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USAF COUNTERPROLIFERATION CENTER
CPC OUTREACH JOURNAL
Maxwell AFB, Alabama
Issue No. 896, 8 April 2011
Articles & Other Documents:
Expert Offers Blueprint for Global Nuclear Weapons Pentagon Revises Prompt Global Strike Effort
Cuts
Islamic Extremists Currently Operating in Triple
Iran Renews Call for Nuke-Free World Frontier Area, Brazilian Magazine Says
Dissident Group Says Iran Factory Really a Nuke Site Al Qaeda Makes Afghan Comeback
U.S. Finds No Evidence to Relist N.K. as Terrorism Al Qaeda Smells Blood
Sponsor
Moving Ahead on Reducing Nuclear Arms
Kim Jong Il Son's Cabinet Absence May Signal
Succession Delay Russia-US Relations and the New START
U.S. Worries about Additional N. Korean Provocations: South Asia's Looming Arms Race
Gen. Sharp
Saudi Columnist: The Alliance Between Hamas and Iran
Trident More Effective with US Arming Device, Tests is Hurting Arabs
Suggest
Taking the Next Step after New START
Iran Makes Latin American Inroads beyond Venezuela
Welcome to the CPC Outreach Journal. As part of USAF Counterproliferation Center’s mission to counter weapons
of mass destruction through education and research, we’re providing our government and civilian community a
source for timely counterproliferation information. This information includes articles, papers and other documents
addressing issues pertinent to US military response options for dealing with chemical, biological, radiological, and
nuclear (CBRN) threats and countermeasures. It’s our hope this information resource will help enhance your
counterproliferation issue awareness.
Established in 1998, the USAF/CPC provides education and research to present and future leaders of the Air Force,
as well as to members of other branches of the armed services and Department of Defense. Our purpose is to help
those agencies better prepare to counter the threat from weapons of mass destruction. Please feel free to visit our
web site at http://cpc.au.af.mil/ for in-depth information and specific points of contact. The following articles, papers
or documents do not necessarily reflect official endorsement of the United States Air Force, Department of Defense,
or other US government agencies. Reproduction for private use or commercial gain is subject to original copyright
restrictions. All rights are reserved.Global Security Newswire Expert Offers Blueprint for Global Nuclear Weapons Cuts Wednesday, April 6, 2011 A nonproliferation analyst has laid out a multistep blueprint for slashing U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles to 500 weapons in each state and cutting other nations' arsenals by at least half (see GSN, April 5). "Achieving deep reductions in U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons will be difficult, for both technical and political reasons. Moreover, such reductions could create challenges to 'strategic stability,'" according to James Acton, an associate with the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "As a result, U.S. arms control policy must adopt a comprehensive approach aimed at verifiably eliminating warheads (including tactical and nondeployed ones), deterring rearmament, and reducing the incentives to use nuclear weapons first in a crisis," he wrote in the summary to a report, "Low Numbers: A Practical Path to Deep Nuclear Reductions." Arms control activities must focus on curbing specific, highly accurate non-nuclear weapons; retiring missiles that carry more than one nuclear warhead; and increasing openness regarding nuclear-weapon production and maintenance sites, Acton stated. Washington and Moscow should pursue "informal" collaboration on ballistic missile defense and other confidence-building operations, in part to help increase support within the United States for measures limited to countering dangers developing from Iran and North Korea. The United States must aim to bolster support among its European and Asian partners for significant nuclear- weapon cuts, Acton wrote. The powers should cooperatively prepare broad assessments of "security threats and appropriate responses. These reviews should help illustrate the very narrow circumstances in which nuclear weapons could prove useful, thus reducing allies‘ fears about deep reductions," he stated. Washington must consider potential reductions or redeployments of U.S. nuclear weapons in collaboration with partner governments affected by the moves, and it should cement ties with those governments to help maintain the credibility of its extended deterrence pledges, Acton wrote. "Stabilizing conventional imbalances among the United States, China, and Russia is another daunting but necessary step toward deep reductions in nuclear weapons," according to the report. The United States should maintain efforts on non-nuclear arms control in Europe to help dissuade Moscow from raising such matters in nuclear arms control talks, Acton asserted. "Russia sees nuclear weapons as a way to offset its conventional inferiority. If it makes tactical nuclear arms control contingent on conventional arms control, the nuclear reductions process could be quickly derailed given the immense political challenges to resurrecting the conventional arms control regime in Europe," the report states. If the United States and China fail to settle on the value of a general parity of forces in the Western Pacific,"a costly conventional arms race between the two nations could ensue," Acton warned. "The state that loses could increase its reliance on nuclear weapons and, correspondingly, become reluctant to participate in efforts to reduce nuclear arsenals." Washington should pursue "a program of mutual strategic reassurance" with Beijing, which has withheld details on its nuclear deterrent over fears that providing such information would increase its arsenal's vulnerability, the expert said (see GSN, March 3). Securing further disclosures of nuclear-weapon information from France and the United Kingdom should also be a priority in pursuing a "multilateral arms control process" involving nuclear powers beyond Russia and the United States, he said. "As difficult as achieving a multilateral agreement among the five officially recognized nuclear-weapon states will be, it is complicated yet further by the impact of states outside the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty -- India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea," Acton wrote. "This process will probably be derailed entirely if Iran is successful in acquiring nuclear weapons" (see related GSN story, today; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace release, March 2011). http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20110406_3932.php (Return to Articles and Documents List) Press TV – Iran Iran Renews Call for Nuke-Free World Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Iran's Ambassador to the United Nations Mohammad Khazaei has called on the international community to take serious steps toward a complete nuclear disarmament. Addressing the UN Disarmament Commission on Wednesday, Khazaei said that indiscriminate implementation of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is the only way to free the world from nuclear weapons. ―The only way forward to eliminate threats posed by nuclear weapons is to completely destroy them. Iran believes that the best way for ensuring nuclear non-proliferation is to fully implement the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty without bias, particularly in the sensitive Middle East region,‖ IRIB quoted him as saying. He said nuclear disarmament is among the top priorities of the comity of nations and resolutions approved by the UN General Assembly. The envoy condemned certain countries for possessing nuclear weapons and ―for not upholding their legal commitments for destroying the banned weapons.