NightWatch

For the Night of 14 July 2009

China-Algeria-al Qaida: Xinhua reported Chinese authorities yesterday alerted Chinese citizens and organizations abroad about potential terrorist attacks, the day after an Al-Qaida group threatened to target Chinese interests overseas in retaliation for the deaths of Uighurs in Urumqi. This is the first time that Chinese have been targeted by an al Qaida affiliate.

Al-Qaida's Algerian-based offshoot, Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) pledged to avenge the deaths of Muslims in Urumqi by targeting the 50,000 Chinese workers in Algeria as well as Chinese projects and workers across northwest Africa.

The Chinese embassy in Algeria posted a statement on its website last night, urging Chinese organizations and citizens in Algeria to be on alert. The Chinese embassy in Tunisia also told China Daily yesterday that it was aware of the warning from AQIM and was working on plans to fend off any possible threats.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said at a press conference yesterday that China will "take any measure necessary to protect the safety of its overseas institutions and citizens."

One side effect of the threat is that it is causing the Chinese to try to protect its overseas workers and in the process disclose the extent of Chinese economic colonization of Africa. Chinese workers are generally despised by local Africans for a host of cultural reasons but are generally left alone by terrorists. A singular exception was the nine workers killed by Ogaden separatists in Ethiopia in April 2007.

China also has been almost miraculously immune to international terrorist attacks in China, despite the millions of Chinese Muslims, from Xinjiang to Fujian, who usually are treated as second or third class citizens. By suppressing the Uighurs, China finally has attracted the attention of professional Muslim terrorists for the first time. This is the first time an Al-Qaida affiliate has threatened to target any of China’s extensive overseas commitments in less developed regions.

AQIM is a particularly vicious group that heretofore has attacked mainly Algerian security forces. Lately it has taken to kidnapping Westerners and killed a British hostage. It has not attacked Chinese workers, but they represent a new, numerous and highly vulnerable target set.

The Chinese workers in Africa are vulnerable. This is because the Chinese government deliberately pursues a high risk policy of economic investment, resource exploitation and development projects for the locals regardless of security conditions. China is incapable of protecting its tens of thousands of workers in Africa. If AQIM is serious, it could get lots of help, even in non-Muslim countries.

India: For animal lovers. The BBC reported today state authorities for one of India's main tiger parks - Panna National Park in north central India - admitted the Park no longer has any tigers. Panna, in Madhya Pradesh State, was part of the country's efforts to save the Royal Bengal Tiger from extinction.

State Minister of Forests Rajendra Shukla said that the reserve, which three years ago had 24 tigers, no longer had any. A special census was conducted in the park by a premier wildlife institute, after the forest authorities reported no sightings of the animals for a long time.

This is the second tiger reserve in India, after Sariska in Rajasthan State, where numbers have dwindled to zero because of poaching. A century ago, India had 40,000 tigers, but poaching and hunting have reduced the number to 1,400.

Pakistan-bin Laden: Usama bin Laden’s 3 June audio message denouncing President Obama contained about 26 minutes of denunciations against Pakistani authorities. The anti-Pakistan statements received little attention anywhere. However, on 11 and 12 July an Urdu translation of that portion of the tape was posted to the Internet, according to MSN India.

Bin Laden called President Zardari and the Pakistan Army allies of Satan and urged that Zardari and Chief of Army Staff General Kayani be targeted. One report also mentions Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. Bin Laden warned, “if Pakistan gets weak India would divide it into parts and Pakistani nuclear assets may be neutralized then.”

He said “Asif Zardari and Ashfaq Kayani have continued to distract the army from its main tasks, which are protecting Islam, and protecting its followers, and its territories. Instead, they prompted it to fight Islam and those who demand the implementation of it and they order it to kill and fight the Pashtun and Baloch tribes. Meanwhile, most of the Pakistani people reject this unjust war. Zardari has done so in response to those who pay him in the White House not only 10%, rather they pay doubles than that.”

(Note: Zardari used to be called “Mr. 10%” which referred to his practice of requiring ten percent as his fee in making investment deals, using Benazir Bhutto’s -- his wife -- connections as Prime Minister)

One of the most fractious debates in the Afghan and Pakistan branches of the Taliban movement has concerned where to concentrate the fight. Afghanistan’s Mullah Omar has insisted the Americans and other outsiders must be removed from Afghanistan and Pakistan left alone. Baitullah Mehsud has tended to focus his resources on attacks within Pakistan. In that target set, he has had support from Ayman Zawahiri who denounced Musharraf during his tenure, and now from bin Laden who has denounced Zardari and General Kayani.

Today seems to be the first day that Pakistani news services picked up on the parts of the 3 June tape that mention Pakistan. The Pakistani parts of the message appear to be bin Laden’s acceptance of the new US strategy in which Afghanistan and Pakistan are lumped together as a single problem. That implies an assessment that if the pro-US leadership of Pakistan is murdered, the Taliban will achieve a significant victory benefiting its interests in both countries.

Iran: The state news agency reported the government executed 13 members of a Sunni rebel group blamed for a number of attacks in Sistan-Baluchistan Province in southeastern Iran. Those executed were members of Jundallah (God's Soldiers), whom Tehran blames for the bombing of a mosque in May which killed 25 people, the killing of a bus load of Revolutionary Guards in February and similar attacks in the southeast.

In the past news services speculated the US supported Jundullah as part of a destabilization program against Iran. On the other hand the Baluchis need little encouragement in fighting the Iranian Persian Shiites or the Pakistani Punjabis and Sindhis, for different reasons. The Baluchi rebels in southeastern Iran and in southwestern Pakistan would be primarily a law and order problem, but for their separatist political agenda.

