Raid riles Syria

Syrian ire follows apparent US raid across Iraq's border

Damascus lashed out at Washington over charges that American forces killed at least eight civilians when US helicopters were on a mission to shut down insurgent "rat lines."

by Jonathan Adams
Christian Science Monitor, October 27, 2008
Terrorism and Security Update

Syria has issued strong protests after accusing the US military of conducting a deadly cross-border raid from Iraq that left at least eight civilians dead.

Syrian state media reported that four US helicopters entered Syrian airspace around 4:45 p.m. Sunday and struck a construction site in the al-Boukamal region.

An unnamed US military official quoted by the Associated Press (AP) confirmed the attack, saying the US was trying to shut down "rat lines" sending Al Qaeda-linked insurgents and other foreign fighters into Iraq from Syria.

The raid appears to be straining already tense US-Syrian relations, even as Syria has reached out to the Iraqi government and Lebanon, entered into indirect talks with Israel, and held talks with the European Union.

SANA, the Syrian Arab News Agency, quoting an unnamed "official media source," said the helicopters attacked a civilian site about five miles inside Syria, "leading to the martyrdom of eight citizens," including the building guard and his wife.

Citing an "official source," SANA said the Syrian government had summoned the top American diplomat in Damascus to condemn and complain about the "dangerous aggression." The Iraq chargé d'affaires was also summoned, the report said.

Agence France-Presse quoted a commentary in the Syrian government newspaper Tishrin Monday: "The American forces from Iraq committed cold-blooded murder.... They committed a war crime in killing eight Syrian civilians in a quiet village."

AP reported Monday that clergy were preparing the dead for burial as angry Syrian villagers chanted, "May God's wrath fall on them." The report quoted Jumaa Ahmad al-Hamad – a nephew of one of the dead – who saw the helicopters open fire on the building.

The New York Times reported Monday that Iraqi police in Anbar Province, which borders Syria, "did not indicate on which side of the border the blast had taken place," raising some question about the details of the incident. It also noted that Iran joined Syria in lashing out at the Americans, according to AP, calling the apparent attack a "violation of the territorial integrity" of Syria.

AP cited an unnamed US military official as saying the raid targeted "elements of a robust foreign fighter logistics network." The official said the US had taken action because Syria has not stopped the flow of foreign fighters across the border into Iraq.

While U.S. forces have had considerable success in shutting down the "rat lines" in Iraq with help from Iraq and governments in North Africa, the Syrian part of the network has been out of reach, he said.

"The one piece of the puzzle we have not been showing success on is the nexus in Syria," the official said. "We are taking matters into our own hands."

Ninety percent of the foreign fighters [in Iraq] enter through Syria, and foreign fighters toting cash have been Al Qaeda in Iraq's chief source of income, according to U.S. intelligence.

Bloomberg noted that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last month said that Syria had reduced the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq, but that US-Syria relations still had "a long way to go."

The Guardian reported that while Syria-US relations remain prickly, Damascus has been taking a more moderate tack in its ties with Lebanon, Israel, and the EU.

Late last year the then US commander, General David Petraeus, praised Syria's cooperation in reducing violence in Iraq. But Syria has since refused to restart intelligence sharing with the US until Washington recognizes its assistance by returning an ambassador to Damascus....

In recent months Syria has established diplomatic relations with Lebanon and held several rounds of indirect talks with Israel, with Turkey acting as broker. In July, President [Bashar] Assad was invited to an EU summit in Paris.

On a Los Angeles Times blog, Tony Perry wrote that the US raid occurred just a few miles from a former American military base. The US turned over the base to the Iraqis this month.

Was the weekend raid a way for the U.S. to warn the insurgents, and their Syrian cohorts, that although the U.S. is retreating from the border, it is still on watch and able to strike?

Writing in The Times, a UK daily, James Hider said the raid may have been in part a warning to Damascus.

While it is a secular regime, Syria has allowed extreme Islamist groups to operate from its territory, using them both as an internal political pressure valve and to tie down US forces inside Iraq....