‖ He said establishing sustainable world security will be possible only through logical approaches and avoiding the use of force. Khazaei also accused Israel of threatening the regional and international peace and security as a recognized wielder of nuclear warheads. ―Due to the Zionist regime of [Israel's] refusal to join the NPT and its formidable sites not being subject to the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), efforts to create a region free of nuclear weapons had not been successful,‖ Khazaei stated. "The Middle East is a region where the nuclear program of one regime that is not a member of NPT -- Israel -- seriously threatens regional and international peace and security," he added. The Iranian official emphasized the Islamic Republic still insists on its proposal that the Middle East should be declared a region free of nuclear weapons. He also underlined Iran's determination to make use of its rights for peaceful nuclear activities and rejected US-led allegations that the country's nuclear program may pursue purposes other than civilian objectives. ―Such baseless claims are often made by countries that have a historic precedence in non-adherence to their commitments to nuclear disarmament. Some countries try to block access of other countries to peaceful nuclear technology under a variety of pretexts. The NPT clearly acknowledges the rights of all members to peaceful nuclear programs,‖ Khazaei said. http://www.presstv.ir/detail/173471.html (Return to Articles and Documents List) Washington Post Dissident Group Says Iran Factory Really a Nuke Site By Joby Warrick, Thursday, April 7, 2011 An Iranian opposition group claimed Thursday to have discovered the location of a secret factory that manufactures high-tech equipment for Iran‘s nuclear program, a facility the group says is disguised as a tool-making plant. The National Council of Resistance of Iran said the alleged plant makes centrifuge parts for Iran‘s uranium enrichment program and is closely tied to Iran‘s Defense Ministry. The dissident group also claimed that Iran already has made components for 100,000 centrifuge machines, far more than is needed to supply the country‘s known uranium facilities. ―This is a clear indication that there are other secret sites out there, either undergoing construction or perhaps already completed,‖ Alireza Jafarzadeh, a consultant and former spokesman for the NCRI, told reporters after unveiling satellite photos of the site 80 miles west of Tehran. U.N. nuclear officials have long known that Iran is operating factories for centrifuge parts, but Iranian officials have never allowed visits by U.N. inspectors or even revealed the location of the facilities. Centrifuges are fast-spinning machines used to make enriched uranium, a key ingredient in both nuclear reactor fuel and nuclear weapons. The opposition group identified a cluster of three buildings inside a small industrial park as Iran‘s main production center for centrifuge parts since 2006. The complex is dubbed ―Taba,‖ after a cutting-tool plant that once occupied the site, and is under heavy security, Jafarzadeh said.
He said some components for Taba were being manufactured at a nearby facility called Shahid Shafi‘zahdeh Industrial Complex, a subsidiary of the Iranian Defense Ministry‘s Aerospace Industries Organization. Other than labeled satellite photos, the dissidents offered no evidence to back their claims. The NCRI and its operational wing — the Mujaheddin-e Khalq — have revealed the existence of other secret Iranian nuclear sites in the past, and the group was the first to publicly disclose the existence of Iran‘s underground uranium enrichment site at Natanz. Jafarzadeh said the group has shared the new information with both the U.S. government and the International Atomic Energy Agency, and he called on Iran to allow inspectors into the Taba facility to remove any doubt about the nature of the site. There was no immediate reaction to the NCRI‘s claim from U.S. or U.N. officials. ―The easy way to verify this is to open the site to the IAEA so they can inspect it,‖ he said. Iran, which insists that its nuclear program is entirely peaceful, contends that it is not obligated under international treaties to open is centrifuge production facilities to outsiders for inspection. About 9,000 centrifuges are currently installed at the Natanz facility, including about 1,000 machines that were rushed into production in the past two years to replace damaged equipment after a series of apparent cyber-attacks on Natanz. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/dissident_group_says_iran_factory_really_a_nuke_site/2011/04/07/AF9jO1 wC_story.html?wprss=rss_world (Return to Articles and Documents List) Korea Herald – South Korea U.S. Finds No Evidence to Relist N.K. as Terrorism Sponsor April 6, 2011 WASHINGTON (Yonhap News) ― The Obama administration said Tuesday it has not yet found enough evidence to relist North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism. ―There‘s a very specific procedure, though, to designating someone as a state sponsor of terror, with specific criteria that need to be met,‖ State Department spokesman Mark Toner said. ―There‘s a legal process to doing that. And I‘m not aware that that‘s been undertaken.‖ Toner was responding to a bipartisan group of congressmen who last week submitted legislation to re-designate North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism for a series of provocations, including its torpedoing of a South Korean warship and shelling of a South Korean border island that killed 50 people last year. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Florida), chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and eight other congressmen Friday submitted the bill that calls for the North‘s relisting and prohibits Washington from delisting the North unless Pyongyang apologizes for the Cheonan and Yeonpyeong incidents, pledges not to proliferate nuclear weapons and missile technologies and severs ties with the Hamas and Hezbollah militant groups. Ros-Lehtinen introduced similar legislation in May last year but it didn‘t pass. In November, she urged the Obama administration to relist the North when Pyongyang revealed a uranium enrichment program that could serve as a way of making nuclear weapons aside from its plutonium program. U.S. officials have dismissed calls by hardliners for relisting North Korea for the Cheonan‘s sinking, saying the incident is a violation of the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War, but does not qualify as terrorism. The Bush administration removed Pyongyang from the list in October 2008 to facilitate the six-party talks on the North‘s nuclear dismantlement. Shortly after the delisting, the North demolished a cooling tower at its nuclear facilities in Yongbyon, north of its capital, Pyongyang, as part of a deal involving the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia. The nuclear talks have been stalled since then as the U.N.-imposed sanctions on the North for its nuclear and missile tests in early 2009 and the Cheonan‘s sinking and the attack on Yeonpyeong Island last year. The U.S. has called on North Korea to mend ties with South Korea before moving on to the denuclearization-for-aid nuclear talks. Pyongyang in February refused to apologize for last year‘s provocations and walked out of a rare inter-Korean dialogue, thwarting hopes for an early resumption of the six-party talks.
