US President Donald Trump’s kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has taught me a lesson: that if you think you have a scoop, you file it immediately, not only to get the story out first but to warn the world if it’s about something bad that might be coming.

Shortly after Trump bombed Nigeria on Christmas day, I wrote an article that said his real aim was to send a message to Maduro and that among the options he was entertaining was a SEAL-type operation to capture or kill Maduro.

How did I come to this conclusion? I have no assets in the US intelligence community. I was completely running on instinct, and my instincts told me that the egomaniac Trump wanted to eclipse Obama’s feat in sending in the SEALS to kill Osama bin Laden in Abbotabad in 2011, just as he wanted badly to get the Nobel Peace Prize that Obama got.

But it was the holidays and, out of consideration for the folks that run my stories, who deserved a New Year’s break to be with their families, I sat on it after I finished it on December 27 and only sent it to Foreign Policy in Focus on January 2, eight hours before the Caracas operation that kidnapped Maduro, in violation of all the norms of civilised conduct among states.

But though out-scooped by Trump, I still think that there are elements in the unfiled article that could be useful in helping us anticipate what could unfold in the days and weeks ahead. So here’s the scoop that wasn’t.

Trump strikes Nigeria but real target is Venezuela
The Trump regime’s air strikes on Islamic State targets in Nigeria on Christmas Day may have had symbolic significance but no strategic value. There will likely be no impact on the efforts of the militant group called Lakurawa, allied to ISIS, to establish a base in Sokoto state.

Many have been puzzled by the attacks that involved the use of Tomahawk missiles, especially given the relatively minuscule space given to Africa in the recently released National Security Strategy (NSS) 2025. That brief section focuses on transforming the US relationship with Africa from one based on aid to trade, though it does say, “we must remain wary of resurgent Islamist terrorist activity in parts of Africa while avoiding any long-term American presence or commitments.”

It is likely that the attacks were carried out for reasons unrelated to Africa. One is to appease Trump’s Christian evangelical base. As Joshua Keating, an expert in crisis areas, has noted, “Trump’s sudden interest in Africa’s most populous country was likely motivated less by any particular event there — these are all longstanding issues — than by developments in Washington. Though it doesn’t get a ton of mainstream media attention, the plight of Christians in Nigeria has been a galvanising issue for evangelical Christians in the US in recent years.”

On his internet platform Truth Social, Trump has cited figures from the international Christian rights NGO Open Doors, claiming that of the 4476 Christians killed for their faith globally in 2024, 3100 were in Nigeria.

In her recent book on the key groups that make up the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, Furious Minds, Laura Field says that non-establishment Christian groups have an outsized influence in the Trump administration.

With the Republicans struggling in the lead-up to the mid-term elections in 2026, these groups’ muscle on the ground can determine whether the Republicans will continue to control the House of Representatives.

The main target: Venezuela
However, the main goal of the strikes, in my view, had to do mainly with developments thousands of kilometres away. It was to signal to the government of Nicolás Maduro that it will face not just attacks on Venezuelan boats at sea but also air attacks on ground targets. This interpretation would be consistent with NSS 2025.

NSS 2025 is an iconoclastic document. It literally dumps the 80-year-old strategy of liberal containment that guided the United States from the post-Second World War years through the Cold War years to the post-Cold War years, which was to meet challenges to global capital wherever and whenever the US state saw its interests threatened or challenged.

Next to its overthrowing the 80-year-old American “Grand Strategy,” the most significant departure in NSS 2025 is its break with the key assumption of US security policy since the presidency of George W. Bush (2001-2008), including the first Trump administration (2017-2021): that Washington must focus its resources on containing China, which was defined as the principal US strategic competitor.

Replacing China and the Asia Pacific as the main US concern in the Western Hemisphere, the document comes out with a reiteration of the Monroe Doctrine, but one fortified with what it calls the “Trump corollary.”

It states that Washington “will deny non-hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our hemisphere.” There is no more stark expression of the rude replacement of the liberal containment doctrine by a “spheres of influence” approach.

Meantime, the debate goes on in Trump administration on whether a ground invasion of Venezuela is the best way to implement the Western-Hemisphere-first strategy. Air strikes are one thing, boots on the ground are another, and one opposed by much of the MAGA base that is tired of the “forever wars”.

