CNN Security Files

Abu Qatada refuses to be written out of the script

2008-05-08T21:14:00.002-04:00

The news that Abu Qatada is to be bailed marks another plot turn in the blockbuster that is “Londonistan.” The story, for those who need reminding, begins in the late 1990s, when the French, in particular, were being driven crazy by what they saw as Britain’s naïve neglect of dangerous extremists living in London. These were people, they said, involved in spreading a message of hatred and violence towards non-Muslims; in some cases, too, it was said, helping to recruit volunteers and raise money for terrorist acts.

Slowly but surely, however, the main characters in “Londonistan” disappeared from Britain’s streets. Firebrand preacher Abdullah al-Faisal was convicted of soliciting to murder in 2003; last year he was deported to his native Jamaica. Abu Hamza, who ran the Finsbury Park mosque in north London, is serving time at Her Majesty’s pleasure after he, too, was found guilty of soliciting murder. Once out he faces almost certain extradition to the United States to face trial on separate terrorism offences. And Omar Bakri, the founder of AQ-sympathisers, Al Muhajiroun, fled Britain shortly after 7/7 and was subsequently barred from coming back.

Abu Qatada’s story was always more complicated. Convicted in absentia in his native Jordan for terrorism offences in the 1990s, he was later described by Spain’s chief terrorism prosecutor, Baltasar Garzon, as Osama Bin Laden’s right hand man in Europe. Recordings of his sermons were found in a Hamburg apartment frequented by the 9/11 hijackers.

Facing likely arrest in the face of new terror laws in Britain introduced after those attacks Abu Qatada went on the run. He was caught in October 2002 and then held without charge at Belmarsh high security prison for two and a half years. In March 2005 he won bail and was slapped with a control order instead, placing strict limitations on his movements.

At this point the British government embarked on a new strategy for dealing with foreign nationals it believed posed a threat to national security. It started negotiating agreements, or Memoranda of Understanding, with countries with dodgy human rights records aimed at securing a promise from those governments that they wouldn’t torture or carry out the death penalty on individuals returned there from Britain. After agreement was reached with Jordan in August 2005, Qatada was immediately arrested again pending deportation. It looked like the beginning of the end.

That is until not one but two key legal victories for Abu Qatada in the space of the last four weeks. First the Court of Appeal blocked deportation saying it was unsafe to send him back to Jordan. And now an immigration tribunal has granted him bail, albeit effectively confining him to his house for 22 hours each day. Britain’s Home Secretary pronounced herself extremely disappointed at this latest decision.

It’s all very messy and certainly offers fresh ammunition to those who believe “Londonistan” continues to tie British authorities up in knots. With recent High Court challenges to certain terror offences as well as the sanctions regime targeting terrorist financing, there will be those who believe British judges remain too soft on the terror threat.

Opposition politicians, meanwhile, are saying it underlines the need for Britain to fall into step with many other jurisdictions around the world and allow intercept evidence into court. If that’s what is needed to build a case against Abu Qatada in a British court, they say, then the case for changing the law has never been stronger.

A Candid Look at Cameras

2008-05-07T09:47:00.004-04:00

It seemed to be the ‘smoking gun’ many were waiting for. One of Scotland Yard’s finest telling a security conference that CCTVs have been ‘an utter fiasco’, that only 3 per cent of street crime is solved using them, and that criminals had no fear of CCTV.

So what are the facts? Do CCTVs make us any safer?

London’s Transport Police say the cameras do work. It claims violent crime on trains and buses is down by half in the past year alone. But officers admit they have to find smarter ways to use the technology.

“The challenge for the police service is to constantly look for smarter ways to look for the product, so the images. “ says Paul Crowther of the British Transport Police. He adds that law enforcement officials are constantly asking themselves how they can use the footage more effectively.

“How do we quickly get those images out, how do we process them, how do we identify the people that were on them and then turn those into arrests so that we can reduce crime further by making it clear to people that CCTV means they are going to get locked up,” says Crowther.

Privacy advocates in Britain claim the country has one fifth of all the world’s CCTVs, at least one for every 14 people in the country. When you’re in Britain, you can be caught on camera hundreds of times per day.

Scotland Yards refuses to comment, but its internal audit suggests all those long lenses are short on results. Government statistics on crime rates have held steady in Britain in the last decade despite billions of dollars of investment in CCTV.

“Most of these problems are social problems and you can’t just get around them by introducing a flashy new technology,” says David Murakami Wood, a surveillance expert who studies its impact on society.

But there is compelling evidence that some crimes would never be solved without CCTV evidence.

In July 2005, CCTV cameras in London candidly caught three armed men viciously stab and beat two friends on a night out. Even though all of it was caught on tape, it seemed to make no difference to the criminals. One of the victims, Daniel Pollen died that night, but Andrew Griffiths, the other victim, survived to see his attackers convicted using CCTV evidence.

“Without it, there wasn’t a case really,” says Griffiths. “Due to the fact that I didn’t remember barely anything, the CCTV showed everything that happened, the way it happened,” he adds.

Experience authorities here in Britain point out that there is no way of knowing how or when CCTVs actually prevent crime.

“This is a wonderful tool for crime reduction and crime prevention but it’s not being used in the right way” says John O’Connor, a former Scotland Yard commander.

“Who knows how bad crime would be if it wasn’t for the CCTV?” he asks.

Watch my report here.

By International Security Correspondent, Paula Newton.

Amnesty Update: Drowning in Controversy

2008-05-02T10:29:00.004-04:00

A few of you have commented that regardless of the morality of torture, an interesting question is: Does it work? Back in the Fall, when CIA and U.S. justice department secret memos on aggressive interrogation were leaked, we interviewed a man who says he was tortured by American authorities. He claims torture is useless.

Watch my report here.

Update by Paula Newton.

