Category Archives: Al Qaeda

September 19, 2014 · 11:12 am

TERROR AUSTRALIS !

Headline above in The Advertiser, 19 September 2014

‘TERROR RAIDS News Corp Australia Courtesy of News Corp

Headline Elsewhere: “Australian terror raids uncover plot to attack Parliament House”

TONY Abbott has confirmed a specific instruction came from a senior Australian ISIL operative in Syria, as security in Canberra is being beefed up after intelligence suggested an attack on Parliament House was imminent. Tony Abbott confirmed the “chatter” about a possible attack on Parliament House came directly from conversations between Australian ISIL supporters overseas and on home soil. “The chatter involving Parliament House was chatter between Australians in Syria and Iraq and their supporters here in Australia,” he told reporters in Sydney. I’m not aware that specific individuals have been named as part of this chatter, but certainly Government, Government people and parliament have been referred to as part of this chatter,” the Prime Minister said. Continue reading →

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July 25, 2014 · 3:06 pm

Encouraging Reflection on Martin van Crefeld’s Bold Predictions in 1991 within ON FUTURE WAR

ON FUTURE WAR, London: Brassey’s, 1991 ISBN 0 08 041796 5

ON FUTURE WARAn examination of the nature of war and its radical transformation in our own time. The author argues that the Clausewitzian assumption that war is rational is outdated, and that strategic, logical planning is unrelated to the current realities of guerrilla armies, terrorists and bandits. He sets out to demonstrate that our most basic ideas of who fights wars, and why, are inadequate – because man has a need to “play” at war. Van Creveld also wrote “Technology and War”, “Command and War” and “Supply and War”

  • Extract from Flap Abstract of the Book, 1991
  • Michael Howard: “Famous Last Screams,” a review of On Future War

This item is meant to set the stage for both blog comments and short essays in this site in the near future. Standing now in 2014 we are in a position to comment critically on the views of this famous historian who resides in Israel. It is not unconnected to the items (a) “Where In-fighting generates Fervour and Power: ISIS Today, LTTE yesterday” and (b) “The Psychology of Totalitarianism via Skya’s Treatise on Japan’s Holy War”. Standing now in 2014 we are in a position to comment critically on the views of this famous historian who resides in Israel. Apart from the advantages of hindsight, several visitors to this website will have one advantage over van Crefeld: their experiential compass will not be in the heartland of international power, the West (and its offshoot Israel). They will be located in the peripheries of international clout and be backed by knowledge of the four Eelam wars in Lanka. Continue reading →

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July 21, 2014 · 11:27 am

Where In-fighting generates Fervour & Power: ISIS Today, LTTE yesterday

Michael Roberts, courtesy of Groundviews where some prejudiced and one-eyed commentary has already been set in train

“Division and in-fighting will sap and weaken any organisation or ideological current.” This formulation (mine) may seem a common-sense dictum.  Let me challenge this notion with another dictum: “fratricidal militant fission sparks dedication, skill and organisational power.” The recent, explosive expansion in Syria and Iraq of Sunni militants under the banner of ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham) can be placed alongside the rise of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) among Tamil militants in the 1970s-to-90s as potential illustrations of a thesis that undermines common-sense notions. In the LTTE case too one could say that “success breeds legitimacy” as Mendelsohn argues for ISIS in clarifying how that organisation’s military might and its capture of swathes of territory in recent months enabled it to supplant such Al-Qaeda branches as Jabhat al-Nusra (2014a). Continue reading →

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June 23, 2014 · 9:18 am

Low Cost Precision Weapons: A Bibliography on Suicide Attacks

Courtesy of The Poor Man’s Smart Bomb at http://pmsmartbomb.wordpress.com/suicide-attacks%C2%A0bibliography/

twin towers burnI thought it might be useful to share this list of articles and books relating to suicide attacks. This is an ongoing effort and is by no means comprehensive and is fairly narrowly focused – I have no intention of trying to catalogue all materials related to terrorism and insurgency. I’ll be updating the bibliography as I go along. If you notice any glaring omissions or have suggestions for new material, please comment below or email me at pmsmartbomb at gmail dot com.