US commanders may have calculated that a cross-border raid was tactically necessary to tackle Islamist extremists using Syrian territory, [and] the attack also sent a tough strategic message to Syria that it is not inviolate and must choose carefully whom it supports.

Josh Landis, codirector of the Center for Middle East Studies University of Oklahoma, wrote on his blog Syria Comment that with the raid, the Bush administration may have been giving Syria a parting shot for its unwillingness to comply with intelligence-sharing and other US demands.

The Bush administration seems to be ratcheting up action against Syria during its last days in power….

White House analysts may assume that it can have a 'freebee' – taking a bit of personal revenge on Syria without the US paying a price. Damascus may just have to write it off as a good bye salute from its friends in Washington.

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The Lanka factor

Sri Lankan war roils Indian politics

Tamil parties threaten to withdraw from India's Parliament, but some see this as an attempt to wrest more seats in upcoming elections.

By Jonathan Adams
Christian Science Monitor, Oct. 22, 2008
Terrorism and Security update

As Sri Lanka's military presses toward the Tamil Tiger rebels' last stronghold, the conflict has begun to send political shock waves through neighboring India.

Ethnic Tamil parties in India disrupted Parliament Tuesday with calls for New Delhi to intervene to stop what some called "genocide against Tamils" in the northern Sri Lankan war zone. The Tamil parties have threatened to withdraw from India's ruling coalition unless Delhi helps put a stop to the fighting or intervenes directly.

Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan military claimed on Tuesday that it had at last broken through a key Tiger trench line in heavy fighting under monsoon rains, reports Reuters. But the military admitted suffering scores of casualties in the process, and a suicide attack on merchant vessels off the northeastern coast Wednesday showed the Tamil Tigers aren't yet a spent force.

Tuesday saw "unruly" scenes in India's Parliament, according to the New Delhi-based Khabrein.info news website, with Tamil MPs interrupting proceedings with shouting, banner-carrying, and walkouts.

The Rajya Sabha [the upper house of Parliament] had to be adjourned till noon after it witnessed angry scenes. Chairman Hamid Ansari's repeated requests to allow proceedings did not make any impact on members. While DMK [a prominent Tamil party] members were shouting slogans and carrying banners reading "Save the Tamils" and "Stop Genocide in Sri Lanka," Left parties members were hitting at Centre for "mortgaging" country's autonomy in the form of nuclear deal with the US.

The Tamil parties have given Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's administration until early next month to take action – after which they will quit his coalition, according to Reuters.

Some observers see cynical politics at work. Writing in Rediff News, columnist TVR Shenoy notes that Parliament is set to be dissolved soon anyway, with national elections due in the next six months, and that Tamil politicians and other coalition allies are raising a fuss to shore up their base and wrest concessions from the ruling Congress party.

Why then are these esteemed gentlemen piling on the pressure on Dr. Manmohan Singh and his party? Very simply, it is a bargaining tactic to wrest more seats out of the Congress in the general election.

The [ruling Congress party's coalition allies] would like the Congress to give something in return if they "sacrifice" their demands. The Congress – and the Indian electorate at large – is expected to politely ignore the fact that the demands are a load of unrealistic bunk that never had a prayer of being realized.

Call it whatever you want, a 'bargaining tactic' or, less politely, 'blackmail'. Let us just hope that the Congress does not take the demands from its "allies" too seriously.

The Tamil Tigers have been waging an insurgency for 25 years to create an independent ethnic Tamil state in northern and eastern provinces in Sri Lanka.

India, the US, and the European Union put the Tigers on their respective terrorist lists. But many among India's Tamil population – particularly in Tamil Nadu state – support or sympathize with the rebels. Others condemn the Tigers, but worry about civilian Tamils in northern Sri Lanka who have been displaced or caught in the crossfire.

Singh has responded to the pressure from his Tamil coalition partners, but only moderately. Last week he urged a political solution to the conflict in Sri Lanka and expressed concern for the estimated 230,000 displaced civilians. But analysts don't expect him to do much more, reports the Associated Press.

