DTN News - ISLAMIC MILITANTS: A Hezbollah Threat In Thailand?

Asia News Report: DTN News - ISLAMIC MILITANTS: A Hezbollah Threat In Thailand?

Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources Stratfor  

 (NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - January 19, 2012:  On Jan. 12, Thai authorities arrested a man they say was a member of the Lebanon-based Shiite militant group Hezbollah who was plotting an attack in Bangkok. In uncovering the plot, Thai police cite cooperation with the United States and Israel going back to December 2011. Bangkok is indeed a target-rich environment with a history of terrorist attacks, but today Hezbollah and other militant and criminal groups rely on the city as more of a business hub than anything else. If Hezbollah or some other transnational militant group were to carry out an attack in the city, it would have to be for a compelling reason that outweighed the costs.

The suspect was identified as Atris Hussein, who was born in Lebanon but acquired Swedish citizenship and a passport after marrying a Swedish woman in 1996. Hussein was arrested on immigration charges as he was trying to board a plane at Suvarnabhumi airport, Bangkok's main international airport. Police said another suspect is still at large and possibly already out of the country. Hussein's arrest on Jan. 12 was followed by a statement the next day from the U.S. Embassy warning U.S. citizens in Bangkok of the potential foreign terrorist threat in the country and encouraging them to avoid tourist areas. Other countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and Israel, issued similar warnings. Thai police have responded by increasing security in tourist areas like Bangkok's Khao San Road and the island of Phuket.

Then, on Jan. 16, some 200 Thai police officers searched a three-story commercial building in a town along the coast 32 kilometers (about 20 miles) southwest of Bangkok. Information on the location and contents of the building was said to have been provided by Hussein after two days in custody. On the second floor of the building, officers found 4,380 kilograms (about 10,000 pounds) of urea-based fertilizer and 38 liters (about 10 gallons) of liquid ammonium nitrate -- enough materials to construct several truck bombs comparable to the one detonated at the Marriott hotel in Islamabad in 2008. Urea fertilizer can be used to manufacture the improvised explosive mixture urea nitrate, which was the main charge used in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The compound is also frequently used in improvised explosive devices in Iraq and to some extent in Afghanistan. On the ground floor of the same building, police found reams of printing paper and 400 electric table fans in cardboard boxes.

The following day, a Bangkok court charged Hussein with illegal possession of explosive materials. As in many other countries, a permit is required for handling such large amounts of fertilizer in Thailand.

Since Hussein's arrest and the police raid, a flurry of statements from Thai authorities have given contradictory accounts of what happened. Gen. Yuthasak Sasiprapha, Thailand's defense minister, seemed comfortable connecting the U.S. and Israeli warnings to the arrest and seizure, stating that Hussein and other conspirators were linked to Hezbollah and had chosen Bangkok as part of a plan to retaliate against Israel. The general speculated that the Israeli Embassy, synagogues, tour companies and kosher restaurants could be targeted.

The defense minister's speculations are logical. In 2010, Thailand received 120,000 Jewish tourists, and Bangkok itself has a large Jewish community, complete with a Chabad house (a Jewish cultural center and one of the targets in the 2008 Mumbai attacks). According to its website, the Israeli Embassy is located in a commercial office building with (from what we can tell from photographs) relatively little perimeter security. Hundreds of thousands of Americans also visit Thailand each year. At the same time, the United States and Israel are engaged in a covert war with Iran that has most recently seen the assassination of an Iranian scientist allegedly involved in the country's nuclear program. Since Hezbollah has been considered a proxy of Iran, the United States and Israel have long anticipated reprisal attacks from Iran via Hezbollah against U.S. or Israeli targets around the world.

While there are certainly plenty of U.S., Jewish and Israeli targets in Thailand in general and Bangkok in particular, other officials have given different accounts of the alleged plot that add more nuance. According to National Police Chief Priewpan Damapong, Hussein insisted that the materials seized were not intended for attacks in Thailand but were going to be transported to a yet-to-be-named third country (a Stratfor source has cited the Philippines as a logical destination). He also allegedly told authorities that, although he was a member of Hezbollah, he was not a member of the group's militant arm. A Hezbollah official in Beirut, Ghaleb Abu Zainab, told the Lebanese Broadcasting Corp. that Hussein was not a Hezbollah member, while Stratfor sources have told us that he was. Our sources also have confirmed Hussein's reported confession to police that he was on the business side of things -- likely involved in procurement and logistics -- rather than the militant side, which involves such things as bombmaking or operational planning. As a Swedish passport holder, Hussein would have much more access to business connections, so it makes sense that Hezbollah would want to compartmentalize his skills.