21-Black Tigers Marching Black Tigers marching

Continue reading →

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April 15, 2014 · 6:17 pm

Body Cavity Bombers: new modes of terrorist penetration

Body Cavity Bombers: The New Martyrs: A Terrorism Research Center Book 

by Robert J. Bunker  and Christopher James Flaherty, paperback ….
body cavity . . authoritative account of a significant new terrorist tactic that is likely to become more pervasive in our increasingly sophisticated technological and medical age in which it is becoming easier for the terrorist adversary to use the types of body cavity bombs that will be capable of evading detection technologies Dr. Joshua Sinai, Washington, DC-based consultant on counterterrorism studies and author of Active Shooter: A Handbook on Prevention. “Body Cavity Bombers shows how what was once a lurid Hollywood fantasy has emerged as a legitimate threat, dissects the risk with clinical precision, and soberly considers the remediation options” Dr. Nils Gilman, Director of Research at Monitor 360 and co-editor of Deviant Globalization. “A timely and important book about a disgusting subject. In showing how the human body might be used to carry and conceal explosive devices, terrorism experts Bunker and Flaherty have left no stone unturned” Dr. Martin van Creveld, one of the world’s leading writers on military history and strategy, with a special interest in the future of war, and author of twenty books including The Transformation of War. “Those in the front line of identifying and taking necessary action to counter these new techniques of destruction would be well advised to read Dr. Bunker and Dr. Flaherty’s realistic assessment” Dr. Stephen Sloan, internationally recognized terrorism scholar and author/co-author of fourteen books on terrorism.

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January 2, 2014 · 2:14 am

Kate Adie of BBC: reporting on war & women at war

ADIE KATE ADIE 22 Kate Adie recently presented a talk at the National Press Club in Australia which was featured on ABC television where there was a riveting Q and A session as well. It is highly recommended viewing not least because ADIE is a formidable personality.

A summary here can do no justice to the spread of her talk. The contentions that have been imprinted on my mind are the following HOT SPOTS.

  • Today’s TV and news coverage is oriented towards the “live spot” and featured by “live instant journalism” organised by “whizzy technology.”
  • So it is “headline led.”
  • The coverage is controlled by the media barons, mostly men and men are, unlike the past, are personnel who have not  cut their teeth as young reporters.
  • In USA coverage of war is subject to informal governmental control and subject to the strict “accreditation” process exercised by their armed forces.
  • In all Western countries certain motifs are edited out because they are deemed unsuitable: for instance, captured enemy POWs and corpses.
  •  There is difference when reporters (and their d editors) are covering “our war” and “our troops” – as distinct for wars between two forces that are not in alliance with one’s own country. Continue reading →

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October 15, 2013 · 2:13 am

Malala Yousafzai, aged 16, speaks to the World

SEE  Interview with Malala Yousafzai …..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjGL6YY6oMs

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/09/world/asia/malala-shooting-anniversary/index.html

PHOTO: Malala Yousafzai addresses hundreds of young leaders at United Nations Headquarters Continue reading →

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September 27, 2013 · 11:54 pm

Think GLOBAL, act LOCAL — Al-Shabab and the protean spread of Islamic radicalism

Greg Sheridan, in The Weekend Australian, 28 September 2013

AL-QA’IDA is back. Terror is on the march, geographically, organisationally and ideologically, winning a place in the hearts of tens of thousands of young Muslim men. The Arab Spring is dead. The Islamist spring has taken its place. The liberalism of the Arab Spring is gone. The intolerance of al-Qa’ida is resurgent.

al-shababWho won the Arab Spring? Al-Qa’ida. The terrorist murders in the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi should not be seen in isolation. During the same week, Islamist terrorists in Pakistan blew up a church, killing 70 people. Last month, the US closed more than 20 of its diplomatic missions across the Middle East because it had intercepted a communication from al-Qa’ida’s chief, Ayman al-Zawahiri, suggesting an attack was likely. Continue reading →

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September 20, 2013 · 9:52 am

Jihadist HATE: Meeting jihadists fuelled by hate

Anthony Loyd, in The Times and The Australian, 20 September 2013, where the title is” Will I die today? Face to face with jihadists fueled by hate”

jihadists 11 A TEENAGE foreign fighter stepped out into the dusty road before us. Turbanned and wild-eyed, he stared into our car with a gun in one hand, jabbing a finger in repeated accusation with the other.  Catalysed with anger, long hair falling over his shoulders, he spoke with a voice that was a tumble of loathing. “ISIS,” murmured our interpreter, alias “Hamza”, confirming we had just driven into a checkpoint controlled by al-Qa’ida’s affiliate in Syria. The very word seemed to suck the oxygen out of the vehicle. Infamous for abduction and torture of its enemies, hatred of Westerners and a radical interpretation of sharia, it is believed to be holding two dozen forlorn foreign hostages inside Syria. Continue reading →

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June 27, 2013 · 11:39 am

Hate Speech! Mahinda Rajapaksa looks the other way

Kath Noble, in The Island, 25 June 2013, where the title reads “Mahinda Rajapaksa’s ‘bright ideas’

lanka-rdv-tmagArticleMahinda Rajapaksa has had another bright idea. A few weeks ago, he got one of his hangers-on in the ‘public service’ to float a draft code of ethics for journalists, which he no doubt expected to prove useful in strengthening formal mechanisms of control of the Fourth Estate. Unfortunately for him, the document was so flawed that even his hangers-on in the media could find nothing positive to say about it. Indeed, the condemnation that it elicited was virtually universal, forcing the President to step in and promise that such efforts would be left to journalists themselves. Continue reading →

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