India has generally been reluctant to become directly involved in Sri Lanka's internal affairs after a disastrous military intervention in the 1980s that led to the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by a Tamil Tiger suicide bomber.

Strategic concerns are also restraining India, according to a commentary in the Daily Mirror, an independent English-language daily in Sri Lanka. While India quietly provides Sri Lanka with equipment and low-key support, rivals China and Pakistan are providing arms for the fight against the Tigers.

For India, too, several geopolitical concerns have prevented it from exerting undue pressure on Sri Lanka. India knows too well that the more it distances from the Sri Lankan government, Sri Lanka would veer towards China, Pakistan, and Iran. Growing Chinese influence in many spheres including infrastructure development, power generation and many development activities in Sri Lanka would no doubt have raised alarm in India.

In a commentary in Frontline, an Indian magazine produced by publishers of The Hindu daily newspaper, B. Muralidhar Reddy writes that the clash between New Delhi's strategic concerns and pressure from Tamil politicians put it in a tight spot.

It is indeed a delicate moment for India. With general elections a few months away and a growing clamor in Tamil Nadu for a more active role by New Delhi to alleviate the sufferings of innocent Tamil citizens, India has to do a balancing act. Colombo understands the Indian predicament and does not want to add to its discomfiture by any rash talk....

The Sri Lankan government, responding to Singh's comments last week, said its fight was solely with the Tamil Tigers, not Tamil civilians. It said its concern for the welfare of Tamil civilians in the north was slowing its military campaign, according to the Agence France-Presse.

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Philippines peace deal nixed

Philippine court ruling deals blow to peace agreement with Muslim militants

A deal with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front to expand a Muslim autonomous area would have created an illegal partition, the Supreme Court ruled.

By Jonathan Adams
Christian Science Monitor
October 16, 2008

The rejection of the Supreme Court of the Philippines of a government pact with Muslim militants has delivered another setback to efforts to end a four-decades long insurgency in the south.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) said Wednesday it would now appeal to the international community before considering more talks with Manila. Commentators in the Philippines urged a continuation of the peace process, but some also characterized Tuesday's ruling as a victory for the rule of law.

The peace process was already in tatters after violence since August has left 100 dead and more than half a million people displaced.

On Aug. 4, the government inked a deal with the MILF that would expand the Muslim autonomous area in the south in return for peace. But Roman Catholic communities protested the inclusion of villages with significant Catholic populations in the planned area, and the Supreme Court quickly issued an injunction against the agreement.

That prompted MILF hard-liners to go on a killing spree targeting Catholic communities. The government froze talks with the MILF and backed out of the Aug. 4 deal, which the Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled unconstitutional.

The Associated Press (AP) quoted the top negotiator of MILF as saying that the court ruling had cast doubt on the government's reliability as a negotiating partner. He warned that MILF extremists might give up on the peace process altogether and step up violent attacks.

Mohagher Iqbal, chief negotiator for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, said the only option left for the rebels was to take the accord to the United Nations and the Organization of the Islamic Conference to seek their guarantees that if talks resume their outcome will be respected.

"We will bring it to a forum where the voices of the Moros will be heard," he said.

He criticized President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's government for backing out of the deal after 11 years of negotiations, and said militants within the rebel ranks who are opposed to the peace process may stage fresh attacks.

"After long years, we came to a point that seemed to bolster what the anti-negotiation groups are saying: that the government could not be trusted," Iqbal said.

The Inquirer, a Filipino daily, quoted a military spokesman, Maj. Armand Rico, as saying government troops were now bracing for more attacks by "rogue" MILF members. He said the military was hunting down extremists responsible for atrocities against civilians.

"Our operations are not against the entire MILF organization but only against its rogue followers. We want to restore peace and order in the region," he said of the punitive actions against Ameril Ombra Kato.

Kato and another MILF leader, Abdullah Macapaar alias Commander Bravo, are accused of leading earlier attacks on civilians in North Cotabato and Lanao del Norte, respectively.

Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported that one government soldier was killed Thursday in clashes with rebels.

