The 5 American citizens from the Washington, D.C. area who traveled to Pakistan to join radical Islamists in their quest for jihad were convicted Thursday on charges of plotting terrorist attacks on Pakistan soil. They were sentenced to 10 years in prison. The men, aged 19-25, left behind a farewell video for their families in December when they departed the U.S. They turned up in Punjab at the home of an activist with Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM or “the army of Mohammed”) a group linked to al Qaeda that seeks the transfer of Kashmir from India to Pakistan. The organization is banned by the Pakistani government, and is on our Foreign Terrorist Organization list. The men also met with members of Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), which was responsible for the Mumbai attacks. Money changed hands at these meetings, adding material support of terrorist groups to the charge list. Here are a few key takeaways:
1) SixAmerican men were initially detained. The men are Ramy Zamzam, Waqar Hussain Khan, Aman Yamar, Ahmad Abdul Minni, and Umer Farooq and his father, Khalid Farooq. Khalid Farooq owns a computer business in Virginia and traveled regularly between the U.S. and Pakistan. There are also reports that Mrs. Farooq was at the house, as well, but not detained. The father, Khalid Farooq, was not convicted.
2) A source close to the investigation has told Newsweek that at least one of the men, Ramy Zamzam, a 22 year old medical student at Howard University, may have worshiped at the Dar Al-Hijrah Mosque. See my previous blog for the details on this Falls Church, VA mosque which hosted Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter, and 3 of the 9/11 hijackers. Zamzam was the leader of the group.
2) The men told investigators they planned to cross the Pakistan border and join the fight in Afghanistan against coalition forces. They later changed their story to that of a humanitarian mission, to aid the orphaned and the homeless.
3) The men used Facebook and You Tube to reach out to radical Islamist groups prior to arriving in Pakistan.
4) Maps were found on the their computers showing detailed knowledge of the location of radical terrorist cells in the area.
5) The video they left behind for family member contains statements from the men about their intentions to fight, and pictures of American casualties.
6) One of the men, Khan, has a criminal record for embezzlement.
7) Pakistani authorities alleged that the group had clear targets in mind in Pakistan, including an air force base in the western city of Mianwali and a nuclear power plant in Chashma, also in western Punjab province.
Lawyers are filing appeals based on the lack of date time stamps on e-mail correspondence used in the case by the prosecution, and alleged torture used to extract confessions.
The U.S. never asked for extradition, sending a strong signal to other Americans who might contemplate traveling overseas to carry out terrorist acts: they will be subjected to the host country's brand of justice.
An announcement today of a government-wide strategy to address intellectual property crime, including piracy and counterfeit goods includes the addition of a 50 person team of federal agents to focus on nothing but IPC. A 65 page joint strategic plan was issued from the White House today, providing good insight into the increasing threat associated with this crime.
What is IPC? This crime involves counterfeited and pirated goods that are manufactured and sold for profit without the consent of the patent or trademark holder. It’s a black-market activity operating parallel to the formal economy, and includes manufacturing, transporting, storing, and selling counterfeit or pirated goods. in addition to purses, criminals sell pirated CDs, DVDs, clothes, shoes, perfume and computer software. Emerging IPC activity includes sale of knockoff drugs such as Viagra and Rosetta Stone DVDs. Thanks to technology, standing on a cold street corner is unnecessary for the savvy criminal - visit an online auction site and you can find thousands of ads for knock off goods. With the lack of oversight on auction sites and the "nonbanks" that allow for obscure fund transfers, this type of selling is particularly attractive to criminals.
IPC is a lucrative criminal activity with low initial investment and high financial returns, possibly even higher than drug trafficking. For example, a Nintendo game costs $0.20 to duplicate and is resold for $20 at flea markets on online, thus recognizing enormous profit for the criminals. IPC is also a low-risk activity; in the U.S. law-enforcement agencies are often too resource constrained or task saturated to pursue this type of crime and penalty is low, usually a fine and probation.