The “Molotov Cocktail” throwers in that base have made known their opposition or disquiet regarding a Venezuelan adventure.

Laura Loomer, an influential firebrand, has challenged Trump’s rationale for the attacks on Venezuelan boats, which is to prevent the opioid fentanyl and other drugs from being shipped to the United States.

“Fentanyl isn’t being manufactured in Venezuela,” she said, urging that the Pentagon target the Mexican drug cartels responsible for most shipments instead. She has also criticised María Corina Machado, the Nobel Peace Prize awardee for 2025 and the leader of the opposition in Venezuela, for “actively stoking and promoting violent regime change”.

Steve Bannon, a key official in the first Trump administration, said “neoconservative neoliberals” like Secretary of State Marco Rubio are pushing for a Venezuelan intervention that would derail the administration from its domestic priorities. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the volatile Georgia congresswoman, has posted on X that “People voted in 2024 against foreign intervention and foreign regime change as we have seen far too many times how that’s turned out, it’s not good, and people are so sick of it.”

My fearless forecast
Trump will limit attacks on his perceived adversaries globally to air strikes or naval bombardments to keep them off balance and not risk triggering another forever war with a ground invasion.

Of course, Trump’s people are probably weighing a SEAL-type special op — like then-President Obama’s killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbotabad in 2011 — to murder or capture Maduro, but Maduro is likely to be already very well prepared for such a contingency. He’s not stupid.

Frankly, if you ask me, Washington has dug itself into a hole with its focus on Venezuela, one from which there is no easy exit.

If one gives a broad interpretation to Che Guevara’s dictum that the best way to defeat the United States was to create “two, three many Vietnams,” then Venezuela has the potential for becoming the third phase of the death rattle of the empire, Vietnam being the first and bin Laden’s dragging Washington to eventual defeat in the Middle East the second.

Dr Walden Bello is co-chair of the board of the Bangkok-based research and advocacy institute Focus on the Global South and senior research fellow at the sociology department of the State University of New York at Binghamton. He is also author of Global Battlefields: My close encounters with dictatorship, capital, empire, and love (2025). This article was first published by Foreign Policy in Focus and is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Syria, where tens of thousands of people gathered at the Great Mosque of Damascus for the first Friday prayers since longtime authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad was toppled by opposition fighters.

DAMASCUS RESIDENT: [translated] Hopefully this Friday is the Friday of the greatest joy, a Friday of victory for our Muslim brothers. This is a blessed Friday.

AMY GOODMAN: Syria’s new caretaker Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir was among those at the mosque. He’ll act as prime minister until March.

This comes as the World Food Programme is appealing to donors to help it scale up relief operations for the approximately 2.8 million displaced and food-insecure Syrians across the country. That includes more than 1.1 million people who were forcibly displaced by fighting since late November.

Israel’s Defence Minister has told his troops to prepare to spend the winter holding the demilitarized zone that separates Syria from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Earlier today, Prime Minister Netanyahu toured the summit of Mount Haramun in the UN-designated buffer zone. Netanyahu said this week the Golan Heights would “forever be an inseparable part of the State of Israel”.

On Thursday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for an urgent deescalation of airstrikes on Syria by Israeli forces, and their withdrawal from the UN buffer zone.

In Ankara, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Turkey’s Foreign Minister and the President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Blinken said the US and Turkey would [work] to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State group in Syria. Meanwhile, Erdoğan told Blinken that Turkey reserves the right to strike the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, led by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Turkey considers “terrorist”.

For more, we go to Damascus for the first time since the fall of longtime authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad, where we’re joined by the Associated Press investigative reporter Sarah El Deeb, who is based in the Middle East, a region she has covered for two decades.

Sarah, welcome to Democracy Now! You are overlooking —

SARAH EL DEEB: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: — the square where tens of thousands of Syrians have gathered for the first Friday prayers since the fall of Assad. Describe the scene for us.

Report from Damascus: Searching for loved ones in prisons and morgues.  Video: Democracy Now!

SARAH EL DEEB: There is a lot of firsts here. It’s the first time they gather on Friday after Bashar al-Assad fled the country. It’s the first time everyone seems to be very happy. I think that’s the dominant sentiment, especially people who are in the square. There is ecstasy, tens of thousands of people. They are still chanting, “Down with Bashar al-Assad.”