Amnesty Shocker

2008-04-30T17:50:00.006-04:00

So, picture yourself in a movie theatre, some frenetic music starts up, then the water starts to pour. It could be an ad for spring water or even vodka, it’s slick. But within seconds the slick commercial pans down and delivers a big dose of shock.

Amnesty International actually staged a waterboarding session in order to sharpen its campaign against it and beginning in May the commercial will air as a preview in theatres throughout Britain. http://www.unsubscribe-me.org/

“It’s not a stunt, ” insists Sara McNeice of Amnesty. “This constitutes torture. We don’t need to gloss it up, we don’t need to call it an enhanced interrogation technique. It’s torture, it should be illegal it should never be used,” she adds.

Malcolm Nance, a former American military officer, trained personnel to resist water boarding and claims it feels like slow motion murder. He acted as a consultant for Amnesty during the production of the commercial.

“These videos that Amnesty International has put out are pretty realistic, ” says Nance. “These people are being tortured and this is just not how the American public, I’m certain, wanted their government to dishonour themselves,” he says.

Water boarding is now an iconic symbol in what has become known as the 'War on Terror". It is emblematic of the controversy and confusion now surrounding the war itself. The Bush Administration bans the practice of waterboarding for the military, but not intelligence officers which is why Amnesty International says it wants the American public to demand it be banned outright.

“This isn’t about being anti-American or taking an anti-American stance on the issue this is about an anti-torture stance people and the public don’t want to see people being tortured in their name” insists McNeice.

But some scholars warn that a shock ad will only add to all the confusion surrounding the debate. Professor Michael Levin of City College in New York is a noted scholar on the philosophical question of when and if torture is justified.

Levin insists he is not advocating waterboarding or any other kind of aggressive interrogation technique but he points out that there is a realistic question to asked : How tough should governments get when lives are on the line?

“There have to be firm rules, it has to be to protect the innocent, it has to be non-punitive,” he says before insisting that the blanket ban that Amnesty is advocating is not realistic.

“I don't see how you can honestly say that there are techniques you just can't use to save thousands of innocent lives, it just seems absurd." Says Levin.

Amnesty claims its commercial is the "video the CIA doesn’t want you to see”. It says almost four hundred thousand people have already viewed it online, even before it’s been released in theatres. And so the debate continues with another battleplan, on a different battlefield with Amnesty’s latest salvo coming soon to a theatre near you.

Watch report on the video.

By Paula Newton, International Security Correspondent.

The Defectors

2008-04-24T06:07:00.002-04:00

Their first salvo is hardly revolutionary, but those launching the Quilliam Foundation say it will be much more than just a talk shop. Quilliam is the first of its kind, a think-tank run by former extremists, ‘defectors’ from Islamist thinking who insist they will stand up to terrorists by blowing apart their ideology. Watch Paula Newton's report.

“We really are rocking the boat, this is the first time you’ve had Muslim voices coming up and saying ‘we’ve got problems,’ says Ed Husain, one of the directors of this new think-tank. He adds, “Within the Muslim community thus far there’s been a denial, there’s no problem guys.”

For those caught up in modern day terror, denial is not an option. Rachel North survived the train blast on the Piccadilly line in London in July 2005. She says that almost three years later she is still in search of answers that may only come from those once so inspired by terror.

“You start to see that what you’re dealing with has solutions it’s not a black and white situation where fear and panic and hysteria about terror rules,” says North. “You’re actually dealing with people at the end of the day, people you can communicate with,” she adds.

One of those people is now Maajid Nawaz, another Quilliam director who used to recruit extremists all over Europe. He says he will now methodically, patiently debunk what he calls the ‘Islamist lie’.

“We’ve done this because for the first time a counter-extremism think tank has been established by former Islamists to critique the ideology, to critique Islamism and that voice can only come from Muslims because we’ve developed a theological and political critique of this ideology and in a nutshell what I’d say is we’re deciding to fight back with ideas,” he says as he strolls through the London university where he used to conduct much of his extremist recruiting.

Why does any of this matter? I put that question to Nawaz and asked him will any of his efforts really make us any safer?

“Definitely it makes us safer because terrorism grows out of Islamism, Islamist inspired terrorism is a phrase I use because it grows out of those who share the same ideology. The Al-Qaeda world view came from somewhere.”

By Paula Newton, CNN’s International Security Correspondent.

The Virtual Strip Search

2008-04-16T04:40:00.005-04:00

It’s coming soon to a crowded corner near you, a camera that can actually see through your clothes. It’s called the T5000 Camera and while it was first designed for space and has been used to measure the hole in the ozone layer it is now just one more security surveillance tool.

The camera works like a telescope to screen you from as far as 80 feet away, even when you’re moving. Its best application would be in crowded spaces where security authorities want to increase surveillance without slowing people down. Authorities can search for concealed weapons and explosives without you ever knowing it.

“We are genuinely looking through clothing,” says Clive Beattie of Thru Vision, a British company now piloting the camera. “It’s almost a glowing light bulb, you don’t see the detail that people might be concerned about.”

That ‘detail’ he’s referring to is body parts, but the camera actually makes people look like glowing blobs because of how it works. The camera picks up on electromagnetic rays that all of us, and all objects, give off naturally. These rays are called Tera-hertz or t-rays.

Thru Vision claims the camera is completely safe. “We’re not having to eradiate people with x-rays or any other type of radiation,” says Beattie.

We showed what the camera could do to people taking a stroll in Piccadilly Circus, central London, already one of the most spied on corners in the world. Some were still uneasy about a camera that can get under your skin.

“Yeah, maybe, a bit over the top I think” said one woman who couldn’t help but giggle when she saw the glowing images on the screen.