IPC is occurring throughout the world and generates unbelievable amount of profit.In fact, counterfeit-goods trade is estimated at $450 billion annually, representing 5 to 7 percent of the of global trade value. The FBI estimates US business losses to counterfeiting alone at $200 to $250 billion annually. Last year, we discovered $3.5 M was funneled to Hezbollah from DVD pirating in South America. Other groups have trafficked goods in the U.S. and used profits to equipment and training.
Last year, I took a trip to Italy, where IPC law is strictly enforced. I witnessed the carabinieri shutting down knock off leather purse vendors in both Florence and Venice. The vendors don't actually have stands - they keep their wares in large duffel bags and when they see the police approaching, pack the purses and run. They also use cell phones to call each other to warn of approaching law enforcement. Signs are prominently displayed - not only that IPC is a crime - but the purchase of IPC goods is a crime.
The U.S. must similarly crack down on IPC. Educating the public would go a long way toward this goal - I would bet most women carrying counterfeit bags have no idea what illicit activity they have inadvertently funded.
June 19, 2010: The Yemeni government revealed it had captured an al Qaeda hit list, naming 40 political and military officials the terrorist group wanted dead. The government added that 95 percent of the people on the list had been murdered in the last three years. Critics charged the government with inventing the list, to generate more popular support for efforts to destroy al Qaeda in Yemen. Some of those critics believed that al Qaeda was not powerful enough to kill that many people on a specific list. But all agreed that the 37 dead officials were, indeed, dead.
This is worrisome and shows that AQ in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) could be more effective and powerful than previously thought. AQ's presence in Yemen is not new (recall the USS Cole bombing in 2000), but has been energized by leadership from previous Guantanamo Bay detainee Othman Al-Ghamdi and the presence of U.S. citizen and radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. Recognizing that Awlaki is a direct threat to our national security (without ever pulling the trigger himself) President Obama has authorized the CIA to find and neutralize him. See my previous post on Awlaki and his connection to the 9/11 hijackers, as well as Nidal Hassan, the Fort Hood murderer. He has also been connected to the Christmas Day bombing attempt and a recent attempt by an AQ sympathist to blow up a skyscraper in Dallas.
AQAP was formed in 2009 from the group AQY (Yemen) and operators from inside Saudi Arabia. AQAP is based primarily in the tribal areas outside of Sanaa, which is pretty much outside the control of the Yemeni Government. AQ forces in Yemen have targeted the US embassy (killing 19 in 2008), and a group of Korean tourists in 2009. AQAP has also been a fringe actor in several recent plots in the U.S. as well as providing training to recruits from Somalia and Nigeria.
U.S. Defense Department is spending $155 million to help Yemen in its fight, including the purchase of four helicopters to support counterterror operations there.This includes $34.5 million to train and equip the Yemeni special forces and another $38 million for aircraft to allow those forces quicker access to hotspots in the country.
We must keep diplomatic and other pressure on the government of Yemen to address AQAP. As their government leaders are successfully targeted and killed by the group, perhaps they will find renewed will to engage the group and allow the U.S. increased access to assist.
In his new book Willful Neglect: The Dangerous Illusion of Homeland Securityformer CIA official and counterterror expert Charles Faddis outlines some terrorist targets that he finds particularly dangerous and if properly hit, would cause catastrophic damage. Those include bio and chem plants, dams and transportation systems. When asked, he cites that terrorist targeting of our passenger rail system (as in the Madrid bombings) as his biggest fear.
Of course I agree that we must protect our vital infrastructures and attacks on these facilities would result in numerous casualties. Indeed, we've spent billions shoring them up and installing layers of security at our key facilities and transportation hubs since 9/11.
But almost 9 years into this fight, I think it is time to look at our vulnerabilities through a different lens.
One of our weaknesses is that we just don't think like the enemy. For example, we would never specifically and willfully target a crowded church on Sunday. A building with a large daycare center, or a hospital filled with wounded soldiers.
