Obama Plans to Use More Than Bombs and Bullets to Fight Terrorism

By Spencer S. Hsu and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, August 6, 2009

The U.S. government must fundamentally redefine the struggle against terrorism, replacing the "war on terror" with a campaign combining all facets of national power to defeat the enemy, John O. Brennan, President Obama's senior counterterrorism adviser, said Wednesday.

Previewing what aides said will be the administration's most comprehensive statement to date on its long-term strategy to defeat al-Qaeda and other violent extremists worldwide, Brennan said in an interview that the United States will maintain "unrelenting" pressure on terrorist havens, including those near the Afghan-Pakistani border, in Yemen and in Somalia.

However, Washington must couple the military strikes that have depleted al-Qaeda's middle ranks with more sustained use of economic, diplomatic and cultural levers to diminish Islamist radicalization, he said, exercising "soft power" in ways that President George W. Bush came to embrace but had trouble carrying out.

"It needs to be much more than a kinetic effort, an intelligence, law enforcement effort. It has to be much more comprehensive," said Brennan, who will address the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Thursday. "This is not a 'war on terror.' . . . We cannot let the terror prism guide how we're going to interact and be involved in different parts of the world."

Calmer Discussion

The U.S. shift in tone comes as Obama national security officials, six months after taking office, are seeking to maintain a fragile bipartisan consensus over continuing Bush-era policies that damaged al-Qaeda while taking advantage of changed political circumstances at home and perceptions abroad.

While Obama campaigned on similar themes -- and a White House budget office memo in March notably retired the "global war on terror" moniker -- aides now seem to be trying to fill in the blanks, defining the threat and U.S. goals and challenges.

The time has come to "lower the temperature of the discourse . . . and soberly discuss what steps we want to take and not take," said Michael E. Leiter, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, the U.S. clearinghouse for analyzing terrorism threats. "What we've learned over the last several years is, nuance is important here."

A Holistic Approach

U.S. officials are advancing American ideals -- promoting political participation and economic development -- and attacking the factors that breed terrorism, Brennan said.

"We are not saying that poverty causes terrorism, or disenfranchisement causes terrorism, but we can't mistake there are certain phenomena that contribute to it," he said. "Terrorism needs to be fought against and certainly delegitimized or attacked, but some of the underlying grievances that might in fact lead individuals astray to terrorism cannot be ignored."

Brennan is in some respects an intriguing choice to deliver the new message. A former career CIA analyst, Saudi Arabia station chief, and chief of staff to former director George J. Tenet, he was heavily involved in CIA counterterrorism operations for most of his 25-year career, helping stand up the NCTC under Bush before retiring in 2004. After liberal critics questioned Brennan's role in post-9/11 detention and interrogation policies, he withdrew from consideration as CIA chief and Obama moved him to the White House.

Brennan's "Jesuit-like" demeanor has made him a key bridge between administrations, said David Cohen, a CIA veteran and now New York Police Department counterterrorism official.

Brennan has also brought perspective to internal debates over intelligence policy in the Obama White House, where few senior officials have exposure to the world of spycraft, intelligence officials said. Brennan is known to have opposed declassifying Bush administration legal opinions that authorized harsh CIA interrogations, though the Obama White House acted contrary to his advice.

"John understands how intelligence and policy support one another -- that's a major asset," said CIA Director Leon E. Panetta, whom Obama subsequently named. "He is a vital link between the CIA and the NSC."

"His portfolio is growing, not shrinking," said Mark Lippert, a longtime Obama foreign policy aide and now chief of staff for the National Security Council, which is run by Brennan's boss, national security adviser James L. Jones. Brennan's role spans terrorism, cybersecurity, swine flu and some intelligence matters. "He has the president's trust. . . . Folks from all parts of the policy and intelligence community respect him," Lippert said.