Most other official statements since Gen. Sasiprapha's have focused on softening the threat and mitigating the damage done to Thailand's tourism industry. Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has called on the United States to revoke its warning, saying it will damage the country if it is prolonged. Hence, it is not surprising that tidbits released from Hussein's purported interrogation have moved the spotlight away from the domestic threat and focused more on targets abroad.

The historical record shows ample precedent for attacks by foreign extremists in Bangkok. In 1972, members of Black September took over the Israeli Embassy in Bangkok and held diplomats hostage there for 18 hours. In 1988, Hezbollah gunmen hijacked Kuwait Airways Flight 422, which was departing Bangkok for Kuwait City, in an effort to coerce the Kuwaiti government to release the "al-Dawa 17," a group of Shiite militants being held in Kuwait. And in 1994, a truck laden with explosives was en route to attack either the U.S. or Israeli Embassy (the investigation did not yield conclusive results) when a traffic accident disrupted the plot. Bangkok has long been on the map for terrorist operational planners.

During the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, Hezbollah and other groups conducted dozens of attacks targeting Jews, Israel and Israel's allies around the world. However, over the past decade, Hezbollah has become a more serious political party in Lebanon, and while its international network is still in place, its activities are increasingly focusing on illicit business ventures rather than terrorist attacks. The shell corporations and drug-smuggling networks that for years provided the means to fund ideological terrorist operations have, in many ways, become the end itself. Hezbollah members who have grown rich off the international network are more interested in spending the cash from the network and building up political patronage at home than in provoking powerful enemies abroad. For example, Bangkok is a hub for acquiring counterfeit documents, which are a lucrative commodity around the world and part of Hezbollah's criminal enterprise. Conducting an attack in Bangkok would likely disrupt a node in the network and ultimately affect the group's bottom line.

Thus, Hezbollah's profile and set of interests support Hussein's reported claims that the bombmaking materials that police found were being moved out of the country and were not intended for use in Bangkok or other tourist locations in Thailand.

Other details from the case support this scenario. The fertilizer was to be hidden in the 400 table fan boxes found in the same building, a move conducive to smuggling the fertilizer, not constructing explosive devices. The sheer amount of fertilizer (nearly 5 tons) is a wholesale amount. The largest vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs) in recent history have contained about a ton of fertilizer. The device used in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing consisted of about 1,300 pounds of urea nitrate. Constructing and delivering bombs larger than that tends to create technical and logistical hitches. It is much more likely that such a large amount of fertilizer would be meant for multiple smaller or medium-sized devices.

While urea-based fertilizer and ammonium nitrate are key ingredients for the main charge of a VBIED, many more materials are required to make it a viable device, including nitric acid, which must be mixed with urea-based fertilizer to make urea nitrate. (Urea nitrate is highly corrosive and has typically been mixed and held in plastic industrial chemical drums. While cardboard boxes would be fine for holding the urea-based fertilizer, they certainly would not be heavy-duty enough to contain the urea nitrate mixture.) In the Bangkok case, there has been no mention of other important bombmaking components such as fuses, timing mechanisms or detonating charges or of a competent bombmaker to put it all together.

In other words, while some of the materials to make a bomb were present in the commercial building that police raided, there was no viable device there. Nor has there been any mention of weapons such as rifles, handguns or grenades, which are often (although certainly not always) involved in terrorist attacks. Some media sources alleged that Hussein was plotting a "Mumbai-like" attack, which would have required a stash of automatic rifles, ordnance, communication devices and other tactical tools that have yet to surface.

