The Political Conundrum!

The following story is from Reuters.

Bouhammer Note- Dead Tango stories are always worth repeating and sharing.

US-led coalition forces killed 22 militants, including two Taliban commanders, during a series of operations in Afghanistan, the US military said on Tuesday.

The raids, which involved air support, took place on Monday in southern and eastern Afghanistan, the US military said.

One operation targeted a Taliban network in Kapisa province, to the northeast of Kabul. Troops killed 18 insurgents and a commander, who was involved in a series of attacks against Afghan and foreign forces, the US military said in a statement.

Coalition troops detained eight suspected militants during the operation, it said.

In two separate raids, one Taliban commander was killed in southern Kandahar province and two more insurgents were killed in neighbouring Zabul province, the US military said.

The military did not say whether there were any casualties among the foreign troops. The Taliban could not be reached for comment and Reuters was unable to verify the military’s accounts.

Removed from power in a US-led invasion in 2001, the Taliban have made a comeback since 2005, escalating their campaign in recent months with several high-profile attacks, including in Kabul.

Separately, a remote-controlled bomb on a bicyle killed two policemen and an Afghan civilian on Tuesday in the southern city of Kandahar, a provincial official said.

Various CT Blog experts have posted in the past about homegrown terrorism in the United States (most notably Madeleine Gruen and Frank Hyland and the NEFA Foundation’s Target America series). I have published a long article on the subject in the latest issue of Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, attempting to outline the history of homegrown terrorism of jihadist inspiration in America and analyze the U.S. government’s response to it.

On March 9, 1977, a group of 12 armed men, all African American converts to Islam who called themselves Hanafi Muslims, brought havoc to the central area of Washington, D.C. Divided in three groups, the men stormed into the city’s Islamic Center, City Council chambers, and the headquarters of B’nai B’rith, America’s oldest Jewish organization. Wielding rifles, shotguns and machetes, the men took about 150 people hostage. They were led by Hamaas Abdul Khaalis, an African American convert who had served as secretary to Malcolm X at Harlem’s Temple #7 under the name of Ernest 2X McGhee before leaving the Nation of Islam to form his own sect, which referred to a more traditional form of Sunni Islam. After seizing the buildings, Khaalis issued a series of demands. First he wanted authorities to hand over to him the five Nation of Islam members who had been arrested for brutally murdering several members of his family, including some infants, four years earlier. Then he demanded that authorities ban the showing of the movie Mohammad, Messenger of God, which he deemed offensive to Islam. This second request was granted and theaters nationwide stopped showing the controversial movie. The siege ended two days later, after extensive negotiations led by the Egyptian, Pakistani and Iranian ambassadors to the U.S., who read the men passages from the Quran about compassion and mercy. A security guard and a journalist were killed during the siege, and several others, including Washington mayor-to-be Marion Barry, were injured.

Three years later, another violent incident motivated by political Islam bloodied the streets of America’s capital. On the morning of July 22, 1980, Ali Akbar Tabatabai, a former press attaché at the Iranian Embassy in Washington, was shot dead on the doorstep of his Bethesda home. Since the 1979 Revolution, Tabatabai had been a staunch opponent of the Iranian regime and authorities immediately suspected a political motive for his murder. What they quickly came to learn was that Tabatabai’s killer was a Long Island native and former Baptist named David Theodore Belfield. Belfield, an African American convert to Sunni Islam who also went by the name Dawud Salahuddin, had been hired by Iranian officials to conduct the assassination. Belfield left America a few hours after the murder, reportedly finding shelter in the Geneva home of Said Ramadan, the right-hand man of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al Banna and one of the movement’s most important leaders of the last fifty years. Belfield eventually reached Iran, where he has been living ever since. "I was primed for violence, and I thought about cratering the White House a quarter century before Al Qaeda did," said Belfield in a 2002 interview with The New Yorker. "It would be accurate to say that my biggest aspiration was to bring America to its knees, but I didn't know how."

The Washington siege and the Tabatabai assassination represent two early examples of a phenomenon that has been largely overlooked by experts and policymakers alike: homegrown terrorism of jihadist inspiration inside the United States. Over the last few years, and particularly after the July 2005 London bombings, much attention has been devoted to homegrown jihadist networks in the West. Academics and security services have been analyzing the growing threat coming from small clusters of Western-born, self-radicalized militants who look at al Qaeda as an ideological inspiration but who act with varying degrees of independence from it. Yet most analyses have been based on the dual assumptions that this phenomenon has manifested itself only extremely recently and that it is largely limited to Europe. While these two assertions are not completely unfounded, they do not take into consideration significant anecdotal evidence pointing to an extensive history of homegrown networks inspired by radical Islam operating within the United States.