The crucial question is; will it actually make us any safer? Even this camera would likely not have detected the London bombers as they carried their explosive laden knapsacks. So many people are carrying so many packages it would take more than one camera to catch them, but very vigilant security personnel.

Privacy advocates worry security officials are relying too much on technology, extending the reach of ‘big brother’ without really making us any safer.

“What we should consider is how much we want to lose aspects of our privacy in order to attain a sort of notional security, in most cases this isn’t real security, it’s a sense of safety, that has very little real effect.” says a David Murakami Wood a researcher who studies the effects of new technology on society.

It seems authorities though are convinced a ‘sneak peak’ is worth it. Thru Vision says it has already sold its camera to a few companies in the London, including the Canary Wharf financial complex and they say the US military has also expressed its interest.

And remember, if the camera is in use as you’re walking around a crowded event in the next few years, you’ll never know it.

By Paula Newton, CNN’s International Security Correspondent.

Bin Laden Who?

2008-03-20T12:02:00.007-04:00

Question: When Osama Bin Laden speaks, who’s listening? That’s what we want to know as bin Laden releases not one, but two audio messages this week.

This image taken from a militant Web site shows an undated photo of Osama bin Laden as part of an audiotaped speech posted late Wednesday.

In the first, released on an al Qaeda Web site, he talks of a new crusade against Islam as evidenced by the publication of Danish cartoons that ridicule the Prophet Mohammed. He says, “Although our tragedy in your killing of our women and children is a very great one, it paled when you went overboard in your unbelief and freed yourselves of the etiquettes of dispute and fighting and went to the extent of publishing these insulting drawings. This is the greater and more serious tragedy, and reckoning for it will be more severe.”

In the second, an audiotape broadcast by Al Jazeera, bin Laden called on Muslims to keep up the fight against U.S. forces in Iraq as a path to "liberating Palestine." He says: "My speech is about the Gaza siege and the way to retrieve it and the rest of Palestine from the hands of the Zionist enemy," Bin Laden adds. "Our enemies did not take it by negotiations and dialogue but with fire and iron. And this is the way to get it back."

Neither message could be independently authenticated although security services around the world are now trying to assess if the messages are the recorded words of Osama bin Laden and when he might have issued his warnings.

Just a few months ago, a message from bin Laden would have rated among the top stories in any newspaper or on any newscast. Now, that’s just not the case. Most news organisations reported the messages but there didn’t seem a need for in-depth analysis or pundit panels about the imminent threat. Even security services seem less alarmed by bin Laden’s messages with one Italian security source telling Reuters.com: “Obviously we can't ignore it but at this moment that doesn't mean the threat is being taken seriously," the source said.

It gets you thinking. We debate this here at CNN but we’ve come up with no real definitive answers as of yet. When we cover bin Laden’s messages, do we give him too much credibility? Or given his iconic position as the head of al Qaeda, are we not taking his messages seriously enough?

But most importantly, to those who still see bin Laden as a guiding force for jihad, how do they interpret his messages? We’re still looking for those answers, and as always looking for your comments.

By Paula Newton, CNN’s International Security Correspondent.

Talking Peace with the Enemy

2008-03-17T07:58:00.004-04:00

Can you really? Apparently, if you’re the British prime minister and the issue is Northern Ireland, the answer is ‘yes’. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, gave a rare interview to The Guardian newspaper this weekend. Powell’s new book documents the behind the scenes Northern Ireland peace process and how talking to your enemies may be the only way to get rid of them.

However, Powell’s Northern Ireland experience gave him enough confidence to venture into another peace-making business that isn’t going so well. Powell argues, "if I was in government now, I would want to have been talking to Hamas, I would be wanting to communicate with the Taliban and I would want to find a channel to al-Qaeda".

Can talking to your enemies really destroy them?

Back in November I asked Afghan Prime Minister Hamid Karzai if he were willing to talk to the Taliban. Surprisingly, he answered in the most candid of ways, “we are willing to talk to those of the Taliban who are not part of Al Qaeda or the terrorist networks,” said Karzai. A qualified maybe?

Before this he sounded even more conciliatory pointing out that he and his staff had ‘increasing’ contacts with the Taliban, as many as five points of contact in the last week alone. He went on to say, “If we are talking of such contacts, they are there, if we are speaking of a centralized authority in the Taliban with whom we can talk for peace that is not there.” But he made it seem as if, when there is that centralized authority, sure, we'll talk.

I and others took this as a qualified ‘yes’, it’s acceptable, even desirable to open a channel of communication to your enemy, if only to continually assess any opportunity for peace.

Just weeks later, Karzai’s government expelled two diplomats for, essentially, talking to the Taliban.

Confused? I still am. The only lesson I can take from this: If you are talking to the enemy, keep it a secret. It seems Tony Blair and his advisors took that to heart.

Dutch nab Pakistani man "linked to Barcelona plot"

2008-03-14T08:28:00.013-04:00

In January, Spanish police arrested 14 men in Barcelona suspected of plotting suicide attacks on the city's public transport network. Four bomb timers were discovered but no explosives.

Most of the men arrested were Pakistani nationals. Their cover was apparently blown by an informant, who also told Spanish police the group was planning additional attacks in Britain, France, Germany and Portugal, according to El Pais newspaper.

Early this morning Dutch police made a follow-up arrest in that investigation. A 26-year old Pakistani national, who Dutch authorities had been watching for six weeks, was arrested in the southern Dutch town of Breda. Officials said he was detained on suspicion of belonging to an "international jihadist network" preparing attacks in western Europe. However there was nothing to suggest he planned to launch an attack in the Netherlands, they said.

The arrested man had arrived in the country in September last year on a student visa having secured a place to study at a vocational college. CNN was told he had not attended lessons and had worked instead as a painter and decorator.

