Security Watch: China, Iran, North Korea

By macleans.ca - Thursday, May 7, 2009 at 5:53 PM - 2 Comments

The Intelligence Security Diary is a monthly compendium of open-source intelligence on global security matters distributed by Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP. Its findings rely on freely available information gleaned from public, unclassified sources. Each month, Macleans.ca summarizes these findings.

CHINA:

• A once-reclusive China played a surprisingly active role at the recent G20 meetings in London, pushing its trade and anti-protectionism agenda while working to minimize concerns about the environment. China also indicated it wouldn’t hesitate to throw its economic weight behind its effort to maintain sovereignty over Tibet. As its economic clout grows due to its holdings of U.S., China is expected to emerge as a major player in global affairs. Its successful strong-arming of France into abandoning a clampdown on tax havens that could have targeted Hong Kong and Macau, as well its derailing of U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s bid to include environmental concerns in the summit communiqué, may provide a hint of things to come.

IRAN:

• Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi has been convicted of espionage in an Iranian court. Prosecutors alleged Saberi was transferring information gleaned from government documents and interviews to American intelligence sources. Should Iran’s Revolutionary Court find Saberi’s actions were part of an attempt to overthrow the government, she could face the death penalty. The case is expected to further dampen efforts at reviving diplomatic relations between Iran and the U.S., though Saberi’s conviction could be an attempt at gaining leverage to secure the release of three Iranians accused of spying in Iraq. It may also be an attempt to deflect discussion away from its nuclear ambitions and delay a preemptive strike against it by Israel.

NORTH KOREA:

• Leader Kim Jong Il was re-appointed as the country’s defense chief, a post he has occupied since 1998, when North Korea began testing long-range missiles.
• Intelligence sources indicate North Korea may have as much as $5 billion stashed away in a secret slush fund known as “Division 39.” The fund was set up in 1970s to further Kim Jong Il’s political career and is also linked to North Korea’s weapons programs. Analysts believe that freezing it could be the key to regime change in North Korea. “Division 39″ is believed to be made up of two principal arms—one to fund legal activities undertaken by the Daesong Group, the Daesong bank and Golden Star Bank, the other to fund illegal activities, such as trafficking in heroin and amphetamines. The money is doled out primarily to key military officials and Workers’ Party leadership figures.

SOMALIA:

• Somali pirates have reportedly agreed to financial deals with a local Islamist terrorist group known as al Shabab (“the youths”). The group once worked as the military wing of the Islamist Courts Union, which controlled Somalia for six months in 2006, and is intent on implementing Taliban-style Islamic government in Somalia. Al Shabab’s leadership is partially made up of graduates of al Qaeda’s training camps and its membership is said to include several veteran al Qaeda figures.

U.S.:

• The Manhattan District Attorney’s office have indicted Limmt Economic & Trade Co. on 118 charges related to accusations it engaged in “illegal financial transactions to allow Iran to import a number fo proscribed materials used in weapons programs, including metal alloys and tungsten copper plates.” The charges date back to activities that allegedly took place between November 2006 and September 2008. Limmt is accused of using at least eight aliases or front companies to cloak their identity.
• Defense Secretary Robert Gates released a “strategic Pentagon blueprint” last month that calls for wholesale changes to the way the U.S. military establishment conducts its business affairs. The most noteworthy element in Gates’s blueprint is his call for the U.S. to abandon the production of the American-made F-22 Raptor fighter jet. Gates also wants purchasing decisions to reflect current needs in Iraq and Afghanistan, rather than the hypothetical needs that might emerge from future wars. Congress, however, could be reluctant to implement Gates’s proposals—he’ll need significant bipartisan support and that may be hard to come by as politicians begin preparing for the 2010 mid-term election.
• The Pentagon announced it has spent over $100 million responding to cyber attacks in the past six months. Last year alone, there were 5,500 attacks against government computers, up from 3,800 the year before. Reports also surfaced the U.S. electrical grid could be vulnerable to attacks that could potentially cause major service disruptions. It has been sugggested that the majority of the cyber attacks against the U.S. originated in China.

Lost in Somalia

By Jonathon Gatehouse & Cathy Gulli - Wednesday, February 4, 2009 at 9:50 AM - 3 Comments

Abdifatah Mohamed Elmi has been free for almost two weeks, but his mind is still shackled. “I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I just walk around,” he says from his Mogadishu home. For 146 days, the Somali photographer was held in a dark room, cut off from the outside world, and allowed only the curtest exchanges with his captors. But since his sudden release on the night of Jan. 15, it is the fate of the foreign journalists he was guiding when he was snatched late last summer—Amanda Lindhout of Sylvan Lake, Alta., and Australian Nigel Brennan—that preoccupies his thoughts. “I am very worried for my colleagues,” he says in a soft voice. “I wish that they will be free.”

On the morning of Aug. 23, the Toyota Land Cruiser carrying Elmi, Lindhout and Brennan was stopped by a group of gun-toting men on the road just past the Sarkus check-point on the outskirts of the former Somali capital. Elmi and the two local drivers—also now freed—were blindfolded and stuffed in another vehicle. It was the last they saw, or heard, of their foreign friends. “I tried to find out, but my guards told me ‘don’t ask us that question,’ ” says Elmi. “I am very sorry. I am very sorry.”

Continue…

This cabbie hunts pirates

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Monday, January 12, 2009 at 8:00 AM - 8 Comments

To hear Abdiweli Ali Taar tell it, the pirates’ days of hijacking and plunder off the Somali coast are coming to an end. Early in the new year, vows the former Toronto cab driver and Le Château sales clerk, he will lead his men into battle. And the world’s media, should they choose to ignore the obvious risks, are welcome to bear witness. “We are going to where the pirates are holding the ships. I’m going to attack them,” Taar says via a crackling cellphone connection.

