Taliban Tweet Battle....yo

The following is an exchange between the Taliban spokesman (spox), Abdulqaqhar Balkhi, and the International Security Assistance Force's twitter-guy. From the Guardian:

ISAF: "Re: Taliban spox on #Kabul attack: the outcome is inevitable. Question is how much longer will            terrorist put innocent Afghans in harm's way?" 

Taliban: "@ISAFmedia i dnt knw.u hve bn pttng thm n 'harm's way' fr da pst 10 yrs. Razd whole vllgs n mrkts.n stil hv da nrve to tlk bout 'harm's way" 

ISAF: "Really, @abalkhi? UNAMA reported 80% of civilians causalities are caused by insurgent (your) activities http://goo.gl/FylwU" 

Taliban: @ISAFmedia UNAMA is an entity of whom? mine or yours?

Damn.


That was a few weeks ago. They're still fighting today:




ISAF: 11 children among dead. Noticed @abalkhi didn't tweet this one.http://ow.ly/6GQWH


But who ever is in charge of the ISAF twitter page is fully engaged, as seen in today's exchange with  Joshuafoust

h/t: Harith Ramli

Terrorice this....

Some jerks behind a desk in London calling themselves Maplecroft have decided to make a little list ranking countries with the highest risk of terrorist attacks. Sadly, they have decided to put South Sudan 5^th on the list, below Somalia, Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Terrorism Risk Index has been developed by Maplecroft, and comprises of three separate sub-indices: incidence – which calculates the frequency of attacks over a 12-month period (June 2009 – June 2010, the latest available data); intensity –a calculation of how lethal terrorist attacks are. The report indicates that in some countries like Greece for example, there have been a lot of small scale attacks that typically do not kill anyone. In other countries, like Iraq, Somalia and Afghanistan for example, terrorist attacks are designed to kill as many people as possible. The intensity index also counts the number of mass-casualty attacks per country. The third includes historical aspects– the historical component looks at a country’s past experience of terrorism, whether it has a long-standing militant group that has operated in the country, for instance, Colombia’s FARC which has been active since the 1960s. Based on these parameters the Index, released annually covers 196 countries. (Foreignpolicyblog)

My initial reaction to South Sudan’s ranking was straight up anger. It felt like the warmongers were charging at the gates again, trying to paint South Sudan red with violence. Also, I had never really thought of the violence in South Sudan as being terrorism, and so the thought of terrorists running around South Sudan just did not compute in my mind. Then again, defining terrorism has always been a problem in this modern age.

For the purposes of the index, Maplecroft defines terrorism as “incidents in which sub-national or clandestine groups or individuals deliberately attack civilians or non-combatants (including military personnel and assets outside war zones and war-like settings).” (Foreignpolicyblog)

So why did South Sudan manage to land itself in 5^th position above Palestine and Yemen?

Following the country’s formal secession from Sudan in July 2011, South Sudan (5) makes its first appearance in the Terrorism Risk Index. The country is rated as ‘extreme risk’ primarily due to the intensity of terrorist attacks, with an average of 6.59 fatalities per terrorist incident, almost three times that of Somalia at 2.23. (Maplecroft)

Wow. That is some pretty hardcore numbers. Three times the intensity of terrorists in Somalia. South Sudanese terrorists must be far better at terrorising than those useless suicide bombers. So how did they come to this conclusion?

A number of terrorist groups operate in South Sudan including the Lord’s Resistance Army, which has been responsible for mass-casualty attacks. However, splinter groups that have broken away from the mainstream Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) use terrorist methods and pose the greatest threat. One such group, led by George Athor, was responsible for 111 deaths in an attack in Jonglei province in February 2011. This one incident accounts for over 50% of the 211 fatalities sustained by South Sudan from attacks between April 2010 and March 2011.

One incident…one…. that is all it took to place this brand new country to 5^th on the list. By that account, in 2001 the US would have been placed number one in intensity for its 2,606 casualties following a single terrorist attack. Despite whatever magical indices they use, I think that solely basing your ranking on a single event is extremely careless. Especially when you have clearly not even investigated that single event.

