Open Source Information News

The Open City: Social Networks and Violence in Karachi

2010-03-11T08:30:20Z

Terrorist Dropouts: Learning from Those Who Have Left

2010-03-09T14:20:10Z

Fearing a 'Shiite Octopus': Sunni – Shi`a Relations and the Implications for Belgium and Europe

2010-03-09T12:50:08Z

Using Intelligence from the al-Mabhouh Hit

2010-03-04T08:21:08Z

"This report is republished with permission of STRATFOR"

By Fred Burton and Ben West

The assassination ofsenior Hamas militant leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh on Jan. 19 is still generating a tremendous amount of discussion and speculation some six weeks after the fact. Dubai’s police force has been steadily releasing new information almost on a daily basis, which has been driving the news cycle and keeping the story in the media spotlight. The most astounding release so far has been nearly 30 minutes of surveillance camera footage that depicts portions of a period spanning the arrival of the assassination team in Dubai, surveillance of al-Mabhouh, and the killing and the exfiltration of the team some 22 hours later.

By last! count, Dubai police claim to have identified some 30 people s! uspected of involvement in the assassination; approximately 17 have been convincingly tied to the operation through video footage either as surveillants, managers or assassins, with the rest having only tenuous connections based on information released by the Dubai police. In any case, the operation certainly was elaborate and required the resources and planning of a highly organized agency, one most likely working for a nation-state.

Pre-Operation

While the 22-hour period depicted in the video showcased the tactical capabilities of the various teams, it hardly tells the whole story. In order to pinpoint the location of al-Mabhouh on the day of his killing, the organization responsible for this operation would have had to have tracked al-Mabhouh for months, if not years. This can be done in three ways: technical surveillance, utilization of human sources and physical surveillanc! e.

Technical surveillance of al-Mabhouh would include monitoring his e-mail, telephone calls and other forms of electronic communications such as online credit-card transactions and travel reservations. This could reveal his physical location and future plans, which would allow the assassination team to anticipate his location and prepare well ahead of time. With such a large team involved in the assassination, careful coordination and planned movements would have been required to ensure that all members were in place without attracting attention.

But technical surveillance has limitations. An experienced operative like al-Mabhouh (who had been the target of two previous assassination attempts in as many years) would most likely have taken precautions that would have limited h! is electronic visibility. The operational team likely used human sources with close ties to al-Mabhouh who could corroborate the information and possibly influence the target’s movements, putting him in place for the operation. Human sources could have included al-Mabhouh’s colleagues within Hamas or a member of a rival group such as Fatah. (Three Palestinians suspected of being members of Fatah were arrested by Dubai authorities in connection with the assassination, indicating that the group may have provided human intelligence to the organization responsible for al-Mabhouh’s assassination.) Other people could have been recruited using a number of incentives (including cash) without their knowing the consequences of their assistance. Both the technical and human intelligence operations would have been run by intelligence officers operating abroad and at locations separate from the operational team.

According to Dubai police, physical surveillance was conducted by members of the operational team during al-Mabhouh’s previous trips to the United Arab Emirates. Physical surveillance is a critical part of any effective assault (whether it’s a clandestine intelligence operation or a car-jacking) because it gives the operatives an opportunity to become familiar with their surroundings and recognize their target in his or her “natural” environment.

Once all this homework was done to establish al-Mabhouh’s normal routines and determine his approximate location and duration of his stay in Dubai, the intelligence-collection process moved into the deployment phase and an operational team was sent into action.

The Operation

Prior to Mabhouh’s arrival, surveillance teams set up in the airport and at different hotels to make sure they could obtain a visual confirmation of their target. Based on their intelligence of his prior trips to Dubai, planners placed teams in two hotels to wait for al-Mabhouh approximately an hour before his arrival. They also had a surveillance team waiting for him at the airport to follow him as soon as he entered the country and report his movements to the rest of the team. While it wasn’t captured on video, we suspect that a mobile surveillance group tracked al-Mabhouh from the airport by car. To help ensure a successful outcome, the operational team used overwhelming force to prevent the target from ever seeing the same face twice. When it was established that al-Mabhouh was stayi! ng at the Al Bustan Rotana, the team responded by abandoning their other posts and directing their focus to that hotel.

