International Security | Peter "Just Loves Flying"

Hezbollah’s operations in west Africa – Blogs – Jerusalem Post

March 6, 2015

Peter Singhatey African Center for Strategic Studies Africa, Gambia, Hezbollah, International Security, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey, Senegal Leave a comment

Hezbollah’s operations in west Africa – Blogs – Jerusalem Post.

Last Thursday, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on three Lebanese individuals – Mustapha Fawaz, Fouzi Fawaz and Abdallah Tahini –accusing them of running a significant Hezbollah supply network in west Africa. The trio, all Lebanese-born but now residing in Nigeria’s capital Abuja, have a history of alleged links to Hezbollah.

According to the Treasury Department, Mustapha Fawaz has had ties with the group since the 1990s, organizing a network of hidden cameras to monitor the movement of Israelis. Fawaz is also rumored to have provided Hezbollah with a report of his visit to the US Embassy in Abuja. In May 2013, the Nigerian authorities detained him, whereupon he gave up crucial intelligence on Hezbollah’s activities throughout the country. Fawaz’s confession led the Nigerian security services to an unremarkable property in the Nigerian city of Kano, where they uncovered a veritable armory housing weapons to be used against Israeli targets across West Africa. Following this discovery, Mustapha’s brother – Fouzi Fawaz – along with Abdallah Tahini were apprehended by the Nigerian security forces and charged with supporting Hezbollah operations in the country. All three men have since been released.

Thursday’s sanctions were not the first time the Treasury Department has targeted individuals connected to Hezbollah in west Africa. In June of 2013, the United States blacklisted four Lebanese men – Ali Ibrahim al-Wafta, Abbas Loutfe Fawaz, Ali Ahmad Chehade and Hicham Nmer Khanafer – after they were accused of masterminding Hezbollah’s fundraising campaigns in Sierra Leone, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire and the Gambia…

‘Small girl’ with explosives strapped to her kills five

February 22, 2015

Peter Singhatey Uncategorized Africa, Boko Haram, Conflict, International Security, People & Society, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey Leave a comment

‘Small girl’ with explosives strapped to her kills five.

A young girl with explosives strapped to her killed five people and wounded dozens at a security checkpoint outside a market in the northeast Nigerian town of Potiskum on Sunday, witnesses said.

“(She) refused to be checked at the gate to the market and an argument ensued,” witness Ibrahim Maishago said. “She let off the bomb, killing herself and five others, while many were injured.”

No one claimed responsibility for the bombing, which bore the hallmarks of Islamist militant group Boko Haram. The insurgents have suffered a string of defeats in a military offensive by Nigeria and neighbours Cameroon, Niger and Chad…

When Women Become Terrorists – NYTimes.com

January 25, 2015

Peter Singhatey Uncategorized International Security, ISIL, ISIS, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey, Suicide Bombers, Terrorism, Women Leave a comment

When Women Become Terrorists – NYTimes.com.

SINCE the terror attacks in Paris two weeks ago, the French police have been on the hunt for Hayat Boumeddiene, the partner of Amedy Coulibaly, one of the slain gunmen. She is now suspected to be in Syria. Some news reports speculate that Ms. Boumeddiene, 26, may have been “the more radical of the two.” Yet one of the first questions that French authorities intend to ask her is, they say, “if she did this under influence, if she did it by ideology, if she did it to aid and abet.”

While much will be made in the coming months of France’s intelligence failures, the West’s inability to appreciate the role that women play in terror should come under the highest scrutiny. Take the role of women in the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS or ISIL. While the group oppresses many women, many also flock to its ranks. Roughly 10 percent of its Western recruits are female, often lured by their peers through social media and instant messaging. The percentage is much higher in France: An estimated 63 of the 350 French nationals believed to be with the group are women, or just under 20 percent.

This story is both a new one and an old one. Women have long been involved in terror of all stripes, from female neo-Nazis in Europe to Chechen “black widow” suicide bombers…

U.N. Set to Cut Force in Darfur as Fighting Rises – NYTimes.com

December 26, 2014

Peter Singhatey Articles on Africa Africa, Conflict, International Security, Peace & Security, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey Leave a comment

U.N. Set to Cut Force in Darfur as Fighting Rises – NYTimes.com.

UNITED NATIONS — Under intense pressure from the government of Sudan, the United Nations is planning to shrink its floundering peacekeeping force in Darfur, even though renewed fighting there has chased more people from their homes this year than during any other in the past decade.

The withdrawal plans come right after the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, announced that she had decided to suspend the genocide case against Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, because world powers have done nothing to secure his arrest.

