February 3, 2010
I was reluctant to write on this matter because I do not wish to be apart of the culture of hysteria regarding the issue of suicide terrorism. However, after a long discussion with my father, I have been encouraged to express my experience. Recently, I have devoted my scholarship largely to the issue of suicide terrorism; studying counter-terrorism in Israel hardly allows one to escape the topic. As part of a research inquiry, I have spent much of my time examining the various aspects of the matter. Predominantly I have sought to comprehend reasons behind female suicide terrorism, researching everything from the feminist movement to martyrdom, as an effort to understand and combat extremism.
Since this subject has been at the forefront of much of my thoughts, I have made it the topic of numerous discussions with my classmates. The other night, while in a study group for a final examination, I brought it up, seeking discourse with my peers. Our conversation was spent considerably on the tactical approaches of the "H-bomb" as it is referred to, meaning "human bomb" or the ultimate smart bomb. We discussed the thinking of a suicide terrorist, such as where he or she would sit on a bus. I mentioned that when I was living in Jerusalem a friend told me that statistically speaking, passengers sitting closer to the driver of the bus are more likely to survive the blast as some of the drivers have survived in past attacks. The majority of us concluded that this was probably not an accurate assessment and terrorists usually sit in the middle of the bus in order to kill or injure as many people as possible.
By and large, although not aware of it, I became overwhelmed with fear regarding this type of terrorism. My only method of transportation in this country is public transportation. That same night, Dru and I boarded the #29 bus home, we sat at the back of the bus, one of our usual seats to sit in. A man got on the bus and sat in the first seat behind the door that is located at the center of the bus. I could not help but notice that he was an Arab. He wore a brown, leather bomber jacket and had a small sack in his hand, what looked like he had just come from the supermarket. Initially, I was unprovoked. Yet, I kept an eye on him. I examined every inch of him; his sneakers, his jeans, his newly trimmed haircut (which is an attribute many suicide bombers have- a clean shave so that they look their best before meeting their maker). As I scrutinized him, I realized that he rarely looked out the windows of the bus, instead he stared straight ahead, which I realized sitting close to him, that the visibility through the windshield of the bus was not great as it was dark outside. The only time he afforded to look out the window was when we passed a police car whose blue lights provoked his attention. As the bus passed the police car, the man nearly turned all they way around in his seat until it was completely out of his sight. I began to feel a little excited, although I didn't want to tell Dru. Instead I just observed.
Another aspect of the man that heightened my awareness of him, was the position in which he sat. He looked incredibly uncomfortable as he sat slightly slouched forward, of course the only reason I could come up with was that whatever explosives he had strapped and wired to his torso was causing him some discomfort; not to mention the added weight of this material was probably foreign to him. The thickness of his bomber jacket that was zipped-up, left little room for me to believe that it was just a t-shirt underneath. Finally, he took a cellphone out of the pocket of his jeans and that is when my silence broke! I exclaimed, "I want to get off at the next stop! I want off!" Dru, of course flashed the most puzzled look and spat back, "what is your problem?" Quietly, I spewed every detail of the man sitting catty-corner to us and that I was panicking. It has been a few years at least since a bus has been blown up, but that was the point; this could be the first attempt after a long run of quiet, and how perfect it would be in the upper-class area of Herzliya, the unofficial home of the Mossad and many diplomats from all over the world. Dru, being trained in this field of seeking out the "bad guys" began to observe for himself. We were so close at this point to our stop that we stayed. The cell phone began to ring, my heart nearly jumped out of my chest as I imagined it to be a remote detonator. It was not. However, the man began to speak Arabic, which is not usual in these parts. I tried to listen to pick up any vocabulary I knew. The man got upset, he was pointing at the driver, all of this occurring as I am trying to talk myself down. We got out of our seats and headed towards the man; the bus stopped and Dru quickly ushered out of the bus, meanwhile a strap on my backpack was stuck on my seat. As I freed the strap I passed his seat, hastily looking for explosives he may have left behind. I jumped out of the bus.
As I landed, I tripped, impaling myself into the back of Dru, whose senses were provoked by my hysteria. He turned around as if he wanted to kill me! We walked off towards home and the man walked in the other direction. I laughed in relief and teased Dru saying "Thank God I was not in your unit in Iraq, I would have been the Barney Fife!"
The lesson learned in this traumatizing event is that our lives here have taught us that the way of life here is much different than at home. Me, Kellie Dunlap, of Littleton, Colorado, never imagined that I would have to worry about a suicide bomber anywhere near me. But, this is the reality I live in here. I chose to share this because I wanted to convey the seriousness of this threat. In my last blog, I tried to convey that the sophomoric attempts by recent terrorists are still a great danger. It may not be long before, we Americans, are sitting on the Light Rail or on an RTD bus paranoid because it happened in another U.S. city. Americans need to understand that radical Islam is not going to stop; yes, they are struggling to carry out the spectacular attacks we saw on 9/11, but they are still driven to inflict casualties on our population and suicide terrorism is strategic; it is cheap, it is spontaneous and dramatically influences a society's morale.
