Terror alerts: An unending season

[TGD]

...As the world marks the anniversary of the Kenyan and Tanzanian terrorist attacks on U.S. embassy buildings today (August 7)

ALL seasons come and go but not this one. "High level al Qaeda communication, advanced security precaution, increased security concerns" have now combined to put the fear of the evil of terror in the minds of many people across the world.

  And it is not about the leading western nations. It is about our common humanity, of a collective peace and security now badly shaken by some pipeline development that has a continued potential for massive terrorist havoc. August is a "special" month for terrorists. Kenya, Russia, Indonesia and India have all in the past endured some spectacular bombings in that month.

  The prevailing global terror alerts which were triggered last week Friday have now ensured that just a few hours after the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (U.S.) State Department instructed that their embassies' personnel and non emergency staff be evacuated yesterday, both countries have now asked their citizens to leave the Arab nation of Yemen "immediately" as the al Qaeda terror threat intensifies.

  Once intelligence reports became unfavourable last Friday, warning systems have combined to ensure that by yesterday, no fewer than 22 U.S. diplomatic posts (embassies and consulates) across the Middle East and Africa were initially simultaneously closed after an intercepted conversation of an al Qaeda chief Ayman al Zawahri allegedly instructed the head of the terror affiliate in Yemen, Nasser al Wuhayshi to carry out a major attack as early as last Sunday. The plot is thought to be one of the most serious against American and other Western interests since the September 11, 2001, attacks.

  To stay closed until August 10 (following an extension), are the diplomatic posts in Abu Dhabi, Amman, Cairo, Riyadh, Dhahran, Jeddah, Doha, Dubai, Kuwait, Manama, Muscat, Sana'a, Tripoli, Antananarivo, Bujumbura, Djibouti, Khartoum, Kigali, and Port Louis. There have also been new closures –Madagascar, Burundi, Rwanda and Mauritius while the outposts that are reopening include those in Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Mauritania, Iraq, and Israel. In adding African missions outside the Magreb – Antananarivo, Bujumbura, Djibouti, Khartoum, Kigali and Port Louis to the list, State Department pushed the ring already drawn outside Arab states.

  Are the threats real or orchestrated? As the U.S. drone air strikes kill four Al Qaeda members, is the end of terror alerts ever to become a reality?

Would these terror alerts help the fingered terrorists device another route and timing? How different are today's global terror alerts from those of yesterday?

The Current Ripple

It all started early last week when the International Criminal Police Organisation (INTERPOL) issued a global security alert after those  jailbreaks linked to Al-Qaeda. Then the U.S., Canada, France and the UK began shuttering a few endangered embassies even as farther as the  Bangladeshi capital Dhaka.

   In issuing this initial alert, the Lyon, France, based INTERPOL said it suspected Al-Qaeda was involved in recent jailbreaks across nine countries, including Iraq, Libya and Pakistan. It said the jailbreaks had "led to the escape of hundreds of terrorists and other criminals" in the past month alone. It then promptly asked its 190 member countries to help "determine whether any of these recent events are coordinated and linked" and to immediately convey any intelligence that could help prevent another incident.

  Even though it was trailing the blaze of Washington's worldwide travel warning, citing unspecified plans by Al-Qaeda to strike U.S. interests in the Middle East or North Africa in August,  INTERPOL also noted that August is the anniversary of attacks in India, Russia and Indonesia.

  On Monday, General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told ABC News that the threats were directed at Western interests, and were "more specific" than previous threats. While an exact target was unknown, "the intent seems clear. The intent is to attack Western, not just U.S., interests," Dempsey said.

  The White House has been quoted as saying that the U.S. President Barack Obama has ordered his national security team to "take all appropriate steps to protect the American people,"

  The air has been further putrefied when hours after the U.S. alert was issued, an audio recording was posted on militant Islamist forums in which Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri accused the United States of "plotting" with Egypt's military, secularists and Christians to overthrow Islamist president Mohamed Morsi. In what appears his first public comment on the July 3 military coup, the Egyptian-born Zawahiri said: "Crusaders and secularists and the Americanized army have converged ... with Gulf money and American plotting to topple Mohamed Morsi's government."

