GCOM Summary (only) 2010 Aug 25

[Felix The Assassin]

GCOM Summary 2010 Aug 25
U.S. Joint Forces Command
Global Current Operations Media Summary
Operations Iraqi Freedom/Enduring Freedom/Noble Eagle
Current as of August 25, 2010

New Developments
•Taliban May Be Misleading Its Forces On U.S. Timetable, U.S. General Says. The commandant of the Marine Corps said Tuesday that Taliban leaders may be misleading their own forces into believing that they only have to keep fighting through the middle of next year, when U.S. troops are slated to begin pulling out of Afghanistan. President Obama has said that troops will begin withdrawing in July 2011, but it will be months before the administration determines the size of the drawdown. On Tuesday, Gen. James T. Conway said that he thinks the Taliban has misinterpreted U.S. intentions. "We think right now it's probably giving our enemy sustenance. . . . We've intercepted communications that say, hey, you know, we only have to hold out for so long," he said. But if it turns out the Marines are still in Afghanistan after mid-2011, Conway said, insurgent leaders based in Pakistan could be hard pressed to explain themselves to their foot soldiers. (Washington Post – see attached)

•U.S. Troop Count Dips Below 50,000 In Iraq. The American military said Tuesday that the number of troops in Iraq had dropped below 50,000, in line with the Obama administration’s deadline of Aug. 31 for what it describes as the end of combat operations in the country. Both the administration and the military have promoted the date as a turning point in the tumultuous seven years of America’s presence in Iraq that followed its invasion in March 2003. The American commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno, said about 49,700 troops remained in Iraq, and roughly that number would stay through next summer. (New York Times – see attached)

•U.S. Weighs Expanded Strikes In Yemen. U.S. officials believe al Qaeda in Yemen is now collaborating more closely with allies in Pakistan and Somalia to plot attacks against the U.S., spurring the prospect that the administration will mount a more intense targeted killing program in Yemen. Such a move would give the Central Intelligence Agency a far larger role in what has until now been mainly a secret U.S. military campaign against militant targets in Yemen and across the Horn of Africa. It would likely be modeled after the CIA's covert drone campaign in Pakistan. The U.S. military's Special Operation Forces and the CIA have been positioning surveillance equipment, drones and personnel in Yemen, Djibouti, Kenya and Ethiopia to step up targeting of al Qaeda's Yemen affiliate, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, known as AQAP, and Somalia's al Shabaab – Arabic for The Youth. (Wall Street Journal – see attached)

Military Coverage
•Defense Official Discloses Cyberattack. Now it is official: The most significant breach of U.S. military computers was caused by a flash drive inserted into a U.S. military laptop on a post in the Middle East in 2008. In an article to be published Wednesday discussing the Pentagon's cyberstrategy, Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III says malicious code placed on the drive by a foreign intelligence agency uploaded itself onto a network run by the U.S. military's Central Command. Lynn's decision to declassify an incident that Defense officials had kept secret reflects the Pentagon's desire to raise congressional and public concern over the threats facing U.S. computer systems, experts said. (Washington Post – see attached)

Homeland Security
•Trial Opens In Synagogue Bomb Plot. Four Newburgh, N.Y., men piled into a sport-utility vehicle in May 2009 and planted what they believed were working explosives outside a Bronx synagogue in hopes of committing a terrorist attack in the U.S., a federal prosecutor said Tuesday. What they didn't know at the time was that a fifth man in the vehicle was a paid FBI informant who had been watching them for some time, and they were arrested moments later, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Hickey in his opening statement. "They were prepared to go all the way through with their destructive and murderous plan," Mr. Hickey said. However, Vincent L. Briccetti, a lawyer for one of the alleged plotters, James Cromitie, and other defense lawyers said the men never would have engaged in the plot if not for the informant, Shaheed Hussain. (Wall Street Journal – see attached)

World Developments
•At Least 30 Killed In Somalia Hotel Attack. Somali insurgents disguised in government military uniforms stormed a Mogadishu hotel on Tuesday and killed at least 30 people, including 6 lawmakers, laying bare how vulnerable Somalia’s government is, even in an area it claims to control. The insurgents methodically moved room to room, killing hotel guests who tried to bolt their doors shut, Somali officials said. When government forces finally cornered the insurgents, two blew themselves up with suicide vests. The attack shows that “operational momentum has shifted to the insurgents, who can go anywhere they want except where the African peacekeepers are deployed,” said J. Peter Pham, senior vice president at the National Committee on American Foreign Policy. Several Somali politicians said that the government was so thoroughly under siege that it could work only from behind fortified, sandbagged positions, and that the shrinking government enclave in Mogadishu, the capital, could soon vanish altogether. (New York Times – see attached)