Once al-Mabhouh was identified, the team locked on to him at the hotel and started initiating further steps in the operation. The first surveillance team watched al-Mabhouh register at the front desk and then followed him to his room, noting the target’s specific room number. This was relayed to other members of the team, who then placed a reservation for the room across the hall from al-Mabhouh, which gave them direct access to their target. The selection of the room is very interesting for two reasons. First, it was directly across the hall from al-Mabhouh’s room, giving the team a perfect spot from which to monitor his movements. Second, the room was just behind the video camera for that floor and the camera was trained on the emergency stairwell exit, which allowed the assassination team to carry out the! attack on his room without being filmed.!

< span>Meanwhile, down in the hotel lobby, surveillance teams were rotating to monitor the target’s movements in and out of the hotel. At one point, a surveillant is seen following al-Mabhouh out to the street to relay by cell phone the type of vehicle he had entered. These surveillants, operating in teams of two, used disguises such as hats, sunglasses, beards and work-out gear to establish a cover for action and better conceal their identities. While many members of the operational team were identified on closed-circuit television (CCTV), hats and sunglasses helped distort their images and reduce the already low risk of being recognized by the target or any protective team during the operation.

Another necessity in any operation like this is communications. Surveillance video of the team involved in this operation shows them using cell phones to send text messages and talk to other members of the team. According to r! eports from Dubai police, the cell phones used in the operation were dialed to an Austrian number, likely the operations and support center for the team on the ground and any others involved in the operation. This might have been an open conference line into which all members of the operational team could dial to monitor the movement of their target. It is unlikely that the center was actually in Austria; it probably used a proxy phone line to mask its true physical location.

Assassination and Exfiltration

At approximately 8:30 p.m. on Jan. 19, after al-Mabhouh returned to his hotel room from a meeting, the assassination team moved in. It was important to carry out the killing at a time and in a manner that would give the team the maximum window of opportunity. They suspected that al-Mabhouh was in for the night, which meant that nobody would miss him until early the fo! llowing afternoon, giving the team ample time to flee the coun! try. The team carried out the assassination smoothly, with video surveillance showing only two operatives casually talking outside the elevator (a cover for monitoring the hall for possible distractions) — in other words, nothing out of the ordinary. The assassination team members also exhibited no unusual behavior when they departed the scene. Demeanor is extremely important, and the ability of the team to act calmly and naturally and not catch the attention of security guards monitoring CCTV ensured that the act remained a secret until hotel cleaning staff found the body more than 17 hours after the entire team had departed Dubai.

The assassination team also killed al-Mabhouh in a way that apparently confounded medical examiners trying to determine the cause of death, delaying the announcement of a criminal case for nine days. This delay gave the operational team ample time to cover its tracks, possibly by using third- and fourth-coun! try border crossings, additional false identities and safe-houses, making it much harder for Dubai authorities to track team members to their ultimate destinations. This confusion appears to have been created by the use of a muscle relaxant called succinylcholine (also known as Suxamethonium), which, if used in large enough quantities, can cause the heart to stop, making it appear that the victim died of cardiac arrest. The drug also has a very short half-life, meaning that traces would degenerate and virtually disappear shortly after injection, making it ideal for covert operations such as this one.

The team was not able to pull off the operation with complete anonymity — it is virtually impossible to operate in a modern environment without leaving some kind of electronic trace. The Dubai police were able to use video surveillance from the airport, hotels and a nearby shopping center to trace back the movements of the operativ! es and establish their identities according to the passports t! hat they used. These later proved to be fraudulent passports from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany and France — but they were extremely well-made fraudulent passports that were discovered later, only after video surveillance prompted closer scrutiny; customs officials were unable to detect this when the operatives were arriving or departing. Moreover, the credit cards used by several members of the operation team were linked to a company called Payoneer. The company’s CEO is a former member of Israel Defense Forces special operations, and Payoneer has financial backing from a company based in Israel.

Dubai police have announced that they retrieved DNA evidence from at least one of the members on the assassination team and fingerprints from several others, giving authorities pieces of evidence that are unalterable, unlike a passport. However, DNA evidence is only helpful when it can be compared against an exemplar. If Dubai police ! are unable to find a match to the DNA sample or a fingerprint, then these clues will offer little immediate help.

The passports also provide little immediate help in terms of tracking down the suspects. The discovery that fraudulent British, Irish, German and French passports were used has created a diplomatic problem for Israel (Mossad is understandably at the top of the list of suspects), which raises the profile of the operation considerably. This is certainly not what a clandestine operation is supposed to do. Although the operatives will probably never be found and handed over to UAE authorities, the fact that so many details of the assassination have been made public jeopardizes the anonymity that is supposed to surround this kind of operation.

