Spooks are struggling in Afghanistan

[IndianaGreen]

Spooks are struggling in Afghanistan

The allied intelligence effort has not covered itself in glory of late, but there are signs of a smarter, grassroots network developing

Simon Tisdall
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 5 January 2010 14.18 GMT

American experts in the field make two main points about intelligence gathering in Afghanistan. One is that in a complex and wholly alien cultural, ethnic and linguistic environment, such work is extremely difficult. Their other point is that the US and its allies must do much better if they are to have any chance of "winning" the Afghan campaign.

Intelligence weaknesses identified in this week's report for the Centre for a New American Security by Major General Michael Flynn and others will come as no surprise to operatives on the ground. Flynn's criticism that too much attention has focused on insurgents and not enough on understanding, protecting and persuading local people and leaders broadly echoes sentiments expressed by the new Afghan commander, General Stanley McChrystal.

Recent failures have lent urgency to fixing the problem. The year just ended was the Taliban's most successful since the 2001 invasion. The insurgents inflicted record casualties on allied forces, extended their influence into relatively settled provinces such as Kunduz, and effectively forced Barack Obama to sack his top commander and order a strategic review.

The political fiasco that followed fraud-tainted 2009 presidential elections, exacerbated by low voter turnout, was apparently not foreseen, and certainly not forestalled, by American intelligence – a lapse that recalled the US failure to foresee Hamas's election victory in Palestine in 2006. At the sharp end of the cloak and dagger scale, the CIA suffered a vicious blow when an alleged triple agent penetrated a forward operating base in Khost and killed seven operatives.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/05/spooks-struggling-afghanistan-allied-intelligence

[Chef Eric]

1. Who could've guessed that a war in Afghanistan would turn into a quagmire?

Anybody with half a functioning brain, that's who. Anybody who ever paid attention to the news in the 80s, when the warlords in Afghanistan humiliated the Soviet Army.

[bemildred]

2. "Centre for a New American Security"

Hmmm. Sounds familiar somehow, can't quite place it ...
:sarcasm:

[IndianaGreen]

5. About the Center for a New American Security

The mission of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) is to develop strong, pragmatic, and principled national security and defense policies that promote and protect American interests and values. Building on the expertise and experience of its staff and advisors, CNAS aims to engage policymakers, experts and the public with innovative fact-based research, ideas, and analysis to shape and elevate the national security debate. A key part of our mission is to help inform and prepare the national security leaders of today and tomorrow.

CNAS is located in Washington, DC, and was established in February 2007 by Co-founders Kurt Campbell and Michele Flournoy. CNAS is a 501c3 tax-exempt nonprofit organization. Its research is nonpartisan; CNAS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the authors.

Center for a New American Security
1301 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Suite 403
Washington, DC 20004

http://www.cnas.org/files/documents/publications/AfghanIntel_Flynn_Jan2010_code507_voices.pdf

[bemildred]

6. Well. I'm convinced, they are "strong, pragmatic, and principled", they must be OK.

:sarcasm:

Have some more of their bullshit:

Yemen's coming disaster


The Nigerian Islamist who allegedly attempted to detonate a bomb on a Christmas Day flight to Detroit, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, has brought Yemen once again into the spotlight as a breeding ground for terrorists. Abdulmutallab is thought to have trained with Yemen's Al Qaeda affiliate, and the group has claimed credit for the failed attack.

Yemen has long been a place of concern. Last month, before the attempted airliner bombing, the United States facilitated a missile attack against two suspected Al Qaeda strongholds in Yemen. And over the weekend, the U.S. Embassy in Yemen's capital city of Sana was closed because of security concerns.

But terrorism is just one of the threats the deteriorating situation in Yemen poses to U.S. interests.

Over the last few years, Yemen has been hurtling toward a disaster that could dramatically harm the interests of both the United States and its regional partners. An active insurgency in the north, a separatist movement in the south and a resurgent Al Qaeda franchise inside its borders present the Yemeni government with difficult short-term challenges. And managing the country's longer-term problems is likely to prove even tougher.

---

Richard Fontaine is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and traveled to Yemen with a Senate delegation in August. Andrew Exum is a fellow at the center.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-fontaineexum5-2010jan05,0,5758223.story

You got that: "Yemen has long been a place of concern."

[IndianaGreen]

7. I think they need to be put on the 'Watch List'

Too much of a cozy relationship between the military and think tanks under contract to Pentagon.

A banned DUer that you might remember is working for one of those think tanks, a neoliberal one at that: Jiacinto.