But what’s new is that it’s also visible that the sentiment is they’ve been, so far, happy with the new rulers, not outpour — there is no criticism, out — loud criticism of the new rulers yet. So, I’d say the dominant thing is that everyone is happy down there.

AMY GOODMAN: Sarah El Deeb, you recently wrote an AP article headlined “Thousands scour Syria’s most horrific prison but find no sign of their loved ones.” On Tuesday, families of disappeared prisoners continued searching Sednaya prison for signs of their long-lost loved ones who were locked up under Assad’s brutal regime.

HAYAT AL-TURKI: [translated] I will show you the photo of my missing brother. It’s been 14 years. This is his photo. I don’t know what he looks like, if I find him. I don’t know what he looks like, because I am seeing the photos of prisoners getting out. They are like skeletons.

But this is his photo, if anyone has seen him, can know anything about him or can help us. He is one of thousands of prisoners who are missing. I am asking for everyone, not only my brother, uncle, cousin and relatives.”

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about this mad search by Syrians across the country.

SARAH EL DEEB: This is the other thing that’s been dominating our coverage and our reporting since we arrived here, the contrast between the relief, the sense of relief over the departure of Bashar al-Assad but then the sadness and the concern and the no answers for where the loved ones have gone.

Thousands — also, tens of thousands of people have marched on Sednaya [prison]. It’s the counter to this scene, where people were looking for any sign of where their relatives have been. As you know really well, so many people have reported their relatives missing, tens of thousands, since the beginning of the revolt, but also before.

I mean, I think this is a part of the feature of this government, is that there has been a lot of security crackdown. People were scared to speak, but they were — because there was a good reason for it. They were picked up at any expression of discontent or expression of opinion.

So, where we were in Sednaya two, three days ago, it feels like one big day, I have to say. When we were in Sednaya, people were also describing what — anything, from the smallest expression of opinion, a violation of a traffic light. No answers.

And they still don’t know where their loved ones are. I mean, I think we know quite a lot from research before arriving here about the notorious prison system in Syria. There’s secret prisons. There are security branches where people were being held. I think this is the first time we have an opportunity to go look at those facilities.

What was surprising and shocking to the people, and also to a lot of us journalists, was that we couldn’t find any sign of these people. And the answers are — we’re still looking for them. But what was clear is that only a handful — I mean, not a handful — hundreds of people were found.

Many of them were also found in morgues. There were apparent killings in the last hours before the regime departed. One of them was the prominent activist Mazen al-Hamada. We were at his funeral yesterday. He was found, and his family believes that — he was found killed, and his family believes his body was fresh, that he was killed only a few days earlier. So, I think the killing continued up until the last hour.

AMY GOODMAN: I was wondering if you can tell us more about —

SARAH EL DEEB: What was also — what was also —

AMY GOODMAN: — more about Mazen. I mean, I wanted to play a clip of Mazen’s nephew, Yahya al-Hussein.

YAHYA AL-HUSSEIN: [translated] In 2020, he was taken from the Netherlands to Germany through the Syrian Embassy there. And from there, they brought him to Syria with a fake passport.

He arrived at the airport at around 2:30 a.m. and called my aunt to tell her that he arrived at the airport, and asked for money. When they reached out to him the next day, they were told that air intelligence had arrested him.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Mazen’s nephew, Yahya al-Hussein. Sarah, if you can explain? This was an activist who left Syria after he had been imprisoned and tortured — right? — more than a decade ago, but ultimately came back, apparently according to assurances that he would not be retaken. And now his body is found.

SARAH EL DEEB: I think it’s — like you were saying, it’s very hard to explain. This is someone who was very outspoken and was working on documenting the torture and the killing in the secret prisons in Syria. So he was very well aware of his role and his position vis-à-vis the government. Yet he felt — it was hard to explain what Mazen’s decision was based on, but his family believes he was lured into Syria by some false promises of security and safety.

His heart was in Syria. He left Syria, but he never — it never left him. He was working from wherever he was — he was in the Netherlands, he was in the US — I think, to expose these crimes. And I think this is — these are the words of his family: He was a witness on the crimes of the Assad government, and he was a martyr of the Assad government.