The arrest comes just weeks after a series of media reports suggesting police in Europe were hunting a man called Akeel Abassi as a possible accomplice of the Barcelona cell. Several reports suggested Abassi was being hunted in connection with a possible attack in Germany.

Alleged plot is not home-grown

Spanish authorities have indicated they believe most of the people involved in this alleged plot have been rounded up. As prosecutors in Spain and the Netherlands work on building a case they can present in court, what is striking is how it appears to subvert so much of the received wisdom.

For the last three years or so all the talk in Europe has been about "home-grown terror." The focus has been on European nationals - mainly British, but also German and Danish to name just two - who've been radicalised at home, probably gone to Pakistan to receive some training, and then returned to Europe to carry out their attacks.

Those accused of this alleged conspiracy are Pakistanis. On top of that it was reportedly masterminded by Pakistani Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud. That points strongly to the idea that if the alleged plot had a raison d'etre then it was Afghanistan. And, in fact, that should come as little surprise. For there is a growing belief in European counterterrorism circles that it is Afghanistan - rather than Iraq, rather than Palestine, rather than Egypt or Saudi Arabia - that is the 'cause celebre a la mode' for jihadist extremists.

By Andrew Carey

Hezbollah and Cyber War

2008-03-14T08:22:00.004-04:00

CNN has learned intelligence officials in Britain and the US believe Hezbollah sleeper cells could use their computer expertise to launch a cyber attack, on the orders of Iran. Hezbollah has been described as Iran’s surrogate army. For years US, Israeli and European security services have accused Iran of exporting terror around the world, using Hezbollah operatives. Now, cyber space may be the new battlefield, especially if Iran believes its nuclear program is under threat.

While Hezbollah’s capability in launching such an attack has been questioned, the US and Israeli military are taking the threat very seriously. In fact, the FBI says it now considers Hezbollah operatives more capable and robust than even Al Qaeda terrorists.

Hezbollah showed its increasing technological sophistication during its war with Israel in 2006. The moment Israel starting bombing Hezbollah targets in Beirut, the US government says it was being attacked on another battlefield in cyber space. A US Congressional research report detailed more than 10,000 breaches including the Pentagon, the House of Representatives website and NASA.

“There’s an argument out there shared by most independent specialists on Hezbollah that Hezbollah is actually better at using and understanding cyber warfare against the Israelis, than Israel is,” says Bilal Saab, a Middle East analyst with the Brookings Institution.

In 1994, 85 people were murdered and hundreds injured when a white van, packed with explosives was detonated at a Jewish cultural centre in Buenos Aires. Prosecutors in Argentina still believe the Iranian government gave Hezbollah agents the ‘kill’ order and wouldn’t hesitate to attack again.

“What I can say with certainty is that they can quickly launch a terrorist attack. Because they have the sleeper cells ready, they have the research ready, they have the agents.” says Marta Nercellas, an Argentine lawyer working with victims and their families. Iran and Hezbollah deny any involvement in the attack and Hezbollah declined to be interviewed for this report telling CNN, 'they don't answer these kinds of questions'.

While analysts believe conventional terror is still Hezbollah’s main weapon, some now are looking at the possibility that it could activate sleeper cells in order to open a second front in cyber space.

“The ambition is there, they would have a vested interest in retaliating and working with the Iranians,” says Saab.

For Iran, Hezbollah still serves as a potent threat and a warning that if and when the US, Israel or Europe try to block its nuclear ambitions, it is ready to fight back.

By Paula Newton, CNN’s International Security Correspondent.

Swimming Upstream

2008-03-13T22:04:00.002-04:00

The great and the good of British counter-terrorism policing were in Brighton a couple of weeks ago for the first ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) Counter Terrorism Conference. There were plenty of top cops present, British and overseas, as well as Government officials, legal professionals and academics.

Opening the conference, in his last week as head of Counter Terrorism Command at the Met Police, Peter Clarke told delegates they needed an open mind if they were going to "understand the picture," adding that "old or stereotyped thinking simply will not do." It's worth paying attention to the speakers at a conferences like this one because they're providing the brain food upon which Britain's counterterror cops are being encouraged to feed.

One topic everyone wants to get a handle on is radicalisation. How does it happen? How can we recognise it? And how can we stop it from happening?

Martin Innes, a Professor of Criminology at Cardiff University, presented some interesting research. Muslim communities, he suggested, are pretty well functioning, certainly compared to British society as a whole. They have a high level of social capital - shared goodwill, sense of fellowship and shared values - and a collective efficacy. Crucially, according to Innes, that means people from these communities feel safe within their own environment.

This seems to me to be pretty profound. If a community feels cohesive, if individuals within it feel secure - and we're talking about a pretty fundamental human need here, a sense of security - then why would they have any interest in integrating with the wider community, when to do so, they feel, would be to put at risk their feelings of safety and security?

To put it another way, individuals from a tight-knit Muslim community look out at the rest of neighbouring society and take the view, rightly or wrongly, that it cannot look after their security as well as they can look after it themselves. That means they don't call the police when there's a problem.

The second interesting finding, related, is that within Muslim communities there is - relative to society as a whole - a high degree of awareness of "deviant behaviour", as sociologists call it. In other words people know who is up to no good in the neighbourhood. Crucially, however, there is a reluctance to give up that information to authority figures - like the police - drawn from outside the community. To do so carries a risk to family and wider kin, even those abroad.

This also strikes me as important because it appears to run counter to the assertion, often heard, that parents have no idea what their children are up to; indeed can’t be expected to know what they’re up to. In well-functioning communities, this research suggests, parents do know. That's not to suggest the parents of a suicide bomber are aware of their son's intentions. But it is to suggest that parents, or other authority figures from within the community, might be well-placed to spot signs of a possible drift towards violent extremism.