Storming a theater and taking everyone hostage, then shooting them one by one on national TV is not on our list of approved operations. Using children, the elderly or the mentally challenged as suicide bombers is reprehensible. Sending suicide bombers into a busy marketplace or a shopping mall, taking busloads of school children hostage - we would never dream of it.
Yet we've seen all of these scenarios play out during the age of modern terrorism -- many in the last few months in Russia, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia and Afghanistan.
Bottom line: our enemy doesn't adhere to Geneva Conventions. Everything is on the table and every U.S. citizen is a target or subject to being used by the enemy for propaganda purposes.
We are unprepared as a nation both mentally for these scenarios and also perhaps in terms of physical security -- but it isn't too late to harden those soft targets. To educate our populace and make them force multipliers - our eyes and ears. To make sure they understand the enemy isn't like us at all - they are truly asymmetric, and their target list is not typical or predictable in any way.
Terrorism is a marketing campaign and fear is the main product. Faddis says the enemy chooses targets based on the psychology of what they do, and I couldn't agree more.
Federal Agencies announced this week the conclusion of a 22 month counternarcotics operation, Project Deliverance. In addition to the arrest of over 2,200 individuals on drug-related charges during the course of this operation, the assets seized by agents are staggering:
... $154 million in U.S. currency;
... More than 2,600 pounds of heroin and methamphetamine;
... More than 71 tons of cocaine and marijuana;
... And more than 500 weapons and 500 vehicles
The FBI press release is entitled: Fighting Cartels on the Southwest Border but this one hits closer to home than you may think: on June 10th, 429 individuals in 16 states were arrested during the final phase of the operation.
In last few years, we've seen cartels prey on small towns as distribution hubs -- for instance, the DEA discovered during their Project Xcellerator that the Sinloa Cartel was using the small airport in Stow, Ohio to move tons of cocaine into California. In fact, Xcellerator uncovered 70 cartel distribution cells in 26 States.
States with Project Deliverance arrests:
Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas.
As long as there is an appetite for drugs in our country, the cartels are happy to feed it. Ongoing efforts to reduce demand are important not only to address trafficking issues, but for the health and welfare of our populace. Large busts such as those in Deliverance and Xcellerator will drive up prices on the street and result in a "watered down" product.
Hopefully the combination of these efforts will eventually push the cartels back across the border.
A two year FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force investigation ended yesterday with the arraignment of Barry Walter Bujol in Houston on charges that he tried to provide monetary and other support to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Some key take aways from the case:
- Bujol attended Prairie View A&M University in Texas, was 29 years old, lived outside of Houston
- In contact with radical cleric Anwar al-Alwaki, who has been at the center of many terrorist plots and activities starting with the 9/11 hijackers. Their relationship started in 2008, which is what caught the FBI's attention. Alwaki provided Bujol with an electronic copy of "44 Ways of Supporting Jihad."
The radical Islamist website "Islamic Awakening" lists the 44 ways - this is the CACHED version, only a google snapshot of the page from a few weeks back, so it is safe to visit. However, do not click on any links! Just scan the page. Interesting to note that #29 is "WWW Jihad" - using the internet to spread the ideology. Cached page
- Bujol tried to leave the U.S. several times to join his "brothers"- by flight to Yemen in 2009; via the U.S.-Canadian border in March 2009 near Detroit (denied entry by Canadian authorities)
- Was arrested boarding a ship at the Port of Houston using a TWIC (transportation worker information card), vessel was headed to Egypt
- FBI confidential information gave him the TWIC, money, phones, and information which Bujol attempted to deliver to AQAP
- Used at least 14 email addresses and multiple aliases to hide his activities from authorities
- He advocated attacking U.S. facilities where military weapons were manufactured
- Bujol and his wife, Ernestine Johnson, are also charged with fraud for a rent scam they ran using a phony business. Bujol was also using the social security number of a deceased man.
