 Concerns are growing in the intelligence community that Somalia could be acting like Yemen in terms of its expanding ability to serve as a training ground for terrorists able to pick up and head out of country to attack other nations. Already one terror-related case involves a man from that troubled African country. The suspect, who was injured by police during his attack earlier this month, was carried into court where he faced attempted murder charges. The 28-year-old Somali man is accused of terrorism. Allegedly carrying a knife and an axe, he broke into the home of a Danish cartoonist whose controversial images of Mohammad led to threats on his life. The attack is believed to be the first documented case of an operative trained by the Al Qaeda-linked group Al Shabaab launching a mission outside of Somalia. Until now, Al Shabaab was seen as a regional player. "They are gaining global presence so to speak, at least getting a global reach, where Somalia can reach out, where Al Shabaab can reach out and conduct an attack. That's troubling," said Rick Nelson at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The Western face of Al Shabaab is an American, Omar Hammami, from Daphne, Ala. In propaganda videos, he goes by the name of Al-Amriki, which simply means "the American." The FBI is investigating the disappearance of two dozen Somali Americans into the Shabaab camps in Somalia. The camps are also drawing recruits form England, Canada and Western Europe. "Al Shabaab controls much of southern Somalia. It has, as I said. apparently set up camps from which they have run at least several hundred foreign fighters. They've introduced and uh, made use of suicide bombings which up until a few years ago were virtually unknown in Somalia," said Mark Bellamy, former U.S. ambassador to Kenya. Al Qaeda is established in the Far East, along the Afghan-Pakistan border, in Iraq, in Yemen, through Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, which claimed responsibility for Flight 253. Al Qaeda is also hooked up in Somalia through Al Shabaab. As for the connection to Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman Al-Zawahiri, some analysts say Al Qaeda in Yemen and Somalia are now taking their lead from the core players. "AQAP and Al Shabaab are ultimately receiving influence and guidance from that senior leadership, and they're going to seek ways to coordinate together," Nelson said. So is the group capable of launching its own attack like the flight on Christmas Day? It’s possible, said Bellamy. "I should add that Somalia is probably not the best location from which to try to stage international jihad, , it's not, it's not connected, it's hard to get to," Bellamy said. FoxNews 
The Yemeni government has vowed to deal with the "menace of al-Qaeda in Yemen" after the group claimed responsibility for a plot to bring down an aircraft bound for the US city of Detroit on Christmas. Saying his government would not authorise or co-operate with any potential US strike on its soil, Abdullah Alsaidi, Yemen's permanent representative to the United Nations, told Al Jazeera that his country "is capable of taking care of its own problems". Alsaidi welcomed co-operation with and assistance from the US "with respect to intelligence information", saying it was necessary to Yemen's battle against al-Qaeda. But he added that "we are not encouraging US attacks, we are saying that Yemen will take care of this problem on its own". On Wednesday, Yemeni security forces raided an alleged al-Qaeda hideout in a western province, sparking a gun battle with fighters. A security official speaking on condition of anonymity said the target was a house owned by an al-Qaeda sympathiser. The official said the owner was arrested, a suspected al-Qaeda member was injured and several fighters who fled were being pursued. Brigadier-General Saleh al-Zawari, Yemen's deputy interior minister, told senior military officials that the interior ministry "will continue tracking down al-Qaeda terrorists and will continue its strikes against the group until it is totally eliminated". Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian passenger, was arrested last Friday on suspicion of trying to bring down the Northwest Airlines aircraft carrying 289 people. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, an offshoot of Osama bin Laden's group based in Yemen, claimed it was behind the attempt. US investigators said Abdulmutallab told them he received training and instructions from al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen. Yemen's government said Abdulmutallab spent two periods in the country, from 2004-2005 and from August to December this year, just before the attempted attack. And Alsaidi told Al Jazeera that Abdulmutallab "was probably in touch with terror cells" in Yemen, although the envoy denied that the explosives from the failed attack came from his country, saying Abdulmutallab "most likely picked them up somewhere else". "I have also heard from other governments that he picked them up in other African countries closer to Nigeria," he said. Abdulmutallab's Yemen connection has drawn attention to al-Qaeda's presence in the country. Before Wednesday's clashes, Yemeni forces backed by US