Doc's Talk: HIZBALLAH POISED TO STRIKE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

Thursday, January 19, 2012

HIZBALLAH POISED TO STRIKE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

Matthew Levitt

To read this PolicyWatch on our website, go to:
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=3443

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New discoveries regarding Hizballah bombmaking in Thailand are no surprise given the group's long history of terrorist operations in Southeast Asia.

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Last week, Thai police arrested Atris Hussein, a suspected Hizballah operative, at the Bangkok airport, while another suspect escaped. Elsewhere in the capital, authorities seized a large cache of chemical explosives composed of ammonium nitrate and urea fertilizer, leading the United States and Israel to issue emergency alerts warning their citizens in the country of a possible imminent terrorist attack. According to local authorities, initial intelligence indicated an attack would occur over the weekend in Thailand, yet they now believe some or all of the explosives were intended to be shipped out of the country. The U.S. embassy in Bangkok, meanwhile, continues to warn U.S. citizens of a "real and credible" threat of a terrorist attack in the capital. Although the news may read like a made-for-Hollywood plotline, the fact that Hizballah is active in Southeast Asia should come as no surprise. Indeed, the case strongly parallels several previous Hizballah plots in Thailand and elsewhere in the region. Hussein is not the first Hizballah operative to be arrested at a Southwest Asian airport, nor is he the first to be tied to weapons caches and terrorist operations in Thailand. Hizballah operations in the country date back to at least April 1988, when group members hijacked a Kuwaiti airliner departing from Bangkok. And the discovery of chemical explosives is reminiscent of the group's use of a bomb built with the same chemicals in a 1994 plot targeting the Israeli embassy in Bangkok.

APRIL 1988: HIJACKING FLIGHT 422

On April 5, 1988, Hizballah members seized Kuwait Airways Flight 422, which was carrying 112 passengers from Bangkok to Kuwait. Forcing the plane to land in Mashhad, Iran, the hijackers sought the release of seventeen imprisoned Shiite terrorists, including Iraqi al-Dawa and Lebanese Hizballah operatives jailed for their roles in the near-simultaneous December 1983 bombings of the American and French embassies and several other sites in Kuwait. Over the course of the fifteen-day hijacking, Hizballah gunmen killed two passengers before ultimately releasing the rest.

Assessing whether Hizballah could have been behind the 1990 assassination of three Saudi diplomats in Bangkok, the CIA noted that the hijacking of Flight 422 underscored Hizballah's ability to operate there. "It is possible," an agency assessment read, "that the Islamic Jihad Organization (IJO), a Hizballah element headed by Imad Mughniyah, carried out these assassinations. Mughniyah has close ties to Tehran, and the IJO demonstrated its operational capability in Thailand by orchestrating the hijacking of flight KU422 from Bangkok in 1988."

MARCH 1994: TARGETING THE ISRAELI EMBASSY

On March 11, 1994, a Hizballah suicide bomber came within about 240 meters of driving a van laden with explosives into the Israeli embassy in Bangkok. As he exited an underground parking garage, however, he crashed into a motorcycle taxi, panicked, and fled the scene. When police inspected the van, they found a water tank filled with approximately 1,000 kilograms of fertilizer, two oil containers, a battery, C4 explosives, and two manual switches beneath the driver's seat, wired to set off the massive bomb.

Upon removing the explosives from the water tank, police also discovered a dead body. The owner of the van recognized the murdered man as one of her drivers and confessed that she had agreed to rent the vehicle to a person who preferred not to provide the required documentation so long as one of her employees drove. The unfortunate employee had been strangled and stuffed into the explosive-filled drum; had the bomb gone off as planned, no evidence of his death would have survived the blast. Four months later, a Hizballah suicide operative drove a similar truck bomb into the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. Yet the group's involvement in the Bangkok embassy plot was not discovered until five years later.

NOVEMBER 1999: HIZBALLAH OPERATIVE ARRESTED AT THE AIRPORT

When Pandu Yudhawinata stepped off Philippines Airlines Flight 126 from Zamboanga City to Manila in November 1999, customs officials with drug-sniffing dogs honed in on his luggage and arrested him for narcotics possession. In fact, the Indonesian suspect was already well known to counterterrorism officials. Within weeks of his arrest, the Philippines Intelligence Directorate informed the chief of national police that Pandu was the subject of a "covert operation" by the directorate and its "Israeli counterparts." Israeli counterterrorism officials confirmed that a joint operation had led to a number of cell members across Thailand who, when brought in for questioning in October 1999, provided key information that uncovered previously unknown details about Pandu, his terrorist network, and Hizballah's role in the failed 1994 plot to bomb the Israeli embassy in Bangkok.