In August, the U.S. announced a new list of state sponsors of terrorism that does not include North Korea despite concerns over Pyongyang‘s suspected delivery of weapons to militant groups in the Middle East. Iran, Syria, Sudan and Cuba are still listed under the annual congressionally mandated Country Reports on Terrorism. North Korea was first put on the list after the downing of the Korean Air flight over Myanmar in 1987, which killed all 115 people aboard. http://www.koreaherald.com/national/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20110406000574 (Return to Articles and Documents List) San Francisco Chronicle Kim Jong Il Son's Cabinet Absence May Signal Succession Delay Wednesday, April 6, 2011 April 7 (Bloomberg) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's youngest son and heir-apparent wasn't mentioned in a list of new Cabinet members today, signaling that the dynastic transfer of power isn't likely to happen soon. Kim Jong Un, thought to be in his late 20s, was given his first posts within the ruling Workers' Party in September, paving the way to become North Korea's next leader. His name didn't feature, though, in government appointments approved at a parliamentary meeting, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency. The Supreme People's Assembly did agree on next year's budget and a new security minister. "Not getting elected to a government post doesn't threaten Kim Jong Un's status as the next leader," said Kim Yong Hyun, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul. "It just means that Kim Jong Il is confident of his health conditions to remain leader and that he will take the time he needs to raise a successor." Kim Jong Il plans to extend his family's 63 years of dynastic rule as economic woes deepen following a botched currency revaluation in late 2009 and amid ongoing United Nations sanctions for North Korea's nuclear weapons programs. South Korean officials have said that Kim Jong Il, 69, appears to have recovered from a stroke in 2008. Experts including Yang Moo Jin, a professor of the University of North Korean Studies, have said Kim Jong Un may be elected to the National Defense Commission, the nation's highest government body and chaired by his father. The post of first vice chairman on the defense commission has been vacant since Jo Myong Rok died of heart disease in November. The position wasn't filled at today's meeting. Commission Post Kim Jong Un was made a vice chairman at the commission, a rank below first vice-chairman, on Feb. 10, South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported Feb. 16. His appointment will be formally endorsed at the parliamentary meeting, the newspaper said then. The commission has four vice chairmen, including Jang Song Thaek, Kim Jong Il's brother-in-law. Jang was appointed at the last parliamentary session in June in what analysts said was a move aimed at solidifying a hereditary succession by bestowing power to a member of the Kim family. Kim Jong Un was elected to the second-highest military post in the party and made a four-star general in September when he was mentioned by state media for the first time. Kim Kyong Hui, Kim Jong Il's sister and Jang's wife, was made a member of the party's Politburo also in September. Leadership Threats Kim Jong Il appears increasingly concerned about internal threats to his leadership, boosting security around his residences since pro-democracy uprisings erupted in the Middle East, Kwon Young Se, a lawmaker at South Korea's ruling Grand National Party, said in a March 16 interview in Seoul. Kwon cited a report by the National Intelligence Service to the National Assembly's Intelligence Committee that he chairs. North Korea's economy shrank 0.9 percent in 2009, when UN sanctions banning arms trading and restricting financial transactions were toughened following the country's second nuclear test in May that year, according to the Bank of Korea in Seoul. North Korea doesn't release its own data.
Kim Jong Il was made the defense commission's first vice chairman in 1990, 16 years after he was named successor to his father and North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung. Kim Jong Il became North Korea's leader after his father died in 1994. Editors: Mark Williams, Alan Crawford http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/04/06/bloomberg1376-LJ7ZWM0YHQ0X01- 3K6VQCPSLRCUD8DFAGOC3VKK1H.DTL (Return to Articles and Documents List) Yonhap News – South Korea April 7, 2011 U.S. Worries about Additional N. Korean Provocations: Gen. Sharp By Hwang Doo-hyong WASHINGTON, April 6 (Yonhap) -- The commander of U.S. forces in South Korea Wednesday expressed concerns about further provocations from North Korea. Speaking at a House Armed Services Committee hearing, Gen. Walter Sharp, commander of U.S. Forces Korea, also said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il will not abandon his regime's nuclear weapons. "As North Korea works through the succession that they are ongoing now, as North Korea tries to become, as Kim Jong-il has claimed, to be a great and powerful nation in 2012, I do worry that there are additional attacks and provocations that are being considered within North Korea," Sharp said. North Korea torpedoed a South Korean warship and shelled a South Korean border island last year, killing 50 people and chilling ties to their lowest level since the 1950-53 Korean War. Pyongyang refused to apologize for the provocations and walked out of a rare inter-Korean dialogue in February, thwarting hopes for an early resumption of the six-party nuclear talks, stalled for more than two years over U.N. sanctions for its nuclear and missile tests in early 2009 and the Cheonan's sinking and the attack on Yeonpyeong Island. The U.S. has called on North Korea to mend ties with South Korea before a resumption of the denuclearization- for-aid talks. Sharp expressed skepticism over North Korea's eventual denuclearization through the talks, which have been on and off since their inception in 2003. "I can talk for the Republic of Korea and our alliance there, is that we do believe that North Korea is continuing to develop their nuclear weapons," he said. "Kim