•Northern Ireland Flares, But Will It Ignite? The bombers were nothing if not audacious. First they gleaned intelligence that a British army major would be spending the night at a friend's place in the seaside town of Bangor. Then they crept into "enemy" territory – republican militants in a loyalist neighborhood – and booby-trapped the soldier's car as it sat in a suburban housing tract with a single small road leading in and out. The plan went awry only when the bomb fell off the belly of the officer's car as he drove away the next day, clattering to the ground without exploding. It was one of three assassination attempts within a single week this month on people connected to the British and Northern Irish security forces. Together with other recent incidents, the failed attacks are part of an upswing of activity by republican rebels intent on disrupting the peace process that formally ended decades of heavy sectarian bloodshed in this divided territory. (Los Angeles Times – see attached)

•Church And Officials ‘Colluded’ To Protect Priest. Northern Ireland police colluded with the then British government and the Roman Catholic church in Ireland to protect a priest suspected of involvement in the 1972 bombing of a village in county Londonderry, an official investigation has found. Al Hutchinson, Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman, said in a report delivered on Tuesday to relatives of the nine people killed in Claudy that the police decision to seek the assistance of Catholic bishops and the British authorities had failed those who were murdered, injured and bereaved. The ombudsman said the actions of the old Royal Ulster Constabulary amounted to a “collusive act” in not investigating Father James Chesney who police intelligence records suggested was director of operations in south Derry for the IRA. Father Chesney died in 1980 without ever having been questioned by police about the atrocity. (London Financial Times)

•Suicide Bomber Killed In Foiled Mauritania Attack. Mauritanian troops early Wednesday killed a suicide bomber trying to ram a vehicle crammed with explosives into a military barrack at Nema in the country's east, a senior military official told AFP. The bomber refused to heed warnings and tried to drive his 4X4 vehicle into the main military barracks in Nema, about 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) east of Nouakchott, shortly after midnight, the official said. Nema is near the frontier with Mali. Soldiers fired on the vehicle, sparking a "big explosion", he said, attributing the foiled attack to an Al-Qaeda offshoot in North Africa, the Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The explosion caused heavy damage but no other deaths, he added. However, witnesses said three people suffered light injuries. (Google/AFP)

•Calderon Says More Drug War Violence Likely Ahead. Mexican President Felipe Calderon warned on Tuesday that more bloodshed will likely occur as his government continues its campaign to defeat violent drug cartels. More than 28,000 people in Mexico have died in drug violence since Calderon launched his drug fight when he took office in late 2006, and gruesome attacks are on the rise. Over the weekend, four decapitated bodies, their genitals and index fingers cut off, were hung upside down from a bridge in a popular getaway outside Mexico City. Another two bodies were dumped near the same bridge on Tuesday, police said. But Calderon told a local radio station that escalating bloodshed was a sign that the cartels were on the run. "I don't rule out that there might be more bouts of the violence we're witnessing, and what's more, the victory we are seeking and will gain is unthinkable without more violence," Calderon said. "This is a process of self-destruction for the criminals," he added. (Reuters)

•Hezbollah, Sunni Group Clash In Beirut, Killing 3. Lebanese Shiite and Sunni groups fought street battles using machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades for more than four hours Tuesday, killing three people and wounding several others just blocks from a busy downtown packed with summer tourists. The dead included a Hezbollah official and his aide, security officials said. Lebanese soldiers cordoned off the area during the worst of the fighting, but the crackle of sniper fire and blasts from rocket-propelled grenades were audible for hours. Gunmen stood on corners and peering down alleyways while families ran for cover during lulls in the fighting. Ambulances rushed to the scene; an elderly man was loaded into a stretcher clutching his neck, while another man was covered in blood and not moving. It was the worst clash in Beirut since May 2008, when Hezbollah gunmen swept through Sunni neighborhoods after the pro-Western government tried to dismantle the group's telecommunications network. (Oakland Tribune/AP)

ØPublic Opinion
•Americans Nix War Against North Korea. Many adults in the United States are not in favor of a military invasion of North Korea in the event of a war in the Korean Peninsula, according to a poll by Angus Reid Public Opinion. 46% of respondents oppose this course of action. Diplomatic relations between the North and South have been strained since the end of the Korean War. A one-mile demilitarized zone has separated the two countries since 1953. About 28,000 American troops are currently stationed in South Korea. (Angus Reid Global Monitor)