The practice of mixing suspects with hardened terrorists in Iraqi prisons is further spreading radicalism, and could spawn the next generation of violent extremists who could threaten Europe and the United States, said a terrorism expert who recently toured the facilities.
Rohan Gunaratna, director of the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, was part of a delegation that studied Iraqi prisons at the invitation of the Defense Department.
He observed ordinary Iraqis who had been rounded up as “suspects,” mixing with hardened radicals. The delegation was allowed access to a “large number” of detainees, he said at the Global Security Asia conference in Singapore. All were held in communal conditions.
The majority of detainees were not bombmakers, ideologues or terrorist recruiters, but they mixed with many who were, he said.
“In our assessment, many of the detainees were radicalized in those facilities,” Gunaratna said. Those operating the prisons were failing to identify and isolate the hardened insurgents, he said.
Prisons have long been recognized as fertile recruiting grounds for terrorists. They have also been called “crime schools” where more experienced criminals pass on their knowledge. The House Government Affairs and Homeland Security Committee held a hearing last year on the possibility that U.S. prisons are being used by radicals to recruit followers.
Gunaratna said the invasion of Iraq was a fatal mistake on the part of the United States. It moved al-Qaida thousands of miles closer to Europe. However, leaving prematurely would be an even bigger mistake as the area could be used by the newly radicalized as a base to launch more attacks.
Gunaratna held Singapore’s prison system up as a model. Of the 13 radical Islamists arrested in 2002 there for plotting to destroy the U.S. embassy and other targets, three have been rehabilitated and released. The three received counseling from Muslim religious leaders, who convinced them they were following a false ideology. The remaining 10 continue to adhere to their radical beliefs, but their cases are reviewed regularly.
Money is the fuel for terrorists, and it may be their Achille’s heel, said Michael Elsner, an attorney representing victims of suicide bombings in Israel.
His firm, Motley Rice LLC of Mt. Pleasant, S.C., is assisting in a lawsuit against Jordan-based Arab Bank, which has allegedly used its branches to transfer funds to the families of terrorists.
The Aug. 9, 2001 suicide bombing of the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem killed 15 and injured scores. Among those who lost their lives, and whose family is part of the lawsuit, was an American, Shoshanna Greenbaum — a pregnant schoolteacher. Oron Almog/Gila Afrait-Jurtzer v. Arab Bank Plc alleges that the bank knowingly distributed funds from the Saudi Committee to the families of “martyrs” in suicide attacks in Israel. The lawsuit was filed in the Eastern District of New York, and in January a judge allowed the case to proceed. The bank has a branch in New York City.
The firm, also part of a similar lawsuit on behalf of 9/11 victims, has uncovered 2 million pages of financial records on the financing of 9/11 and terror attacks in Israel, he said.
“We focus on those who provide financial support or aid and abet terrorist networks,” he said. “We allege in our lawsuit that the Arab Bank directly and knowingly provided financial support to Hamas and other designated terrorist groups,” Elsner said at the Global Security Asia Conference in Singapore.
The discovery process, when attorneys gather evidence and depose witnesses, is an overlooked intelligence-gathering tool, Elsner said. Nothing they uncover is classified.
So far, they have secured 180,000 transaction records from Arab Bank and the Saudi Committee.
Arab Bank, in filings before the court, said it only provided routine banking services and did not knowingly distribute the funds.
The suicide bomber in the Sbarro attack was a Palestinian named Ahmad Al Masri. Elsner showed a tape of his father telling a news reporter that he was told to go to the Arab Bank to pick up a pension to compensate him for his son’s death.
An organization called the Saudi Committee allegedly distributes a sum of more than $5,000 to the families of “martyrs.”
The discovery process has allowed his firm’s investigators to interview key bank officials and third parties knowledgeable about the transactions, he said.
“The discovery tool is another mechanism that can be used to expose how terror financing works,” Elsner said.
“Sometimes there are individuals who have information who are afraid to speak with a government … but they’re willing to speak to the victims of terrorist attacks or those who represent them,” he added.
Elsner said their lawsuit has already forced couriers to smuggle money through the borders, which is “not the most effective means in which to transfer funds,” he said.