Jong-il has said that. He has said the importance of that to him, that his plan is to continue to do that. I do not believe that he will give that up." North Korea sees its nuclear and missile programs as a deterrent against possible Western attack on the reclusive communist state, saying that the allied air raids on Libya justify Pyongyang's military-first policy. "I think Kim Jong-il focuses on regime survival under any terms and counts on his continued development of nuclear capability and these provocative acts in order to be able to have his regime survive," Sharp said. Sharp said he does not see any signs of heir apparent Kim Jong-un treating the North Korean people any better. "What he does as he becomes the leadership in North Korea is yet to be seen," the general said. "Obviously, we call upon him and whoever succeeds the succession process within Kim Jong-il, within the regime, to take advantage of that opportunity to be able to care more about their people, to care about human rights and dignity, but we don't see the indications of that happening, to be quite blunt." Kim Jong-un reportedly will visit Beijing later this month to seek economic assistance and consolidate his status as successor in the first such visit to the North's biggest benefactor since he was publicly appointed to the vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the North's ruling Workers' Party, which controls the 1.2 million- strong military. North Korea invited former U.S. President Jimmy Carter to visit Pyongyang late this month in an apparent hope that he will play the middleman in mending ties between the sides. In 1994, Carter met with then-North Korean leader Kim Il-sung and brokered a bilateral deal during the first North Korean nuclear crisis. Speaking at a conference in Atlanta, Carter said he would "try to induce the North Koreans to give up their nuclear weapons" and help the country work out a peace treaty with South Korea and the United States, according to the
Associated Press. "What we want is a peace treaty and denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and to find out about how we can help with the humanitarian plight of the people who are starving to death." U.S. officials have said they were assessing the food situation in North Korea for possible food aid to the impoverished country, suffering from severe food shortages due to floods and freezing winter weather. U.S. food aid to the North was suspended in early 2009 amid heightened tensions over Pyongyang's nuclear and missile tests and controversy over the transparency of food distribution. The United Nations last month appealed for the provision of 430,000 tons of food to North Korea to feed 6 million people stricken by floods and weather. A U.N. monitoring team concluded a fact-finding mission in North Korea early last month. Some say North Korea is exaggerating its food shortages to hoard food in preparation for its distribution on the 100th anniversary of the birth of its late leader Kim Il-sung, the father of current leader, Kim Jong-il, which falls on April 15 next year. http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2011/04/07/65/0301000000AEN20110407000500315F.HTML (Return to Articles and Documents List) The Guardian – U.K. Trident More Effective with US Arming Device, Tests Suggest Tests have implications for UK role in future disarmament talks and raise questions about independence of nuclear missiles By Richard Norton-Taylor Wednesday, 6 April 2011 Successful tests have been carried out in the US on a new warhead firing system to arm Britain's nuclear missiles, making them more accurate and more capable. The move underlines the extent to which Britain's Trident system is dependent on the US, and it could have serious implications for Britain's role in any future disarmament negotiations, military analysts and experts on British and US nuclear weapons say. The tests on an upgraded nuclear warhead component, called W76-1, to arm Britain's Trident missiles have been disclosed by Sandia National Laboratories in the US. "The first W76-1 United Kingdom trial test" provided data "critical to the UK implementation of the W76-1", according to a report in the latest issue of Sandia's official publication, Labs Accomplishments. Defence sources admit that the new arming device would make Britain's nuclear missiles more accurate and more effective. The Ministry of Defence has always been reluctant to comment publicly on plans to equip Britain's Trident missiles with US components. It describes the new US firing system fuse as a "non-nuclear part" of the warheads but insists that the nuclear warheads themselves are British designed and built. The submarines are designed in Britain but the Trident missiles are leased from the US. US navy officials say the upgraded American firing mechanism would make Trident missiles more effective against "hard targets". British defence officials privately agree. Such comments suggest "a significant improvement of the military capability of the weapon", Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, said. "The fuse upgrade appears to be modernisation through the back door," he added. Nick Ritchie, an expert on Trident and research fellow at Bradford University's Department of Peace Studies, said Sandia's revelations "underline the extent to which the UK's nuclear weapons programme is fully integrated with the US programme, reinforcing our technical, political and financial nuclear dependency and a fuzzy, at best, notion of being an independent nuclear power." A new US arming, fusing, and firing system that controls the detonation of the warhead, combined with the high accuracy of Britain's Trident warheads will allow the UK to threaten hard targets such as underground bunkers, Ritchie added. He said the US programme would extend the service life of Trident warheads by 30 years. The government was first questioned about the new US components for Britain's Trident missiles in 2007 by Nick Harvey, the Liberal Democrat defence spokesman and now armed forces minister. Des Browne, then defence secretary, told him: "I am not prepared to discuss the detailed performance characteristics of our nuclear weapons."