intelligence carried out two major strikes against al-Qaeda hideouts this month, reportedly killing more than 60 fighters. The US has increasingly provided intelligence, surveillance and training to Yemeni forces in the past year, and has provided some firepower, according to a senior US defence official, who requested anonymity. Bryan Whitman, a US defence department spokesman, said Yemen received $67m in training and support under the Pentagon's counterterrorism programme last year, second only to $112m spent in Pakistan. "We are going to work with allies and partners to seek out terrorist activity, al-Qaeda, wherever they operate, plan their operations, seek safe harbour," he said, adding that "this is an effort that is years old now". But US officials downplayed reports that retaliatory strikes in Yemen would be launched. "These reports are inflammatory and do not address the issue," Barbara Bodine, a former US ambassador to Yemen, told Al Jazeera, adding that "we need to understand the size, configuration of the al-Qaeda presence in Yemen". "Any moves would be better done by the Yemen military. Conducting air strikes would not help either, as you would end up with collateral damage. Actions such as these are merely reactionary, but not aimed at solving the problem," she said. Meanwhile, Barack Obama, the US president, has demanded a preliminary report by Thursday on the security lapses in the plane bomb plot. He said the intelligence community should have been able to piece together information that would have raised "red flags" and possibly prevented Abdulmutallab from boarding the airliner. Abdulmutallab had been placed in one broad database but never made it on to more restrictive lists, despite his father's warnings to US embassy officials in Nigeria last month. The failed attack in Detroit was launched almost a year after al-Qaeda's operations in Yemen and Saudi Arabia united to form al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, making Yemen its base. Al Jazeera
 By Charles Krauthammer What a surprise -- that someone who shouts "Allahu Akbar" (the "God is great" jihadist battle cry) as he is shooting up a room of American soldiers might have Islamist motives. It certainly was a surprise to the mainstream media, which spent the weekend after the Fort Hood massacre playing down Nidal Hasan's religious beliefs. "I cringe that he's a Muslim. . . . I think he's probably just a nut case," said Newsweek's Evan Thomas. Some were more adamant. Time's Joe Klein decried "odious attempts by Jewish extremists . . . to argue that the massacre perpetrated by Nidal Hasan was somehow a direct consequence of his Islamic beliefs." While none could match Klein's peculiar cherchez-le-juif motif, the popular story line was of an Army psychiatrist driven over the edge by terrible stories he had heard from soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. They suffered. He listened. He snapped. Really? What about the doctors and nurses, the counselors and physical therapists at Walter Reed Army Medical Center who every day hear and live with the pain and the suffering of returning soldiers? How many of them then picked up a gun and shot 51 innocents? Read more ...Source: The Washington PostH/T: A.E. Evan Thomas
Joe Klein
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 By Dorothy Rabinowitz It can by now come as no surprise that the Fort Hood massacre yielded an instant flow of exculpatory media meditations on the stresses that must have weighed on the killer who mowed down 13 Americans and wounded 29 others. Still, the intense drive to wrap this clear case in a fog of mystery is eminently worthy of notice. The tide of pronouncements and ruminations pointing to every cause for this event other than the one obvious to everyone in the rational world continues apace. Commentators, reporters, psychologists and, indeed, army spokesmen continue to warn portentously, "We don't yet know the motive for the shootings." What a puzzle this piece of vacuity must be to audiences hearing it, some, no doubt, with outrage. To those not terrorized by fear of offending Muslim sensitivities, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's motive was instantly clear: It was an act of terrorism by a man with a record of expressing virulent, anti-American, pro-jihadist sentiments. All were conspicuous signs of danger his Army superiors chose to ignore. What is hard to ignore, now, is the growing derangement on all matters involving terrorism and Muslim sensitivities. Its chief symptoms: a palpitating fear of discomfiting facts and a willingness to discard those facts and embrace the richest possible variety of ludicrous theories as to the motives behind an act of Islamic terrorism. All this we have seen before but never in such naked form. The days following the Fort Hood rampage have told us more than we want to know, perhaps, about the depth and reach of this epidemic. One of the first outbreaks of these fevers, the night of the shootings, featured television's star psychologist, Dr. Phil, who was outraged when fellow panelist and former JAG officer Tom Kenniff observed that he had been listening to a lot of psychobabble and evasions about Maj. Hasan's motives. A shocked Dr. Phil, appalled