Posted January 19, 2012
By Samara Greenberg
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Last Friday, Thai authorities arrested a Lebanese native with Swedish citizenship, identified as Atris Hussein, suspected of being involved in the Hezbollah terror group and planning an attack. The arrest came after Israel and the U.S. informed Bangkok back in December that three Hezbollah operatives with dual Lebanese-Swedish citizenship entered the country.
On Monday, Hussein led police to a warehouse of materials commonly used to make bombs, including more than 8,800 pounds of urea fertilizer and several gallons of liquid ammonium nitrate. It remains uncertain if Thailand was the target of the attack, or simply a transit point, as shipping containers were found in the warehouse.
Hussein was subsequently charged with possession of prohibited substances — the ammonium nitrate — and faces up to five years in jail. Police are currently seeking a court order to detain Hussein as they carry out further interrogations on the terrorist plot. They are also searching for a second man possibly involved in the scheme.
According to American officials, Bangkok may be a major hub for Hezbollah’s cocaine money-laundering network, through which it funds its terrorist enterprise. As the unfolding plot reveals, Bangkok may also be a hub for the terrorist group’s acquisition of weapons and similar material. As Matthew Levitt points out, Hezbollah is no stranger to Southeast Asia, just as it is no stranger to Latin America. As an Iranian proxy, Hezbollah’s arms reach far and wide. Although now a part of the Lebanese government, Hezbollah is also a global terrorist group and must be recognized as such.
Mid-East Cyber War Heats Up
For years this blog has followed the Middle East’s food wars between Israel and its neighbors. Now, another more serious battle is heating up.
On Monday, computer hackers disrupted Internet access to the El Al website, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, and three Israeli banks. This is the second cyber attack against Israeli sites in days. Two weeks ago, a Saudi-based hacker calling himself 0xOmar with anti-Israel sentiments published thousands of Israelis’ personal and credit card information online.
In response, last week an Israeli hacker by the name of 0xOmer — playing off of the Saudi hacker’s name — released hundreds of Saudi credit card numbers. And on Tuesday, a team of Israeli hackers brought down the websites of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency and Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange “because lame hackers from Saudi Arabia decided to launch an attack against Israeli sites.” In addition, that same day, an Israeli hacker named Anonymous 972 published the e-mail details of 89 Saudi university students, while another called Hannibal posted a list of 30,000 e-mail addresses and Facebook passwords of “helpless Arabs.”
Israel is home to the largest number of technology startups per capita and is known for its hi-tech expertise and cyber security units in its military and now government. Yet, the raids by anti-Israel hackers reveal Israel’s vulnerability to cyber warfare — and by logical extension, the threat to America as well. The recent events also highlight the potential for politically motivated ‘lone wolf’ hackers to ignite an escalating cyber war, with Arab and Israeli hackers now warning of future retaliation.
Indeed, the cyber sphere will likely be the next field of war, and America and its allies must do all they can to prepare.
An al-Qaeda Comeback?
There are new signs that al-Qaeda is taking advantage of the Middle East and North Africa’s 2011 turmoil. On Tuesday, security sources confirmed that the militant group’s North Africa branch, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), kidnapped an Algerian regional governor, Mohamed Laid Khelfi, while he was driving away from a meeting on Monday afternoon. According to witnesses, the governor was taken in the direction of the Libyan border.
Two days prior, on Saturday, the al-Qaeda affiliate based in Yemen, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), took control of a city 100 miles south of the capital of Sana’a. According to officials, a force of 200 militants stormed the city of Rada’a armed with rocket-propelled grenades, automatic rifles, and other weapons, taking over the city’s police station and prison. The militants freed as many as 200 inmates, including al-Qaeda loyalists, and reportedly raised the al-Qaeda flag over a government building. With Rada’a under its belt, AQAP now controls seven population centers in Southern Yemen.
Yemenis are expected to go to the polls next month to elect a new president and end President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 33-year reign. Yemen is a highly fractured country, however, and there is real fear that with Saleh’s departure, Sana’a will not have the ability to pull the country’s tribes together.
Between events in Yemen and Algeria, it is clear that al-Qaeda is stepping up its game in the wake of the Arab uprisings and dictators’ forced exit. While Yemen has faced problems with al-Qaeda for years, Saleh’s leave could create a security vacuum for the group to fill. Moreover, Libya under Qaddafi had no real al-Qaeda problem. With the dictator gone, the instability that comes with the transition could very well provide the group with not only a source of weapons, but also another hard-to-police safe haven.
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Samara Greenberg is a Senior Research Associate at the Jewish Policy Center and Deputy Editor of inFOCUS Quarterly. Her writings may be found at www.jewishpolicycenter.org