Just as Bangkok is an attractive business hub in Southeast Asia for legitimate businessmen, it is also an attractive hub for illicit businessmen. In 2008, Thai police arrested Russian arms smuggler Viktor Bout after agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, posing as members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia guerrilla group trying to negotiate a deal to buy weapons, incriminated Bout during a meeting in Bangkok. It appears that Hussein's role in this case would have been an administrative one similar to Bout's: sourcing the fertilizer, finding a place to stockpile it and concealing it in innocent-looking fan boxes. This would not make him any less guilty of assisting a militant group, but it would deflate the theory that Hezbollah was plotting to use this material in an immediate attack in Bangkok.

This is not to say that Hezbollah or some other militant group will not conduct an attack in Bangkok in the future. But it would take a lot to convince group leaders that the financial pain of an attack in the city would be worth the ideological gain. And the recent alleged plot should remind investigators and policymakers to remember the financial bottom line as well as the ideological bottom line when assessing future terrorist threats.

*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources Stratfor

*Speaking Image - Creation of DTN News ~ Defense Technology News 

*This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News Contact:dtnnews@ymail.com 

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DTN News - END OF GADDAFI ERA IN LIBYA: The Capture Of Gaddafi's Son Saif al-Islam

Asia News Report: DTN News - END OF GADDAFI ERA IN LIBYA: The Capture Of Gaddafi's Son Saif al-Islam

Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources this report is exclusive of Reuters - By Marie-Louise Gumuchian OBARI, Libya | Sun Nov 20, 2011 - Reuters

(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - November 21, 2011: The chic black sweater and jeans were gone. So too the combat khaki T-shirt of his televised last stand in Tripoli. Designer stubble had become bushy black beard after months on the run.

But the rimless glasses, framing those piercing eyes above that straight fine nose, gave him away despite the flowing nomad robes held close across his face.

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, doctor of the London School of Economics, one-time reformer turned scourge of the rebels against his dictator father, was now a prisoner, bundled aboard an old Libyan air force transport plane near the oil-drilling outpost of Obari, deep in the Sahara desert.

The interim government's spokesman billed it as the "final act of the Libyan drama." But there would be no closing soliloquy from the lead player, scion of the dynasty that Muammar Gaddafi, self-styled "king of kings," had once hoped might rule Africa.

A Reuters reporter aboard the flight approached the 39-year-old prisoner as he huddled on a bench at the rear of the growling, Soviet-era Antonov. The man who held court to the world's media in the early months of the Arab Spring was now on a 90-minute flight bound for the town of Zintan near Tripoli.

He sat frowning, silent and seemingly lost in thought for part of the way, nursing his right hand, bandaged around the thumb and two fingers. At other times he chatted calmly with his captors and even posed for a picture.

IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT

Gaddafi's run had come to an end just a few hours earlier, at dead of night on a desert track, as he and a handful of trusted companions tried to thread their way through patrols of former rebel fighters intent on blocking their escape over the border.

"At the beginning he was very scared. He thought we would kill him," said Ahmed Ammar, one of the 15 fighters who captured Gaddafi. The fighters, from Zintan's Khaled bin al-Waleed Brigade, intercepted the fugitives' two 4x4 vehicles 40 miles out in the desert.

"But we talked to him in a friendly way and made him more relaxed and we said, 'We won't hurt you'."

The capture of Saif al-Islam is the latest dramatic chapter in the series of revolts that have swept the Arab world. The first uprising toppled the Ben Ali government in Tunisia early this year.

The upheaval spread to Egypt, forcing out long-time ruler Hosni Mubarak in February; swept Libya, where the capital Tripoli fell to rebels this summer and Muammar Gaddafi died after being beaten and abused by captors last month; and is now threatening the Assad family's four-decade grip on Syria.

Saif al-Islam was the smiling face of Muammar Gaddafi's power structure. He won personal credibility at the highest echelons of international society, especially in London, where he helped tidy up the reputation of Libya via a personal charitable foundation. He threw that reputation away in the uprising, emerging as one of the hardest of hard-liners against the rebels.

This account of his capture and his final month on the run is based on interviews with the younger Gaddafi's captors and the prisoner himself. The scenes of his flight into captivity were witnessed by the Reuters reporter and a Reuters cameraman and photographer who were also aboard the plane.