The attack the report refers to is one that took place in February following the announcement of the referendum results. A rebel militia, led by George Athor had attacked Fangak County. There were two belligerents in this attack, the rebel militia and the SPLA. Who initiated the attack first is up for debate but the fact that this was clearly a military operation means that this was NOT an act of terrorism.

Phillip Aguer, spokesman of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, in a separate interview confirmed 105 people were killed. Reports from the area indicate that 105 people from both sides have killed: 39 civilians, 24 police and 42 from Athor’s men. (link)

Yes, there were civilian casualties, but most military operations in this day and age have civilian casualties. It does not mean that the militias were deliberately targeting them. These various rebel militias, while being an absolute tragedy to the peace of South Sudan, are trying to gain the support of the public while crippling the SPLA. It makes absolutely no strategic sense for them to target civilians. If there were anyone who were targeting civilians, the SPLA would be the one responsible as we have seen in Mayom County.

But that is not the issue. The issue is that these ignorant desk jockeys should really do their homework before they go ahead and scare away any potential foreign investment for South Sudan. I mean, seriously, a simple search in Google or Sudan Tribune would have even sufficed. That is why I get the feeling that they ranked South Sudan as 5^th simply because of the juicy publicity that comes with failing the new country. Well done…your publicity stunt has now assured your status as complete failures in your industry of weavers of nightmares for the corporate world.

As a side note, the UK has been classified as medium threat. I would strongly suggest Maplecroft change that to extreme because I’m about to go terrorise their mom’s house.

Quantifying Terrorism

photo credit



Discover Magazine has a fascinating article on how a particle physicists and an economist attempt to establish a model of terrorist behaviour.

“In political science literature, human rationality is primary. They assume groups are rational actors, have access to all the information, and make the right decisions,” Clauset says. “A physicist’s natural approach is to assume people are like particles, and their behavior the result of constraints beyond their control.”

The researchers found that the pattern of varying sizes of terrorists attacks against the number of casualties repeatedly formed a power law curve.

The splintered, disorganized nature of insurgencies became still clearer when Johnson and his colleagues looked at the timing of attacks. The numbers in Iraq, Colombia, Peru, and Afghanistan followed similar patterns, with “sudden bursts of activity, then quiet periods,” Spagat says. “If it were random, you would have far fewer busy days and far fewer quiet days than are captured in the data.” Without a centralized command to issue orders, there must be something else behind the clustered timing of attacks.

The article then delves into a debate on the strategic efficacy of adopting rational models of behaviour as opposed to context specific analysis.

Cultural context is not something Johnson pays much attention to. Accustomed to analyzing particles, which are not known for their reasoning capabilities or complex inner lives, physicists tend to ignore the why and go straight to the how. “All those questions of ‘why’ show a lack of understanding,” Johnson insists. “Whatever the reasons are, this is how they operate.” He has explained this to British and American military officers, Iraqi officials, and even security officials at the London Olympics. “Insurgents may be doing it for all sorts of reasons, but the mechanics are what matters.”

In the end the model still could not do what it had sought to accomplish, that is, to be able to predict terrorist attacks.

“Nothing we’ve done suggests we can predict there will be an attack in, say, the next two weeks,” Spagat freely concedes. “Rather, a physics-inspired insurgency model can help guide more general decisions. If the data show that attacks happen in a bursty pattern, it makes sense to have emergency medical teams able to react to several attacks at once. And the data offer a rough guide to how big those attacks might be, based on how they’ve looked in the past.” Moreover, he says, if the model is right about modern insurgencies’ being a constantly shifting collection of small, unconnected groups, it would be a useful tool for military planners trying to find the most effective tactics.

Definitely worth a read as the world continues to fly almost blindly in its counter-insurgency strategies, put together with the devastatingly horrible results of using quantitative analysis based strategies in Vietnam.

“a lot of people think counterinsurgency is very qualitative, very mushy, and should stay that way. It’s almost a mystical thing,”

The Real Four Lions

NOTE: This is actually a really shit post. It just got the most hits because of the picture and its link in google images.

Have you ever watched Chris Morris' Four Lions? No? Well you really should. It is a hilarious (yet feasible) tale of a group of blundering wannabe British jihadist who strive for glory through their terrorist plot. Aside from the more emotionally engaging scenes, the movie is basically a mock-blooper reel of terrorism that leaves a funny taste in your mouth at the end.
Anyway....