Contrastingly, one must seek a balance. I regret that I profiled someone who was simply on his way home. But this is the dilemma we face; the enemy is unconventional. They do not wear uniforms when they board buses or sit in a cafe and detonate themselves and therefore all Muslims bear the brunt of these radicals.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Assessing Al-Qaeda
January 16, 2010
While the intelligence community and the Transportation Security Administration assess the success of the Nigerian, al-Qaeda affiliate who boarded the Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day, with the intent to detonate an explosive strapped to his leg over American soil, I have sought to inquire about what this means regarding the current and future motivations of Al-Qaeda.
Recently with a group of my classmates, I had to prepare a presentation regarding the structure of Al-Qaeda post 9/11. The presentation was an analysis of the conflicting literature evaluating whether or not its current structure operates through a mode of hierarchy, a network or a combination of the two including the notion of a Dune organization which classifies al-Qaeda as an organization that lacks a territorial base; making it easy for the organization to operate during its "disappearance". Our analysis included a combination of hierarchical command coming from Al-Qaeda central, by such individuals as Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri, as well the loosely connected affiliated networks that have been dispersed and recruited throughout the world. These networks often operate independently of the central command; conducting and carrying out their own operations without a leading hand.
This last week, an article published in the New York Times stated that the series of attempts and attacks on American soil in the last six or so months should illustrate that al-Qaeda central is "on the run" rather than "on the march" as its author implies the media and certain politicians have claimed. The author of the article, Scott Shane asserts that this hype is motivated by political incentives to instill unnecessary fear among the American populace. He argues that the numerous failed attacks as well as the Fort Hood incident should illustrate to the American people that al-Qaeda central is indeed weaker as these nobody's lack the sophistication of tactics that al-Qaeda has used in its previous terror efforts.
I find it alarming that Mr. Shane fails to realize that these men who have emerged from all over the world express the same religiously-justified hatred for the United States which clearly indicates the stronghold that al-Qaeda has on impressionable Muslims all over the world. The threat should be clear: al-Qaeda represents a very radical ideology; hatred for the United States and its allies, including regimes within the Middle East whose populations are predominantly Muslim. It is noteworthy to add that Muslims who are not aligned with al-Qaeda are targets as well. An increase in this kind of radical thinking should be very alarming to every American as well as the numerous national security establishments in the United States and abroad. Let's not forget that in the case of Najibullah Zazi, clerks of a Denver beauty supply store contacted local authorities regarding the purchase of large quantities of products containing significant concentrations of acetone which led to the arrest and indictment of the 24-year-old al-Qaeda affiliate who received training in Pakistan from al-Qaeda operatives and is believed to have had some contact with al-Yazid a senior member of al-Qaeda in planning out an attack on the U.S. on the ninth anniversary of 9/11.
Additionally, bin Laden as his colleagues have the resolve to wait us out. The numerous videotapes released since 9/11 should illustrate that planning is still in place. The recent CIA disaster in Afghanistan may also bolster their intentions further. We cannot afford to risk our chances, the passengers of flight 253 were lucky, the bomb simply malfunctioned. Unfortunately, the United States is political chaos, which means that the American people must remain vigilante when it comes to our national security because our enemy has the ability to remain invisible and we must understand that this is one of their strengths. God forbid another 9/11 occurs because we buy the political strategy of our weakening politicians. Al-Qaeda's core have calculated and accepted a new phase in their objectives and while they are being hunted down in Afghanistan and Pakistan, we may continue to see increasing efforts by their loose affiliated networks.
The following link is to a video released by MEMRI of al-Qaeda, it is certainly worth watching!
Go to the site and the video is available on the right hand side of the page!
http://www.memrijttm.org/
While the intelligence community and the Transportation Security Administration assess the success of the Nigerian, al-Qaeda affiliate who boarded the Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day, with the intent to detonate an explosive strapped to his leg over American soil, I have sought to inquire about what this means regarding the current and future motivations of Al-Qaeda.
Recently with a group of my classmates, I had to prepare a presentation regarding the structure of Al-Qaeda post 9/11. The presentation was an analysis of the conflicting literature evaluating whether or not its current structure operates through a mode of hierarchy, a network or a combination of the two including the notion of a Dune organization which classifies al-Qaeda as an organization that lacks a territorial base; making it easy for the organization to operate during its "disappearance". Our analysis included a combination of hierarchical command coming from Al-Qaeda central, by such individuals as Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri, as well the loosely connected affiliated networks that have been dispersed and recruited throughout the world. These networks often operate independently of the central command; conducting and carrying out their own operations without a leading hand.