Obviously the Washington siege and the Tabatabai assassination possess characteristics that set them apart from what could be described as today’s prototypical homegrown terrorism of jihadist inspiration. For example, despite their demand to ban the movie Mohammad, Messenger of God, the actions of the 12 Hanafi Muslims that seized the heart of Washington for a day seem to have been motivated mostly by internal disputes among the most radical fringes of African American Muslim groups. In contrast, Belfield’s actions appear to have been directed from abroad and should be interpreted as an attempt of the newly established Iranian regime to eliminate one of its opponents by using an American executioner. Today’s homegrown networks, conversely, are predominantly motivated by a strict Salafi interpretation of Islam and have no links to foreign governments.

Nevertheless, despite these evident differences, the Washington siege and the Tabatabai assassination represent two of the first instances in which American-born and/or American-based individuals inspired by a radical and politicized interpretation of Islam decided to use violence inside the United States. They represent only some of the earliest examples that can be used to dispel the dual assumptions that homegrown jihadist -inspired terrorism is a recent phenomenon in the West and that it is largely limited to Europe. While it is true that homegrown networks have become significantly more numerous and dangerous over the last few years, extensive anecdotal evidence shows that they have been present in the West for at least three decades. Moreover, while it is undeniable that Europe is home to a larger number of them, homegrown jihadist networks (both “atypical,” such as the Washington siege’s Hanafi Muslims, and others more commonly inspired by Salafism) have long been operating inside the United States as well.

The piece continues with an analysis of cases and policies and with a comparison to Europe. The whole piece can be read here (subscription required).

Emboldened by surviving Israel's military onslaught, Hamas declared victory Tuesday in rallies attended by thousands supporters waving green Islamic flags atop the ruins in Gaza.

Russia is ready to cooperate on defense matters with Afghanistan, the Afghan president said Monday. The announcement coincides with increasingly public tensions between Afghan and Western officials.

China's defense ministry urged President-elect Barack Obama on Tuesday to work with Beijing to improve its occasionally tense military relationship with the United States, calling on the Pentagon to "remove obstacles."

China's defense ministry urged President-elect Barack Obama on Tuesday to work with Beijing to improve its occasionally tense military relationship with the United States, calling on the Pentagon to "remove obstacles."

Anti-war protesters were throwing shoes outside the gates of the White House on President George W. Bush's last day in office.

Stepping into history, Barack Hussein Obama grasped the reins of power as America's first black president on Tuesday, saying the nation must choose "hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord" to overcome the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Though it has attracted little attention in the midst of public celebrations for the inauguration of President Barack Obama, Al-Qaida has taken another angry swipe at the celebrity aura and optimism surrounding Obama--not just in the U.S., but also in Europe. Earlier this year, a crowd of hundreds of thousands of well-wishers greeted Obama during a speech in Berlin, Germany. Meanwhile, this weekend, Al-Qaida's As-Sahaab Media Foundation released a video of German Al-Qaida member Bekkay Harrach mocking the political system in Germany and widespread admiration among Germans for the results of recent U.S. elections. Harrach insisted, "the people have no choice because both parties want the same thing, no matter whether you will vote soon for McCain or Obama… Maybe the day will come when you will wish to be South Koreans or to have Opera leader Kirsten as Chancellor."

The NEFA Foundation has released a new report by NEFA Senior Analyst Steve Merley titled, "The Union of Good: A Global Muslim Brotherhood Hamas Fundraising Network." The Union of Good is a coalition of Islamic charities that provides financial support to both the Hamas “social” infrastructure, as well as its terrorist activities. It is headed by global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi, and most of the trustees and member organizations are associated with the global Muslim Brotherhood. The Union of Good was banned by Israel in 2002 and recently designated a terrorist entity by the United States, although neither Youssef Qaradawi nor any of the Trustees were similarly designated. Despite the fact that action has been taken against some of its member organizations in Europe, many of its other European member organizations continue to operate. Further, the Union of Good itself does not appear to be under investigation in Europe. This report complements prior NEFA Special Reports on the Brotherhood networks in the U.S., Belgium, and the Netherlands. And Steve Merley’s most recent report, “The Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe," examined an umbrella group that comprises the global Muslim Brotherhood in Europe.

Mr. Merley's report can be downloaded from the NEFA Foundation website.