Even as the Obama administration softens U.S. rhetoric, it continues a controversial policy of attacking suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban safe houses inside Pakistan's autonomous tribal region. A missile apparently launched by CIA Predator drone struck a house in Pakistan on Wednesday, killing a woman identified as the wife of Baitullah Mehsud, a Taliban commander linked to the assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Pressuring Al-Qaeda

Unmanned drones have struck targets in Pakistan at least 31 times this year, killing more than 360 people, according to a tally by the Web site the Long War Journal. Such attacks are opposed by some prominent Defense officials who say the strikes are counterproductive because they fuel anti-Western sentiment in Pakistan.

Brennan, who declined to comment on CIA operations in the region, acknowledged internal disagreements but said that al-Qaeda must continue to be pressured.

"It's important to maintain the offensive against what are clearly terrorist training facilities and camps, and we're working closely with the Afghanistan and Pakistan governments to root out these facilities," he said. At the same time, the use of lethal force must be "very focused, and ensure that we are not incurring any type of collateral damage."

Extremist Ideas Survive Crackdown in Indonesia

By NORIMITSU ONISHI

JAKARTA, Indonesia — The Indonesian government’s crackdown on militant Islamic groups has been widely praised in recent years, particularly by the United States. Proof of its success rested in the fact that, after annual terrorist attacks earlier this decade, none had taken place in nearly four years.

But as a clearer picture has begun emerging of Friday’s coordinated suicide bombings at the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels here, terrorism experts and some Indonesian officials are focusing on what they describe as weaknesses in Indonesia’s antiterrorism campaign. Although the authorities have arrested hundreds of militants and severely weakened Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian terrorist network, they have had much less success in uprooting the culture that breeds extremism.

The authorities have failed to aggressively check the radical clerics, Islamic schools or publishing houses that allow extremists to recruit and raise money for their operations, these experts said. Even moderate, politically powerful religious leaders, who are against violence, oppose any perceived government interference in their affairs. And as democracy has become entrenched since the fall of President Suharto a decade ago, the authorities have appeared hesitant to use tactics that may recall the era of military rule.

“The bombings should be a catalyst for Indonesia to develop a more comprehensive approach,” said Rohan Gunaratna, head of the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. “They’ve been too focused on catching operators when they need to be tougher in actually preventing terrorism. They should take the boxing gloves off.”

The police have still not arrested anyone in the attacks, which killed seven people, including six foreigners, and wounded 50 more. On Wednesday, the police released sketches of two men suspected of being the suicide bombers and who were initially counted among the victims. Nanan Soekarna, a spokesman for the national police, said that DNA tests showed that the remains of neither of the suspected bombers matched a man named Nur Said, a militant whom the local news media had identified as one of the suicide bombers.

On Wednesday, investigators also detained a woman identified as Ariana Rahma, who is believed to be married to Noordin Muhammad Top, the prime suspect in the attacks, the local news outlets reported. She is said to be the daughter of the head of an Islamic boarding school in Cilacap, Central Java, that was raided last month. Investigators in that raid discovered bomb-making materials identical to those used Friday, the police have said.

The authorities have said that the bomb-making methods and the nature of the attacks indicated strongly that they were the work of Mr. Noordin, a Malaysian extremist who is believed to be behind the attacks earlier this decade. He was once a senior official in Jemaah Islamiyah and is the most wanted fugitive in Southeast Asia. Many extremist groups operating in Indonesia are said to have ties to him.

Though Mr. Noordin has evaded capture over the years, the Indonesian authorities have greatly disrupted Jemaah Islamiyah’s leadership. Once a network with operations throughout Southeast Asia, experts said, it now survives mostly in Indonesia in loosely affiliated small groups. The Indonesian government has also run a much-praised program in certain prisons that works to persuade Islamic militants to give up extremism.

But experts said that the authorities had been reluctant to rein in clerics and schools that had allowed extremists like Mr. Noordin to continue operating.