For all you reality TV fans out there, you can now watch a real-life terrorist blooper reel over at Wired's Danger room. The 26 minute video contains out-takes of what would have been a propaganda video had the 15 year old Omar Khadr and his merry men not been captured by US Special Forces (Go Joe!).

Also, if your a fan of behind the scenes Taliban behaviour, I would strongly suggest getting a hold of Paul Refsdal's 'Behind Enemy Lines'. You can't watch it on the SBS site unless your in Australia but it is still floating around the internet somewhere.....try torrents.

There is something to be said about the perceiving 'the enemy' in non-combat scenarios and its humanising effects......but someone else will say it....I'm going home.

Devaluing the state sponsors of terrorism list

"President Obama told Sudan that if it allows a politically sensitive referendum to go ahead in January, and abides by the results, the United States will move to take the country off its list of state sponsors of terrorism as early as next July, administration officials said Sunday." NYT

This is a component of the US' package of incentives for North Sudan to discourage it from any naughtiness for the upcoming referendum. It is also an indication of how stupid and arbitrary the list of state sponsors of terrorism is. I mean, if your willing to take a country off the list simply because it cooperates with you on something completely unrelated to why you put them on the list in the first place, it seriously devalues the list. Would you take a pedophile off the sex-offenders list just because he starts recycling?

I imagine the War on Terror is of greater value to US foreign policy than whatever happens in this big ol' African country. So why is it so easy for the US to offer taking Sudan off the list then? Could it possibly be because the US thinks that Sudan doesn't actually deserve to still be on that list? Well lets look at what the State Department has to say:

"The Sudanese government continued to pursue counterterrorism operations directly involving threats to U.S. interests and personnel in Sudan......[An assessment of the hardliners in Sudan] reflected disappointment that Sudan’s cooperation has not resulted in its removal from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism. Despite this, there was no indication that the Sudanese government will curtail its current level of counterterrorism cooperation despite bumps in the overall bilateral relationship."
"The Sudanese government has also worked hard to disrupt foreign fighters from using Sudan as a logistics base and transit point for terrorists going to Iraq. However, gaps remain in the Sudanese government’s knowledge of these individuals and its ability to identify and capture them."
"There was no reliable information to corroborate long-standing allegations that the Government of Sudan was supporting the LRA in 2009."

Hmmm.....So it seems the biggest reason for Sudan to remain on the list is that it has gaps in its ability to identify and capture terrorist? (seriously, read the whole thing.....it is ridiculous)

Now what about the argument that Sudan is still on the list because of its hand in Darfur? Well, if that is in fact the reason, then why is it that this incentive has been moved away and unlinked from a "resolution of the violence in the Darfur"? That just makes it worst. That's like telling the molested child that he isn't getting justice because the pedophile has recycled a lot of stuff.

What about when Sudan does do something to help the War on Terror? In '94 it extradited Carlos the Jackal, then in '96 it expelled Bin Laden and yet even after that show of support and before any further terrorist sponsoring act, the US still kept Sudan on the list, crippled its economy and bombed its capital (more on this here) (also, a lot more points to be made on the misuse of the list, e.g. the case of Korea)

Don't get me wrong, there is nothing I would love more than a peaceful referendum, but I don't think that
1) The state sponsors of terrorism list should be used for anything other than discouraging countries from sponsoring terrorism

2) Pedophiles should get to run free just because they decide to recycle

UPDATE:

“This proposal from [Kerry] does not matter,” NCP communication officer Rabi Abdel-Atti told the Monitor. “The two sides are already engaged in continuous discussions, and the negotiations are proceeding. We don’t understand what outside proposals have to do with anything.”

The US offer did, though, leave much off the table. US officials have so far made clear to the regime that full US sanctions will not be lifted as long as the ongoing conflict in Darfur remains unresolved.
Because of this, the new proposal offers little economic benefit to Khartoum, especially in relation to the vast southern resources it is being pressured to surrender, according to Bayless Parsley, an Africa analyst for Austin-based global intelligence company STRATFOR.

