War and Conflict Journal

Attempt to Bomb Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day, 2009

Northwest Airlines Flight 253 After Attempted Terrorist Attack

The Islamist terror network al-Qaida apparantly made an attempt to attack the United States on Christmas Day, 2009. A Nigerian man named Abdul Mudallab attempted to ignite an explosive device onboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 as it neared the airport in Detroit, Michigan on December 25, 2009. Early reports indicate Mudallab claimed a connection to al-Qaida, though later reports say he denied any such connection.

Reports indicate that Mudallab, an an engineering student at University College of London, took a flight from Nigeria to the Netherlands, where he then boarded the American plane on a route to Detroit. About 20 minutes from the Detroit airport, fellow passengers smelled smoke, and noticed that Mudallab was attempting to ignite something. A passenger jumped on Mudallab, and apparently interrupted an attempt to cause a mid-air explosion. The suspect was seen with burns to his legs, and the passenger who jumped on him also is reported to have suffered burns.

Airport and airlines security worldwide was tightened in response to this attack. U.S. officials are treating this incident as an attempted terrorist attack.

Links and Resources:

 http://www.historyguy.com/airplane_attempted_bombing_christmasday_2009.htm

Jet passengers overpowered would-be bomber–LA Times, Dec. 25, 2009

Statement by Department of Homeland Security Press Secretary Sara Kuban–Dept. of Homeland Security Press Release, Dec. 25, 2009

Saudi Arabia and Yemen are two arabic speaking Sunni
Muslim-majority nations on the Arabian penisula with a
long history of hostility toward each other. However,
both nations are battling al-Qaida rebels, and both have
concerns about the growing influence of Shiite-majority
Iran and its growing influence in the Arab world. Yemen
has battled a local Shiite insurgency (called the Houthi
Rebellion or the Saadah Insurgency), in the northernmost
region of the country near the Saudi border.

As the Shiite rebellion in Yemen grew, and appeared to
be receiving aid from Saudi Arabia’s rival, Iran, the
Saudis in turn aided the Yemeni government. The Yemeni
rebels launched an incursion into Saudi Arabia in early
November, and a Saudi soldier was killed by the so-called
al-Houthi rebels along the border on Novermber 4, 2009,
and on November 6, Saudi forces openly intervened in the
Yemeni war with air strikes near the border and artillery
fire on rebel positions inside Yemen.

Saudi officials reported that as of Nov. 8, Saudi
military casualties included three killed, 15 wounded,
and four missing. Saudi Arabia claimed to have regained
control Saudi territory seized by the Yemeni rebels the
week before. Smoke from airstrikes rose above the Jebel
al-Dukhan, a 6,600-foot tall mountain on the border
between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, near the town of
Al-Khubah.

video of a Saudi
warplane over Yemen border

 Web and News
Links on the Saudi-Yemen Border Wars:

http://www.historyguy.com/Saudi_Yemen_Border_Conflict_2009.htm

Saudi and Yemen battle Zaidi rebels–AFP, Nov. 8, 2009

Saudi Arabia says regains area seized by Yemen
rebels–Reuters, Nov. 8, 2009

Saudi
Forces Bomb Yemeni Rebels on Southern Border –Wall
Street Journal, Nov. 7, 2009 

Houthis
Capture Saudi Soldiers, Saudi Bombing Yemen for Third
Day–Nov. 6, 2009

CIA
Factbook on Country or
conflict
–Click
on the country name (Yemen) at this site.

Security
Incidents in Yemen, 1998–From
the Al-bab website.

Tiny
Voices Defy Child Marriage in
Yemen–June
29, 2008

Massive
protest in south Yemen–by
Jane Novak, for the Long War Journal, May 27,
2008

Yemen’s
Intifada–by
Jane Novak, for the Long War Journal, January 2,
2008

Iran is far from a homogenous nation. The Islamic Republic has many ethnic and religious minority groups, and many of them chafe under Tehran’s rule. The Baluchis of southeastern Iran (like their ethnic kin across the border in Pakistani Baluchistan), want freedom from the central government, and are conducting a guerrilla/terrorist war to achieve their goals.

Iran’s ethnic and political unrest escalated on October 17, 2009, with a suicide bombing that killed at least five commanders of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. The bombings also killed and wounded dozens of others left dead and injured in two the restive Baluchi region of near Iran’s southeastern frontier with Pakistan.

 The coordinated suicide bomb attacks mark an escalation in hostilities between Iran’s leadership and one of the nation’s many restive ethnic and religious minorities, in this case the Baluchis. Many terrorist attacks, mostly directed at the Iranian military and at the Revolutionary Guard have plagued Iran’s southeastern region, Sistan-Baluchistan, and in April the government put the elite but brutal Revolutionary Guards Corps in control of security in the Baluchi region in an effort to stop the escalating violence.