  Zawahiri, who is said to belong to the militant Egyptian Islamic Jihad group and is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan or Pakistan. He had criticized Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood movement for going soft on applying strict Islamic law.

  The current ripple therefore appears justified considering that the U.S. has been especially cautious about security since an attack on its consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11 last year. The unfortunate assault, blamed on Islamist militants, killed four Americans, including ambassador Chris Stevens.

Echoes From The Past Years

Today marks the 15th anniversary of the U.S. embassy bombings in the Kenyan capital Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, which killed more than 200 mostly African citizens and injured thousands.

  But where do the threats lie? The September 11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York had become an eye opener for the interested world citizens on where the smoke of terror is coming from and where they are mostly headed. Again the question: who has been able to cope with its own terror threats? Not even the world's sole super power, the U.S.!

  For instance the U.S. had and still has a long list of terror threats and alerts before and after 911. Using  Homeland Security Advisory System to depict the threat Level, we see that in September 10, 2007, the U.S. national threat level was elevated, or became yellow just as the threat level was deemed high, or Orange, for all domestic and international flights. But the fears of an upward trend in propaganda tapes and messages has managed to become a constant decimal.

  In August 10, 2006 there was a statement by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff Announcing a Change to the Nation's Threat Level for the Aviation Sector - The Department of Homeland Security said it was taking immediate steps to increase security measures in the aviation sector in coordination with heightened security precautions in the United Kingdom. The previous year-July 7, 2005 Chertoff had announced a targeted raise in the threat level. And asked for increased vigilance in other transportation systems.

  Since March 17, 2003 when there was an advisory on national Threat Level that had been raised, according to a statement by the then Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, the perception had been oscillating between Yellow and Orange.

  After then, travel advisories or warnings by the U.S. State Department, UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), Canadian Department of Foreign and International Trade (DFAIT) and Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) etc,  are regularly issued to alert citizens from the respective countries to avoid certain countries for security reasons.

 Nigeria On The Terror Map

The U.S. mission in Nigeria has refrained from issuing any statement on what connections can be traced to Nigeria or the situation in Nigeria in the eye of the U.S. with regards to the current threat alert.

  Boko Haram activities have already spoken enough about the situation in Nigeria. When on the 25th of May, 2005, the US National Intelligence Council (NIC), released its long-term outlook and assessment of Nigeria, which projected a catastrophic scenario that Nigeria risks collapse in 15 years as a "Failed State" not only former President Olusegun Obasanjo dismissed the report as emanating from detractors, and sundry "prophets of doom", most Nigerians were bemused. Security lapses featured prominently in that very controversial report. Terror resorts was the unspoken of factor.

   There was a precipitate threat on the heels of the NIC report  in June of the same year when foreign embassies were closed with a diplomatic source having said that "Intelligence indicated that foreign militants posed a specific threat to the U.S presence in Nigeria. We also remember that until he met his doom, Osama bin Laden had named Nigeria as a "candidate for liberation"

   A similar warning issued two years later – September 6, 2007 – had said Western interests in Nigeria were at risk of "terrorist attack". The official warning, in a message for U.S. citizens in Nigeria, had also given few details, but said potential targets included official and commercial installations in the capital Abuja and the commercial city of Lagos.

  The embassy statement simply said then "The U.S. Mission in Nigeria has received information that U.S. and other Western interests in Nigeria are currently at risk for terrorist attack."

  Now, before Boko Haram bombings became commonplace, the possibility of it happening in Nigeria had some naked antecedents. On the 23rd of December 2006 a car-bomb exploded in Port Harcourt, which incidentally is the Oil capital of Nigeria, tearing down parts of the fencing of the Government House, the administrative hub of the state.