[bemildred]

8. Same old shit in a new plastic wrapper. nt

[Peace Patriot]

3. He's now a "triple agent"? Anybody know who the third party is, he was supposedly

working for (if he exists)? (i.e., the person whom they claim blew up the seven contractors--they were not CIA agents--after they invited him to a recruiting session and didn't frisk him).

This story gets more bizarre every day. First, the disclosure itself. Since when does the government announce that CIA agents have been killed in the field? Then we find out, not CIA agents--"subcontractors." Then we find out they had no security procedures for recruitment meetings, or didn't implement them. Then they said he was some local putz--a nobody. Now they're saying he was some well-known Jordanian doctor, with ties to Al Q. Jordanian intelligence had him in custody, and is claiming he was released because he had been rehabbed. Then they said he was a double agent. Now they're saying he was a triple agent.

I'm going to go finish reading the Guardian article and see if there's anything else new in it--like maybe what entities the "triple agent" was working for.

[Peace Patriot]

4. I read the article. Not very useful. Same old "heard and minds" bullshit.

"We've got to burn that village to save it."

Deja vu.

---------------------------

I think something smells to high heaven in the blowup of the seven CIA personnel. I'm not sure what I'm smelling. Outsourcing of the CIA? Civilians running assassination squads in Afghanistan? Lack of accountability? War profiteering? Drug running?

[Peace Patriot]

9. Boy, the stories and facts about this event are all over the map.

Various stories:
7 CIA agents
or 3 or 4 CIA contractors, the rest agents --killed
& six wounded
CIA base chief killed was a woman

guy wearing an Afghan uniform - no Jordanian in early stories
locals said they didn't know the CIA was there, but base was very hard to get into

---------------------

"Former CIA officials said that some of those killed worked for the CIA's paramilitary branch, known as the Special Activities Division." --L.A. Times 1/1/10

"...the CIA was deploying spies, analysts and paramilitary operatives, and that the agency's station in Afghanistan would become one of the largest in agency history."--L.A. Times 1/1/10
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghan-base-attack1-2010jan01,0,6436365.story

--

More recent:

A Jordanian intelligence official was killed also--by the Jordanian Al Q-connected doctor who had been in Jordanian custody for several months

7 CIA officers killed and the Jordanian intelligence agent

Jordanian intel agent was the one who brought the suicide bomber to the base

4 CIA officers (inclu chief), 3 contractors, the Jordanian intel agent,--killed--6 employees wounded

Bomber had joined the Afghan army as cover

CIA base was into assassination one way or another (paramilitaries? drones?)

----------

"Jordanian double agent killed CIA officers in Khost

A Jordanian double agent killed seven CIA officers as well as a Jordanian intelligence officer at the U.S. outpost in Khost province, Afghanistan, last week, NBC reports.

The asset, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, was a doctor from the hometown of slain Jordanian Al Qaeda operative Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, who had been arrested by Jordanian authorities last year, and they thought, reformed. Al-Balawi reportedly told his Jordanian intelligence handler that he had information he had to give to the CIA related to Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian-born Al Qaeda deputy to Osama bin Laden... --Politico 1/4/10

------------------

"WASHINGTON -- The suicide bomber who killed seven Central Intelligence Agency employees and contractors and a Jordanian intelligence officer was a double agent the CIA had recruited to provide intelligence on senior al Qaeda leadership, according to current and former U.S. officials and an Afghan security official.

"The officials said the bomber was a Jordanian doctor likely affiliated and working with al Qaeda.

"The Afghan security official identified the bomber as Hammam Khalil Abu Mallal al-Balawi, who is also known as Abu Dujana al-Khurasani. The Pakistani Taliban also claimed that Mr. al-Balawi was the bomber, Arabic-language Web sites reported Monday.

"Mr. al-Balawi was brought to the CIA's base in Khost Province by the Jordanian intelligence official, Sharif Ali bin Zeid, who was working with the CIA, according to the Afghan security official.

"The bomber appears to have been invited to an operational planning meeting on al Qaeda, a former senior U.S. intelligence official said. 'It looks like an al Qaeda double agent,' the former official said. 'It's very sophisticated for a terrorist group that's supposedly on the run.'

"The blast on Dec. 30 killed four CIA officers, including the Khost base chief; three CIA contractors; and Mr. bin Zeid, officials said. Six CIA employees were wounded in the attack." --WSJ 1/6/10

-------------------------------


And this one has a different slant:

---


"LAHORE: The US authorities have sought from the Pakistani government an early arrest and extradition of commander Ilyas Kashmiri, the fugitive chief of the Azad Kashmir chapter of the pro-Kashmir Jihadi group, Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HuJI).

