IA on Parisian Terrorist Attacks - Charlie Hebdo Yemen Houthis ISIS and Al-Qaeda

IA on Parisian Terrorist Attacks
#Paris #Charlie Hebdo #Yemen #Houthis #ISIS #SOTU

    The recent terrorist attacks on Charlie Hebdo in Paris highlight the ongoing threat posed by the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda. Terrorist attacks with a sequence of assaults were more common tactics of Pakistani groups in Kashmir and a worsisome trend because they attract larger headlines and increase a sense of vulnerability by the targeted population. The attackers seem to have had links to both, illustrating the close links between the more prominent extremist groups. To be clear, a look at the oaths of allegiance and chain of comand, the standing authorization to use force covers both the Islamic state in the Levant and the Al-Qaeda core group in Yemen. While a reknewed and revamped authorization to use force would be welcomed, as congress has been discussing, the military and security related agencies and partners do have the legal capacity to respond under the current authorization to use force. My caution for decision makers rests in the reality that the strategy in play by the starfish of closely related organizations affiliated, or previously affiliated with Al-Qaeda is the fact that it has long been their strategy to pull America and their western allies into tough and expensive fights in an effort to bleed us financially. While the attacks may have had direct backing from Al-Qaeda in Yemen, where the US has raged a clandestine war against the group and worked with the Yemen government and regional Arab partners to contain the threat, Yemen is an ideal country for Al-Qaeda to pull the West into as it relates to their strategy. The governing party has been battling a Shi'ite insurgency that has found the most fragile of brokered peace, while extemist groups, including core al-qaeda have been able to fester in the backdrop of mirky lawlessness and diversion of limited resources. For the west, keeping the current government in power and maintaining the brokered peace with Houthi Shi'ites of the region frees up resources to improve the competency of the Yemeni government's administration and improve efforts to undercut and defeat al-Qaeda in the region. The Houthi Rebel's assault on the capital and seizure of the presidential palace in today's attacks is an irksome development. The current government, has had a long history of colloration with the US as it relates to security. As a nation with over 45 million guns it is the type of volatile time bomb that Western Militaries have little chance of lasting success, ripe for al-Qaeda assymetrical tactics that were successful in creating chaos in Anbar, and very effective at exacting costs on any potential occupying force. Similiarly to Syria, aggressive efforts at occupation and nation building are going to be costly and difficult, while playing into the strategy outlined by Osama Bin Laden that has evolved under Daesh. The volume of trade passing by off the coast of Yemen is not lost in geo-political considerations. With Al-Qaeda effectively suppressed in Saudi Arabia, Yemen has long been a staging ground for attacks into the Kingdom.

    While airstrikes and raids are a reasonable response where intell is able to identify appropriate targets, at root in a sound NATO strategy for reducing and responding to the recent spree of terrorist assualts on France exists in Libya where conflicts between Islamist Brigades and the recognized government have posed opportunities for Islamist inroads into neighboring Algeria, where the majority of french Muslims descend and continue to have familial ties and therefore networked connections. For more background on Islamist extremism in Algeria I highly recommend watching a film, “The Battle of Algiers,” which is goes into detail on the Algerian assymetical tactics during their independence movement which became a particularly bloody affair where even with 2 million french troops mobilized for the conflict, Algeria won its independence, taking decades to move away from Islamist radicalism where today, its tough security forces act more as professional cartel, protecting their clients with brutal force, but subject of cross border assaults from Islamist groups centering operations in the South West of Libya. While the Islamic State would love to bring Algeria fully into the fight and on their side, as they are perhaps the best gene pool for soldiers, a hybrid of Arab and West african blood, stabilizing Libya will help maintain the tolerable status quo in relations and realities within Algeria. Egpyt and the United Arab Emirates have already showed their eagerness to increase measures of control over Islamist militias in Libya, and the fastest growing economy we saw in the region in the first year after the revolution and democratic transistion can return. There is a much stronger likelyhood of self-sustaining operations in Libya, where the latent wealth of the country, makes it a more valueable piece on the chess board, a means of underwriting the long war with Islamist extremism. If it were up to me, I would enter into Libya to restore law and order, protect the contaminum of extremism into neighboring Algeria while taking away a significant source of potential terrorist funding stemming from the Ansar al-Sharia brigade's increasing control of rich oil fields in Benghazi, previously controlled by collaborating partners. While the Iraqi military prepares for town by town, house by house counter insurgency operations in Anbar and other regional forces train to enter into Syria, a key role for targeted strikes exist in pin-pointing media sources and targeting their ability to garner new recruits and spread their ideology. Air strikes can prevent their ability to move equipment on open roads and create military formations to advance but if they are dug in, their continued ability to control the internet encourages radicalism and actions around the world at their inspiration. Part of this exists in addressing the ideology, branding the West as helpers, highlighing increasing standards of living in the areas where Islam is at peace and political conditions favorable for outside investment, the other part exists in aggressively policing and taking down terrorist networks. The situation requires effective forward policing, a matter that international support and can help facilitate by not only increasing intelligence sharing but also continuing investment in operations training. I would recommend increasing Special Operations Forces to bring a larger ground presence to advance the gains of airstrikes and using (non-lethal) HPFM Bofor Blackouts, Electromagetic Pulse Weapons, around ISIS media centers to blackout their capacity to spread their message, for if they want to target our rights to free speech we should take away their ability to spread their message. Such actions could help calm the internet and radicalization of extremist networks that now stretch into Western Countries. It could also take out their communinications and electronic related systems prior to clearing operations and other counter-insrugency assaults lead by the regions governments. Allowing for Anbar and Western Syria to become an Islamic Extremist Jihadi haven has contributed to terrorist attacks in Australia, Canada, Oaklahoma and France, while plaguing the overwhelmed security forces of cooperating partners in the Arab League, a larger allied response involving boots on the ground may become necessary.