Nationally, law enforcement deaths are up 42 percent compared to last year. Also, of the 68 officer fatalities in 2009, 80 percent -- 27 deaths -- were from gun fire. These startling statistics were released by the Mesa Police Association and National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund and published by officer.com.
A mixture of crime scenarios have led to the increase in officer deaths this year, said Stacey Dillon, a spokeswoman for the Mesa Police Association and the Arizona Highway Patrol Association. "No one really knows why," Dillon said of the increase. "It's just across the board. People are just fighting back, and the bad guys just don't want to go to jail."
Ambush tactics at the scene of a domestic call seem to be on the rise, and 2 officers were recently killed during a traffic stop related to drug trafficking. One officer was killed in a hit and run simply putting out flares at the scene of a traffic accident, proving there is no such thing as a "routine" call.
Interesting to note, according to policeone.com, overall crime rate in our country fell last year by 5%, despite the economic crisis, which many feared would spur more violence. Some experts cite large-scale incarceration, better policing and police technology, an aging society, and other factors, but can't really point to one as the reason for success. Of course we can't get complacent. And becoming overreliant on technology is not a good idea. As the military is learning, technology is not great substitute for boots on the ground and good old fashioned HUMINT.
The financial problems in our country have absolutely impacted our national security and the safety of our communities with policing and crime prevention programs victims of budget cuts. Also, many officers who have military commitments have been called up for active service and taken away from the community, causing manpower shortages.
Although overall U.S. trends are hard to predict and analyze, we must keep an eye on what is happening locally in our communities, and engage to ensure our officers have the training, equipment and resources they need to do the job.
The DEA recently announced success from their partnership with Liberia in "Operation Relentless". Colombian, Russian and African traffickers were all using Liberia to funnel cocaine from FARC into Europe and the operation successfully seized tons of cocaine and closed off a key distribution pipeline.
Little known fact: since 2003, 99% of all drugs seized in Africa have been found in the West. The volume seized has increased 5 fold in the last few years. Agencies involved in counterdrug operations acknowledge the situation in several Western African countries is rapidly deteriorating. The State Department's International Narcotics Control Strategy Report states that "Ghana has become a significant transshipment point for illegal drugs, particularly cocaine from South America, as well as heroin from Southeast and Southwest Asia." Additionally, DoD has identified Ghana as its "anchor country" for emerging counternarcotics efforts through AFRICOM.
But perhaps the greatest threat lies in Guinea-Bissau, which the UN has dubbed Africa's first "narcostate". With a land mass equal to the state of Maryland, Guinea-Bissau is one of the poorest countries in the world, with two-thirds of its 1.5M population living below the poverty line. It is attractive to traffickers due to its unpatrolled coastline, numerous hidden bays, close proximity to several other declining countries and weak rule of law. In a country with no main source of electricity, the police force has no cars, radios and few weapons. The military is thought to be complicit in the drug trade; in 2006, two military personnel were detained along with a civilian in a truck carrying 635 kilos of cocaine. The army secured the soldiers' release and they have not been charged.
Trafficking and unrest is not new to Guinea-Bissau; it was first known as the "Slave Coast" when African rulers prospered from the slave trade. After centuries of Portuguese rule, a para-military group emerged and, aided by arms and supplies from Cuba, Russia, and China, fought a protracted war to eventually win the country's independence in 1974. Years of unrest ensued; thousands of citizens who had fought alongside the Portuguese against the rebels were slaughtered and buried in unmarked graves. The country has subsequently faced bloody uprisings, conflicts and even a complete economic collapse. The U.S. and Britain's official diplomatic presence pulled out of the country in 1998 during a civil war, moving to nearby Senegal.
In just 4 years since the first cocaine was brought to its shores, Guinea-Bissau has become a major hub for drug trafficking, bringing with it new prosperity. In a country where the average income is $1 a day, Colombians are regularly seen driving expensive SUVs and sports cars, and living in new Spanish style villas with swimming pools and armed guards in the countryside. In fact, officials believe there are more than 60 Colombian drug traffickers currently operating in Guinea-Bissau.