The twin retrenchments are emblematic of the limits of international attention at a time when Darfur has been overshadowed by newer crises and conflicts around the world, from the civil wars in Syria and South Sudan to the Ebola epidemic…

The Ultimate Fatal Attraction: 5 Reasons People Join ISIS-Carnegie Middle East Center

November 16, 2014

Peter Singhatey Uncategorized Africa, Conflict, International Security, ISIS, Middle East, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey Leave a comment

The Ultimate Fatal Attraction: 5 Reasons People Join ISIS-Carnegie Middle East Center.

The Ultimate Fatal Attraction: 5 Reasons People Join ISIS-Carnegie Middle East Center

The appeal of the Islamic State to Arab and Muslim youth is hard to understand. Many assume religion or social media is the main draw for the increasing numbers who are uprooting their lives to join the militants in Iraq and Syria. But this is not the full story.

Five distinct trends—not including theology or technology—explain the fatal attraction to the Islamic State. And understanding these trends is vital for winning the war against extremist ideologies.

First, Arab education systems have failed. Instead of vital analytical skills or civic values, schools emphasized rote learning and the uncritical acceptance of authority.

History curricula and religious education fostered an us-versus-them mentality along ethnic, ideological, and sectarian lines, making youth vulnerable to external influence. This helped transform the cultural landscape of Arab countries, facilitating the spread of militant ideologies and the early indoctrination of younger populations…

Top British Spy Warns of Terrorists’ Use of Social Media – NYTimes.com

November 6, 2014

Peter Singhatey Uncategorized International Security, Internet, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey, Terrorism Leave a comment

Top British Spy Warns of Terrorists’ Use of Social Media – NYTimes.com.

LONDON — One of Britain’s highest-ranking intelligence officials on Tuesday castigated the giant American companies that dominate the Internet for providing the “command-and-control networks of choice for terrorists and criminals” and challenged the companies to find a better balance between privacy and security.

The statements were made by Robert Hannigan, the newly appointed director of GCHQ, Britain’s electronic intelligence agency. They were among the most pointed in a campaign by intelligence services in Britain and the United States against pressure to rein in their digital surveillance after disclosures by the American former contractor Edward J. Snowden…

A Deadly Legacy in Iraq – NYTimes.com

October 20, 2014

Peter Singhatey Middle East International Security, Iraq, ISIS, Middle East, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey Leave a comment

A Deadly Legacy in Iraq – NYTimes.com.

Another chapter has been added to the dismal legacy of America’s involvement in Iraq. An investigation by C.J. Chivers, published in The Times on Wednesday, found that American and American-trained Iraqi troops discovered thousands of abandoned and highly dangerous chemical weapons left over from the rule of Saddam Hussein. These weapons, found from 2004 to 2011, wounded troops from both armies. There are now fears that some could fall into the hands of fighters for the Islamic State, which now controls much of the territory where the weapons were found.

These weapons are not the chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction that the George W. Bush administration claimed as the excuse for embarking on the Iraq war and that, it turned out, did not exist. Instead, they are aged remnants left over from an earlier chemical weapons program in the late-1970s and 1980s that was shut down in 1991. Mr. Hussein used the weapons against Iran in a war from 1980-88…

I.S. = Invasive Species – NYTimes.com

October 13, 2014

Peter Singhatey Uncategorized Conflict, International Security, ISIS, Middle East, Peace & Security, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey Leave a comment

I.S. = Invasive Species – NYTimes.com.

I can’t think of a better way to understand ISIS. It is a coalition. One part consists of Sunni Muslim jihadist fighters from all over the world: Chechnya, Libya, Britain, France, Australia and especially Saudi Arabia. They spread so far, so fast, despite their relatively small numbers, because the disturbed Iraqi and Syrian societies enabled these foreign jihadists to forge alliances with secular, native-born, Iraqi and Syrian Sunni tribesmen and former Baathist army officers, whose grievances were less religious and more about how Iraq and Syria were governed.

Today, ISIS — the foreigners and locals together — is putting pressure on all of Iraq’s and Syria’s native species with the avowed goal of reducing the diversity of these once polycultural societies and turning them into bleak, dark, jihadist, Sunni fundamentalist monocultures.

It is easy to see how ISIS spread. Think about the life of a 50-year-old Iraqi Sunni male from Mosul. He first got drafted to fight in the eight-year Iran-Iraq war that ended in 1988. Then he had to fight in the Persian Gulf war I after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Then he lived under a decade of U.N. sanctions that broke Iraq’s middle class. Then he had to endure the years of chaos that followed the U.S. invasion, which ended with a corrupt, brutal, pro-Iranian Shiite regime in Baghdad led by Nuri Kamal al-Maliki that did all it could to keep Sunnis poor and powerless. This was the fractured political ecosystem in which ISIS found fertile ground…