   If NATO does enter into Syria, a move I am highly skeptical about and would prefer improved relations with Russia to increase their role in managing the conflict on the Syrian side of the border. I highly recommend using Jordan as the staging ground and entering from the South East of Syria to avoid crossing Russian naval bases on the Syrian West Coast and to defy fulfillments of Qu'aranic predictions that would be used by ISIS's propaganda machine if “Rome” is seen to be assaulting from areas along the Turkish/Syrian border in the North. Avoiding an escalation of the conflict is becoming impossible, and if the United States of America, Great Brittain, NATO and other allies around the globe can come to the same page, and sensible agreement with our cooperating partners in the Arab League and in North Africa can be reached, the time for decisive force is past due. Winning the fight; however, is only part of the path to victory. The larger part of defeating Islamic extremism, lives in our ability to create space for the peaceful practice of Islam in the Middle east, promoting the more spiritually agreable forces within Islam and overcoming the xenophobia and racism that results in negative interactions feeding into the appeal of militant Islamic recruitment efforts around the globe.

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  Based on the tactical success of the Houthi Rebel attacks, it is obvious that the Houthi Rebels are receiving substantial outside clandestine support.  The first culprit, is clearly Iran and specifically their al-Quds forces.  It cannot be overlooked by serious security advisors that a nuclear armed and unsanctioned Iran would be free fund and support these types of operations throughout the region.   If past behavior is any indicator of future behavior, then it is clear that allied foreign policy relating to Iran has to set the heights higher than simply preventing direct military conflict as the cowardly doves on the far left would assert, our allies have to posture and be willing to take measured actions to not only deter nuclear ambitions but also to reign in clandestine support and actions for troublesome groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas and now, the Houthi's.  While allowing for Houthi's to have greater autonomy in the north of Yemen is appropriate, allowing for a small shi'ite minority to maintain control of the nation's security forces and oil infrastructure while occupying the Capital and houses of governance is going to set the conditions and create an environment where sunni majority resistance may increasingly look to Al-Qaeda out of necessity as an increasingly legitimate voice and arm of sunni politics in Yemen.

    Furthermore, the operational means, of direct targeting and occupation of symbolic houses of governance, mirrors the strategy of ethnic Russian rebels in Ukraine.  With recent dialogue between Iran and Russia soothing grievances over debts relating to Iran's nuclear program, and now, according to Carnegie Endowment's Counter proliferation news letter, a re-committment to a previously stalled plan to delivery sophisticated Russian ground-to-air missile defense systems in Iran, it is likely that Russia has had a hand in coordinating the "Houthi Coup," working through Iran's Al-Quds networks as a proxy.

      With transition in Saudi Arabia following the death of King Abdullah and a security focus on the Islamic State, the US needs to send in special forces operations to clear the capitol of Houthi rebels and install a unity government willing to continue the fight against Al-Qaeda, whose core operates in the North East of Yemen along the Saudi border.
     
       I'm looking at patterns, but if human and signals intelligence provides hard evidence for such links, the pressure to take action against Iran escalates.  The truth is: 1. Iran is seeking a nuclear energy program as cover for a nuclear weapons programs. 2. It is using negotiations with the West to buy space to develop enrichment capabilities 3. with agreements in place Iran will bring enrichment capabilities towards "breakout capacity" and then use the financial relief of sanctions to invest in the development of more sophisticated delivery capabilities 4. advanced Russian ground to air missile systems will significantly increase the costs and complexity of allied strikes against Iran's nuclear program 5. while a nuclear a deterrent by Iran may reduce the risk of direct conflict between Iran and Israel or Iran and Saudi Arabia, and US allies and Iran, 6. it will essentially provide Iran a carte blanche to engage in aggressive clandestine meddling that will include 7. Increased support in terms of weapons and training to Hamas 8. Increased weapons and training to Hezbollah who hold significant numbers and influence in Lebanon and Bahrain to greatly destabilize and potentially overthrow current Saudi/US aligned regimes, and harass and intimidate cooperation from the Qatari regime 9. Increase support for Islamist brigades in Libya, including Ansar al-Sharia brigade responsible for the attacks on US diplomates and 10. increased support in terms of AKs, bullets and training for Boko Haram in Nigeria. 11. Al-Quds, also have increasingly reached across the shi'ite-sunni divide, assisting the predecessor to the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda in Iraq with IEDs, intel and funding to harass coalition forces and Hamas (primarily nationalistic in nature, but traditionally sunni).  12.  They will seek to deliver missiles to Venezuela (as previously discussed with Hugo Chavez) and 13. look to collaborate with Mexican Cartels to improve smuggling (potentially nuclear bomb in back pack as retaliatory deterrent) and assassination capabilities (as seen with attempt on Saudi ambassador to UN in New York).  

     It may be politically exigent to present negotiations with Iran as successful, remove sanctions and direct our attention elsewhere but as it pertains to security and sound foreign policy strategy, there are massive unaddressed risk that could become cataclysmic very quickly.  Pakistan has just built another large reactor to grow its nuclear capabilities, and allowing Iran to go nuclear will prompt Saudi Arabia to collect three nuclear warheads from Pakistan that they already paid for, and have an unknown affect on Turkey.  With such regional volatility and so many mirky irrational extremist groups just beneath the surface in these countries, managed proliferation is becomes an unacceptable gamble with the very existence of humanity in the balance.