Europe, primarily Spain and Portugal, is the main recipient of cocaine from West Africa. According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), a quarter of all cocaine consumed in Western Europe is trafficked through West Africa, and it is estimated that one ton of pure Colombian cocaine leaves the country daily for Europe. The Executive Director of UNODC, Antonio Maria Costa, believes the impact on Africa of Europe's cocaine habit is an echo of that of slavery. "In the 19th century, Europe's hunger for slaves devastated West Africa. Two hundred years later, its growing appetite for cocaine could do the same."
The U.S. has been impacted in a slightly different way: DEA and UNODC report that Guinea Bissau and other West African countries are being targeted by Asian and African cartels trafficking heroin across the Atlantic in the opposite direction, to the US. In 2007, the DEA and police in Chicago tracked nine West Africans who had moved heroin originating in Southeast Asia through various West African countries, (mostly Guinea-Bissau), to the central U.S.
Drug trafficking is a transnational threat that directly impacts our national security, and that of our allies. Factor in terrorists, who often extract profit from drug trade, and use established trafficking routes to move money, people and equipment--and the threat becomes alarming.
In lieu of a blog post, I wanted instead to bring you this story, written by Colleen Getz, who works at the Pentagon. It may anger and sadden you, as it did me. There are many changes taking place in our society and culture, and this illustrates them better than any survey or data mining ever could. Your comments welcome, as always.
TO SEE A FALLEN SOLDIER HOME
By Colleen M. Getz
His name was Justin Wilson. Marine Lance Corporal Justin James Wilson. Although I did not know it at the time that his life brushed mine on March 25th at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. Corporal Wilson was not there in the terminal that afternoon; he was killed in Afghanistan on March 22, 2010 by a roadside bomb in Helmand province, aged 24 and newly married. We never met, and although I work at the Pentagon, our military establishment is so large and our roles in it so different, it is unlikely that we ever would have. But a coincidence of over-booked flights led our lives to intersect for perhaps an hour, yet the memory will be with me the rest of my life.
I did not meet his family that day at the airport either, although we were there together that evening at the gate, at the open door to the jet way, waiting to board, along with a crowd of others wanting to get on the over-sold flight. I did not know that I had a boarding pass and they did not. I did not know that while I was just going for a weekend to visit friends; they were trying to get home to bury their son and husband, having journeyed to Dover, Delaware to meet his casket upon its arrival from Afghanistan. I did not know they would need our help.
I also did not know at the time that they had already been stuck for most of the day in another airport, due to a lack of boarding passes for other over-sold flights, only to find themselves in the same predicament on the last leg of their trip home. But I did not need to know what they had already been through to realize what they were going through as the event unfolded and to understand the larger cause for it—that no matter how we as a nation have re-learned the lesson forgotten during Vietnam, that our military men and women and their families deserve all the support we can give them—the truth is that despite our nation fighting two wars in this decade, it is all too common and easy for most of us to live our lives without having the very great human cost of those wars ever intrude.
But it did intrude heartbreakingly that day at the airport gate. It began simply enough, with the usual call for volunteers. The flight was overbooked, and anyone willing to take a later flight would receive in exchange a $500 flight voucher. Then, while we were all still mulling the option, came the second announcement, the one none of us was prepared to hear. There was, the airline representative announced, a family on their way home from meeting their son’s body as it returned from Afghanistan and they needed seats on the flight. And there they were, right in front of us standing next to the airline representative waiting to see what we would decide. For me it was easy. I
don’t pretend it was a hard decision, given where I work, given I knew my friends would understand. So I volunteered, as did two women whom, I learned later, had immediately sacrificed important personal plans.