The timing of the execution and its announcement suggest they are reminders that Iran will remain distrustful and wary of dealing with the US under any leadership.

Israel: The Jerusalem Post Online reported today, "Two Sa'ar-5 class Navy ships reportedly crossed through the Suez Canal from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea on Tuesday to beef up Israel's naval presence in the Red Sea.  The passage of the ships comes several weeks after a Dolphin-class Navy submarine passed through the waterway for the first time.  One of the ships, the Hanit, already crossed the canal both ways in June, in what an Egyptian source said was the first case of a large Israeli warship using the strategic waterway, AFP reported.  The other ship to cross on Tuesday, the Eilat, was named after a destroyer sunk by Egypt with the loss of 47 lives shortly after the 1967 Six Day War.”

Haaretz.com , "Israeli defense officials said that two missile boats did cross the canal, but they spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the matter.  During the maneuver in June, the Hanit accompanied an Israeli Dolphin-class submarine for a drill off Eilat - the first such voyage for the secret craft and a sign of Israel's growing strategic reach, Reuters quoted defense sources as saying.  Witnesses told Reuters the vessel docked briefly at Eilat's naval base before departing. But an Israeli defense official was quoted as saying there would be no permanent deployment there of the German-made submarines - of which Israel has three, with two more on order.”

For the record, Sa’ar 5-class ships are missile corvettes that displace 1,279 tons and carry a crew of about 75. They were built by Ingalls in Pascagoula and are extremely well armed and long range. They are not patrol boats, as that term is used in US and other media. The deployment to Eilat with a Dolphin-class submarine suggests they will begin workups in preparation for an operation, also known as, rehearsals.

The nature and timing of any operation remain unclear, but the options include preventing resupply of Hamas from Iran via Sudan and the Red Sea to support for operations against Iran directly.

Russia-US-Iran: For the record. Russia will not agree to increase sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program in exchange for a new nuclear arms reduction treaty with the United States, a source in Russia's foreign ministry said today, according to Reuters.  The source said, "There are no reasons to link these issues or count on Russia being more cooperative in toughening sanctions against Iran if there is progress in talks with the United States on further cuts in strategic offensive weapons."

Nothing in the public record suggests that kind of bargain had any chance of success, ever. This apparent misread of Russian policy and intentions supports the NightWatch concern that administration officials are not listening to friends in the Middle East who report consistently the Russians are making a run at strategic leadership in the Middle East.

They are strategic competitors, not partners. Their proxies are Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, according to the Middle Eastern sources. If Russia backs these four entities and protects their machinations, US initiatives for behavioral modification will never work. The implications are that US policies promoting peace stand no chance of success if they do not contain provisions to counter Russian interests that promote continuing hostility, which Russia can exploit and is exploiting for profit and influence.

Somalia-France: Update. Two French security advisers helping the Somali government have been kidnapped in Mogadishu, French officials have said. Gunmen who were wearing police uniforms entered the hotel where the two were staying and took them away, eyewitnesses said. The abductions took place in a government-held part of Mogadishu.

Honduras: Manuel Zelaya said today he will consider mediation talks over the country's political crisis "failed" unless he is reinstated at the next meeting to be held July 18 or 19, Reuters reported. He told the press , "We are giving an ultimatum to the coup regime, that at the latest in the next meeting this week in San Jose, Costa Rica, they should carry out the expressed [OAS and U.N.] resolutions [to reinstate me].”

He also called for a popular uprising. "Insurrection is a right of the people that is deposited in Article 3 of the constitution of Honduras, and the Hondurans should make their constitutional rights count," Zelaya said in a press conference after private talks with Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom.

"I have not surrendered, nor shall I surrender. I will return to the country in the shortest possible time. I don't want to mention the time or the day, so as not to alert the opposition forces, whom we know are criminals," the ousted chief executive said. Strikes, demonstrations, the takeovers (of public buildings), civil disobedience are a necessary process when the democratic order is violated in a country."

He urged rebellion just hours after Costa Rican President Oscar Arias announced that he had convened representatives of Zelaya and the interim government for a second round of talks aimed at resolving the crisis. Talks begin on 18 July according to Arias.

The tone and content suggest Zelaya intends to use his outside backing to attack his own country. Honduras is one of the poorest countries. Calls for insurrection portend further impoverishment with an admixture of violence. Some might consider today’s statements as irresponsible and disqualifying.

Mexico: The El Paso Times reported five men were killed in two shootings Sunday evening in the Valley of Juárez. Chihuahua state police said 36 assault-rifle rounds were fired in the killing of three men in a small community three miles from El Porvenir. Less than an hour later two more men were fatally shot in the village of Guadalupe.

Since the much acclaimed successes of the Mexican Army during the marijuana harvest season earlier this year, something has gone terribly wrong. CNN reported Ciudad Juarez which set a record this weekend when its toll of drug-related homicides for the year topped 1,000. Last year, the city death toll reached that number only on 16 September 2008.

At this time last year, the violence-plagued city across the border from El Paso had tallied 596 killings, El Universal reported Tuesday, citing figures from the Chihuahua state attorney general's office.

What happened to the Mexican Army and all the new police? One hypothesis by brilliant and well informed analysts in Texas was that the flare up of violence and murders in Ciudad Juarez was a drug cartel stratagem to divert the Army from interfering with the marijuana harvest. Some sources suggested the scam was accomplished with the knowledge and approval of senior officials in the Mexican government and could not have succeeded otherwise.

Those lone voices look prophetic. The Christian Science Monitor quoted one columnist who described the latest surge of killings in President Calderon’s home state of Michoacan State as Mexico’s Tet Offensive. Michoacan is where Calderon first implemented his security strategy in 2006 using the Army to fight the cartels. It appears to have had no lasting impact.

End of NightWatch for 14 July.