The Guantanamo hunger strike is not a precedent setting news event.

The Irish Republican Army (IRA) in a UK jail started with Bobby Sands refusing food on 1 March 1981. Sands decided that other IRA prisoners should join the strike at staggered intervals in order to maximize publicity with prisoners steadily deteriorating successively over several months.

The significance of the hunger strike was the prisoners’ aim of being declared political prisoners (or prisoners of war) as opposed to criminals. The Washington Post reported that the primary aim of the hunger strike was to generate international publicity.

Sands died on 5 May 1981 in Maze, UK, prison hospital after 66 days of hunger-striking, aged 27.

Nine of Sands’ IRA comrades followed, refusing to eat until they too made the final trek from their cells in the notorious Maze prison to their plots in a cemetery.

The hunger strike in Guantanamo for Islamic Jihadist who was captured while using arms against the U.S. continues.
Fayiz Al-Kandari is one of an estimated 100 men on hunger strike at the Guantanamo terrorist prison camp, isolated on the tip of Cuba. Of that number, whose two-month starvation protest has created news headlines around the world, 100 out of the 166 prisoners are following some form of hunger strike. It is reported that only 12 are being force fed continually and the others are eating a little…

In the decade of the War on Terror Guantanamo is the site of an out-of-jurisdiction prison camp for suspected Islamist militants captured during the “war on terror” has the base been featured so prominently in the headlines that many think the hunger strike is something new.

It is surprisingly that the strike did not begin about issues with their treatment. Nor did it immediately involve larger numbers of detainees. Statements from prisoners passed on by their lawyers, and declassified for release, show that on Feb. 6 there was an intensive search of prisoner accommodations at Camp Six where the most dangerous inmates are kept.

Inmates were ordered outside and personal items, such as letters, toothbrushes and books, were searched and some confiscated.

The hunger strike is nothing more than an attempt by the Jihadist to gain attention to be released or for the U.S. to close Guantanamo. Force feeding can be very painful but better than let them die a martyr’s death.

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The targets of Somali pirates are taking countermeasures and the number of ship hijacking has dropped dramatically.

According the UK based “The Economist,” from the International Maritime Bureau, the number of attacks off the Horn of Africa dropped from 236 in 2011 to around 72 in 2012.

Now a private navy is giving the pirates cause for pause.

A company called Typhoon will use a mother ship to accompany convoys of merchant vessels. With over 60 armed men on board, the ship will deploy speed boats to cover the commercial ships. There is even talk of using small drones to check Somali “fishing vessels.”

The owner of Typhoon, Anthony Sharp, thinks that this will be cheaper and more legal than putting armed guards on the civilian vessels. Sharp and his mostly British ex-military guards, plan to have three large ships soon and more by 2016 to help the transient vessels.

French commandoes failed in a raid in Somali to rescue a French man held by the Al Shabaab hostage takers since 2009. A second commando has died according to photos posted by Al Shabaaban Al Qaeda affiliate.

The insurgent group also said it had made a decision on the fate of hostage Denis Allex and that a message conveying its verdict would be forthcoming. France says it believes Allex was killed during the rescue

CNN) reports that the retirement of the pirate leader Mohamed Abdi Hassan, also known as “Afweyne,” has generated much media coverage, but the real significance of his announcement is the indication it gives of how Somalia’s pirates currently view their business model. It appears that hijacking vessels in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden is no longer seen as a relatively risk-free affair.

We shall see.

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Terrorism in Algeria and war in Mali shows the increasing reach of Islamic extremist spreading in the Sahara. It is being reported that Al Qaeda is shifting its focus to Syria, Libya, Iraq, Algeria, and Mali.

The orgin of the Mali conflict is not global but local. Rebel Islamic fighters have held most of northern Mali, roughly the size of France, for almost a year.

France is working with the Organiza of African Union to aid Mali.

France says it will leave when the African forces can take over. 

The U.S. has begun to assist with troop lifts and air refueling.