That follows the wounding of eight soldiers Sunday, and the deaths of two soldiers, one policeman and two Muslim militants in fighting Saturday, Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported.

In its close, 8-to-7 decision Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled that the Aug. 4 deal was unconstitutional both in content and process, the Inquirer reported. It would have created an illegal partition of the Muslim autonomous area, the court ruled, and was drafted without due consultation with affected communities. The report quoted from the ruling:

"The [deal] cannot be reconciled with the present Constitution and laws. Not only its specific provisions but the very concept underlying them....

The furtive process by which the [deal] was designed and crafted runs contrary to and in excess of the legal authority, and amounts to a whimsical, capricious, oppressive, arbitrary and despotic exercise."

The Court said the government erred in promising constitutional amendments in order to put the deal into effect, the Manila Bulletin reported.

The Supreme Court also pointed out that the agreement usurped Congress's power to amend the Constitution by issuing guarantees that constitutional amendments would be made to put the illegal provisions of the agreement into effect.

The Supreme Court said not even the president can make such guarantees to amend the Constitution.

GMANews.TV, the website of GMA News and Public Affairs, reported that bishops in Mindanao – the violence-racked island where MILF is based – hailed the court's decision but also called for the peace process to continue.

In a commentary in the Business Mirror, Ernesto Hilario argued that the MILF had no choice but to come back to the negotiating table. The Aug. 4 deal was flawed from the start, Mr. Hilario wrote.

The MILF must face up to the reality that the [agreement], while the product of long and arduous negotiations with the other side, is not a "done deal" as it insists, but rather a deal doomed from the start because it would have established a state within a state.

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PC makers think small

In times of cutbacks, computer makers put hopes in small devices

By Jonathan Adams
International Herald Tribune

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

TAIPEI: An upstart Taiwanese company blazed the trail. Now, the world's top three computer makers are hot on its heels. The prize: dominance of the emerging market for low-end, mini-laptop computers.

The big three — the American companies Hewlett-Packard and Dell, and Acer of Taiwan — are betting that such products will have broad appeal. They are offering these laptops, also known as netbooks, in the developing world as an affordable alternative to desktops and high-price laptops, and advertising them in the United States and other advanced markets as a second or third computer used mostly with the Internet.

And in belt-tightening times like now, they are hoping consumers in mature markets will also snatch them up as a more affordable option.

"It's a potentially exciting area, particularly when people worry about the U.S. economic outlook, in which people might want to cut spending," said Steven Tseng, an analyst at ABN AMRO in Taipei. "So it fits into the macro trends quite well."

There is no clear-cut definition for the segment, and analysts say the lines get blurry. But most of the new crop of minicomputers have screens that are less than 10 inches, or 25 centimeters, across diagonally and priced from about $300 to $600, but still have full operating systems like Windows XP or Linux that can support third-party applications.

The new market reflects a broad shift toward mobile devices and away from desktop computers, and changing tastes in mature markets like the United States and Europe, analysts say.

"Three or four years ago, this kind of product couldn't have had such a big success, because people were still purchasing their first laptop," said Eszter Morvay, a researcher at the technology consulting company IDC in London. "Now, their needs are becoming more sophisticated — the consumer has evolved. They might just need an Internet device, or a second or third laptop for work, or for mom or the kids. So this is giving a boost to the market."

Until recently, the big computer makers paid scant attention to this niche. They had built mini-laptops — like Toshiba's Libretto — but they were either too expensive (the Libretto costs about $2,000) or poorly designed to catch on in the mass market.

Then, about a year ago, Asustek, a Taiwanese computer maker little known outside the country, introduced the Eee PC. Priced under $300, the first version featured a seven-inch screen and used the Linux operating system. The idea was simple: Consumers are increasingly using laptops for surfing the web, checking e-mail messages and viewing photographs, and do not need all the bells and whistles of a full-blown computer. The Eee PC was also an attempt to offer a commercial version of the XO laptop, the product of the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child project, which aims to distribute computers in the developing world.

