While the source doesn't like Schroen, he says there are a lot of "eye-popping details" that insiders are surprised to see. I'll read it and tell you what I think. Sometimes these intel guys get worked up over things that seem very small, yet other times...
Posted by Richard Miniter at 08:31 AM
May 24, 2005
The Forgotten War
U.S. and allied forces are still actively fighting elements of the
Taliban and al Qaeda, as this interesting report from an Italian website reveals. The scene of the fighting, the Paktika province, was a major area of anti-Soviet resistance in the 1980s and its dense forests offer some refuge from American air power. Don't miss the last line: the Taliban commander in the region is believed to be new al Qaeda's no. 3. It seems everyone gets a chance to be AQ's no. 3 man, at least for 15 minutes...
Posted by Richard Miniter at 05:17 PM
May 22, 2005
Worth Reading
This is not, strictly speaking, about terrorism, but a literary journey into the world that foments it. While there are numerous studies showing that terrorism is not sparked by poverty (indeed, many al Qaeda terrorists come from intact, middle class families who lavished money for education on their sons), but by alienation.
Alienation is very real, keenly felt—and all but ignored by the elites who scoff that the whole idea of assimilation is oppressive. Without assimilation, you have alienation, a deep feeling of rejection by society coupled with a building sense of powerlessness. This can be a lethal combination, as any student of the life of Mohammed Atta knows. As you will see, Down the Street, Worlds Away is similar in theme to the British hit film Bend It Like Beckham. Sounds like it too would make a powerful film, if some Hollywood exec had the guts to make it.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 04:35 PM
May 15, 2005
Predator Preys on Perp in Pakistan?
ABC News and others reported on Saturday that a CIA drone used a Hellfire missile to kill a high-ranking al Qaeda member inside Pakistan. Of course, the Pakistanis were quick to disavow the report (allowing the U.S. to roam Pakistan's skies and kill at will is not a popular political position in Pakistan). The CIA retreated into its favored "no comment" mode, but you can almost feel the satisfied grin on their face when you phone them to ask about it. I think the story is true, although the matter of whether to target—who has been watched for months—was really the replacement of Abu Faraj al-Libi (supposedly al Qaeda's no. 3) is a matter of sharp debate among the informed sources I contacted.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 01:09 PM
I bet they know
In an article in Pakistan's Daily Times, several military officials admit that the political risks of arresting bin Laden in Pakistan are huge. The press and other observers too easily forget that radical Islamic parties claim up to 40 percent of the vote in local Pakistani elections and that bin Laden is indeed a popular figure there.
There is also a hint that the feared Inter-Services Institute, Pakistan's CIA, knows where bin Laden is. Unlike the Israelis, it does seem quite likely that Pakistani intelligence knows where he is or could find out if they really wanted to know. It was the ISI that helped create the Taliban, al Qaeda's strongest ally, and it was the ISI that asked U.S. forces to stop shelling Kunduz, Afghanistan, where some 2000 al Qaeda and Taliban fighters here holed up in the Fall of 2001, so that it could bring in two fixed-wing aircraft to fly out its intelligence officers. Must have been quite a few embedded with the enemy... Add to that that nearly every high-level al Qaeda target captured was seized in Pakistan as well as more than 700 al Qaeda footsoldiers, more than any other single nation on Earth (including Iraq and Afghanistan).
Posted by Richard Miniter at 08:14 AM
May 09, 2005
The Third Man?
The arrest of Abu Faraj al-Libi—the so-called no. 3 man in al-Qaeda—has provoked both triumphalism in and cynicism in the press. So let me throw some cold water on both the hotheads and the Eyeores.
Sunday Times (of London) reporter Christina Lamb contends that Abu Faraj al-Libi is just a mid-level player. Lamb has been wrong before. Last year, she filed a front-page story saying that Pakistani troops had cornered Dr. Ayman Al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's no. 2, in a mud-brick fortresss in Pakistan. Now it turns out that he was never there. Plus, she is relying on European sources who do know al-Qaeda well in Europe, but not in South Asia. So the fact that these European experts don't know much about him is of little value. Pakistan is outside their area of expertise and I doubt that they receive intel briefings. Quoting the famous French terrorism expert Brisard doesn't establish much.
Lamb is right about one thing: the captured al-Libi and the al-Libi on the FBI's most wanted list are different men. And, no, they are not related. I pointed out that out on the Fox New Channel this past week. Remember, inside al-Qaeda, there are dozens of senior officials with al-Libi in their names. It simply means "the Libyan" and is well-worn way to distinguish one Mohammed from another in the Arab world.
While there is a real debate about Abu Faraj's role (was he no. 3 or not?) inside the intelligence community, nearly everyone seems to think that his capture was a major blow to al-Qaeda. The debate is technical and turns on whether an analyst thinks that al-Qaeda no longer has a no. 3 at the top of an organizational pyramid, but instead a chain of national al-Qaeda leaders or whether the analyst believes that the organizational structure of bin Laden's network is unchanged since 2001, but the names inside the organizational boxes have changed. And while intel analysts obsess about this, the question is essentially unknowable.
As for the New York Daily News article by James Gordon Meek, I don't think that the capture of Abu Faraj al-Libi is "bigger than bin Laden." Capturing or killing bin Laden would be an enormous morale blow to the organization and would probably facture it. Remember, al-Qaeda is not a monolithic entity or interchangeable parts like the U.S. Army. The terror network is divided along ethnic lines. The Yemenis train with and take orders from Yemenis; the Saudis train with Saudis and so on. We know from interogations of captured terrorists that these ethnic groups inside al-Qaeda can be bitter rivals. Only the force of bin Laden's personality and his aura of invicibility holds the organization together.
Still the capture of al-Libi is significant. It removes a senior al-Qaeda officer who was plotting to kill the prime minister of Pakistan, America's most vital ally in the war on terror. Of the more than 3000 al-Qaeda killed or captured since September 11th, more than 700 have been captured in Pakistan. Also, al-Libi would have operational knowledge of plots around the world—and the names and locations of dozens of key al-Qaeda leaders. The effect of his arrest will ripple around the world.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 10:09 AM
April 06, 2005
Canada Gets Tough (sort of)
If I had a dollar for every person who has asked me about terrorists sneaking across the Rio Grande, I'd be buying a G-5. My response always surprises them—the bigger danger is on the Northern border. Ahmed Ressam, who plotted to blow up Los Angeles International Airport in 1999, was arrested on the Washington State-Canada frontier. A number of al Qaeda cells have been broken up inside Canada. AQ finds Canada more attractive as a staging area for a number of reasons: its extensive welfare state means that it costs the terror organization less to maintain cells, its law enforcement is generally more politically correct and it is easier to enter the US from the north. No burning deserts, no Minuteman patrols.
So it is good to see that Canada is willing to speak plainly about the murder and gang-rape of one of its citizens, at the hands of Iran's secret police. Canadian government officials are actually publicly calling her death a murder and demanding her remains be returned to Canada. That is actually progress.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 10:39 PM