Put these two points together and you have a scenario where the police are not seen as the best guarantors of security ... but where there is a high level of potential intelligence available from within the community. The conundrum for the police is how they can best get hold of it.

From Andrew Carey

Update on kidnapped Austrian tourists

2008-03-13T19:05:00.009-04:00

Three days after it announced it had captured them, the group calling itself Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has now posted pictures of Wolfgang Ebner and Andrea Kloiber on the internet. Kloiber's face is obscured in all the pictures by what appears to be a crude post-production effect.

A message accompanying the pictures said that the pair's security lay in Austrian hands and that they'd be released if all AQ prisoners in Tunisia and Algeria were set free. The message set a deadline of three days.

Just where the pair are being held remains a mystery. Two days ago an Algerian paper said they had been taken through Libya and Algeria into Mali. Austria's Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed to CNN that it was working with Malian authorities, along with those in Tunisia and Algeria, to try to find them.

From Andrew Carey

UPDATE (18TH MARCH): AUSTRIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY SAYS DEADLINE/ULTIMATUM EXTENDED BY A WEEK

Al Qaeda claims "kidnappings" in Tunisia

2008-03-10T15:54:00.003-04:00

Al Qaeda's north Africa branch says it has kidnapped two Austrian tourists in Tunisia. The claim comes in an audio message, broadcast on Al Jazeera, by a man identifying himself as Salah Abu Mohammed. The message says the hostages are in good health and were taken in retribution for Western co-operation with Israel. It also says that conditions for their release will be announced in due course.

Austria's Foreign Ministry spokesman told CNN they're still trying to investigate "how real the message is" but says they are certainly taking it seriously. Until they are satisfied the pair have been kidnapped, however, they remain classified as missing.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is essentially an Algerian organisation, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (known by its French initials, the GSPC), re-badged under the AQ brand. The group has been blamed for a series of bombings in the last twelve months, including an attack in December on the United Nations offices in Algiers that killed 17 UN staff.

Kidnappings have the effect of frightening off tourists, of course, which is why countries like Tunisia, where tourism plays such a vital economic role, are so keen to avoid them. But that's not generally the motivation behind them. Kidnappings are about money, and western tourists have often been exchanged for sizable sums. When the GSPC kidnapped 32 tourists in southern Algeria in 2003 the total ransoms paid ran into the millions of dollars. A report from the Council on Foreign Relations suggests that money was used to purchase surface-to-air missiles, heavy machine guns, mortars, and satellite-positioning equipment.

From Andrew Carey

Good Guys Finish Last - Lessons from the Irish

2008-03-09T20:16:00.003-04:00

The retirement of Ian Paisley as Northern Ireland’s First Minister last week brought forth a series of homilies in praise of Dr. No and his amazing political journey. From hardline Unionist rejectionist to the sharing of power with republican Sinn Fein, his is, to be sure, an extraordinary story. But whether it should be held up, either by the misty-eyed or the more devious, as proof positive that “good things come to those who wait” – in this case to those who truly sought an end to persecution and division in Northern Ireland – received a proper slap round the cheeks by Simon Jenkins writing in the Guardian newspaper.

Jenkins’s argument is simple enough. It is, in essence, that the real visionaries, like moderate Nationalist John Hume, and the real risk-takers, like moderate Unionist David Trimble, were smashed by the extremists – Paisley’s DUP and Gerry Adams’ Sinn Fein – and that they were aided and abetted in this by the political establishments in London and Dublin.

Here’s David Trimble, asked for his thoughts on Paisley by the Irish Times this weekend: “One thing we can be sure of is that without Ian Paisley, there would have been a political settlement in Northern Ireland a generation earlier. And if Tony Blair had kept his promises to me at the time of the Good Friday Agreement [in 1998], Paisley’s political demise would have come a decade ago.”

And with that demise, presumably, peace.

Anyway… what do you think? Does conflict resolution mean talking to everyone, including the extremists, in an effort to bring them into the fold? Is that the simple truth of how lasting progress is made? Or is it a fatal compromise to speak to the hardliners ... with the price being paid by those seeking to build bridges?

'Data Snatchers' II

2008-03-06T13:21:00.002-05:00

Biometrics. Get used to the word. It describes the technique of using a person's unique physical characteristics for identification. They can include fingerprints, voice and face recognition, and iris scans.

Biometrics is making news in Britain this week as the government rolls out its national ID cards. First up will be foreign citizens living in Britain who will begin carrying biometric ID cards by the fall. By next year, ID cards will be extended to those in sensitive government jobs, like those who work at airports. Next up will be students, all government workers, and on and on the list goes.

Europe is well on its way to implementing its own biometric data registration. Why is it so attractive to governments? British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith puts it this way;

“We will be able to better protect ourselves and our families against identity fraud, as well as protecting our communities against crime, illegal immigration and terrorism. And it will help us to prove our identity in the course of our daily lives”

She adds that personal details of each person will be held separately from biometric data making it ‘incredibly difficult’ for anyone to steal another’s identity. But she didn't say it would be impossible. She works for the same government that lost computer discs with the personal banking details of more than 25 million British citizens last year, that admits that in January a stolen Ministry of Defence laptop contained the details of 600,000 people interested in joining the forces and that a computer disc marked "Home Office - confidential" turned up in a laptop purchased on eBay last month.

You’d be crazy not to ask yourself if we can trust these governments with biometric information.

Dr. Gus Hosein of Privacy International says flatly, you can't. Dr. Hosein points out politicians have put too much faith in biometric technology without exploring the real risk. He explains that even with biometrics it would still be possible to steal someone’s identity and finding and rectifying that crime would be much more difficult since biometrics are viewed as infallible. That does not even begin the cover the risks associated with keeping biometric data on one centralized data base and how vulnerable that information could be to abuse or negligence

Stay tuned. Biometrics is an emerging trend to watch, and an important debate to follow.