The Algerian natural gas plant where 37 foreign workers were executed has had a problem with locals who are thought to have helped the attackers.

This is a site in the middle of no where, with 700 people on site and 600 are Algerian. The Algerian army is hard to explian how 40 heavily armed rebles could crossed from Libya to seize teh plant.

The West cannot turn its back on another Al Qaeda advance in Africa,

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Many around the world are asking why the “West” helped the Libya revolt and now will not help Syrian “freedom fighters.”

But wait the U.S. Administration has said that if the Syrian regime uses chemical weapons the U.S. will have grave concern. Think some high official even went so far to say there will be consequences.

It’s the rebels that have the Assad thugs concerned not U.S. rhetoric.

But what can the U.S. do?

The first thing that comes to mind is a “no fly zone” over Syria to stop the Libyan air force from bombing its own people. As in Libya, two U.S. naval task forces with carrier based attack aircraft could easily hinder that form of genocide. It is nonsense to think that airborne and/or amphibious forces could secure the Syrian chemical weapons.

There are some reports that the U.S. is providing material and weapons support to the rebels. There are even some reports that U.s. Special Forces are in Turkey helping train some of the rebels use of U.S. weapons.

So why not do more to help the Syrian rebels?

The only logical answer is that the Administration is “concerned” that Iran may come to the aid of Assad if his Shi’ite government comes close to falling.

Funny but most open source Intelligence reports say that Iran has substantial Al Quods military personnel in Syria already and there are daily flights from Shi’ite Iran over the Shi’ite dominated government in Iraq territory.

So, a no fly zone has to take into consideration the daily flights from Iran to Iraq. However, it would appear that the rebel attacks on the Damascus airport may have closed or at least slowed Iranian air supplies.

The real concern should be about the reports that Al Qaeda forces are coming from around the area and joining the fight with the rebels. The longer the U.S. waits to do anything substantial the more Al Qaeda will make inroads into the rebel side.

Al Qaeda or other radical Islamic forces should be the real concern for the West.

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The AP article by Karin Laub, 23 November 2012, says: “Hamas has emerged from battle with the triumphal sense of a hard-won game change.”

This is like a fighter rising from a Muhammad Ali knockout saying I bet I hurt your hand.

It would seem more likely that Israeli leaders, smarting from a losing choice of endorsing Mitt Romney, wanted to acquiesce to U.S. demands, conveyed by Sec State Hillary Clinton, for a cease fire.

Every Hamas office and military building was destroyed. An unknown number of Hamas fighters lost their lives along with much of their equipment. Gaza lost over 100 civilian dead while Israel lost 8.

Doing anything to jeopardize the Egyptian-brokered cease-fire, which called for an end to Gaza rocket fire on Israel and Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, would not be in Israel’s interest for now but it is not over.

The Israel independent Maagar Mohot poll released on Friday shows 49 percent of respondents feel Israel should have kept going. Only thirty-one percent supported the government’s decision to stop and the rest had no opinion. Also, twenty-nine percent thought Israel should have sent ground troops to invade Gaza.

It would seem that the Israeli voting public favor hoe regime actions.

However, StrategyPage.com reported that one factor Israel may have considered in agreeing to the recent ceasefire with Hamas was a possible shortage of Tamir missiles (used by the Iron Dome
system to shoot down rockets) and the problem was that Israel was not sure how
many long (20+ kilometers) range rockets Hamas had left. Hamas had managed to about a thousand rockets in a week,

This cease fire is not a durable peace that US said was the objective. Also, it probably is not enforceable by Hamas because they do not control splinter groups in their territory that probably will not consider themselves bound by the ceasefire.

Hamas has already said it will not stop arming itself and will continue the struggle. Israel reports that a spy satellite has recorded Iran loading new Fajr-5 rockets on shipping. Hamas is still isolated form open reinforcement of its military equipment as the GAZA Egypt border is still under scrutiny and Israel will not lift the restrictions along its border with Hamas.