FACING DEATH PENALTY

Caught exactly a month after his father met a violent end, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi is wanted by the International Criminal Court at The Hague on charges of crimes against humanity - specifically for allegedly ordering the killing of unarmed protesters last spring. Libya's interim leaders want him to stand trial at home and say they won't extradite him; the justice minister said he faces the death penalty.

His attempt to flee began on October 19, under NATO fire from the tribal bastion of Bani Walid, 100 miles from the capital. Ammar and his fellow fighters said they believed he had been hiding since then in the desolate tracts of the mountainous Brak al-Shati region.

Aides who were captured at Bani Walid said Saif al-Islam's convoy had been hit by a NATO air strike in a place nearby called Wadi Zamzam - "Holy Water River." Since then, there had been speculation that nomadic tribesmen once lionised by his father might have been working to spirit him across Libya's southern borders - perhaps, like his surviving brothers, sister and mother, into Niger or Algeria.

He did not get that far. Obari is a good 200 miles from either. But his captors believe he was headed for Niger, once a beneficiary of Muammar Gaddafi's oil-fueled largesse, which has granted asylum to Saif al-Islam's brother Saadi.

"WHO ARE YOU?"

Ammar said his unit, scouring the desert for weeks, received a tip-off that a small group of Gaddafi loyalists - they did not know who - would be heading on a certain route toward Obari. Lying in wait, they spotted two all-terrain vehicles grinding through the darkness.

"We fired in the air and into the ground in front of them," Ammar said. The small convoy pulled up, perhaps hoping to brazen it out.

"Who are you?" al-Ajami Ali al-Atari, the leader of the squad, demanded to know of the man he took to be the main passenger in the group.

"Abdelsalam," came the reply. "I am a camel herder."

It's a common enough name, though it means "servant of peace" in Arabic; Saif al-Islam's real name means "Sword of Islam."

Atari, sizing the man up, took Ammar aside and whispered: "I think that's Saif."

Turning back to the car, a Toyota Land cruiser of a type favoured on these rugged desert tracks, Ammar said: "I know who you are. I know you."

Speaking to journalists on Sunday, Atari said that, in the darkness, "Saif jumped out and tried to take cover behind the car." He then tried to conceal himself under a bundle of clothes, covering it with sand.

"But when we told him to surrender he did," Atari said. "The operation was simple and without any resistance or casualties. We treated Saif al-Islam properly. No one laid a finger on him because we are men of honor."

One of Gaddafi's companions was wounded in the leg by a ricochet when the snatch-squad fired into the ground, he said, but, aboard the plane, the injury did not appear too serious.

CASH AND KALASHNIKOVS

The game was up. The militiamen retrieved several Kalashnikov rifles, a hand grenade and, one of the Zintani fighters said, some $4,000 (2,531.97 pounds) in cash from the vehicles, as well as a satellite telephone.

It was a tiny haul from a man whose father commanded one of the best-equipped armies in Africa and who is suspected by many of holding the keys - in his head - to billions stolen from the Libyan state and stashed in secret bank accounts abroad.

"He didn't say anything," Ammar said. "He was very scared and then eventually he asked where we are from, and we said we are Libyans. He asked from which city and we said Zintan."

Zintan sits far from the spot of Gaddafi's capture in the Western, or Nafusa, Mountains, just a couple of hours drive south of the capital. The people of Zintan put together an effective militia in the uprising, and they are seeking to parlay their military prowess into political clout as new leaders in Tripoli try to form a government.

At Obari, a fly-speck of a place dominated by the oil operations of a Spanish company, Zintan fighters have extended their writ since the war deep into traditionally pro-Gaddafi country peopled by Tuaregs, nomadic tribes who recognize no borders.

The Zintanis are also a force in the capital. On Saturday morning, the Antonov flew to Obari from Tripoli, bearing the new tricolour flag of "Free Libya" - and piloted by a former air force colonel turned Zintan rebel. Just a few minutes after it landed, the purpose of the flight became clear.

FLIGHT TO CAPTIVITY

Five prisoners, escorted by about 10 fighters in an array of desert camouflage, piled aboard, ranging themselves on benches along the sides of the spartan hold of the Antonov An-32, which is designed to carry four dozen paratroopers.