Iran, predictably, has accused its foreign enemies of supporting the insurgents in the past, and repeated that charge the day after the latest attack. By midday, news reports from Iran said that 31 people were killed and at least 28 injured.

See also:

http://www.historyguy.com/iran_baluchistan_rebellion_war.htm

http://www.historyguy.com/iranwar.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/world/middleeast/19iran.html

The news out of the Pittsburgh G-20 Summit about the hitherto secret Iranian nuclear facility, coupled with Iranian missile tests near the Yom Kippur Jewish holiday raise the fears of a Western Powers/Israeli pre-emptive attack on Iran.

See http://www.historyguy.com/iranwar.htm for more information and links.

http://www.historyguy.com/iranwarsbookstore.htm

The Iran War Scenarios and Analysis page is now up and running.  This page will track current news, rumors, and analysis related to possible attacks on Iran by the United States and/or Israel.

http://www.historyguy.com/iranwar.htm

American Special Forces attacked vehicles in Somalia carrying members of al-Qaida’s Somalia and Kenya branch on September 14, 2009. The dead included Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, wanted for the 2002 car bombing of a beach resort in Kenya and an attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner. He was a leader of the local al-Qaida branch. Nabhan was a 30-year old Kenyan who is suspected of being behind the 2002 attacks in Kenya ttargeting Israelis. Ten Kenyans and three Israelis died in the bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa. Ground-to-air missiles were fired at the Israeli airliner as it took off from the city’s airport but missed the jet. Nabhan is believed to be one of those who fired a missile. He later escaped in Somalia, which is a largly lawless nation with a strong al-Qaida presence.

Previous American attacks on al-Qaida in Somalia involved missile attacks which were relatively imprecise, and created casualties among Somali civilians. This attack was carried out by helicopters which fired on the vehicles. Witnesses reported that after the helicopter attack concluded, American troops rappelled to the ground, collected the dead and wounded, and flew off. One Somali official said that the attack produced five dead.

The last confirmed American troop presence in Somalia was in 1993, during the Battle of Mogadishu. When Ethiopia invaded Somali in 2005 and 2006, some reports indicated that small numbers of U.S. troops accompanied the Ethiopians, searching for al-Qaida leaders.

See http://www.historyguy.com/special_forces_attack_al-qaida_somalia.htm

Nine foreign hostages were found dead in Yemen, near the Sa’dah region of northwestern Yemen.  The obvious suspects are the al-Houthi Shiite rebels who live and fight in that region, but they deny any involvement in the deaths a British engineer, his South Korean wife, a German doctor, his wife and their three children, and two other German women, believed to be nurses. The dead foreigners all worked in a hospital in Sa’dah, and worked for a Baptist Mission.  If that denial is true, then another suspect group, one which the Yemen government may prefer to blame, is al-Qaida’s local wing, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).  The long-running fear among Western governments and analysts is that al-Qaida may be setting up shop in chaotic Yemen. 

Kidnapping is a common occurrence in Yemen, especially of foreigners, who may be worth some ransom money.  Killing those hostages is not common, due to the aforementioned financial value inherent in healthy, breathing captives.  This tends to make the possibility of the murderers being regular Yemeni rebels or entrepreneurs more remote.

The Yemeni government, embattled in the north by the al-Houthis, and facing a possible new front in the south around the port city of Aden with a new effort by southerners to secede, may welcome the chance to gain more Western aid if a threat by al-Qaida is seen.  The bodies were found in the el-Nashour area, which is slightly to the east of the Sa’dah areas where the al-Houthis are fighting.  Al-Qaida is known to have a base in the el-Nashour area.

Sources and Information:

3 foreign hostages found dead in Yemen, LA Times, June 15, 2009

British engineer among nine foreigners feared murdered in Yemen—Telegraph.co.uk, June 15, 2009

Hostages in Yemen Found Dead??!! Update: Six Alive??!!—-Armies of Liberation, June 15, 2009

Sa’dah al-Houthi Rebellion in Yemen (2004-Present)–www.historyguy.com

On April 22, 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton referred to the military advance of the Pakistani Taliban out of the Swat Valley that has been ceded to them by the weak Pakistani government by stating that this situation in Pakistan formed an “existential threat” to Pakistan and a “mortal threat” to the world, and by extension, to the United States.  She also called on Pakistanis to resist their government’s policy of surrendering national territory to the Islamic extremists.