SOURCE

News nibbles

So I don't quite feel up for much comprehensive ranting this week. Not to say that there isn't anything to be said about the Abyei talks being held 'hostage' or the hot new idea to just give Abyei to the South in exchange for a financial package.
Instead allow me to share some links with you:

Humans are taking back the internet with this latest search engine that only produces verified (by actual people) websites. It filters out all those trashy websites that are loaded with adverts and try to trick you out of your money. A search with the keyword 'porn' reveals everything but what one was hoping to find.

In line with Britain's new Big Society vision, the Maidenhead and Windsor council has been tinkering with the idea of offering rewards for doing good deeds that benefit society. A strategy of positive reinforcement to better the behavior of society, that has not been received positively by everyone. Religious leaders complained, "First they separate the church and state, and monopolised crime and punishment. Now they want to monopolise good deeds and rewards. What happened to the promise of a small government!". Those on benefits claimed that they would need these rewards made available as welfare for those suffering from a altruistic deficiency that prevents them from giving a shit.

Danger room has an article uncovering a real-life supervillian, Ibrahim Al-Asiri. The diabolical mastermind that brought us the explosive underpants and more recently, the explosive print cartridge. He may not have nuclear weapons or freeeking lasers but he did manage to convince his brother to shove a bomb up his ass.

The US military has begun their process of 'Hippy-fying' their troops by releasing the T2 Mood tracker, a smart phone application that is "designed to yield information that can assist doctors and therapists in addressing common responses to combat, such as post-traumatic stress and depression". Everyday, the user can update his emotion and mood and that information is collected and analysed by therapist who then know exactly how to address the soldier. Chinese hackers have begun breaking into the system and targeting emotionally vulnerable soldiers with disparaging and hateful messages.

The US Navy has declared war on Algae - in a further attempt to appear like a bunch of tree-huggers, the US Navy has decided to feed its war machines with the ocean's plants. Green Peace and Sea Shepherd have awakened their sleeper cells to take down the plant loving/hating seamen.

That is all.

Happy Anniversary Terrorism!!!

Today marks the 9th anniversary of the new dawn for Islamomatic-terrorism. Nine years on from one of the most successful/devastating terrorist attacks on western soil, extremist Muslims the world over kick back and reap the benefits of their struggle as the world succumbs to their demands. As a result of their diabolical plan, the once mighty United States of America, it's President and military leaders now break out in hysterical fear over any action that may upset the Muslim community and subsequently, the terrorist overlords. Yes, I am of course referring to the Quran burning controversy, where the bold Pastor Jones has been pressured to abandon his plans to piss off over a billion people in the world. So why have these great leaders spoken out against the pastor's plans? Its not because the act would be illegal. Nor is it because such an act would be unAmerican. Rather, it is because the provoking fear of terrorism has scared them into submission (aye? submission, Islam means submission? clever wordplay? no? ok....).

Robert Gates pleaded, "going forward with this Koran burning would put the lives of our forces at risk, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan".
Petraeus warned, "It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort in Afghanistan".

The terrorists declared, "You see, what has happened is that the US has foolishly played into our hand by deploying soldiers in these Islamic states. What they may have thought was a move for greater control of these states turned out to actually be part of our diabolical global terrorist plot to hold American citizens ransom without actually having to go out and kidnap American citizens. And all it took was one attack on their own turf."

This may explain Obama's decision to pull out the combat forces out of Iraq. But the threat does not end there. Recognising the devious nature of the terrorists, Obama went on to warn his people of a greater threat, "We've got millions of Muslim-Americans, our fellow citizens, in this country. They're going to school with our kids. They're our neighbors. They're our friends. They're our co-workers."

Now, with US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq being held hostage, and American citizens within the US itself unknowingly under the threat of millions of Muslim-American sleeper cell agents, the US government has to think very carefully before doing something to upset the Mulsim population. In a show of good faith, Obama has shown support for the construction of a Muslim palace on the 9/11 hallowed ground, and has even converted to the religion of his new rulers.

With that, I wish Terrorism a very happy anniversary. Congratulations and may you achieve all that you seek out to accomplish......What was that again?