  Following The Guardian inquiry which stretched as far as Washington for clarification, a U.S. State Department official then said the advisory was based on "very nonspecific threat."

  In November last year, the U.S. told Nigeria that the war against terror in Nigeria cannot be won by sheer force alone. Rather, according to the United States (U.S.) Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour, Mr. Michael Posner, the employment of rules-based approach and the avoidance of impunity on the part of  security forces could be key to the desired success.

  The State Department chief  disclosed then that his office has received reports on allegations of extra-judicial killings, arbitrary arrests and detention of suspected members of the sect, committed by Nigeria's security forces.  Specifically on Boko Haram, Posner said the US was worried by the reports of lack of prosecution of security and police officers involved in human rights violations in the course of counter-terrorism activities.

  But terror cells are up there hanging over Nigeria. So as authorities in Nigeria step up the search for the wand to break the skull of terrorist organisations that turned the country into an operational base until the recent military assault, they may still have to look more critically at the countries lying on the northern belt of Nigeria.  

  From all indications, Nigeria now needs to be a central element, not an outlier in efforts to improve security beyond its northern fringe – the Sahel.

Before latest findings surfaced, the link between Boko Haram  in Nigeria and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the Al shahab in the Arabian peninsula and Somalia had been established since Al-Qaeda publicly identified  Boko Haram as an organisation it can do business with.

  Today, previously skeptical observers have been forced to accept evidence pointing to Boko Haram's increasing sophistication. While some of its recent tactics suggest possible foreign training, it is also displaying increasing tactical nuance, crafting political messages to accompany its high profile attacks. Well the events in Mali and elsewhere have now proved that the position is correct.

  It was therefore not surprising that U.S. General Carter Ham, in charge of American forces for Africa, attended a conference on anti-terrorism in the Sahel in Algeria where he made vital submissions.

  The worry here among diplomatic watchers is that the fallout of this scenario is increasingly driving Al-Qaeda and terrorist elements southwards and making them concentrate or increase their conglomeration on the borders of the northern states of Nigeria, waiting and willing to be employed or paid for bombing and destabilisation activities.

  The thinking now is that terror threats may also continue to alter Nigeria's grant stature with its development partners. One of Nigeria's unsung researchers Oladiran Bello of FRIDE, with a Madrid based think tank told The Guardian in a response to an enquiry that if nothing is done about the danger currently existing in the Sahel, "drug-trafficking and other trans border crimes linking West Africa could increase. Western business interests in what is the world's sixth-largest oil exporter (Nigeria) could become targets. And threats to Nigeria would pose a broader danger because regional stability is impossible without Nigerian leadership"

  In the eyes of right thinking people, the prevention of violent extremism and radicalisation is just one of the already identified strategic lines of action badly needed today.

International Affairs Experts Say Threats Are Real But Wrapped

Speaking with The Guardian on the matter, foreign affairs analyst, Dr. Nwangu Okeimiri noted that besides having devastating affects on many African economies they (terror alerts) are imposed on, there are now serious concerns being raised as to whether these alerts serve the purpose of ensuring that citizens of the respective countries are safe when they travel to the countries deemed insecure.

   "It can be argued that issuing travel alerts is in line with the responsibility of governments to protect their citizens. However, does this responsibility extend to threatening the livelihoods of citizens of other countries that rely on income generated from the tourism industry? Why is it that until last week's threat, existing lists contains only poor, non-Western countries? How come travel bans are rarely imposed on Western countries, particularly those most threatened by both domestic and international terrorism?

  He continued: "The place of Nigeria in the scheme of things? Now, Nigeria has to immediately begin to interrogate the alliances that our northern neighbours have with those capable of harming the Nigerian society and economy. The government also must now review our engagements with them. There are states that appear stateless for example Mauritania has become a real menace with the presence of terrorist training camps, while an enclave like western Sahara appears to harbour so many non-state actors that even the struggling authorities there cannot control. Yet these areas just lying above our northern frontiers. Everyone knows that there is a nexus between drug trafficking, money laundering and terrorism financing"

  Ambassador Ayo Adeniran, former envoy to Venezuela, now with the National Defence College, Abuja spoke of a matured response "We are in the centrist part of the world. But a whole lot of activities (terrorism inclusive) are moving towards the center."