Potential Consequences

Al-Mabhouh was hardly a likable character. As a senio! r Hamas military commander, arms smuggler and liaison to Iran,! he was already on the terrorist watch lists in the countries that have complained about the use of fraudulent passports. Public indignation is a necessary and expected reaction from these countries to save diplomatic face, but when it comes down to it, there would be few incentives to seriously punish Israel, if it indeed sponsored the hit. The police of Dubai and the United Arab Emirates, rightfully frustrated that they are tasked with solving an unsolvable case, will still probably not miss al-Mabhouh. Their efforts to stir up outrage over the assassination are likely fueled by their desire to save face in the Arab world, where the Palestinian cause is of high rhetorical importance but little strategic importance.

The fact is that the high level of complexity involved in this assassination, along with the smoothness with which it was carried out, is evidence that the operation was undertaken by an elite covert force, the likes of which! could only be sponsored by a nation-state. The ability to conduct preliminary intelligence collection, to muster a large and coordinated team of skilled operatives, to fabricate passports to an exacting degree, to successfully exfiltrate all members of the team — all of this requires a significant and well-funded effort that, we believe, exceeds the current capabilities of any non-state terrorist group. It is worth noting here that the most impressive aspect of the operation was the team’s tradecraft and demeanor. All the members of this team were professionals.

Indeed, with so much time having already elapsed, and if the operation was sponsored by a nation-state, it is highly improbable that any of the operatives involved will ever be caught. However, countries around the w! orld are offering their assistance in the case, including the ! United K ingdom, the United States, Canada and Australia. Few officials from these countries actually believe any of the operatives will be apprehended, but that is not the real reason to participate in the investigation. What officials are really looking for are the granular details of how this group of assassins and surveillants operated. These details are extremely valuable in ongoing counterintelligence efforts by countries to thwart foreign intelligence agencies operating on their home turf. The information can provide clues to past and future cases, and it can be used to build databases on covert operatives, so that if any of these people show up unexpectedly at an airport, hotel or embassy in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia or elsewhere, the alarms can be sounded more quickly.

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2010-03-03T20:28:12Z

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Trojan Dragons - China s International Cyber Warriors.pdf

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Chinese Foreign Policy: A Chronology April – June 2009

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Israel 2010: Strategic Threats, Strategic Opportunities-Transcript (2010-02-26)

2010-02-28T02:10:36Z

Don’t Look Back

2010-02-27T13:15:48Z

February 27, 2010 at 3:46 AM

By Steve Coll

March 1, 2010

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2010/03/01/100301taco_talk_coll

The Taliban’s jihad, like rock and roll, has passed from youthful vigor into a maturity marked by the appearance of nostalgic memoirs. Back in the day, Abdul Salam Zaeef belonged to the search committee that recruited Mullah Omar as the movement’s commander; after the rebels took power in Kabul, he served as ambassador to Pakistan. “My! Life with the Taliban,” published this winter, announces Zaeef’s début in militant letters. The volume contains many sources of fascination, but none are more timely than the author’s account of his high-level relations with Pakistani intelligence.

While in office, Zaeef found that he “couldn’t entirely avoid” the influence of Pakistan’s powerful intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence. Its officers volunteered money and political support. Late in 2001, as the United States prepared to attack Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, the I.S.I.’s then commanding general, Mahmud Ahmad, visited Zaeef’s home in Islamabad, wept in solidarity, and promised, “We want to assure you that you will not be alone in this jihad against America. We will be with you.” And yet Zaeef never trusted his I.S.I. patrons. He sought to protect the Taliban’s independence: “I tried to be not so sweet that I would be eaten whole, and not so bitter that I would be spat out! .”

Earlier this month, outside Karachi, Pakistani secu! rity ser vices, reportedly accompanied by C.I.A. officers, arrested the Afghan Taliban’s top military commander, Abdul Ghani Baradar, an action that has revived questions about the relationship between Pakistan and the Taliban. The Taliban rose to power with extensive aid from the I.S.I.; the collaboration persisted, if less robustly, after September 11th. More lately, the Pakistani military, of which the I.S.I. is a component, has seemed to waver, striking against some Taliban factions in Pakistan but tolerating or helping others. (As recently as December, U.S. intelligence was collecting evidence of mid-level contacts between the I.S.I. and Taliban factions fighting in Afghanistan.) Mullah Baradar’s arrest, which was followed, last week, by the arrests, in Pakistan, of two other significant Taliban leaders, suggests that the I.S.I. may be further reviewing its calculations. In any event, there are few strategic issues of greater importance to the outcome of President Obama’s ! Afghan war.