The government is particularly sensitive about the Trident nuclear warhead upgrade as it could be seized on by non- nuclear states in any forthcoming international disarmament talks. The disclosures come at a time when discussions about how to replace the existing Trident system is causing severe strains within the government. Liam Fox, the defence secretary, insists the existing fleet of four submarines must be replaced like-for-like and Britain must persist with a continuous at-sea deterrent (CASD) – that is, having one nuclear-armed submarine on patrol every day of the year. Harvey told the Guardian earlier this year that alternatives did not seem to have been given detailed or objective assessments. "The debate has been very much yes or no to this single notion of how a credible deterrent can be provided," he said. No date has yet been fixed for the "initial gate" decision on the design of the new Trident submarine fleet. The MoD first said it would be announced in December. One of the problems is what kind of nuclear reactor would propel the submarines. The choice is between the existing pressurised water (PWR2) reactor of the kind used in the navy's Astute-class conventionally armed submarines and a new PWR3 reactor of US design. A decision about the final makeup of a successor to the existing Trident system has been put off until after the general election, due in 2015. The MoD was unable to immediately respond to Sandia's disclosures or their significance. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/apr/06/trident-us-arming-system-test (Return to Articles and Documents List) Kansas City Star Tuesday, April 5, 2011 Iran Makes Latin American Inroads beyond Venezuela By DONNA CASSATA, Associated Press (AP) WASHINGTON (AP) — Iran has expanded its ties in Latin American beyond its close relationship with Venezuela, a top U.S. commander said Tuesday as he described a troubling development that the United States is watching closely. Gen. Douglas Fraser, the head of the U.S. Southern Command, said Iran has nearly doubled the number of embassies in the region, from six in 2005 to 10 in 2010 while also building cultural centers in 17 countries. Last year, Iran also has hosted heads of state from three countries — Bolivia, Guyana and Venezuela. "Iran continues expanding regional ties to support its own diplomatic goal of reducing the impact of international sanctions connected with its nuclear program," Fraser told the Senate Armed Services Committee. Washington fears that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons. Fraser described a close relationship between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They've had at least nine visits during Chavez's 12 years in office. Fraser said the alliance is still largely for diplomatic and commercial purposes, but said there were still too many unknowns. "There are flights between Iran and Venezuela on a weekly basis, and visas are not required for entrance into Venezuela or Bolivia or Nicaragua. So we don't have a lot of visibility in who's visiting and who isn't, and that's really where I see the concerns," he said. I don't have connections with those organizations that Iran has supported in other parts of the world, Hezbollah. But we're still skeptical and watching that on a routine basis." Fraser said the ties between the two countries are based on several shared interests, such as access to military and petroleum technologies and avoiding international isolation. On a separate issue, Fraser said Venezuela has purchased $8 billion to $12 billion worth of weapons from Russia, China and Spain, including automatic weapons. The U.S. is concerned the weapons could end up in the hands of illegal groups. http://www.kansascity.com/2011/04/05/2777802/iran-makes-inroads-in-latin-american.html (Return to Articles and Documents List) Global Security Newswire Pentagon Revises Prompt Global Strike Effort Thursday, April 7, 2011
The U.S. Defense Department has elected not to incorporate ballistic missile system technology in the development of its conventional "prompt global strike" initiative, Arms Control Today reported in its April issue (see GSN, March 24). The White House alerted Congress to the decision in February. The Pentagon "at present has no plans to develop or field" ICBMs or submarine-launched ballistic missiles that would be tipped with conventional warheads and delivered "with traditional ballistic trajectories," states a Senate- mandated White House report. The possibility that ballistic missile technology would be used in the Pentagon effort to develop a non-nuclear alternative for quickly eliminating threats such as a WMD stockpile or a missile being readied for launch caused serious concern among members of Congress and in Russia. Critics worried that a U.S. launch of conventionally armed ICBM could be misinterpreted as an atomic attack, potentially resulting in a nuclear response from another nation. The Pentagon has said it plans to maintain research into "boost-glide" technology that has a nonballistic flight path, reducing the chances that someone would misinterpret the weapon as a nuclear missile. Boost-glide technology employs nonstandard ballistic missiles to propel into space delivery systems that proceed to five times the speed of sound for more than 50 percent of their flight. Washington believes that these weapons could be identifiable to the Russians as non-nuclear. "[The] basing, launch signature, and flight trajectory (of these systems) are distinctly different from that of any deployed nuclear-armed U.S. strategic ballistic missile," the Obama administration document reads. The Defense Department is interested in acquiring a conventional prompt strike ability as the only weapons the United States currently possesses that can strike a target anywhere in the world in under 60 minutes are nuclear- armed ICBMs. The Bush White House had suggested fixing non-nuclear warheads to submarine-carried Trident ballistic missiles. However, congressional lawmakers stymied that effort due to worries that Moscow could mistake a conventional SLBM firing as a nuclear attack. Kremlin officials argue that any long-range weapon that could be used to strike Russian nuclear assets ought to be categorized as strategic. In the New START nuclear arms control talks, Moscow at first tried to prohibit the attachment of conventional warheads on fielded ballistic missiles. Obama administration negotiators, though dismissed the idea. The two sides instead agreed to include language in the new accord that says they are "mindful of the impact of conventionally armed ICBMs and SLBMs on strategic stability." The boost-glide weapons would likely be fielded on U.S. coastal installations such as Vandenberg Air Force Base in California or Cape Canaveral in Florida. As the Russian military is "capable of monitoring U.S. ICBM fields, and possibly (SLBM) deployment areas," according to the Obama report, Moscow could ascertain that no nuclear launch had taken place. Additionally, each missile class has a unique infrared identifier that would enable Russia to distinguish between a Trident ballistic missile and a missile used as a boost glide vehicle, the report says. Pentagon officials are researching three boost-glide alternatives: the Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2, the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon, and the Conventional Strike Missile, according to Arms Control Today. The Defense Department for this fiscal year has sought $240 million for a conventional strike effort that encompasses the three alternatives. The Pentagon expects to spend roughly $2 billion from 2011 to 2016 for research and development of these options (Tom Collina, Arms Control Today, April 2011). http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20110407_4669.php (Return to Articles and Documents List) Buenos Aires Herald – Argentina Islamic Extremists Currently Operating in Triple Frontier Area, Brazilian Magazine Says April 3, 2011 Islamic extremist groups such as Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas are illegally operating in the Triple Frontier area shared by Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, where they allegedly gather large amounts of money, recruit new militants and plan additional attacks, Brazilian magazine Veja denounced.