One of the people that were at the funeral yesterday was telling us Mazen was a lesson. The Assad government was teaching all detainees a lesson through Mazen to keep them silent. I think it was just a testimony to how cruel this ruling regime, ruling system has been for the past 50 years.

People would go back to his father’s rule also. But I think with the revolution, with the protests in 2011, all these crimes and all these detentions were just en masse. I think the estimates are anywhere between 150,000 and 80,000 detainees that no one can account for. That is on top of all the people that were killed in airstrikes and in opposition areas in crackdown on protest.

So, it was surprising that at the last minute — it was surprising and yet not very surprising. When I asked the family, “Why did they do that?” they would look at me and, like, “Why are you asking this question? They do that. That’s what they did.” It was just difficult to understand how even at the last minute, and even for someone that they promised security, this was — this would be the end, emaciated and tortured and killed, unfortunately.

AMY GOODMAN: Sarah, you spoke in Damascus to a US citizen, Travis Timmerman, who says he was imprisoned in Syria. This is a clip from an interview with Al Arabiya on Thursday in which he says he spent the last seven months in a prison cell in Damascus.

TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: My name is Travis.

REPORTER: Travis.

TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: Yes.

REPORTER: So, [speaking in Arabic]. Travis, Travis Timmerman.

TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: That’s right.

REPORTER: That’s right.

TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: But just Travis. Just call me Travis.

REPORTER: Call you Travis, OK. And where were you all this time?

TRAVIS TIMMERMAN: I was imprisoned in Damascus for the last seven months. … I was imprisoned in a cell by myself. And in the early morning of this Monday, or the Monday of this week, they took a hammer, and they broke my door down. … Well, the armed men just wanted to get me out of my cell. And then, really, the man who I stuck with was a Syrian man named Ely. He was also a prisoner that was just freed. And he took me by the side, by the arm, really. And he and a young woman that lives in Damascus, us three, exited the prison together.

AMY GOODMAN: Sarah El Deeb, your AP report on Timmerman is headlined “American pilgrim imprisoned in Assad’s Syria calls his release from prison a ‘blessing.’” What can you share about him after interviewing him?

SARAH EL DEEB: I spent quite a bit of time with Travis last night. And I think his experience was very different from what I was just describing. He was taken, he was detained for crossing illegally into Syria. And I think his description of his experience was it was OK. He was not mistreated.

He was fed well, I mean, especially when I compare it to what I heard from the Syrian prisoners in the secret prisons or in detention facilities. He would receive rice, potatoes, tomatoes. None of this was available to the Syrian detainees. He would go to the bathroom three times a day, although this was uncomfortable for him, because, of course, it was not whenever he wanted. But it was not something that other Syrian detainees would experience.

His experience also was that he heard a lot of beating. I think that’s what he described it as: beating from nearby cells. They were mostly Syrian detainees. For him, that was an implicit threat of the use of violence against him, but he did not get any — he was not beaten or tortured.

AMY GOODMAN: And, Sarah, if you could also —

SARAH EL DEEB: He also said his release was a “blessing.” Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: If you could also talk about Austin Tice, the American freelance journalist? His family, his mother and father and brothers and sisters, seem to be repeatedly saying now that they believe he’s alive, held by the Syrian government, and they’re desperately looking for him or reaching out to people in Syria. What do you know?

SARAH EL DEEB: What we know is that people thought Travis was Tice when they first saw him. They found him in a house in a village outside of Damascus. And I think that’s what triggered — we didn’t know that Travis was in a Syrian prison, so I think that’s what everyone was going to check. They thought that this was Tice.

I think the search, the US administration, the family, they are looking and determined to look for Tice. The family believes that he was in Syrian government prison. He entered Syria in 2012. He is a journalist. But I think we have — his family seems to think that there were — he’s still in a Syrian government prison.

But I think, so far, we have not had any sign of Tice from all those released. But, mind you, the scenes of release from prisons were chaotic, from multiple prisons at the same time. And we’re still, day by day, finding out about new releases and people who were set free on that Sunday morning.