Why might Pakistan consider modifying its strategy? In 2009, Islamist militants, mainly Taliban, carried out eighty-seven suicide attacks inside Pakistan, killing about thirteen hundred people, almost ninety per cent of them civilians, according to the Pak Institute for Peace Studies. Last October, Taliban raiders staged an unprecedented assault on the Army’s General Headquarters, in Rawalpindi. Customarily, Pakistani officers have blamed “bad” Taliban for such domestic raids, while absolving “good” Taliban (who shoot only at infidels in Afghanistan). As the violence on Pakistani soil intensifies, however, it would be natural for Pakistan’s generals to question whether their jihad-management strategy has become mired in false distinctions.

American diplomats have been warning P! akistan for years, to little effect, that support for Islamist extremists would boomerang against its own interests. The Bush Administration made matters worse by delivering several billion dollars of covert aid to the I.S.I. for help against Al Qaeda without holding it to account for coddling the Taliban and other militant groups. The paranoid style of politics in Pakistan makes the American version look quaint. In recent days, there has been speculation that Mullah Baradar’s detention is evidence of some sort of diabolical I.S.I. conspiracy to thwart reconciliation talks between the Taliban and the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, or to manipulate such talks, or to split the Taliban. (A report in the Times indicates that Baradar’s arrest may have been accidental; in Pakistan’s national psyche, however, there are no accidents.)

The Taliban are a diverse, dispersed guerrilla force with multiple command centers and locally autonomous leaders. Nonetheless, the Afghan! Taliban leadership group in which Baradar reigned, known as the Quetta Shura, has exercised significant authority in recent years, particularly over Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan, where U.S. marines have been fighting house to house. Uncontested sanctuary for Islamist guerrilla leaders in Pakistan contributed to the Soviet Union’s defeat in Afghanistan; the elimination or even the reduction of such a sanctuary for the Taliban (and Al Qaeda) would ease American burdens in Afghanistan by no small margin. American strategists claim to see encouraging changes in Pakistan’s behavior; intelligence-sharing between the United States and Pakistan, severely constrained by mistrust eighteen months ago, has increased.

Unfortunately, the geopolitical incentives that have informed Pakistan’s alliance with the Afghan Taliban remain unaltered. Pakistan’s generals have retained a bedrock belief that, however unruly and distasteful Islamist militias such as the Tali! ban may be, they could yet be useful proxies to ward off a per! ceived e xistential threat from India. In the Army’s view, at least, that threat has not receded. Indo-Pakistani peace negotiations that have been in suspension since the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack are only just re-starting. Absent a sudden breakthrough that charts the potential for normalizing relations between Pakistan and India—a framework settlement on Kashmir, freer trade, freer borders, and demilitarization—Pakistan’s rationale for preserving the Taliban and similar groups is not likely to change.

The I.S.I., by all accounts, is not a sentimental outfit. Although Zaeef witnessed its senior commanders wail over America’s plan to overthrow the Taliban (one I.S.I. general was “crying out loud, with his arms around my neck like a woman”), he was also savvy enough to take note of Pakistan’s “mixed signals.” Later, Zaeef defied the I.S.I.’s entreaties to break with Mullah Omar and lead a “moderate” Taliban movement; the Pakistanis arrested him, and h! anded him over to American soldiers, who transferred him to Guantánamo. (He was released in 2005 and has retired in Kabul.) In his memoir, Zaeef titles the chapter about his betrayal “A Hard Realisation.”

There will be more of those. The root problem in this murkiest theatre of the Afghan war is not Pakistan’s national character or even the character of its generals; rather, it involves Pakistan’s interests. The Pakistani Army has learned over many years to leverage its grievances, dysfunction, bad choices, and perpetual dangers to extract from the United States the financial and military support that it believes it requires against India. At the same time, Pakistan’s generals resent their dependency on America. For the I.S.I. to repudiate the Taliban entirely, its officers would have to imagine a new way of living in the world—to write a new definition of Pakistan’s national security, one that emphasizes politics and economics over clandestine war. For now, many Pakistani generals imagine themselves masters! of an o ld game: to be not so sweet that they will be eaten whole by the United States, but not so bitter that they will be spat out.

♦

Read full article here: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2010/03/01/100301taco_talk_coll#ixzz0gh8tSClO

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