  He said further: "There are conventions and international statutes that guide the way and manner things of internal security are treated. The principle of mutual respect must be held sacrosanct at all given times for relations to remain healthy."

  According to Ambassador Adeniran, Nigeria has a rich collection of terror scenarios developed over the years and more recently which she can rely on for a "more proactive approach... That is why we have started anticipating the terrorists in our country. With an early warning system, the battle is half won."

  But the Director General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) has given a more critical dimension to the link between insecurity and terror attacks.

  At a special brainstorming session recently in Abuja on Migration and Terrorism in Africa, he fingered the international community of contributing to insecurity and insurgency going on in parts of the continent.

  He said, "Of course, international community does, when there is double standard. I give the example of International Criminal Court (ICJ), all right. When you have a principle, if you are applying it to Africa, apply it to Africa. When it is the case of Europe, you apply it. But when you do not apply it to Europe, then you create a situation of order and counter-order which will always amount to disorder. That's how it constitutes insecurity."

  "However, the fight against terror is a global one and it calls for alertness by national armed forces, national police, and the national intelligence network. The hope is that as the war goes on out there, the right lessons would be learnt by all,"  he added.

Going Into Tomorrow

The Gulf News on Monday quoted the chairman of the US House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, Michael McCaul describing intelligence reports to be  "probably one of the most specific and credible threats I've seen, perhaps, since 9/11."

 Similarly, Representative Dutch Ruppersberger, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told ABC's 'This Week' that Al Qaeda's "operatives are in place."

  Realising that the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey had already said the threats were "more specific" than previous threats. While an exact target was unknown, all of the current frenzy might not be out of place.

  The State Department has spoken of an abundance of caution, diplomatic watchers believe that the decision to close the embassies is coming as the U.S. government battles to defend recently disclosed surveillance programmes that have stirred deep privacy concerns.

  Besides, according to earlier reports, western governments are taking seriously the perceived threat from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), because "the group has an established track record of highly innovative bomb plots".

  Terror trackers must daily be remembering the elusive Saudi bomb-maker Ibrahim al-Asiri, who is said to have sent his brother to blow up a prince with a bomb concealed on, or possibly even inside, his body.

  Among the many thwarted efforts and plots, they would also remember our own Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to detonate a bomb in his underpants on a flight to Detroit in 2009.

  Even though AQAP's leaders have been intensively targeted by U.S. drone strikes in recent years, what does tomorrow bring when by hiding out in remote tribal areas, they have managed to remain largely beyond the reach of the authorities and to continue to plot attacks?

The Guardian's efforts to get some prompt reaction or local position of the US mission in Nigeria regarding the current global terror alerts, have been also from "an abundance of caution."

  The embassy in response to lodged enquiry yesterday restated a position of the U.S. state department as conveyed by the embassy's Senior Information Specialist Mr. Sani Mohammed, thus:

  "Given that a number of our embassies and consulates were going to be closed in accordance with local custom and practice for the bulk of the week for the Eid celebration at the end of Ramadan, and out of an abundance of caution, we've decided to extend the closure of several embassies and consulates including a small number of additional posts. This is not an indication of a new threat stream, merely an indication of our commitment to exercise caution and take appropriate steps to protect our employees including local employees and visitors to our facilities..."

  When the U.S. issued a travel warning to Kenya on  February 6, 2007, the Mwai Kibaki-led government cried foul and accused the U.S. of sabotaging the World Cross-Country Championships that was to take place on March 24 in the port city of Mombasa of that year. Considering the reality on ground today, such a warning anywhere would be taken more seriously by state actors.

The Guardian