The weekly publication stated that several reports by the Brazilian Federal Police and the US government warn that at least twenty high-ranking members from the three organizations are currently operating in the so-called ―Triple Frontier‖ area, shared by Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil. The Brazilian government has always denied the existence of any activities linked to these Islamic groups, but has admitted that a large portion of the Lebanese community living in the country legally sends large sums of money to the Middle East. Also under investigation, according to the article published on Sunday, is Mohsen Rabbani, a former cultural attaché to the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires, who is suspected of being involved in the 1992 and 1994 terrorist attacks against the Jewish community in Argentina. Apparently Rabbani ―frequently flies to Brazil under a fake identity in order to visit a brother living in Curitiba.‖ According to Interpol authorities and intelligence agents in Brazil, his last visit to Brazil was in last September. According to Veja, the ABIN (Brazil‘s intelligence agency) found out that Rabbani took over 20 young men from the Greater Sao Paulo area, Pernambuco and Parana to a meeting Tehran in which they would be instructed on religious formation. The article also assures that 41-year old Lebanese Khaled Hussein Ali, currently living in Sao Paulo since 1998 when he obtained legal residence after fathering a Brazilian girl, has coordinated Al Qaeda operations in over 17 countries from Brazil. In 2009, Ali was detained and secluded for 21 days in a Brazilian jail after authorities raided his home and found several videos and emails that instigated hate against the Jews and black people. Police authorities believed that Ali was one of Al Qaeda‘s top propaganda men, but the Brazilian Public Ministry decided not to bring him to justice over a lack of evidence. The magazine also states that the Shiite Lebanese group Hezbollah and the Palestine group Hamas also have a logistics operations centre in the Triple Frontier region. http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/63419/islamic-extremists-currently-operating-in-triple-frontier-area- brazilian-magazine-says (Return to Articles and Documents List) Wall Street Journal April 6, 2011 Al Qaeda Makes Afghan Comeback By MATTHEW ROSENBERG and JULIAN E. BARNES In late September, U.S. fighter jets streaked over the cedar-studded slopes of Korengal, the so-called Valley of Death, to strike a target that hadn't been seen for years in Afghanistan: an al Qaeda training camp. Among the dozens of Arabs killed that day, the U.S.-led coalition said, were two senior al Qaeda members, one Saudi and the other Kuwaiti. Another casualty of the bombing, according to Saudi media and jihadi websites, was one of Saudi Arabia's most wanted militants. The men had come to Afghanistan to impart their skills to a new generation of Afghan and foreign fighters. Even though the strike was successful, the very fact that it had to be carried out represents a troubling shift in the war. Nine years after a U.S.-led invasion routed almost all of al Qaeda's surviving militants in Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden's network is gradually returning. Over the past six to eight months, al Qaeda has begun setting up training camps, hideouts and operations bases in the remote mountains along Afghanistan's northeastern border with Pakistan, some U.S., Afghan and Taliban officials say. The stepped-up infiltration followed a U.S. pullback from large swatches of the region starting 18 months ago. The areas were deemed strategically irrelevant and left to Afghanistan's uneven security forces, and in some parts, abandoned entirely. American commanders have argued that the U.S. military presence in the remote valleys was the main reason why locals joined the Taliban. Once American soldiers left, they predicted, the Taliban would go, too. Instead, the Taliban have stayed put, a senior U.S. military officer said, and "al Qaeda is coming back." The militant group's effort to re-establish bases in northeastern Afghanistan is distressing for several reasons. Unlike the Taliban, which is seen as a mostly local threat, al Qaeda is actively trying to strike targets in the West. Eliminating its ability to do so from bases in Afghanistan has always been the U.S.'s primary war goal and the
motive behind fighting the Taliban, which gave al Qaeda a relatively free hand to operate when it ruled the country. The return also undermines U.S. hopes that last year's troop surge would beat the Taliban badly enough to bring them to the negotiating table—and pressure them to break ties with al Qaeda. More than a year into the surge, those ties appear to be strong. To counter the return, the coalition is making quick incursions by regular forces into infiltrated valleys—"mowing the grass," according to one U.S. general. It is also running clandestine raids by Special Operations Forces, who helped scout out the location of the Korengal strike, U.S. officials said. The twin actions offer a preview of the tactics the coalition is likely to pursue in some parts of the country as its forces hand off chunks of contested territory to Afghanistan's security forces. The process is already under way and is due to accelerate in July. Precise numbers of al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan at any given time are hard to come by. But officials say al Qaeda camps and gathering spots similar to the one targeted in September are now scattered across sparsely populated Kunar province, a few inaccessible parts of Nuristan province and, most worryingly to some officials, the edges of Nangarhar province. That province sits astride a major overland route from Pakistan and is home to one of Afghanistan's major cities, Jalalabad. For the most part, al Qaeda has been viewed by Western officials as a declining force in the Afghan fight. Just six months ago, U.S. intelligence estimates indicated only one or two dozen al Qaeda fighters were present in Afghanistan at any given time. Most of the few hundred fighters it had in the region were holed up in Pakistan, hiding from Central Intelligence Agency drone strikes in mountain shelters, and beset by morale and money problems. Some fighters would occasionally cross the border to conduct training or embed with Taliban units, a pattern that had become well established over a decade of war. Now, the U.S. pullback from northeastern Afghanistan appears to have given al Qaeda the opening it needed to re- establish itself as a force in the Afghan fight, say some U.S. and Afghan officials. "Al Qaeda tends to navigate to areas where they sense a vacuum," said Seth G. Jones, a senior political scientist at Rand Corp. in Washington who has spent much of the past two years in Afghanistan advising the U.S. military. "There are serious concerns about al Qaeda moving back into some areas of Afghanistan, the places that we've pulled back from." Al Qaeda's message of Islamic revolution has in recent months seemed increasingly out of sync in a Middle East where a series of grass-roots upheavals are being driven largely by secular young people demanding democracy. But its recent resurgence in Afghanistan suggests that it retains potency in predominately Muslim parts of South Asia where it has put down roots in the past 15 years. Last year's surge of 30,000 U.S. forces, authorized by President Barack Obama, aimed to inflict enough pain on the Taliban that they would negotiate a peace settlement on terms acceptable to the West. Coalition commanders and civilian officials were initially bullish about the new strategy's chances, seizing on reports from Taliban detainees that a "wedge" was developing between al Qaeda and midlevel insurgent commanders. The insurgent leaders were said to be tired of fighting and increasingly resentful of what they considered the Arab group's meddling in their fight. The reappearance of al Qaeda fighters operating in Afghanistan undercuts those reports from detainees. "There are still ties up and down the networks...from the senior leadership to the ground level," said a U.S. civilian official, citing classified intelligence. Interviews with several Taliban commanders bear out that assessment. The commanders say the al Qaeda facilities in northeastern Afghanistan are tightly tied to the Afghan Taliban leadership. "In these bases, fighters from around the world get training. We are training suicide bombers, [improvised explosive device] experts and guerrilla fighters," said an insurgent commander in Nuristan who goes by the nom de guerre Agha Saib and who was reached by telephone. The two senior al Qaeda operatives killed in the September air strike—identified by coalition officials as Abdallah Umar al-Qurayshi, an expert in suicide bombings from Saudi Arabia, and Abu Atta, a Kuwaiti explosives specialist—are believed to have come across the border from Pakistan's neighboring tribal areas with the aid of the Taliban in the wake of the American withdrawal The wanted Saudi, Saad al Shehri, hailed from one of the most prominent Arab jihadi families, according to Saudi accounts and jihadi websites. Two of his brothers, including a former Guantanamo detainee, and several cousins were among the founders of al Qaeda's Yemen-based network. Coalition officials say the senior al Qaeda men were accompanied by one or two dozen lower-level Arab fighters. Their mission was to train locals and get into the fight themselves.