This last week, an article published in the New York Times stated that the series of attempts and attacks on American soil in the last six or so months should illustrate that al-Qaeda central is "on the run" rather than "on the march" as its author implies the media and certain politicians have claimed. The author of the article, Scott Shane asserts that this hype is motivated by political incentives to instill unnecessary fear among the American populace. He argues that the numerous failed attacks as well as the Fort Hood incident should illustrate to the American people that al-Qaeda central is indeed weaker as these nobody's lack the sophistication of tactics that al-Qaeda has used in its previous terror efforts.
I find it alarming that Mr. Shane fails to realize that these men who have emerged from all over the world express the same religiously-justified hatred for the United States which clearly indicates the stronghold that al-Qaeda has on impressionable Muslims all over the world. The threat should be clear: al-Qaeda represents a very radical ideology; hatred for the United States and its allies, including regimes within the Middle East whose populations are predominantly Muslim. It is noteworthy to add that Muslims who are not aligned with al-Qaeda are targets as well. An increase in this kind of radical thinking should be very alarming to every American as well as the numerous national security establishments in the United States and abroad. Let's not forget that in the case of Najibullah Zazi, clerks of a Denver beauty supply store contacted local authorities regarding the purchase of large quantities of products containing significant concentrations of acetone which led to the arrest and indictment of the 24-year-old al-Qaeda affiliate who received training in Pakistan from al-Qaeda operatives and is believed to have had some contact with al-Yazid a senior member of al-Qaeda in planning out an attack on the U.S. on the ninth anniversary of 9/11.
Additionally, bin Laden as his colleagues have the resolve to wait us out. The numerous videotapes released since 9/11 should illustrate that planning is still in place. The recent CIA disaster in Afghanistan may also bolster their intentions further. We cannot afford to risk our chances, the passengers of flight 253 were lucky, the bomb simply malfunctioned. Unfortunately, the United States is political chaos, which means that the American people must remain vigilante when it comes to our national security because our enemy has the ability to remain invisible and we must understand that this is one of their strengths. God forbid another 9/11 occurs because we buy the political strategy of our weakening politicians. Al-Qaeda's core have calculated and accepted a new phase in their objectives and while they are being hunted down in Afghanistan and Pakistan, we may continue to see increasing efforts by their loose affiliated networks.
The following link is to a video released by MEMRI of al-Qaeda, it is certainly worth watching!
Go to the site and the video is available on the right hand side of the page!
http://www.memrijttm.org/
Saturday, December 12, 2009
The Moratorium Affect
December 12, 2009
Thursday night, Dru and I attended a wedding of a classmate of ours in Jerusalem. On the drive from Herzliya to Jerusalem, we past through the infamous Gilo "settlement". As we drove through the Jerusalem suburb, I thought to myself, who advised President Obama that this neighborhood is the same as the settlements in the West Bank? Yes, Gilo rests on the 1967 Green Line but it also sits with in the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem. A few weeks ago I visited two West Bank settlements and understand that there is a distinct difference between them and neighborhoods in Jerusalem which are entirely more complicated because of the rivaling interests in Jerusalem, as well as the close proximity of Arab and Jewish neighborhoods that nearly overlap one another there. The hype created by the Obama Administration regarding Gilo, which brought about the ten-month moratorium, is infringing on the peace process for both Palestinians and Israelis.
As a result of the Obama Administration's demands for a temporary settlement freeze, Palestinians have adopted a permanent settlement freeze as their official policy and are even urging the U.S. to put pressure on the Israeli government for a two-state solution with pre-1967 borders including East Jerusalem. Furthermore, they are condemning the Israeli government for "buying time" and appeasing the international community which further negates the peace process.
Yesterday, reports stated that Jewish settlers from Tapuah (a West Bank settlement) had vandalized a mosque in the neighboring Palestinian town of Yasuf. Settlers spray-painted harsh statements in Hebrew on the floor of the mosque as well as setting fire to the mosque's library, ruining many Islamic holy books. An article in the Jerusalem Post states that this attack by settlers exhibits their anger and frustration regarding Bibi's moratorium. Unfortunately, the town of Yasuf bore the consequences. While the Israeli government condemns the attack by extremist settlers, this event only hinders the peace process even more than it already is and has inspired more problems on both sides.
If the United States is going to "meddle" in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, then the facts on the ground must be clear; the stakes are high for both Palestinians and Israelis and that includes the populations of both people not just their governments. What appears to encourage fairness, may in fact promote the opposite and that is proving itself in this case. The moratorium thus far has been a lose-lose situation.