Tough words, but it remains to be seen if Clinton and the Obama Administration of which she is a part, really have the gumption to truly address this issue.  The Pakistani civilian government seems incapable or unwilling to confront the Taliban in the border areas.  The Taliban (and their al-Qaida allies), rightly see this as weakness on Islamabad’s part, and are pressing their advantage.  It is well known that the Pakistani military and secret services still aid the Taliban in its fight against Allied forces in Afghanistan (see http://warandconflictjournal.com/2008/06/pakistan-aids-taliban-still/).  The military is known to still consider India as its number one foe, and it is reported that important leaders of the military and intelligence services sympathize to some point with the Islamicists in the border regions.   

Clinton is right that the Taliban advances pose a grave threat to Pakistan.  If, by some means, the Taliban or some other radical Islamic group seizes control, or at least weakens the central government enough that the nation falls into true chaos or collapse, then the U.S., Britain, the other NATO allies, and, of course, India, all have to make an important decision.  Pakistan is too large to be allowed to fall into “Failed State” status.  Its nuclear arsenal is far too deadly to fall to ilk like the Taliban or al-Qaida.  It is hard to imagine India standing by as its old, but dangerous enemy becomes perhaps more dangerous through the unpredictability of chaos. 

So, the civilized world must decide what is to be done.  Stop the Taliban now, or wait and deal with the detritus of failed policies after it is far too late.  Pakistan is the “Sick Man of South Asia,” and like the old Ottoman Empire, it is far too large and dangerous to let it fall apart without major consequences for the entire region and the world.

India and Pakistan, two nuclear-armed neighbors who have already fought three major wars and several minor wars against each other, exchanged fire across their mutual border in the Kashmir region.

See the article below from http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/03/21/asia/AS-Kashmir-Shooting.php

for more information:

Indian troops were fired upon across the heavily fortified frontier in the Himalayan region of Kashmir, injuring a soldier, army officials said Saturday, even as Pakistan blamed Indian army soldiers for the shooting.

Brig. Gopala Krishnan Murali, a senior Indian army officer in India’s Jammu-Kashmir state, would not say whether suspected Islamic rebels or Pakistani soldiers initiated Friday’s firing, but said that a formal complaint had been lodged with Pakistan.

Pakistan’s army, meanwhile, said it was Indian troops who “resorted to unprovoked firing.” An army statement said that a protest had been filed “for cease-fire violation.”

The overwhelmingly Muslim region has been the focus of two of the three wars between India and Pakistan, who both claim Kashmir. Relations between the two have been further strained by last year’s terror attacks in Mumbai that killed 164 people.

India has blamed the attack on Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamist militant group widely believed to be created by Pakistani intelligence agencies in the 1980s to fight Indian rule in the divided Kashmir region.

A gunbattle broke out in the Uri region, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) west of the state capital of Srinagar, after Indian forces were fired upon, Murali said. They returned fire, and the clash lasted about three hours.

Exchanges of gunfire along the Line of Control — as the frontier separating Indian and Pakistani territory in Kashmir is known — were a regular occurrence before the two sides signed a cease-fire in late 2003. There have been several incidents since the agreement, with both sides accusing the other of initiating the shootings.

This is the first such incident this year, Indian army spokesman Lt. Col. J.S. Brar said.

Nearly a dozen Islamic rebel groups have been fighting for Kashmir’s independence from India or its merger with Pakistan. More than 68,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed in the conflict since 1989, and India routinely accuses Pakistan of assisting the insurgents, a charge Islamabad denies.

Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/03/21/asia/AS-Kashmir-Shooting.php

Once again, the Western Indian city of Mumbai was rocked by
terrorist attacks, as at least 100 died in a coordinated terror
operation apparently aimed, at least partially, at American
and British citizens.

Early reports indicate the coordinated attacks targeted at least ten
locations in Mumbai, which is a major financial center in India.
Reports indicate between 87 to 100 people died, with several hundred
wounded.

Indian news sources indicate a group calling itself the Deccan
Mujahedeen claimed credit for the attacks. Targets included two major
hotels frequented by Westerners, as well as the train station and a
hospital. 

As more details emerge, one major thing to look for is who India
blames for this attack.  Many past terrorist attacks have been
blamed on Kashmiri separatists, who in the past have operated with
significant support from Pakistan.  There are elements in the
Indian government and in the military, for strong responses to any
sort of Islamic terrorism, and the more right-wing Hindu nationalist
elements in India will likely cry out for revenge, either on India's
large Muslim minority, or on Pakistan itself.  Either response
would likely play directly into the hands of whichever militant group
is really behind this attack.