U.N. Calls on Israel to Stop Bombing Syria and Occupying Demilitarized Zone https://t.co/iHNIkKKOrs

— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) December 13, 2024

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Sarah El Deeb, you’ve reported on the Middle East for decades. You just wrote a piece for AP titled “These Palestinians disappeared after encounters with Israeli troops in Gaza.” So, we’re pivoting here. So much attention is being paid to the families of Syrian prisoners who they are finally freeing.

I want to turn to Gaza. Tell us about the Palestinians searching for their family members who went missing during raids and arrests by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip. And talk about the lack of accountability for these appearances. You begin your piece with Reem Ajour’s quest to find her missing husband and daughter.

SARAH EL DEEB: I talked to Reem Ajour for a long time. I mean, I think, like you said, this was a pivot, but the themes have been common across the Middle East, sadly. Reem Ajour last saw her family in March of 2024. Both her husband and her 5-year-old daughter were injured after an Israeli raid on their house during the chaotic scenes of the Israeli raids on the Shifa Hospital.

They lived in the neighborhood. So, it was chaotic. They [Israeli military] entered their home, and they were shooting in the air, or they were shooting — they were shooting, and the family ended up wounded.

But what was striking was that the Israeli soldiers made the mother leave the kid wounded in her house and forced her to leave to the south. I think this is not only Reem Ajour’s case. I think this is something we’ve seen quite a bit in Gaza. But the fact that this was a 5-year-old and the mom couldn’t take her with her was quite moving.

And I think what her case kind of symbolises is that during these raids and during these detentions at checkpoints, families are separated, and we don’t have any way of knowing how the Israeli military is actually documenting these detentions, these raids.

Where do they — how do they account for people who they detain and then they release briefly? The homes that they enter, can we find out what happened in these homes? We have no idea of holding — I think the Israeli court has also tried to get some information from the military, but so far very few cases have been resolved.

And we’re talking about not only 500 or 600 people; we’re talking about tens of thousands who have been separated, their homes raided, during what is now 15 months of war in Gaza.

AMY GOODMAN: Sarah El Deeb, we want to thank you for being with us, Associated Press investigative reporter based in the Middle East for two decades, now reporting from Damascus.

Next up, today is the 75th day of a hunger strike by Laila Soueif. She’s the mother of prominent British Egyptian political prisoner Alaa Abd El-Fattah. She’s calling on British officials to pressure Egypt for the release of her son. We’ll speak to the Cairo University mathematics professor in London, where she’s been standing outside the Foreign Office. Back in 20 seconds.

This article is republished from the Democracy Now! programme under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States Licence.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

In this week’s security podcast, Dr Paul G. Buchanan and host Selwyn Manning discuss:

• three areas that have been relied on to protect New Zealanders from terror-style attacks;
• legal measures designed to protect communities from danger and even protect individuals from themselves;
• and why they failed.

The background to this episode is the tragic, terrifying, attack that were committed against unarmed innocent people at West Auckland’s LynnMall Countdown supermarket, by Ahamed Aathill Mohamed Samsudeen.

The attack occurred last Friday, 3 September 2021. It ended with the hospitalisation of seven people, and, the death of Samsudeen, who was fatally shot by special tactics police officers during his attempt to kill and injure as many people as he could.

Immediately after, the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told the nation that the dead man was a terrorist and that she herself, the police, and the courts were all aware of how dangerous he was and had been seeking to protect New Zealand from this man.

Within days of the attacks, we learned, that Samsudeen was a troubled man with psychologists describing him as angry, capable of carrying out his threats, and displaying varying degrees of mental illness and disorder.

Refugee who sought asylum
Samsudeen was a refugee who sought asylum in New Zealand after experiencing, through his formative years civil war and ethnic cleansing in Sri Lanka, who, at around 20 years of age, arrived in New Zealand on a student visa and then sought political asylum.

He was eventually granted refugee status, and since then spent years in prison on various charges and convictions – largely involving the possession of terrorist propaganda seeded on the internet by Islamic State (ISIS), and, threats showing intent to commit terrorist acts against New Zealanders.

In this week’s episode, Dr Buchanan and Manning examine questions about whether this tragedy could have been prevented and considered New Zealand’s:

• Security and terror laws
• Deportation laws involving those with refugee status
• The Mental Health Act and whether this was available to the authorities.