A spate of deadly chlorine gas attacks in Iraq has highlighted the need to secure the toxic chemical at home and abroad.
Twenty-five U.S. water utilities that once received the gas by rail have switched to safer alternatives to treat their water and sewage, according to a report by the Center of American Progress, a left-leaning think tank based in Washington, D.C.
That leaves 37 wastewater treatment or drinking water facilities in 14 states vulnerable to attacks or accidents, said the report, “Toxic Trains and the Terrorist Threat.”
“The only way to truly protect communities is to get unnecessary toxic cargo off the tracks,” said the report.
The nation’s freight railroad lines are notoriously open to intruders. Railroad industry officials at an industry conference earlier this year described a system with hundreds of thousands of miles of tracks that cannot practically be monitored. Meanwhile, railroads are obligated by law to transport chlorine and other potentially hazardous chemicals. The Association of American Railroads is among the organizations that would like to see chlorine taken off trains. Such chemicals only amount to .03 percent of their business, but disproportionately drive up their insurance premiums.
For about $1.50 per customer per year, plants can convert to safer means to treat water such as liquid bleach or ultraviolet light. Cities such as Cleveland and Washington, D.C., have converted their plants, but still have tanks of chlorine rolling through their cities in transit to other locations.
The international police organization, Interpol, has set up an Internet accessible database that allows immigration authorities to quickly check passports to see if they have been lost or stolen.
“Terrorists need to travel and there’s no better way to travel than on a lost or stolen document,” said Jan Garton, director of operational police support directorate at Interpol-France. “This database makes travel for terrorists very risky.”
All 186 member countries can access the database, he said at the Global Security Asia conference in Singapore.
There are 13.5 million records of stolen or lost travel documents in the database.
Interpol has seen an “explosion” in the number of searches during the past year, Garton said.
In 2005, there were 200,000 searches. That jumped to 5 million searches in 2006. Interpol projects 7 million searches this year as more countries hook up to the database.
No special equipment is needed, he said. As long as they can get an Internet connection, officials can check to see if a suspicious passport has been reported as lost or stolen.
The Interpol directorate in Lyon, France, keeps tabs on the missing travel documents, and as soon as they are added to the database, member countries can match them in real time.
If there is a hit, a message is sent automatically to Interpol headquarters and the country that reported the document missing. A 24-hour command and coordination center is up and running to assist in any investigations, he said. Similar databases for stolen vehicles, missing persons and unidentified bodies are in the works, he added.
David Knight, project manager for strengthening border security at the International Organization for Migration, said “the widespread use of the Interpol system is still some way off.”
Although the number of searches is growing, many developing nations don’t yet have the infrastructure to effectively use the system, he said. But getting a handle on the problem is vital.
“Travel documents are notoriously insecure,” he said. “The passport is one of the most important weapons of the terrorist,” he said, citing the 9/11 Commission.
Congress last year passed the Secure Fence Act, which authorized 700 miles of double-fenced border barriers.
Critics charged that the law was a bone thrown to voters at the tail end of a remarkably inactive 109th Congress as the border became a hot button issue and immigration reform legislation stalled.
That 700 miles has been cut down to 370, according to Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar.
Gaps will be filled by the virtual wall created by another program, the Secure Border Initiative, he said at a press conference attended by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and members of Congress.
The two programs will “morph,” Aguilar said.
A letter inserted into the law by Republican lawmakers gave the administration the flexibility to decide where to place the double-fences and how many miles they will extend, according to an analysis by the Migration Policy Institute.
Where the “bricks and mortar” fences go up, and where the virtual fence, guarded by surveillance equipment, is put in place are matters of great concern in border communities. Landowners are expressing fears that the federal government will use eminent domain to take their property.
When asked at the press conference if that mechanism will be used, and what communities might be affected, Chertoff and Aguilar were cagey. Chertoff said it would be a constitutional question.
Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, said although Congress in the act did specify where it wanted some of the fencing to be installed, he believed lawmakers would allow DHS some flexibility.
“I think the more prudent thing to do is to give the secretary some flexibility where he can look at the terrain and other factors. And I think that is the approach that some members of Congress will be looking at,” he said.
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