Pandu, investigators discovered, was the one who rented the van for that plot under a false identity, coordinated with senior Hizballah commanders in Lebanon, and oversaw the network's passport and other procurement efforts in the region. Moreover, according to an Israeli intelligence report, the interrogation of the Thai cell members revealed that Hizballah was planning other attacks targeting Israeli and U.S. interests in both Southeast Asia and Europe.

A full inspection of Pandu's checked luggage also revealed documents with the names and telephone numbers of various Hizballah and Iranian intelligence operatives, as well as five Philippine passports in the names of different people, a photocopy of a sixth passport, and personal data for five more persons. Eventually, investigators found that one of Pandu's areas of specialization was procuring false passports for Hizballah operatives, and he had traveled to the Philippines at least twice in the weeks leading up to his arrest for this express purpose. The urgency of these visits was operational: according to local authorities, the passports were intended to be used by Hizballah "for an impending terrorist attack at [a] still undetermined country in the Middle East." Shortly after making that discovery, they found that Pandu also maintained Hizballah arms caches in both Bangkok and Manila.

HIZBALLAH IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

In between trips to Iran and Lebanon for additional training, Pandu spent the bulk of his time from the botched 1994 bombing until his 1999 arrest carrying out smaller missions for Hizballah. According to Philippine investigators, these missions involved "procurement of armaments in Indonesia and passports in other parts of Southeast Asia and the conduct of casings on terrorist targets and recruitment of members." Although he was living in Malaysia at the time, Pandu was also involved in storing weapons in both Thailand and the Philippines, "presumably in preparation for future missions," Philippine authorities concluded.

In 1996, Hizballah sent one of the operatives involved in the 1994 Bangkok bomb plot back to Thailand and other countries in the region in order to prepare "the Five Contingency Attacks." This opaque phrasing -- perhaps describing attacks to be executed only under some specific contingency -- fits an established Hizballah modus operandi of casing targets and preparing off-the-shelf operations that are ready to go if and when an order is given to act.

Indeed, intelligence reports indicate that Hizballah operatives were active in the region throughout the 1990s, including Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, and even Burma. According to Philippine authorities, the group's potential targets included U.S. and Israeli embassies, Israeli companies, synagogues, Jewish communities, tourist sites frequented by Americans and Israelis, offices of Israel's El-Al Airlines, and American and Israeli military and merchant vessels traveling through the Singapore Strait and the Strait of Malacca.

Hizballah activity in the region continued into the new millennium, though mirroring the group's post-September 11 trend of focusing more on logistics than operations in order to stay out of the crosshairs of the global war on terrorism. Even during this period, Hizballah engaged in some operational activity, especially infiltrations into Israel by operatives from Europe and, in one case, Southeast Asia. And the operational hiatus ended in full with the February 2008 assassination of Mughniyah, who had continued to serve as the group's external operations commander.

Therefore, it should come as no surprise today that Hizballah has the capacity to carry out attacks and engage in logistical support activities in Thailand and elsewhere in the region. Should the need arise, the group is ready to either set contingency operations in motion or procure and move explosives or other materials. With the anniversary of Mughniyah's assassination just weeks away, U.S. and Israeli authorities are on high alert for the kinds of plots reportedly foiled in places as far afield as Thailand, Bulgaria, and Turkey. Hizballah first demonstrated its ability to operate in Thailand more than two decades ago and has maintained it ever since. What remains to be seen is whether last week's arrest, like Pandu's in 1999, will help authorities uncover the local Hizballah cell that Atris Hussein and his escaped accomplice were almost certainly overseeing.

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Matthew Levitt is director of The Washington Institute's Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence. This article draws on research conducted for his forthcoming book "Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon's 'Party of God'" (Georgetown University Press).

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The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
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Washington, DC 20036
PHONE 202-452-0650

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The IDF’s Minorities in Numbers and Pictures

In honor of IDF Diversity Week, we present diversity through numbers and pictures. Each year, more and more Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouin and immigrants from around the world take on the responsibility of defending Israel.