The Eee PC was a surprise success. Last year, it hit the top of the "most wished for" laptop list on Amazon.com. That got the industry's attention. Now, the three leading computer makers have released mini-laptops.

In April, Hewlett-Packard, the world's No. 1 computer maker, introduced its Mini-Note with an 8.9-inch screen, with models starting at $499. Last month, Dell, the second-largest maker, began offering a mini-laptop, the Inspiron Mini 9 with a 9-inch screen, for $349.

Acer introduced its Aspire One mini-laptop, with an 8.9-inch screen, at the Computex trade show in Taipei in June, with models starting at $399. The company has high hopes for netbooks because of their appeal as portable Internet devices.

"Going on the Internet is now indispensable in people's daily lives, and this is a very convenient, useful Internet device," said Henry Wang, an Acer spokesman. "That's the main reason why we're so optimistic for the future."

Acer expects to sell more than five million Aspire One mini-laptops by the end of the year.

Asustek, which uses the brand name Asus, says it will ship five million units this year; it released in Taiwan a pricier version of the Eee PC that can run Windows XP as well as Linux. The company expects total worldwide shipments of netbooks to hit 10 million next year and a billion by 2018.

Intel has forecast that more than 50 million netbooks will be sold by 2011. The chip maker has a reason for following the trend: many mini-laptops use its Atom microprocessor, and Intel is also pushing its own low-cost Classmate PC in education markets around the world.

But not all are convinced. Tseng, of ABN AMRO, said that the market for mini-laptops was uncharted territory and that computer makers still were not sure how much functionality consumers would sacrifice for price.

If mini-laptops take off, the big beneficiaries will be contract makers in Taiwan who already have or will get orders from the top three computer brands, as well as from Asustek. These contract makers include Pegatron, which Asustek spun off last year; Quanta Computer; Inventec; and Compal.

Helen Chiang, a market researcher at IDC in Taipei, said that component supply problems could hamper growth in the short term, and that the market was too untested for companies to be confident of a long-term bonanza. The main component issue is batteries, because suppliers earn a lower profit from mini-laptop batteries, making them a lower priority.

A fire at the South Korean facility of LG, the leading supplier of laptop batteries, in March exacerbated the supply problems, highlighting the vulnerability of the supply chain to such disruptions.

Over the long term, Chiang said, the jury was still out on whether the mini-laptops would take a bigger piece of the market from more expensive products, or expand the size of the entire market.

"This year is the first important year to watch," Chiang said.

The mini-laptop boom is in line with broader industry trends. Researchers see the industry moving sharply away from desktops to portable options, especially in the United States. This is because laptops that offer the same functionality of desktop computers are now far less expensive than a few years ago.

Global sales of portable computers are expected to surpass sales of desktops and servers for the first time in 2010. Worldwide, shipments of portable computers are likely to see double-digit growth rates through 2012, while sales of desktops and servers, already a shrinking market in the United States, will slow to 3.1 percent growth annually by 2012 from 4.8 percent last year, according to an IDC forecast in March.

In addition, companies are eager to push their miniature computers. Beginning in 2005, computer makers shifted their emphasis to laptops and other portable devices, and began intense marketing campaigns, said Morvay, of IDC. The mini-laptop craze is a logical outgrowth of that trend.

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Syria belittles buildup

Syria downplays troop buildup on Lebanese border

Damascus says it's merely beefing up border security. But the US issued Syria a strong warning, and Israeli troops are on alert.

By Jonathan Adams
Christian Science Monitor, October 09, 2008
Terrorism and Security update

Syria this week continued to mass troops on its border with northern and eastern Lebanon. But officials from both countries dismissed US and Israeli concerns about the buildup as alarmist hype.

Damascus claims it is merely beefing up border security to prevent smuggling and the infiltration of Islamic extremists from northern Lebanon. But some fear Syria wants to use the threat of Sunni Islamic terrorism as a pretext for reentering Lebanon.

Syria withdrew its troops from its neighbor in 2005 under intense international pressure.