The New York Times, 23 November, 2012, in an article by David E. Sanger and Thom Shanker: “For Israel, Gaza Conflict Is Test for an Iran Confrontation” wrote “The conflict that ended, for now, in a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel seemed like the latest episode in a periodic showdown. But there
was a second, strategic agenda unfolding, according to American and Israeli officials: The exchange was something of a practice run for any future armed confrontation with Iran, featuring improved rockets that can reach Jerusalem and new antimissile systems to counter them.”

Israel learned a lot on the capabilities of the Iron Dome system in combat operations. The market has to be strong with South Korea first in line to reduce the North Korean rocket and artillery threat to Seoul.

The threat of a ground attack by 75,000 Israel troops is still evident and most observers think it can be used if Hamas tries to break the cease fire.

Hamas won nothing but a reprieve to rearm and rebuild its destroyed buildings and equipment.

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Civil wars are the worst type of warfare. However, we am not implying that there is such a thing as “good warfare.” There are only good causes. In the case involving Syria we have a situation much like the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). In Syria, as the fighting extends in time between the combat wing of the United Revolutionary Council and the despotic Assad regime, foreign players have begun entering the struggle. Backing Assad, you have the Iranians, Russia and HizbAllah. Backing the revolutionaries we have the Saudis, the Emirates, and to a limited degree, Turkey and Jordan. The USA has sent aid, but best we know at this point it has been, we are told, only humanitarian aid. In the meantime the body count grows and is now over 30,000.

Intervening on our part, at this time, would be difficult at best. But this could change in the near future should the Iranian military add more forces on the ground, including additional battalions of HizbAllah. This Iranian proxy, it should be noted, has a full time militia of 6,000 men, supported by a part time armed force of 15,000. The Iranians also claim to have armed and created a 50,000 strong Syrian militia called the Jish Shaabi (People’s Army) to fight the rebels (WSJ 9-17-12), along with hundreds of Iranian al Qods “advisers.” Further, Russia is not going to stand by and watch itself lose its only major naval base in the Mediterranean at Tartus, should the rebels look like they will win. Months ago the international media reported the Russians were deploying “elite antiterrorism troops” into Tartus. More likely these troops were either the elite and aggressive “Vympal” or “Alpha” groups! These groups honed their skills fighting Chechen rebels, not standing guard duty.

Should the rebels depose the Assad dynasty, the major HizbAllah/Iranian base in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon, becomes isolated. This is both a significant training ground for HizbAllah and HAMAS terrorists and maintains a site for over 3,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Equally important is that the Bekaa is a major heroin producing region. This is a virtual no-go area for the Lebanese government. This heavily armed site now has a missile umbrella and provides hundreds of millions of dollars of drug money for the Assad regime. Further it is a convenient staging area for attacks against Israel, Jordan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

With the fall of Assad the Bekaa would be isolated. Will the Iranians tolerate this? Will they air lift the current Revolutionary Guards out, or will they air lift reinforcements in? Will HizbAllah stand by and watch its main source of weapons and protection collapse, or will they strike out at all perceived enemies?

Regardless of what happens, any of the above can bring destabilization of the region on a major scale, to say nothing of the possibility of the US/EU and the Russians having a face off! The clock is ticking.

Contributor: Larry Martines, noted CT expert.

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Many know that the U.S. is involved in wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Yemen. However, how many know that four more are being added to the list?

U.S. troops are now involved in the fight against a group called the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). The LRA is an insurgent terrorist organization and its leader Joseph Kony is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

LRA has shown the ability to collect insurgents and militant leaders to carry out atrocities in Central Africa and is thought to be more a criminal/terrorist gang seeking plunder, violence and mayhem rather that the stated overthrow of a government.

It has been reported that many of the U.S. troops are stationed in Uganda while others are based in Obo, Central African Republic; Dungu, Congo; and in Nzara, South Sudan. Each of these locations has established bases where troops from partner countries have been involved.