MUSLIMS:

Muslim Arab Israelis are not required to draft in the IDF, but there are many who volunteer. In 2013, there were over 200 Muslims serving in the IDF and over 300 in the reserves.

Bedouins:

Bedouins are nomadic Muslims who were in Israel when modern borders were set in place and are now considered Israeli citizens. They are not required to draft but a growing number choose to enlist. In 2012, there were over 1,400 Bedouin Muslim soldiers doing regular IDF service and almost 1,500 in the reserves.

Read more:http://www.idfblog.com/2014/02/27/truth-idf-numbers-pictures/#more-34027

Are you aware that in 2013, Middle class taxes go up-significantly?

In January of next year, the federal income tax rate for middle-class taxpayers is scheduled to rise from 25 percent to 28 percent, and the payroll tax is scheduled to rise from 13.3 percent to 15.3 percent… This drives the marginal tax rate based on the aforementioned three taxes to 48.12 percent. Add in state and local property, corporate, excise, and other state and local taxes, and the percentage of each additional dollar that is taxed hovers around 50 percent… When half of each additional dollar earned is taxed away, taxpayers experience a disincentive to start businesses or expand existing ones. This leads to fewer jobs being created.

Why is HAMAS Inside Tampa Schools?

Clare Lopez

Kelly Miliziano, who teaches history classes at Steinbrenner High School in the Tampa, Florida area apparently thinks it’s perfectly OK to invite a senior official of a HAMAS-affiliated organization into her classroom to discuss Islam with her students. According to local media reports, not only has this been going on for years, but in spite of the civil and criminal proceedings that could result from such reckless negligence, the Hillsborough County school superintendent, Mary Ellen Elia, and the chairman of the school board, Candy Olson, also expressed approval for students under their responsibility to be exposed repeatedly to guest speaker, Hassan Shibly, who is the Executive Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the Tampa area.
More...

Did You Know... Ignoring the Call to Islam will Bring Jihad

‘Conquest through Da’wa [proselytizing] that is what we hope for. We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through sword but through Da’wa.’
-- Yousef al-Qaradawi , Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader The Arabic word ‘Da’wa’ means the “call to Islam.” But do not think that Da’wa is the same thing as an invitation to an optional holiday event. The classical Islamic doctrine of jihad mandates that enemies must be given the opportunity to convert to Islam or pay the jizya tax before it is permissible to attack them.
Clare M. Lopez

Who is being discriminated-facts tell the truth

Religious bias

Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,409 offenses reported by law enforcement. A breakdown of the bias motivation of religious-bias offenses showed:

65.4 percent were anti-Jewish.
13.2 percent were anti-Islamic.
9.5 percent were anti-other religion, i.e., those not specified.
4.3 percent were anti-Catholic.
3.8 percent were anti-multiple religions, group.
3.3 percent were anti-Protestant.
0.5 percent were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2010/narratives/hate-crime-2010-incidents-and-offenses.

On March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview

with PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

In March 1977, Zahir Muhsein, a PLO executive, said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism."

"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

The Arab Apartheid

Ben-Dror Yemini
In 1948, the Arab countries refused to accept the UN partition proposal and they launched a war of annihilation against the State of Israel which had barely been established. All precedents in this matter showed that the party that starts the war - and with a declaration of annihilation, yet - pays a price for it. Between 550,000 and 710,000 Arabs fled because of the war and a larger number of 850,000 Jews were expelled or fled from Arab countries (the "Jewish nakba").
Population exchanges and expulsions were the norm at that time, occurring in dozens of other conflict points and affecting about 52 million people. In all the population exchange precedents that occurred during or at the end of an armed conflict, there was no return of refugees to the previous region, which had turned into a new national state.
Only the Arab states acted completely differently from the rest of the world. Instead of assimilating the refugees, they crushed them despite the fact that they were their coreligionists and members of the Arab nation - instituting a regime of apartheid. So the "nakba" was not caused by the actual dispossession, which had also been experienced by tens of millions of others. The "nakba" is the story of the apartheid, oppression, abuse and denial of rights suffered by the Arab refugees at the hands of the Arab countries. (Maariv)

International Law and Military Operations in Practice - Col. Richard Kemp

"Islamist fighting groups study the international laws of armed conflict carefully and they understand it well. They know that a British or Israeli commander and his men are bound by international law and the rules of engagement that flow from it. They then do their utmost to exploit what they view as one of their enemy's main weaknesses. Their very modus operandi is built on the correct assumption that Western armies will normally abide by the rules, while these insurgents employ a deliberate policy of operating consistently outside international law. "

Lost Historical Moments

What Rabin’s last Knesset speech really said:repudiation of a Palestinian state

Rabin ruled out a fully sovereign Palestinian state :

“We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority.”