"Kashmiri is being accused of coordinating a suicide attack on the CIA Forward Operating Base of Chapman in the Khost province of Afghanistan on December 31, 2009, which killed seven CIA officers and injured six others.

"It was the deadliest single day for the American intelligence agency since eight CIA officers were killed in the 1983 bombing of the American Embassy in Beirut. Interestingly, a spokesman for the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) had claimed responsibility for targeting the CIA base in Khost, which uses a combination of high-tech satellite technology and human intelligence gathering for carrying out US drone strikes and covert operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"The TTP spokesman said in his January 1 claim that the TTP had managed to infiltrate the base with the suicide bomber, who was disguised as a soldier of the Afghan National Army.

"According to well-placed diplomatic sources in Islamabad, considered close to the US intelligence sleuths stationed in Pakistan, investigations show that the suicide bombing mission targeting the CIA base in Khost had been planned in the North Waziristan tribal area, which is allegedly sheltering hundreds of the fugitive al-Qaeda and Taliban militants wanted by US intelligence agencies. And the human bomb, which exploded himself at the CIA base in Khost is believed to have been dispatched by Ilyas Kashmiri, the fugitive chief of the HuJI who was reportedly killed in a US drone attack in the North Waziristan area in September 2009 along with Nazimuddin Zalalov, a top al-Qaeda leader. However, Kashmiri resurfaced three weeks later and promised retribution against the United States and its proxies (in his October 13, 2009 interview with a foreign news agency).

"According to the diplomatic sources in Islamabad, the Khost suicide bomber has already been identified by the Americans as Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi -- a Jordanian national -- who was sent to Afghanistan with the specific mission of joining the Afghan National Army so that he could easily penetrate the CIA base to carry out his suicide mission. Having joined the Afghan National Army last year, Humam reportedly approached an American informant in Khost, saying he wanted to give some vital information to the CIA people about the whereabouts of Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri. As the informer (former?), already identified Ali bin Zaid, took Humam to the Khost Forward Operating Base, the later (latter?) detonated his explosive vest he was wearing under his clothes, killing seven CIA officers, including the station chief, and wounding six others." --The News (Pakistan) 1/6/10

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=217152

------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------

Still haven't found anything on "triple agent." Could just mean Al Q, Jordan & U.S.

[Peace Patriot]

10. Just found out two of the dead were Blackwater (Xe) contractors.

Rachel Maddow just reported this.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7402309

Also: http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977971078

----

We've got Blackwater doing assassinations in Afghanistan--and the assassinated victims' colleagues retaliated. That's what it looks like. And that may explain all the oddities about this story. They were trying to cover up that it was a Blackwater operation, not loyal employees of the U.S. government--mercenaries. And their activities likely brought down the boom on the CIA base.

I read somewhere else today that something like 700 Afghan civilians have been killed in these drone hits, which are assassination hits.

We've become Murder, Inc. Somebody today in the U.S. government boasted about "revenge." We're going to take revenge! That means more civilians dead. This is not a war. It's a gang fight.

[sabrina 1]

13. Looks pretty simple. The US uses the murderous

Blackwater mercenaries to carry out assassinations and the families and friends of the victims come back for revenge. Then the US needs to get revenge, uses Drones (drones are so much more civilized than suicide bombers) to kill some more of their people, and on and on it goes.

It looks like Kashmiri is then new Zarqawi who was killed and resurrected so many times, it was hard to keep track. Kashmiri apparently rose from the dead to send the suicide bomber on his mission.

I remember finding an article on Zarqawi right after he was killed for the final time. It revealed a conversation with one of the Generals who said plainly that Zarqawi was more of a fairy tale than anything else. He was a petty thief who was not affiliated with Al Queda, but was useful to justify some of their 'missions'. Killing him, then resurrecting him was not our imagination. Seems they needed a boogie man and if he was dead, their escalated troop levels were harder to justify. I do know though, that in their pursuit of Al Zarqawi, many innocent Iraqis were killed, in one case an entire family, leaving only the grandfather alive.

I don't believe a word we are told anymore. All I know is the US is invading other countries, killing their people, and then whining when they fight back. Sometimes I wonder about the mental state of the people running this country.

[IndianaGreen]

14. US troops will be targets of the people's wrath for the crimes committed by Xe mercenaries

Our troops should call in an air strike on Xe mercenaries and save us all from those murderous assholes.

[avaistheone1]

12. Darth Cheney?

[laststeamtrain]

11. K & R - n/t.