that the guest had publicly mentioned Maj. Hasan's Islamic identity, went on to present what was, in essence, the case for Maj. Hasan as victim. Victim of deployment, of the Army, of the stresses of a new kind of terrible war unlike any other we have known. Unlike, can he have meant, the kind endured by those lucky Americans who fought and died at Iwo Jima, say, or the Ardennes? It was the same case to be presented, in varying forms, by guest psychologists, the media, and a representative or two from the military, for days on end. The quality and thrust of this argument was best captured by the impassioned Dr. Phil, who asked us to consider, "how far out of touch with reality do you have to be to kill your fellow Americans . . . this is not a well act." And how far out of touch with reality is such a question, one asks in return—not only of Dr. Phil, but of the legions of commentators like him immersed in the labyrinths of motive hunting even as the details of Maj. Hasan's proclivities became ever clearer and more ominous. To kill your fellow Americans—as many as possible, unarmed and in the most helpless of circumstances, while shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is great), requires, of course, only murderous hatred—the sort of mindset that regularly eludes the Dr. Phils of our world as the motive for mass murder of this kind. As the meditations on Maj. Hasan's motives rolled on, "fear of deployment" has served as a major theme—one announced as fact in the headline for the New York Times's front-page story: "Told of War Horror, Gunman Feared Deployment." The authority for this intelligence? The perpetrator's cousin. No story could have better suited that newspaper's ongoing preoccupation with the theme of madness in our fighting men, and the deadly horrors of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, than this story of a victim of war pressures gone berserk. The one fly in the ointment—Maj. Hasan had of course seen no war, and no combat. Still, with a bit of stretching, adherents of Maj. Hasan-as-war-victim theme found a substitute of sorts—namely the fears allegedly provoked in him by his exposure, as an army psychiatrist, to the stories of men who had been deployed. The thesis then: Maj. Hasan's mental stress, provoked by the suffering of Americans who had been in combat, caused him to go out and butcher as many of these soldiers as he could. Let's try putting that one before a jury. By Sunday morning, Gen. George Casey Jr., Army chief of staff, confronted questions put to him by ABC's George Stephanopolous—among them the matter of the complaints about Maj. Hasan's anti-American tirades that were made by fellow students in military classes, as well as other danger signs ignored by officials when they were reported, apparently for fear of offense to a Muslim member of the military. These were speculations, Gen. Casey repeatedly cautioned. We need to be very careful, he explained, "We are a very diverse army." Mr. Stephanopolous then helpfully summarized matters: This case then was either a case of premeditated terror—or the man just snapped. The general was not about to address such questions. He was there to recite the required pieties, and describe the military priorities . . . which are, it appears, a concern above all for the sensitivities of a diverse army, a concern so great as to render even the mention of salient facts out of order, as "speculation.'" "This terrible event," Gen. Casey noted, "would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty." To hear this, and numerous other such pronouncements of recent days, was to be reminded of all those witnesses to the suspicious behavior of the 9/11 hijackers who held their tongues for fear of being charged with discrimination. It has taken Maj. Hasan, and the fantastic efforts to explain away his act of bloody hatred, to bring home how much less capable we are of recognizing the dangers confronting us than we were even before September 11. Source: WSJ - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704402404574525831785724114.html Dr. Phil
George Casey
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A disturbing story line is taking shape in the wake of the Fort Hood massacre. Some are trying to explain suspect Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's motives for reportedly gunning down 13 people in cold blood by ignoring the ideology of hate that sanctified the killings. Instead, we're supposed to seek out the "real reasons." It's the typical victimology: Bemoan the perpetrator's troubles and then sprinkle liberally with pop psychology. Maj. Hasan supposedly felt alienated and oppressed because people did not understand his faith. They discriminated against and taunted him, then they keyed his car. Hearing the horrors of war from the wounded at Walter Reed Army Medical Center disturbed him. Orders to deploy overseas added to the psychological pressure - we might call it pre-traumatic stress disorder. These and other factors reportedly drove Maj. Hasan to do what he is accused of doing. Yes, he is guilty, the argument goes, but doesn't society also share part of the blame? Aren't we all a little guilty? Read more ...Source: The Washington TimesH/T: J.R.