Rabin ruled out a total withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and thus a return to the pre-June 1967 borders :

“The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”

Rabin ruled out withdrawing form the Jordan Valley:

“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”

Rabin ruled out uprooting settlement blocs, like the Gush Katif bloc in Gaza (which was subsequently uprooted by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon):

“The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.

AND

Rabin ruled out removing any settlement before coming to a full peace agreement with the Palestinians:

“I want to remind you: we committed ourselves, that is, we came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”

Rabin insisted on Israel retaining full security control of the borders with Egypt and Jordan, contrary to Israel’s relinquishment of the Philadelphia Corridor on the border with Egypt:

“The responsibility for external security along the borders with Egypt and Jordan, as well as control over the airspace above all of the territories and Gaza Strip maritime zone, remains in our hands.”

Correcting Oslo Myths-Part 2

3) Kuttab laments that the post-1993 Oslo process resulted in a Palestinian Authority "whose ministers and legislators are not guaranteed passage between Gaza and the West Bank ...."

Before free passage or other perquisites, PA leaders were obligated, among other things, to eliminate the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, end anti-Israeli, antisemitic incitement in schools, mosques, and communications media, and resolve all outstanding issues through peaceful negotiations. They met none of these commitments, sometimes bolstering terrorism and greatly increasing incitement.

4) Kuttab complains that under Oslo the PA got "lightly armed police ---- but no real sovereignty over the land or contiguity between our communities in Gaza and the West Bank."

Oslo agreements repeatedly were revised, regardless of Palestinian non-compliance, until the authorized number of police grew from 8,000 to 40,000. Though they were to be the only armed forces in the territories, Israeli estimates early in the second intifada put the number of gunmen - police, "security services," terrorists, and armed gangs - at 85,000. Their armament reportedly included not only heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, but also anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

Sovereignty was to be negotiated in the envisioned 1998 "final status" talks - after a five-year period of confidence-building. Palestinian leadership chronically undermined the process. Palestinian terrorism made the 1993 - 1998 Oslo period more deadly for Israelis than the 15 years preceding it.

The United States doesn't have contiguity between the lower 48 states and Alaska and Hawaii; territorial contiguity between the West Bank and Gaza Strip - that is, through the 20 miles of Israeli territory between them - was never promised and would destroy Israeli contiguity.

5) "Palestinians have been made to endure hundreds of checkpoints in the West Bank, an eight-foot wall deep in our territories, and tight Israeli control over borders."

The security barrier is not "deep in Palestinian territories," but rather encompasses less than 8 percent of Judea and Samaria, and is mostly a fence, rarely a wall; the land in question is not "our [Palestinian] territories" but disputed territory to which, according to the authors of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, Jews as well as Arabs have claims; and there are no international borders, only the 1949 armistice lines with Jordan. Under 242, borders remain to be negotiated. As for checkpoints - like the security barrier and "tight Israeli control" - Palestinian Arabs precipitated these measures themselves. No terrorism and there would be no fence or tight Israeli control and few checkpoints - like before the first intifada.

Correcting Some Oslo Myths

1) In Oslo "Israeli, Palestinian and other world leaders promised that ... Palestinian sovereignty would be solidified."

No, they didn't. The 1993 Declaration of Principles and subsequent Oslo agreements outlined a process by which final status negotiations about the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be reached. The process required an end to anti-Israel terrorism and incitement and a commitment to peaceful negotiations. The PA, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other terrorist groups, sabotaged the process from the start.

2) "The reality is that, in defiance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which states that it is inadmissible to occupy land by force, Palestinian territories are still under foreign military occupation."
Wrong again. Resolution 242 (1967) does note "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war." It also affirms the right of every state in the area "to live in peace with secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." There were no "Palestinian territories." Jordan occupied the West Bank, Egypt controlled Gaza. Israel did not have "secure and recognized boundaries," so retention of some of those territories was possible under 242. Israel is not a "foreign" military occupier in the West Bank but, pending final negotiations, the lawful military administrator as a result of a successful war of self-defense.

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