By Paula Newton, CNN’s International Security Correspondent.

The Harry Tapes

2008-02-28T17:54:00.004-05:00

The stacks of tapes arrived on my desk with a thud.

That was way back in December when the British Ministry of Defence requested that we agree to an embargo. We, along with other broadcasters and newspapers, were asked not to report that Prince Harry was in Afghanistan until he came home in April. Television cameras were given unprecedented access to the prince fighting a war on the battlefield which we could run when the embargo was lifted.

The tapes came in and I reviewed them, hour after hour of Prince Harry in Taliban territory. I was absolutely glued to the pictures of Prince Harry taking on the Taliban, on patrol in Afghan villages, and calling in air strikes when he needed to. Prince Harry was honest to a fault during his interviews saying he didn’t miss booze, he laughed when his fellow soldiers called him the ‘bullet magnet’ (but not too hard) and he was basking in the anonymity that perhaps only a place like Afghanistan can afford him.

I was the first to tell my managers this would never work; surely someone would break the news blackout within days. I was dead wrong.

After watching hours of footage of Prince Harry, what impressed me most was the risk ‘Queen and country’ were willing to take with an heir. There is no question the royal family and the British government knew this would be an unprecedented piece of good PR if they could pull it off. And yet, call me naïve; I still refuse to believe a grandmother would send her grandson to war for the sake of a few good headlines.

No matter what you think of the British royal family or the war in Afghanistan it is hard to argue this was a shrewd, gutsy move. And every frame of video told me this was history in the making.

Click here to see my report.

By CNN's International Security Correspondent Paula Newton

Farewell to Britain's Top Terror Cop

2008-02-28T14:18:00.010-05:00

Peter Clarke (left) has been the face of British counterterrorism for almost six years. After his boss, Met Commissioner Sir Ian Blair, he's probably the best known copper in Britain. No surprise really, since his period running the Anti-Terrorist Branch (which became Counter Terrorism Command in 2006) coincided with the arrival in Britain of Al Qaeda-inspired terrorism.

The Met increasingly came to realise that Clarke was their number one media asset and increasingly lent on him to be the public face of their investigations. He cut a highly reassuring figure, even in the teeth of an operation just hours old. His style has a polished, lack-of-polish about it; basic tenets of detective work - "we'll go where the evidence takes us" - are delivered with unaffected, no-nonsense aplomb. There are also stock answers delivered with the straightest of bats. Ask Peter Clarke whether he's happy with the relationship with authorities in Pakistan and you'll get the following reply: "We work closely with our counterparts in Pakistan and we'll continue to work closely with our counterparts in Pakistan." Delivered deadpan, with what Paddington Bear used to call the "hard stare."

Speaking to reporters on his final day at New Scotland Yard, Clarke reflected on his six years in the job. A key turning point, he said, was the raid on the Finsbury Park Mosque, in early 2003. That operation, he said, showed the coterie around Abu Hamza, who ran the mosque, as well as their fellow-travellers in Britain and abroad, for the first time, that the UK was not a safe haven to raise funds, to recruit and to plot.

He also spoke about public scepticism towards counterterrorism. It's clear he believes that the intelligence failures in the lead-up to the war in Iraq, and the corresponding collapse in trust in Government utterances on foreign policy, bled over into public attitudes towards what the police were saying about the terrorist threat. Put crudely, there was a significant body of people who thought the whole terror thing was concocted to boost support for the Iraq war, or, worse, as a deliberate attempt to discredit Muslims. Things were so bad by Spring 2004, Clarke suggested, that had Operation Crevice (the fertiliser plot) ended in failure - if the plotters had been released due to lack of evidence - it could have compromised his unit's ability to operate successfully in the future. Its legitimacy, among key sectors of the community, could have been seriously eroded.

The intervening period, of course, has witnessed three plots get through; only one of them, fortunately, resulting in loss of life. But on top of those attacks, Clarke cites something else as having helped turn public opinion around, especially in the Muslim communities. And that's the huge upswing in the numbers pleading guilty to terrorism offences. Rewind just a couple of years ago and almost all those facing terror charges would choose to go to trial; now, over half the number of successful prosecutions end with the defendants 'fessing up. That, Clarke reckons, is having a major impact on those who were previously denying the terror threat really existed.

Two men will effectively follow Peter Clarke at the head of British counterterrorism policing. One is Deputy Assistant Commissioner John McDowall, (above left), the new head of CTC; the other is Bob Quick (above right) who is the incoming Assistant Commissioner, Specialist Operations, and McDowall's immediate superior. Even together, they have a tough act to follow.

By Andrew Carey

Words That Can Kill

2008-02-27T03:46:00.006-05:00

Abu Abdullah (left) didn’t hesitate for a minute when I asked him what he thought of the Madrid bombings in 2004 that killed hundreds and wounded thousands.

“Well, they worked, didn’t they?” he shot back. Through two extensive interviews with Abdullah, known also as Atilla Ahmet, it was clear it wasn’t enough for this man to think and feel these controversial thoughts, he wanted to be known for them.

He now has his wish. Abdullah, his close associate Mohammed Hamid (left) and five of their acquaintances have either pled guilty or been found guilty of terrorism related offences.

There were striking pieces of evidence throughout the trial, including scenes, filmed on a mobile phone, of Al-Qaeda style training conducted not in Iraq or Afghanistan but in the English countryside

This is an important case for British authorities and the head of Britain’s Counter Terrorism Command, Peter Clarke, says it should serve as a warning to those who wish to recruit and groom extremists,

“The message is that even if you are not at the point of mounting an attack as a terrorist; if you are recruiting, radicalising, and looking to encourage other people to commit murder in pursuit of your cause we will investigate, we will use the law and we will put you before a court because we have seen what happens when these plots bear fruition. We have seen mass murder here in the United Kingdom," he said.