 ISLAMIC militants are within striking distance of Tarbela Dam, one of Pakistan's main sources of water and power, an MP warned yesterday as Hillary Clinton accused the Government of "abdicating to the Taliban". The Taliban are within 100km of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, after seizing control of more towns in the North Western Frontier Province this week, including the provincial administrative headquarters of Buner. Pakistani paramilitary forces have been deployed to protect government buildings and bridges in Buner, a senior official said. The leader of the Jamiat Ulema-I-Islam Islamic party, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, told parliament the Taliban forces could soon be "knocking at the doors of Islamabad". "After occupying Buner, they have reached Kala Dhaka and may also be taking over the water reservoir of the Tarbela Dam," Mr Rehman said. The southern tip of Tarbela - the world's largest earth- and rock-filled dam - is just 50km from Islamabad. The dam provides 30 per cent of the country's hydroelectricity and much of the north's irrigation water. The US has reacted with alarm to the security crisis in its subcontinental ally. US President Barack Obama has dispatched his joint chiefs of staff chairman Mike Mullen to Islamabad for the second time in a fortnight, and has summoned the Pakistan and Afghan presidents to Washington. The march of the Taliban prompted harsh criticism yesterday from the US Secretary of State, Ms Clinton, who told a congressional panel the deteriorating security situation in Pakistan "poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of our country and the world". "The Pakistani Government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists," she said. "We cannot underscore the seriousness of the existential threat posed to the state of Pakistan." Ms Clinton called on Pakistanis to speak out "forcefully" against the policies of their Government, which was ceding "more and more territory to the insurgents, to the Taliban, to al-Qa'ida, to the allies that are in this terrorist syndicate". Pakistan's Government agreed in February to impose sharia law in the country's northwestern Swat Valley and the surrounding Malakand region in exchange for a ceasefire with Taliban forces. President Asif Ali Zardari ratified the agreement last week following unanimous parliamentary support. But on Tuesday, hundreds of armed Taliban entered Buner, a district of more than a million people 100km from Islamabad, setting up checkpoints, occupying mosques and ransacking offices of non-government organisations. Regular courts stopped functioning in Buner yesterday after the Peshawar High Court deemed it too dangerous for officials to function. The move coincided with a deadline set by the militants for the Government to abolish the regular courts. A Taliban commander said they would set up sharia courts in Buner - as they have done in Swat - to end a "sense of deprivation", but would not interfere with police work. The Pakistani Government yesterday refused to rule out using force against the Taliban. Source: The Australian
 By Erick Stakelbeck Terms like "radical Islamist" and "jihadist" have dominated headlines and speeches since 9/11, with the Bush administration using them frequently to describe America's enemies. But that language may be about to change. Although Al-Qaeda and other terrorists identify themselves as jihadists -- holy warriors--some feel we make a mistake by calling them what they call themselves. "It makes sense why they would want to be called it. It makes no sense why we would want to call them that," said Peter Singer, a national security expert with the Brookings Institution in Washington. Singer co-wrote a recent New York Times op-ed that argues against the use of words like "jihadist" to describe Islamic terrorists. "This feeds into their idea that this is a religious war, and it's not.," he said. "They want it to be a war of religions, but we have said very clearly that this is not a war on Islam, it's not Christianity vs. Islam in some way. It's about radicals, it's about extremists who are using violence." U.S. government agencies agree with Singer's view. More ...Source: CBN News