Is this bad? Probably not but the American people, and particularly Congress, needs to keep an eye on the extent of U. S. involvement in additional foreign wars where American lives and treasure are again being employed.

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During the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War the basic doctrine was one of securing the people and “winning the hearts and minds of the people.” After the U.S. left Vietnam a conventional war with North Vietnam, with no U.S. support to the South Vietnamese, was lost by South Vietnam.

Even today there are many political pundits, uneducated news journalist and opportunistic politicians who claim we lost the Vietnam War and counterinsurgency (COIN) will not work anywhere.

It is not a question of a doctrine and philosophy of COIN working or not working but it is a question of how you apply COIN.

For some time the U.S. Army deliberately refused to recognize irregular warfare and COIN because they fell into the trap of thinking we lost in Vietnam and their COIN doctrine was flawed. To make matters worse the Army led an effort to cleanse the U.S. thinking and quantify COIN and they undertook rewriting history with the Field Manual 3-24, Counterinsurgency.

Unfortunately, the academics who wrote the manual, both in uniform and from academia, misunderstood the foundation of classic COIN doctrine and thus distorted the realistic view of COIN and limited the U.S. ability to defeat the insurgencies in Afghanistan and somewhat in Iraq. The main authors of the Field Manual 3-24 took a select set of historical anti-colonial COIN engagements and said their doctrine would work in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It has not and will not.

There is a unique issue in Afghanistan and Iraq and that is religion which has greatly distorted what can be learned of what has motivated religious fanatics and how to bring on and end state. Field Manual 3-24 case studies is very weak on religiously motivated struggles with an aim of a worldwide Islamic movement and which have no relationship to the earlier ideas of anti-colonialism, nationalism, and self-determination.

A single all encompassing doctrine of COIN is not possible in the Islamic world. We were facing a completely new kind of environment with a fundamentalist religious paradigm in Afghanistan and a secular dictatorship in Iraq. One model did not fit all.

Traditional data indicates that to win an insurgency it takes 12 to 15 years to defeat the insurgents. Most insurgencies can win in 5 to 7 years if their strategy and tactics are right.

Counterinsurgency is about breaking the normative system that prevailed in a given area and replacing it with something better. Democracy is not the answer in Afghanistan or Iraq but something that mirrors their traditional religious, political and economic systems acceptable by the people.

The U.S. must accept that what they are trying to do in the Middle East and Southwest Asia is not comparable to the post-colonial period and adjust to meet the new paradigm.

We are not there yet.

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Whenever you see the name of an Al Qaeda operative that ends in al Libi, such as:  Abu Yahya al Libi, Abu Faraj al Libi, or Abu Laith al Libi, they are all tribes from Libya.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has recently sided with the popular uprising in Libya, and had threatened the West if it intervenes. Whatever decisions the tribal chiefs in Libya took will be followed by his tribesmen. Several powerful tribes have shown support for the rebellion. There are about 140 tribes in Libya.

The rebellion is all but over and the forces loyal to Qaddafi seem to have won.

Qaddafi always proclaimed that he was a bedouin and came for the tribes – not the urban centers.

Will be interesting to see what happens with the tribes after the revolt is crushed. Libya will never be the same and neither will Qaddafi and the Libyan tribes.

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A rebel group in India’s northeast said Saturday it will begin “unconditional” peace talks with New Delhi this week in a bid to end a violent 31-year insurgency.

It has been reported by a Rand study that the average lifespan of an insurgency is 10 years.

The United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), one of the biggest rebel armies in the tea and oil-rich region of Assam, India, has been fighting for an independent homeland for ethnic Assamese since 1979.

At least 10,000 people, mostly civilians, have died in Assam in fighting between government forces and the various rebel groups.

Rand reports that insurgencies are suited to hierarchical organizations and rural terrain, and a sanctuary are vital to insurgents.

Anyone think of Afghanistan?

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