He says he hopes this case will serve notice to those who believe they are ‘underground’ and beyond prosecution. Much of the evidence gathered in this trial was collected by an undercover police officer who infiltrated this terrorist cell.

Among the audio recordings played to the jury was one that that glorified the July 7th terror attacks in London that killed 52 people.

Police hope this case will provide a potent preventative reminder to those who believe they can promote terror at will. The message from British authorities: free speech does not mean free reign to glorify and inspire terror. British courts have now given that assertion some muscle with these convictions and guilty pleas.

While this may prove a landmark case for reigning in the abuse of free speech, it raises a troubling question about whether those abuses have now simply moved to ‘secret’, underground places, where they cannot be debated, scrutinized or prosecuted.

Still, police would call this getting ‘upstream’, mitigating what they believe are the causes of extremism and those who hope to nurture it.

Click here to see my report

Posted by Paula Newton, CNN’s International Security Correspondent

Invasion of the 'Data-Snatchers'

2008-02-25T17:10:00.002-05:00

Got your attention, didn’t I? It seems that’s what many newspapers are counting on these days as they plaster their pages with more stories about government ‘data-collection’. Here’s a selection: ‘Big Brother to Watch Air Passengers’, ‘Government Wants Personal Data of Every Traveller’, ‘Europe to Fingerprint All Foreign Travellers’, ’EU slams US on Passenger Data’.

All of this refers to the different and at times overlapping proposals flying between continents designed to document the who, what, where, when and why of the travelling public. All of it is in the name of security but suspicion rules the day. At issue: Exactly what kind of information do governments really need before you board an airplane? European officials are now considering controversial anti-terror measures that would collect up to 19 pieces of information on every air passenger entering or leaving the EU. But under an agreement reached last summer with the US Department of Homeland Security, the EU already supplies the same 19 pieces of information to the US for all passengers flying between Europe and the US.

I’ve been tracking these stories since last summer and if we restrict our conversation to ‘visa-free’ travel, very little has changed. You should expect to hand over your date of birth, reason for travel, the place where you’re staying, length of your stay, and on it goes.

But in the last few months several articles have been misleading, suggesting data as sensitive as sexual preference, health condition and credit card details would be required. So far, that’s just not the case even though I know it makes for a good headline.

Privacy advocates have made some very compelling arguments about governments mining personal data and why they shouldn’t be trusted with too much of it. Does this kind of profiling even make us any safer?

I only wish to point out that when it comes to ‘visa-free’ travel, the bread and butter details of getting away for a quick holiday or business trip, fess up or stay home. This is not an opinion, but a fact. International travel by most countries’ standards is still a privilege to be granted, not a right to be challenged. For now, the fact remains, many people voluntarily give up far more personal information on social-networking sites than they will ever be asked to surrender when they board their next flight.

From CNN's Paula Newton.

Israeli Nukes - The Great Unmentionable

2008-02-21T12:39:00.006-05:00

The story of how Britain went to war in Iraq remains the biggest political controversy of the Blair/Brown era. New pieces of the puzzle continue to come to light, causing fresh, if diminishing, embarrassment to those involved, as well as revealing hidden little 'extras' along the way. The Security Files is a bit late pushing this one out but if you're not familiar with it, it's worth a quick read.

One of the British Government's key pieces of evidence against Saddam Hussein was a weapons dossier presented in September 2002. It contained the now infamous claim that the Iraqi leader needed just 45 minutes to launch an attack using weapons of mass destruction. The Government said the dossier was based on the collective assessment of the intelligence agencies.

This week saw the publication of the first draft of that dossier. Though it did not contain the 45-minute claim, it does bear a close resemblance to the final version. It was written by the then chief information officer at the Foreign Office, John Williams, leading to renewed claims that the case for war was based more on the work of spin doctors than of spooks.

The first draft was released complete with hand-written comments in the margin. These were made by an unnamed FCO official. The Guardian newspaper on Thursday reported that one of those comments, a one-word comment in fact, had been removed from the published draft. That word was "Israel" and it was a query to the assertion that "no other country [apart from Iraq] has flouted the United Nations' authority so brazenly in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction."

Upsetting Israel by mentioning its nuclear weapons programme, or (implicitly) comparing it, on a single issue, to Saddam Hussein's Iraq, clearly remains a taboo subject for the Foreign Office. No matter that it's twenty years since the Sunday Times first published its scoop on Israeli nukes, or even that it's over a year since Ehud Olmert's Freudian slip on German TV, when he appeared to admit Israel's nuclear capability, the relationship is just too sensitive to withstand comment by flippant Brit officials.

Fortunately, the UK either cares less about, or is perhaps more confident in, its relationship with two other of its allies. Against the claim that "no other country [apart from Iraq] has twice launched wars of aggression against neighbours" is written "Germany?" and "US: Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico." These comments were not withheld from publication.

"How Do You Cut Them With a Knife? Show Me."

2008-02-18T16:40:00.007-05:00

It’s been months since I first heard those chilling words uttered in court. It was pre-trial evidence presented against Parviz Khan and we were forbidden from reporting it. And then this afternoon, there it was again, that horrifying conversation that actually took place between a father and son.

Police say Parviz Khan, a British born father of three, was a committed and violent fanatic, the kind of extremist who even groomed his own children for terror. After bugging his home in Birmingham, England for months, police got a guilty plea out of Khan and he has now been sentenced to life for masterminding a plot to kidnap and behead a British Muslim soldier.

But it's the details of his conversations with his children that astound me:

Khan: “How do you cut them with a knife? Show me.” “Like this, Good.”

Prosecutors say Khan was coaching his child on how to behead 'traitors'. In another exchange with his five year old son he taunts:

Khan: “Who do you love?”