The Danish Security Service, PET, is proposing that the Danish government refrain from using the words "war against terror" and "Jihad". In an eight page report the language use PET recommends that the authorities choose their words with care in order to deescalate the conflict between the West and the Muslim world. Besides refraining from using the phrase "war against terror" PET recommends to refrain from speaking of Muslims as a population group related to terror and extremism. Other expression to refrain from using are "jihad", "holy war", "Islamism", "fundamentalism" or "mujahedines". Read more ...Source: Islam in Europe
 By M. Zuhdi Jasser As a Muslim, I am continually mystified by our nation’s inability to foster an environment conducive to a real “contest of ideas” between Muslims. This ‘”intra-Muslim contest” is arguably the linchpin of an effective counterterrorism strategy and possibly the most important debate of the 21st century. The infamous January 2008 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memorandum, “Terminology to Define the Terrorists: Recommendations of American Muslims” only stifles progress in this debate. It absurdly admonishes government employees and thought leaders to avoid terms like Jihadist, Islamist, and Salafist. More recently, buried in media coverage last week over the debate concerning the 2009 Intelligence Authorization Act of 2009 (H.R. 5959) was discussion over the Hoekstra Amendment (A004) which simply “barred the use of funds to prohibit or discourage the use of the phrases ‘jihadist’, ‘jihad’ ‘Islamo-fascism’, ‘Caliphate’ ,‘Islamist’ or “Islamic terrorist” within the Intelligence Community or the Federal Government.” “Mainstream media” who did mention the amendment spun it in ways which only catered to the Islamist mindset, stating that these terms are felt by so-called experts to cause “religious offense” and “are frequently applied incorrectly.” So who is to determine their ‘correctness’ – a small group of Islamist advisors? Where does that leave the war of ideas? Read more ...Source: Family Security MattersDr. M. Zuhdi Jasser
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After years of using the word "jihadist" to describe terrorists who carry out attacks against civilians and the U.S. military, the Bush administration has finally realized that doing so actually pays those groups a compliment in the eyes of some Muslims. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush administration has relied on terms like "jihadist" and "Islamic extremists." But jihad has very positive connotations in the Islamic world. It is akin to religious duty: when someone wants to better themselves, they embark on a jihad. Whether it's to quit smoking, pray more, and in some cases, fight off anyone preventing them from practicing their religion. " Just like you wouldn't call Josef Stalin a hero of the revolution, you don't want to call Osama bin Laden a jihadist. He loves it," says Duncan MacInnes, a spokesman for the State Department's Counterterrorism Communication Center. The State Department has issued a memo to all its employees cautioning them against using Islamic references whenever condemning terrorist attacks. The Department of Homeland Security has also advised its employees to avoid those same mistakes. Mohammed Magid is imam of ADAMS Center, a collective of seven mosques in Virginia. He says the changes are late but welcome. When officials criticize the word jihad, they offend Muslims, Magid says. "You isolate so many people by using that. We need to discredit terrorism." Read more ...Source: NPRDuncan MacInnes
State Department
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 Mohammed Magid
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Government officials should depict terrorists "as the dangerous cult leaders they are" and avoid words that aggrandize them, like "jihadists," "Islamic terrorists," "Islamists" and "holy warriors," the Department of Homeland Security says in a paper released Friday. "Words matter," the agency says in the paper, which also suggests avoiding the term "moderate Muslims," a characterization that annoys many Muslims because it implies that they are tepid in the practice of their faith. Read more ...Source: CNN H/T: Jihad Watch
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Concerns are growing in the intelligence community that Somalia could be acting like Yemen in terms of its expanding ability to serve as a training ground for terrorists able to pick up and head out of country to attack other nations.
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