Two of the men were handcuffed together. A third had his arms cuffed in front of him. A dozen or so bulky black bags were carried in, and some thin mattresses - the scant belongings of the prisoners, their captors said.

All wore casual, modern dress - with the exception of Saif al-Islam.

His brown robe, turban and face scarf, open sandals on his feet, were typical of the Tuaregs of the region. The choice of costume offered concealment for a man more commonly seen in sharp suits and smart casual wear, and a visual echo of his late father's penchant for dressing up.

As they shuffled on the benches, rifle butts scraping on the metal floor, one of the guards said: "He is afraid now."

The pilot, though, said that he had had a paternal word with the 39-year-old captive and put him at ease before he was brought on board.

"LIKE A SMALL CHILD"

"I spoke to him like he was a small child," said Abdullah al-Mehdi, a diminutive, heavily moustachioed ball of energy in a green jumpsuit. His ambition - typical of Zintanis in these anarchic days in Libya - is to start up a whole new air force.

"I told him he would not be beaten and he wouldn't be hurt and I gave my word," he said.

He and the other two crew in the cockpit chain-smoked their way through the flight, navigating over the barren wastes the old-fashioned way, on analog instruments, with just occasional help from a new GPS device clamped awkwardly to the windshield.

The howl of the propellers was numbing, and there was little conversation during the flight.

Saif al-Islam by turns stared ahead or turned back to crane his neck out at the land he once was in line to rule. Every so often, holding his scarf across his mouth Tuareg-fashion, he would say a few words to a guard.

The calm was in stark contrast to the frenzy that greeted the capture of Muammar Gaddafi on October 20 as he tried to flee the siege of his hometown of Sirte, on the Mediterranean coast.

Fighters from the long embattled city of Misrata filmed themselves on cellphones hammering the fallen leader, howling for revenge and inflicting a series of indignities on him before his body was displayed to crowds of sightseers for several days.

SURROUNDED

The reporter caught Saif al-Islam's eye a few times, but on each occasion he looked away. At one point he asked for water, and a bottle from the journalist's pack was passed up to him. The other prisoners, too, did not want to speak.

After the plane bumped down on the tarmac in the mountains at Zintan, it was surrounded within minutes by hundreds of people - some cheering, some clearly angry, many shouting the rebels' Islamic battle cry, "Allahu Akbar!" (God is Greatest).

Some held up cellphones to the few windows in the cargo hold, hoping to catch a snap of the most wanted man in Libya. At one point others were rattling the catches of the doors, intent it seemed on storming inside.

While his companions, clearly nervous, huddled together, Saif al-Islam seemed calm. He sat back and waited. The plane rocked gently as crowds clambered over the wings. The prisoners talked a little to each other and the guards.

Asked about The Hague court's statement that he was in touch through intermediaries about turning himself in to the international judges - who cannot impose the death penalty - he seemed to take offence: "It's all lies. I've never been in touch with them."

After more than an hour, the fighters decided they could get the other four captives off. They were helped out of the front door. Gaddafi remained where he was, on his own at the back, silent and aloof.

INJURED HAND

A further hour went by, the crowds still idling on the runway. The guards suggested it was time for the journalists to leave.

Moving back to speak to the solitary Gaddafi, the reporter asked, in English: "Are you OK?"

"Yes," he replied, looking up.

The reporter pointed to his injured hand. He said simply: "Air force, air force."

"NATO?"

"Yes. One month ago."

The reporter moved past him to the aircraft steps. Gaddafi looked up and, without a word, briefly took her hand.

Later, television footage showed him being helped off the plane as people among the crowd on the tarmac tried to slap him. His captors shoved him into a car and sped off for a hiding place somewhere in town.

(Additional reporting by Mahmoud al-Farjani in Obari and Oliver Holmes and Taha Zargoun in Zintan; Writing by Alastair Macdonald in Tripoli; Editing by Michael Williams)

*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources

this report is exclusive of Reuters - By Marie-Louise Gumuchian OBARI, Libya | Sun Nov 20, 2011 - Reuters

*Speaking Image - Creation of DTN News ~ Defense Technology News

*This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News

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