Child: “I love Sheikh Osama Bin Laden”

Khan: “Who do you kill?”

Child: “American Kill”

Khan: “Who else?”

Child: “Bush I kill” “Blair Kill”

Khan was born and raised in Britain but police say he adopted his extreme views on visits to Pakistan. In any context, it is difficult to comprehend how a person could dedicate his life to such violence. But over and over, those in the Muslim community tell us we must try to understand the anger of a terrorist, and where and how it is nurtured. Without that insight, they tell us, government, police and community leaders will be unable to stop criminals like Khan from poisoning the families to which they belong, the neighbourhoods in which they live and the mosques in which they pray.

Thoughts?

Click here to watch my report

From CNN’s International Security Correspondent, Paula Newton

Values and War - A New Paper Pulls No Punches

2008-02-15T05:56:00.008-05:00

Multiculturalism in Britain takes a fresh beating today with the publication of a paper titled "Risk, Threat and Security: The Case of the United Kingdom." It's published by the security think-tank, the Royal United Services Institute, and you can read it here.

The paper contends that Britain suffers from a confused sense of its own identity, and says this lack of confidence means it presents itself as a target for what the authors call Britain's "Islamist terrorist enemy." Though the piece makes no mention of it, the recent suggestions by the Archbishop of Canterbury, that the adoption in Britain of some aspects of sharia law "seem inevitable," would presumably be seen as further evidence of this confusion.

The paper goes on to suggest that the current era - characterised, it says, by social fragmentation, a shared sense that another (bigger) 9/11 is inevitable, and confusion over how to face this threat - resembles the years leading up to the First World War. This is an unambiguous analogy and one intended to provoke a response from Government that it supports the same idea of uncontested British values.

Let us know what you think.

THIRD EYE: British 'regret' after airport arrests

2008-02-08T08:19:00.000-05:00

The informant who appears to have helped police bust a plot targeting the public transportation network in Barcelona is also reported to have told investigators that the alleged cell planned other attacks elsewhere in Europe. Among the countries reportedly named was Britain. That piece of information appears to have led to an incident at London’s Gatwick airport on the evening of January 22. Four days after the original swoop in Spain, and following a tip-off from Spanish authorities, a group of six Pakistani men were detained after arriving on a flight from Barcelona.

The men were met at the airport by officers from the Met’s Counterterrorism Command, who took them to Paddington Green police station in central London where they were formally arrested and questioned. A source told Third Eye the men were unable to persuade police they had a legitimate reason for visiting Britain; police were also apparently uneasy about the fact the men were planning to stay only one day in Britain and did not appear to have any accommodation booked. Even so, at just after half past four the following afternoon all six were “de-arrested” and put on a plane to Pakistan.

Fast forward five days to a meeting at 10 Downing Street between Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf. Occupying an unscheduled place on the agenda was how the brother and the son of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, along with four of their friends, came to be arrested under Britain’s anti-terror laws. The Web site of the British High Commission in Islamabad makes no attempt to hide the FCO's embarrassment. The British Government “deeply regrets the incident,” it says, adding that the men are free to return to the UK “at any time.”

According to Pakistani news reports, the former premier’s brother, Wajahat Hussain, had travelled to Europe as part of President Musharraf’s entourage. His role, according to reports, was to arrange receptions in Musharraf’s honour in the cities the President was visiting. While Barcelona was not a stop on the Musharraf tour it was selected, apparently, by Wajahat Hussain and his colleagues as a good place for a spot of shopping.

Amid accusations in Pakistan of British “Islamophobia” and suggestions of possible legal action, the obvious question, of course, is how did this whole incident come to pass? A senior British official quoted on the High Commission Web site says simply that police “acted on the basis of information that proved subsequently to be inaccurate.” There are, no doubt, theories around that offer more detail. But it seems safe at least to offer one thought: the incident hasn't exactly helped the relationship between Britain and one of its most important counterterrorism partners, Pakistan.

U.S. Annual Threat Assessment or 'Groundhog Day'

2008-02-07T09:41:00.000-05:00

Let me outline some relevant quotes from the CIA's Annual Threat Assessment, always a February ritual on Capitol Hill:

"Osama bin Laden and his global network of lieutenants and associates remain the most immediate and serious threat."

Iran has shown a "willingness to use terrorism to pursue strategic foreign policy agendas…"

In Afghanistan, the "chaos here is providing an incubator for narcotics traffickers and militant Islamic groups."

In Pakistan, "Musharraf's domestic popularity has been threatened by a series of unpopular policies that he promulgated last year. At the same time, he is being forced to contend with increasingly active Islamist extremists."

The Internet enables "terrorists to raise money, spread their dogma, find recruits and plan operations far afield," and "acquire information and capabilities for chemical, biological, radiological and even nuclear attacks."

Does any of this sound familiar? It should, they are direct quotes taken from the threat assessment as released on February 7th, 2001, a full 7 months before the U.S. 'homeland' was attacked. All of it was practically rewritten for the 2008 U.S. Threat Assessment.

The highlights of the 2008 Threat Assessment, as delivered before a U.S. Senate committee on Tuesday, are depressingly void of detail or anything that approaches real insight into the virulent threat now faced by the U.S. and its Western allies.

Skepticism is a good thing, cynicism is not. Unfortunately I confess to feeling much of both as I listened to what the best minds in the U.S. intelligence community had to offer on the state of the threat.

They seem unwilling to share any of their material "intelligence," the kind that would have potentially tipped off a few suspecting citizens as mass terror plots have unfolded around the world in the last decade. The intelligence community would doubtless argue that to do so would compromise operations and compromise important individuals. I would argue that without real and specific information to enhance their threat assessment, the entire exercise is essentially meaningless, as the 2001 assessment so tragically proved.

From CNN's Paula Newton