But we three were not enough, six volunteers were needed. So we volunteers stood there together watching the family—dignified and mute, weighed with grief and fatigue that showed in every line of their stature—as the airline representative repeatedly called for assistance for this dead soldier’s family. And no one else stepped forward. I will never forget how her pleas brought one of the two younger women—either his widow or his sister I know now—to tears and how gently one of the older relatives put her arm around the crying girl and rested her cheek on the girl’s head as she comforted her. The calls for volunteers may have lasted only 20 or 30 minutes, but it seemed hours. It was
almost unbearable to watch, yet to look away was to see the more than one hundred other witnesses to this tragedy who were not moved to help. Then it did become unbearable when in a voice laced with desperation and tears the airline representative pleaded, “This young man gave his life for our country, can’t any of you give your seats so his family can get home?” Those words hung in the air. And finally, enough volunteers stepped forward, the family boarded, the plane left, and those of us who stayed behind were rebooked on the next morning’s flight.
I went back home, but could not get out of my mind the image of the family, nor the voice of the airline representative pleading with the unresponsive crowd. I had trouble sleeping that night. When I met up with some of my fellow volunteers the next morning I found I was not alone. One had gone home and cried, another woke up at 3 AM thinking about it; all of us were a bit angry and ashamed that our fellow passengers had not rushed to aid this soldier’s family and consequently forced them to be on public display in their grief. We were deeply bothered that this indifference to their son’s sacrifice for his country could have added to their sorrow.
It turned out that the friends I visited live in the same town as Corporal Wilson, and moved by the story of what I had witnessed, found articles in the local papers so I was able to learn his name and more. I learned he had been a talented artist specializing in graffiti art, and that he married his sweetheart Hannah the day before he deployed to Afghanistan but had plans for a big church wedding with family and friends after he returned home. I learned how long he had admired the Marines and how proud he was to become one in January 2009. I learned that he and his fellow Marines liked to give the candy they were sent from home to Afghani children and that he was killed just five days after his 24th birthday and less than two months before he was to return home. In sum, I learned he was just the kind of honorable, patriotic young person we would want defending our country and how great our loss when he had to give his life in doing so. I posted a message to his family on the on-line condolence book and told them I was sorry for what they went through in trying to see their son’s body home, but because of it many more people were going to have heard of Justin and his dedication to his country because I was going to tell everyone I knew about what I witnessed and tell them his name. And I have.
And I thought that was enough, until I received a thank you note from Corporal Wilson’s father-in-law for giving up my seat. It was a completely humbling experience, made more so when I read that he was glad that I was able to learn about Justin and that he wanted me to know that Justin “served knowing the risks, but felt it was his obligation and privilege to serve his country.” At that moment I realized that in this day of an all-volunteer military and a distant war that touches so few of our lives directly, more people should hear the story of Corporal Justin Wilson and his family.
I’ve thought a lot about what happened that day in the airport and I choose to believe my fellow passengers were not unfeeling in the face of a soldier’s death and a family’s tragedy. They were just caught off guard—they were totally unprepared to confront the fierce consequences of the war in Afghanistan on their way to Palm Beach on a sunny, spring Friday afternoon. And I believe for this reason people did not rush to the podium to volunteer their seats. It was not that they did not want to; it was not that they did not think it was the right thing to do, it was because that they were busy trying to assimilate this unexpected confrontation with the irrevocable cost of war and to figure out how to fit doing the right thing into their plans—to fit it into their lives not previously touched by this war. In the end, though, enough of us figured out how to do the right thing, and it turned out as well as such a painful situation could.
But still I wonder; barring some momentous personal event that necessitated a seat on that flight, how could any of us have even hesitated? How could we have stopped to weigh any inconvenience to our personal plans against the sacrifice that Corporal Wilson and his family had made for our country? In such circumstances, it is not a question of recognizing the right thing to do; we should know it is the only thing to do.
From what I have learned of him, in his short life Corporal Wilson created a legacy of courage and patriotism that will not be forgotten by those who knew him. But I hope that there’s a greater legacy as well. I hope through this account of his family’s struggle to see him home, if ever again the war intrudes unbidden on my life or yours, we will know what we must do, and in their honor, and for all those who serve and sacrifice, we will do it.