"The raid gave us insight that al Qaeda was trying to reestablish a base in Afghanistan and conduct some training of operatives, suicide attackers," the senior U.S. military officer said. "They found a safe haven in Afghanistan." A raid in December netted another senior al Qaeda operative, Abu Ikhlas al-Masri, who has long operated in and around Kunar, said another U.S. official. His capture has provided intelligence about al Qaeda's attempts to reestablish Afghan bases, said the official. There is debate within the U.S. military and intelligence community about the scope of the al Qaeda problem in Afghanistan. The September strike was watched carefully and "was a big deal," said another military official. But that official and others said the numbers remain small enough to manage and that camps are, at worst, few and far between and largely temporary. And almost all U.S. and Afghan officials caution that al Qaeda isn't yet secure enough in northeastern Afghanistan to use the area as a staging ground for attacks overseas. Besides, the officials said, having al Qaeda on the Afghan side of the border—where American forces have far greater freedom to strike—rather than in Pakistan has its advantages. The officials said many of al Qaeda's fighters are fearful of establishing too big or permanent a presence in Afghanistan because of the threat posed by U.S. and allied forces. Kunar and eastern Nangarhar and Nuristan are strategic terrain, which is why U.S. forces first moved in a few years ago. The area is bisected by a web of infiltration routes—mountain passes, smugglers' trails, old logging roads— from Taliban-dominated parts of Pakistan's tribal areas, and the valleys channel insurgents into Jalalabad city. From there, it's a few hours by car to Kabul—and an international airport—on one of Afghanistan's better-paved roads. Islamabad, and another international airport, is a day's drive in the other direction. The area's blend of ample hiding spots, readily traversable routes and a population historically wary of central authority have long made it a favorite for militants. The first revolts against Afghanistan's Soviet-backed communist regime began there in the late 1970s. In the past decade, it has become a haven for an alphabet soup of Islamist groups. Apart from al Qaeda and the Taliban, two of the most potent Pakistani militant groups have a significant presence in Kunar—Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba, which orchestrated the 2008 attacks in Mumbai. There's also the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, as the Pakistan Taliban are known, and the two other main Afghan insurgent factions, the Haqqani network and Hezb-e-Islami. Rounding out the scene is a smattering of militants from Central Asia, Chechnya and beyond. Some of the valleys in Kunar "look like what we"—the U.S. and President Hamid Karzai's government—"are trying to keep Afghanistan from becoming," said Rangin Dafdar Spanta, Afghanistan's pro-Western national security adviser. The fight in the northeast is being waged openly by regular U.S. forces, which are now routinely sweeping through valleys in limited operations that ordinarily last a few days. The operations mostly target Taliban units but sometimes disrupt al Qaeda activities, too, military commanders say. "There's been several times that we'll get intelligence that there's going to be a gathering, whether it's junior-level leadership, whether it's Taliban, Haqqani or al Qaeda and if we can target those locations than we're absolutely going to do that," said Major Gen. John Campbell, the commander of NATO forces in eastern Afghanistan, in an interview. More quiet—and more effective, many American officials say—is the U.S. military's secretive Joint Special Operations Command, known as JSOC, which oversees elite units like the Army's Delta Force and Navy Seal Team Six. The groups are working with Afghan intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency to keep al Qaeda off balance in northeastern Afghanistan. It was a JSOC operation that led to the capture of Mr. al-Masri, the al Qaeda veteran, in December. The problem, say officials, is that JSOC, with a global counterterrorism mission that gives it responsibility for strikes in Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan and other trouble spots, is already stretched thin. Relying on it to police Afghanistan's hinterlands as American forces pull out may be unrealistic, some officials said. "We do not have an intelligence problem. We have a capacity problem. We generally know the places they are, how they are operating," said the senior U.S. military official, speaking of al Qaeda. The problem "is our ability to get there and do something." Habib Khan Totakhil contributed to this article. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704355304576215762431072584.html
(Return to Articles and Documents List) Brookings Institution OPINION Al Qaeda Smells Blood By Bruce Riedel, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy The Daily Beast April 6, 2011 As President Ali Abdullah Saleh steadily loses support at home and abroad—including in Washington and Riyadh— al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula seems increasingly poised to be a major winner in Yemen. The AQAP threat to American cities and to the other states in the peninsula is going to increase as al Qaeda adapts to the new environment in the Muslim world. A crafty survivor, Saleh seems to be more in a corner than ever before in his almost four decades in power. He faces growing opposition from within the military; the street protests against his regime are unprecedented. The two outside powers with the most influence, the United States and Saudi Arabia, apparently are looking for a political solution that sends Saleh and his family out of the picture. AQAP has enjoyed a hiatus from Yemeni counterterrorism operations since the start of the country's revolution. The group has reportedly consolidated its hold on its safe havens in the southeast, with the makings of a mini-emirate there under its influence. Too weak to take over the country, al Qaeda is nonetheless now making headway because the country's security forces are now entirely focused on the succession fight in Sana'a. Other rebels in Yemen, like the Shia Houthis in the north, have also expanded their control while the fight rages over Saleh's reign. Putting these uprisings back in the box will be a major challenge for his successor. Now AQAP has released an extensive message from its new spokesman, Shaykh Anwar al Awlaki, the New Mexico native and Colorado State graduate. The firebrand expresses his group's satisfaction with the "wave of change in the Muslim world." The latest edition of its English-language Internet magazine, Inspire, has a cogent and clever article by Awlaki entitled "The Tsunami of Change," about how the winter of Arab revolutions will benefit al Qaeda. Awlaki is honest enough to admit that the terror cell did not see the Jasmine revolutions coming, confessing that he was as surprised as everyone else by the toppling of the Tunisian and