Thursday night, Dru and I attended a wedding of a classmate of ours in Jerusalem. On the drive from Herzliya to Jerusalem, we past through the infamous Gilo "settlement". As we drove through the Jerusalem suburb, I thought to myself, who advised President Obama that this neighborhood is the same as the settlements in the West Bank? Yes, Gilo rests on the 1967 Green Line but it also sits with in the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem. A few weeks ago I visited two West Bank settlements and understand that there is a distinct difference between them and neighborhoods in Jerusalem which are entirely more complicated because of the rivaling interests in Jerusalem, as well as the close proximity of Arab and Jewish neighborhoods that nearly overlap one another there. The hype created by the Obama Administration regarding Gilo, which brought about the ten-month moratorium, is infringing on the peace process for both Palestinians and Israelis.
As a result of the Obama Administration's demands for a temporary settlement freeze, Palestinians have adopted a permanent settlement freeze as their official policy and are even urging the U.S. to put pressure on the Israeli government for a two-state solution with pre-1967 borders including East Jerusalem. Furthermore, they are condemning the Israeli government for "buying time" and appeasing the international community which further negates the peace process.
Yesterday, reports stated that Jewish settlers from Tapuah (a West Bank settlement) had vandalized a mosque in the neighboring Palestinian town of Yasuf. Settlers spray-painted harsh statements in Hebrew on the floor of the mosque as well as setting fire to the mosque's library, ruining many Islamic holy books. An article in the Jerusalem Post states that this attack by settlers exhibits their anger and frustration regarding Bibi's moratorium. Unfortunately, the town of Yasuf bore the consequences. While the Israeli government condemns the attack by extremist settlers, this event only hinders the peace process even more than it already is and has inspired more problems on both sides.
If the United States is going to "meddle" in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, then the facts on the ground must be clear; the stakes are high for both Palestinians and Israelis and that includes the populations of both people not just their governments. What appears to encourage fairness, may in fact promote the opposite and that is proving itself in this case. The moratorium thus far has been a lose-lose situation.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
S'derot- Ready or not... the rockets fall
December 4, 2009
I have been living in Israel for about two months now working on my Master's degree in Counter-terrorism and Homeland Security Studies. Today's adventure to the Israeli southern town of S'derot really gave national security a grave face.
S'derot is the closest town to the border of Gaza. This community is terrorized by rocket fire and mortar attacks from their Palestinian neighbors who are only a mile away. After the Disengagement of 2005, where Israelis unilaterally pulled troops and settlers out of Gaza, the community of S'derot reaped the consequences. The Isreali government, for a number of reasons, pulled out of Gaza in an attempt to further peace negotiations with Palestinians. The disengagement plan set forth by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was not in the least bit popular and took over a year to enact. With little popularity, settlers were evacuated from twenty one settlements in Gaza. The idea behind Sharon's plan was to signal to the Palestinian leadership that Israel did indeed wish to exchange territories for peace. Unfortunately for the community of S'derot, life became a war zone. As of January of this year, there have been 8,600 rockets fired from Gaza into Israel.
I went with some of my classmates on a school sponsored trip to S'derot (an hour south of where we live) to see the devastation this community faces. Upon arrival we were met with an IDF counter-terrorism expert who briefed us on the current situation and told us that at any moment we could hear the emergency loud-speakers that say "Red Alert" throughout the town. In the event that we did hear the emergency system, we were to get down underneath something if we were inside or if we were outside we were advised just to simply lay down where we were with our hands over our heads. I immediately looked at Dru with nothing but worry written all over my face. I was only in S'derot for one day but I have never experienced anxiety like I did today. I cannot imagine living there or raising children in a place where our lives revolve around an emergency system that sounds giving my family no more than fifteen seconds to hide from such a lethal weapon. As many as 20 rockets in one day have fallen in S'derot.
I have studied the Israeli-Palestinian conflict now for over five years trying to contemplate the best option for a peaceful coexistence between the two peoples. However, after my experience today, I wonder how it will ever be possible to establish peace here. Hamas, who was democratically elected by Palestinians in the last election, use agricultural supplies provided by the Israeli government to make al-Qassam rockets that terrorize members of the Israeli population instead of bolstering their own economy which would benefit the Palestinians in Gaza.
Since it is obligatory for the Israeli government to provide its citizens with optimal national security then it is ogligated to provide defense against rocket fire and thus the conflict continues to remain a cyclical one.
My intention for sharing this is not to provide a biased opinion about the conflict but instead I have the very opposite intention at heart. I always try to look at this conflict objectively weighing both sides, but today I was overwhelmed with reality.
The video posted below is a video we reviewed today. It is definitely worth watching.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsEJt9AY5Pc
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