“On the law enforcement side, the achievements have been certifiable,” said Sidney Jones, an expert on Islamic terrorism at the International Crisis Group’s branch here in Jakarta. But Ms. Jones said that with an estimated 50 schools with ties to Jemaah Islamiyah, fugitives were sheltered, new recruits were found and money was raised.

“These places remain nodes of communication that are critical to keeping the network alive,” she said. “Everybody knows where these schools are, but there’s been a sensitivity in dealing with them because people don’t want to see Islamic education stigmatized.”

Islamic schools, called “pesantrens” here, have long played a central role in many Indonesian communities. Only a few are said to espouse violent tactics. But the schools, which are politically powerful, have long resisted greater government scrutiny.

“It would be very difficult to start questioning ulamas from these schools,” said a senior Indonesian counterterrorism official, referring to Islamic scholars at the schools and speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak to the media. “Even moderate Indonesians would react negatively against that.”

The official said that sensitivity about carrying out any measure with a tinge of the pre-democratic Suharto era also complicated investigators’ activities. While permits were needed to publish books in the past, publishers of radical ideology are now flourishing in Indonesia and account for the biggest source of such thought in Southeast Asia.

“Since democratization, we’ve been in a conundrum,” the official said. “Do we start banning books?

“We’re conscious that we have not eradicated the deeper problems in the last five years,” the official added.

Mr. Gunaratna, of Nanyang Technological University, said Indonesia needed to adopt tougher antiterrorism laws, like those in Singapore and Malaysia, which allow suspects to be detained and questioned longer without bringing charges.

“That’s the reason there has been no attack inside Singapore or Malaysia,” he said. “Since democratization, some members of the Indonesian elite have the misguided view that these measures are antidemocratic.”

Saudi 'Rights Abuses' Criticised

Amnesty International has strongly criticised Saudi Arabia over abuses allegedly committed as part of its counter-terrorism operations.

In a report, the human rights group says since 2001 thousands of Saudi suspects have been detained for years without charge or trial.

The 69-page report describes Saudi Arabia's human rights record as "shocking" and "dire".

It says the international community has been far too quiet about the abuse.

In the report, entitled "Saudi Arabia: assaulting human rights in the name of counter-terrorism", the UK-based organisation accuses the oil-rich conservative kingdom of massive and widespread abuse.

It says that two years ago, the Saudi interior minister said the country had detained 9,000 security suspects since 2001, and 3,106 were still being held.

AMNESTY REPORT ALLEGATIONS

Thousands of people detained arbitrarily

Some of those held are prisoners of conscience

Abuses include beatings, suspension from ceiling, electric shocks

But, says Amnesty International, no information - not even their names and the charges - were forthcoming and unofficial sources put the numbers far higher.

Over the last two years, it says, "new waves of arrests" have been reported.

BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says the Saudi authorities have been widely credited with defeating al-Qaeda in their country.

And, he says, Amnesty International concedes that most of the thousands detained without trial are suspected of links to groups which have committed attacks, on westerners and other targets.

But it says their cases are shrouded in secrecy and, quoting numerous examples, it doubts that even basic human rights standards are being met.

The director of Amnesty's UK office, Kate Allen, said that, except for the re-education programme for ex-jihadists, and the carefully co-ordinated mass trials, Saudi Arabia's habitual cloak of secrecy was wrapped even more tightly than ever in "security" cases.

"It is true", she said, "that Saudi Arabia faces a challenge in dealing with terrorism, but its response has been shocking - something the international community has been far too muted about.

"We are calling for a fundamental change of policy by the Saudi authorities."

Serious violations

This is not the first time Saudi Arabia has been criticised for alleged human rights abuses.

In February, the US-based organisation Human Rights Watch listed what it called "ongoing serious violations of rights" in the kingdom.

They included restrictions on speech, association, assembly and religion; an arbitrary criminal justice system, discrimination against women; and serious abuses against migrant workers in the country.

And in 2008, it published a 144-page report criticising Saudi Arabia's criminal justice system.

It said that it had "found systematic and multiple violations of defendants' rights".

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/8162256.stm