Egyptian regimes. Unlike his boss, Ayman Zawahiri, who seems befuddled by what is happening in Arabia in his public statements, however, Awlaki has adapted to the great Arab awakening of 2011 and put a new spin on what it can mean for al Qaeda. He rejects the argument that the new Arab revolutions challenge al Qaeda's emphasis on terror and jihad as the only means of effecting change in the Islamic world. Rather, he argues al Qaeda can and should adapt to the popular uprisings and exploit them. For Awlaki, the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak is the jihadists' biggest victory in Egypt since the assassination of Anwar Sadat 30 years ago. Mubarak's downfall offers al Qaeda and its sympathizers the chance to rev up again in Egypt, a country that has suppressed them for the last three decades. Awlaki predicts that what comes next in Egypt—even if it is "an Islamic government" driven by the hated Muslim Brotherhood or one run by Arab League Secretary General Amre Mousa—will not be as "suffocating" for jihadism as was Mubarak's dictatorship. Awlaki argues that al Qaeda's prospects elsewhere are brighter still. Whatever happens in Libya, he says, al Qaeda does not believe it is possible to "produce another lunatic of the same caliber as Colonel" Gaddafi, who repressed al Qaeda in Libya for two decades. Even if new regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya want to continue with policies of "appeasing the West and Israel," Awlaki stresses, they will be much weaker and less capable of holding al Qaeda back. Still, Awlaki singles out Yemen as al Qaeda's most promising prospect in the near term. He rightly notes Saleh is weak and getting weaker and the collapse of the central government's authority directly benefits AQAP. A stronger al Qaeda in Yemen could help subvert Saudi Arabia and the other gulf states. He predicts that the "thousands and thousands of mujahideen in Saudi prisons and elsewhere in the Arabian Peninsula" will eventually be freed to appease demands for reform and then can resume their "jihadi work." The al Qaeda leader also argues that an Arab Spring puts America in a difficult situation. The U.S. has been forced to abandon some of its old friends, like Mubarak. Awlaki notes that "the rest of America's servants, littering the scene from Morocco to Pakistan," have to pay attention and know they may be next. Al Qaeda understands that the revolution poses a difficult challenge for America, forcing it to choose between getting on the side of history and keeping intact ties to leaders like King Abdallah in Saudi Arabia or President Zardari in Pakistan.
In all of this, Awlaki, who styles himself an expert on Charles Dickens, sees "great expectations" for al Qaeda. America is "already an exhausted empire" that will have to spread itself thin to fight jihad in new battlefields. The American homeland will be more vulnerable, al Qaeda believes, as the United States gets sucked into more "bleeding wars" in Arabia and North Africa. Of course, Awlaki is a spin doctor and a propagandist, so we should read his rantings with some skepticism. Al Qaeda is threatened by the success of democratic change in Egypt and elsewhere because it does strike at the heart of the terrorists' narrative, which has long repudiated democracy and popular movements. Awlaki doth protest too much to the contrary. AQAP is trying to put the best spin possible on the victory of Twitter and Facebook, not terror, in the Arab world. But Awlaki's assessment of the weakening of the counterterrorist capabilities of states like Egypt and Yemen is a graphic warning that al Qaeda is adapting to the new environment it sees emerging in the Muslim world. Al Qaeda has always been a remarkably adaptive organization, so we should be prepared for it to adapt even to an Arab Spring. A former CIA officer, Bruce Riedel focuses on political transition, terrorism and conflict resolution. He was a senior advisor to three U.S. presidents on Middle East and South Asian issues. At the request of President Obama he chaired an interagency review of policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan for the White House that was completed in March 2009. Riedel’s latest book, Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America and the Future of the Global Jihad was recently featured by David Sanger in an article in The New York Times. http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2011/0406_yemen_al_qaeda_riedel.aspx (Return to Articles and Documents List) New York Times OPINION April 6, 2011 Moving Ahead on Reducing Nuclear Arms By MADELEINE ALBRIGHT and IGOR IVANOV On April 8, 2010 Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev met to sign the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START). The treaty entered into force in February, and the sides have already exchanged data on their forces. We should build on this momentum and take new actions to reduce nuclear risk and shape a safer world. First, the United States and Russia should initiate early negotiations to further reduce their strategic arms. New START permits each side up to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads. They could negotiate to reduce that level to 1,000 deployed strategic warheads — with corresponding cuts in strategic missiles and bombers — which would leave each with more than enough to assure its security. While negotiations are underway, Moscow and Washington might consider other steps. New START gives each until 2018 to reach its limits. They do not need that long. The two sides could accelerate their reductions and in parallel implement the limits by 2014 or 2015. Aging systems mean that Russia‘s deployed strategic warheads will soon fall well below the 1,550 limit. Moscow will then have to decide whether to build back up to that limit. That makes no sense for either country. At an appropriate time, Washington could announce that, as a matter of policy, it will limit its deployed strategic warheads to 1,300, provided that Russia does not exceed that number. Second, Moscow and Washington need a better understanding on missile defense, which otherwise could stall further nuclear reductions. The United States, NATO and Russia should vigorously pursue possibilities for cooperation in this area; genuine collaboration could dramatically change how the sides perceive one another. One idea is early establishment of a NATO-Russia center to integrate and assess data from their early warning radars and space sensors. Given today‘s technology, this could be done virtually, with an electronic link between the Russian and NATO command posts. A real center, however, manned jointly by NATO and Russian military officers, offers advantages. The experience of military personnel working side-by-side will increase transparency about missile defense capabilities and boost trust between Russia and NATO. Another important step is to resume and expand joint Russia-NATO training exercises and tests in the missile defense area. This also can significantly promote mutual transparency and trust.
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