Last month, Syria's president publicly warned that northern Lebanon had become a haven for Sunni militants who aim to destabilize his country. That warning came before back-to-back car bombings in Damascus (Sept. 27, blamed on Sunni extremists) and in northern Lebanon's Tripoli (Sept. 29) that killed at least 22.

Gulf News, a Dubai-based daily, reported Wednesday that the Lebanese foreign minister had downplayed concerns about the military ramp-up.

The deployment of thousands of Syrian troops along the Lebanese frontier isn't a threat to Beirut and the move should be seen in the context of Damascus's need to safeguard its interests, the Lebanese foreign minister said on Tuesday.

"The troop deployment doesn't constitute a source of concern for us as long as they [troops] remain within Syrian territory," Lebanese Foreign Minister Fawzi Sallough told Gulf News.

Last month the Lebanese Army said Syria had massed nearly 10,000 troops on the border. Syria insists their deployment along the border numbers only in the hundreds.

Lebanon's The Daily Star cited a report by Agence France-Presse (AFP) that quoted a Syrian official defending the buildup.

"These measures are aimed to control the border, only from Syrian territory, and we have no other intentions," a Syrian official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"Syria has in effect boosted its security measures with a few hundred [extra] soldiers, and the spy satellites know the truth," the official said.

"Our aim is to control the border, combat smuggling and stop saboteurs from crossing these borders," the official said, adding that the issue had been raised during Lebanese President Michel Sleiman's visit to Damascus in August.

On Monday, the US State Department expressed concern that Syria might have designs on Lebanon, and warned against any Syrian incursion. Reuters reported spokesman Robert Wood saying:

"The recent terrorist attacks that took place in Tripoli (Lebanon) and Damascus should not serve as a pretext for, you know, further Syrian military engagement or, should not be used to interfere in Lebanese internal affairs," Wood told reporters. ...

"Obviously we're concerned about this type of activity along the border and that it not lead to any further interference on the part of Syria into Lebanon's internal affairs," Wood said.

Those comments came as the US and Lebanon set up a joint military commission to improve defense ties, according to the Associated Press (AP).

The National Post, a Canadian daily, reported that Israeli officials are also nervous about Syrian intentions.

...Israel placed its armed forces in the Golan Heights on an increased alert on Tuesday and ordered the air force and emergency first aid teams on standby in case of attacks by Syria or Hezbollah.

The Israeli alerts came as the country prepared to shut down for 25 hours starting Wednesday afternoon to observe Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), the most solemn and important of Jewish holidays.

The AP noted that Syria-Lebanon ties have actually warmed recently.

...Ties have improved considerably in recent months after Lebanon formed a unity government that includes Syria's ally, the Shiite militant group Hezbollah.

Syria has agreed to establish formal diplomatic ties with Lebanon for the first time since the countries' creation in the 1940s and promised to officially delineate their borders, a longtime Lebanese demand.

Syria also views Lebanon's new president favorably and many doubt it would undermine him with a military incursion.

The Christian Science Monitor reported last month on worsening sectarian violence in northern Lebanon. There, Sunni Muslim fundamentalists are pitted against a small Shiite group that's close to the Syrian government. Sunni jihadists that oppose the Syrian regime regularly pass between northern Lebanon and Syria, the report said.

Since May, Sunni militants in northern Lebanon have clashed with the small Alawite community, which has close links to the Syrian regime. A reconciliation agreement reached earlier this month has quelled fighting for now, but north Lebanon remains tense.

In a 2005 report, the International Crisis Group noted a reason Damascus would want to keep a hand in Lebanese affairs, despite its withdrawal:

Seen from the angle of Lebanon's fractious groups – whether in the opposition or loyal to Damascus – the end of Syria's presence means re-opening issues suppressed since the close of the civil war, from sectarian relations and the distribution of power through to Hizbollah and Palestinian refugees.

All these are combustible elements that disgruntled Lebanese and outside actors will be tempted to exploit. In a country awash with weapons, accustomed to being a theatre for proxy wars between Arabs, Palestinian[s] and Israelis, and on the verge of a major redistribution of power and resources, the means and motivations for violence abound.

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