The Puntland Coast Guard—or as they are known for business purposes, the SomCan (short for Somali-Canadian) Coast Guard—will face long odds. Taar’s armada consists of one armed 30-m patrol vessel and three rusting hulks with anti-aircraft guns mounted on the decks, captured from his adversaries in a previous skirmish. He has 210 militiamen in his employ. The pirate gangs—10 at last count—are said to have as many as 1,000. And then there is the question of motivation. The ransom demand for the Saudi supertanker Sirius Star, one of close to two dozen vessels currently being held off the coast, is US$25 million. The asking price for the MV Faina, a Ukrainian ship laden with Russian tanks, ammo and rocket-propelled grenades, is a cool $20 million. Taar’s men earn $400 a month.

Continue…

Useful advice for Canadians who might end up jailed in Somalia: pretend to be British

By Michael Petrou - Wednesday, November 19, 2008 at 9:59 AM - 3 Comments

A New York Times photo essay about Somalia’s pirates identifies an inmate jailed in the Somali port city of Boosaaso as Canadian Gure Ahmed. 

The World Desk called Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade to ask if they had any information on the man. After two days of research, they replied that they have never heard of him, which, among other disturbing implications, suggests no one at DFAIT is familiar with Google.

The topic of Canadians jailed abroad is one I will be exploring in more depth in an upcoming article in the print edition of Maclean’s.

Kidnapped in Somalia

By Jonathon Gatehouse and Nicholas Köhler - Thursday, September 25, 2008 at 12:00 AM - 8 Comments

The online reviews make Mogadishu’s Hotel Shamo sound almost pleasant. “The rooms are large, with air conditionned, wi-fi and electricity 24 h day, [sic]” a Kenyan visitor wrote last December. “The restaurant is extremely decent, and serves lobster when available at the fish market.” And above all, notes the entry, the hotel is “relatively safe”—not a small consideration for travellers to Somalia, a country that stopped functioning so long ago it now qualifies as a “post-failed” state.

Amanda Lindhout, a 27-year-old freelance journalist from Sylvan Lake, Alta., and her friend Nigel Brennan, a 35-year-old Australian photographer, checked in on Aug. 20. They spent two days scouting for stories in the former capital—chasing reports of a roadside bomb aimed at African Union peacekeepers, interviewing shopkeepers at the Bakara market about the almost daily mortar attacks from Islamic insurgents. Then early on the morning of Aug. 23, the pair crammed into a hotel-owned Toyota Land Cruiser for the journey into even more dangerous territory, a camp that houses some of the estimated 400,000 people displaced by the fighting in Mogadishu.

The trip to Afgoyee doesn’t take long— the sprawling refugee shantytown is just 20 km to the northwest—but it is outside the zone controlled by the grandly named Transitional Federal Government (TFG), Somalia’s notional authority. So, at the Sarkus checkpoint on the city’s edge, Lindhout and Brennan bid goodbye to their two AK-47-toting guards, dressed in TFG uniforms, but employed by the hotel for $10 a day. Another security “team” (read members of a different militia) were supposedly waiting for them at the next roadblock, just 1.5 km down the highway. The journalists, their guide, the hotel driver and another local man who hopped in to show them the way disappeared en route. Lindhout had travelled to Somalia hoping to sell stories about the deteriorating security situation and burgeoning humanitarian crisis to networks in Canada and France. Her only television appearance so far has been in a grainy video her captors released to al-Jazeera last week. Dressed in a red abaya, and surrounding by masked and armed men, the Albertan called on the Canadian and Australian governments to work for her and Brennan’s release. A communiqué read by one of her captors called for an end to foreign aggression in Somalia. But the demands transmitted through other channels have been anything but political—US$2.5 million in cold, hard cash.

The video was released by a group calling itself the Mujahideen of Somalia, but according to the clan leader who has been negotiating with the kidnappers, ideology has not entered into the discussions. “They are not Shabaab,” Dahir Farah says by phone from Mogadishu, referring to the al-Qaeda-linked Islamist militia who are the TFG’s main military rivals. “They are not another faction. They are bandits.” Farah, a well-known figure in Mogadishu, says he first heard from Lindhout’s captors on the day of the abductions. Their initial demand was for US$5 million, a sum that he says he convinced them was too high. Despite media reports to the contrary, the negotiator says he has been unable to speak directly with any of the hostages, but has been assured that they are being well looked after. However, Farah is frustrated by what he perceives as a lack of urgency on the part of the Australian and Canadian governments. The Aussies, through their High Commission in Nairobi, Kenya, have flatly refused to pay a ransom. And Farah claims he has heard nothing from Canadian diplomats. “These journalists, they are in very much danger. Your governments, they must take action as soon as possible. Trust me, these kidnappers are not good people.”

Maclean’s has obtained a cellphone number for the men who are holding Lindhout and Brennan. But the magazine decided against contacting the group at this point, for fear of jeopardizing the safety of the captives, or ongoing efforts to free them. Last week, Australia’s Foreign Minister Stephen Smith wrote to his media asking for restraint in their coverage. No such demand has been made by the Canadian government. In fact, in sharp contrast to the Australians, it took Foreign Affairs in Ottawa more than three days to respond to Maclean’s request for their input on the matter. Among the initial concerns expressed by Rodney Moore, a department spokesman, were potential violations of Canada’s Privacy Act, and the possibility of adverse media coverage. Ian Burchett, the director general of communications for Foreign Affairs, says the government is “working with all channels to seek further information about the case, and [the hostages’] welfare and early release.” But he declined to comment on Farah’s allegation of diplomatic indifference. “It’s a very sensitive case,” says Burchett.