Dr Buchanan and Manning also analyse whether it is necessary for the New Zealand government to move to tighten New Zealand’s terrorism security laws. And, if it does, how the intended new laws compare to other Five Eyes member countries.

Republished in partnership with EveningReport.nz

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says an attack at Auckland’s New Lynn Countdown supermarket today was a terrorist attack carried out by a violent extremist.

The prime minister and Police Commissioner Andrew Coster addressed media after the man was shot dead at a west Auckland mall this afternoon.

It is understood six people – all shoppers at the mall – have been wounded in the incident at LynnMall in New Lynn.

A St John Ambulance spokesperson said three patients in a critical condition and one patient in a serious condition had been taken to Auckland City Hospital; one patient in a moderate condition had been taken to Waitakere hospital; and one patient in a moderate condition had been taken to Middlemore Hospital.

Ardern revealed the terrorist was a Sri Lankan national who had arrived in New Zealand in October 2011 and he became a person of national security interest from 2016.

The reasons he was known to agencies was subject to suppression orders, but Ardern said it was her view that it was in the public interest to share as much information as possible.

The prime minister did say the terrorist held a violent ideology inspired by the Islamic State, but it would be wrong to direct any frustration at anyone other than this individual.

Personally aware
She said she was personally aware of the terrorist before today’s attack.

Ardern said it was a senseless attack and she was sorry it had happened.

“What happened today was despicable. It was carried out by an individual.”

Ardern said the individual was under constant monitoring, and he was shot and killed within 60 seconds of the attack starting.

The police team who was monitoring shot and killed him.

Commissioner Coster said the man had been under heavy surveillance because of concerns about his ideology.

He had entered the store and obtained a knife from within the store before starting the attack.

When the man approached police with the knife he was shot and killed.

Surveillance teams ‘close’
Coster said the surveillance teams were “as close as they possibly could be without compromising the surveillance”.

“I acknowledge that this situation raises questions about whether police could have done more, whether police could have intervened more quickly. I’m satisfied based on the information available to me that the staff involved did not only what we expect they would do in this situation, but did it with great courage,” he said.

“The reality is, that when you are surveilling someone on a 24/7 basis, it is not possible to be immediately next to them at all times. The staff intervened as quickly as they could and they prevented further injury in what was a terrifying situation,” Coster said.

Ardern said all legal and surveillance power had been used to try to keep people safe from this individual.

“What I can say is that we have utilised every legal and surveillance power available to us to try and keep people safe from this individual. Many agencies and people were involved and all were motivated by the same thing – trying to keep people safe.”

Coster said there had been nothing that would tell police the extent of his intentions, or that he intended to do this today.

He said the individual was very surveillance-conscious, and surveillance teams needed to maintain a distance to be effective.

intervened ‘in 60 seconds’
“There was nothing to prevent him being in the community and we were doing absolutely everything possible to monitor him and indeed the fact that we were able to intervene so quickly — in roughly 60 seconds — shows just how closely we were watching him.”

Ardern said the local Muslim community had been “nothing but helpful and supportive. It would be wrong to direct any frustration to anyone beyond this individual. That is who is culpable, that is who is responsible — no one else”.

She said his past behaviour and action did not reach the threshold to have him in in prison, which was why he was being constantly monitored.

An eyewitness told RNZ she had seen a man running around armed with a knife and heard many people screaming.

Another shopper who was in the supermarket at the time heard someone scream before shoppers started running towards the door.

Heavily armed police and ambulances remain at the scene.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk

About 60 people from the Sri Lankan community and human rights advocates gathered in Auckland’s Aotea Square today in a solidarity vigil for the survivors of the Easter Sunday bombings.

More than 320 people were killed in the Sri Lankan atrocities.

Today’s vigil was organised by the Federation of Tamil Associations in NZ (FTANZ).

Meanwhile, the New Zealand and Sir Lankan governments are treating with caution reports that the suicide bombings of three Christian churches and three tourist hotels in three cities across Sri Lanka were carried out by Islamic State (ISIS) in retaliation for the Christchurch mosques terror attacks on March 15.

The terrorist group’s Amaq news agency says ISIS has claimed responsibility for the Easter bombings.

It is the deadliest overseas operation claimed by ISIS since it proclaimed its “caliphate” almost five years ago, and would suggest it retains the ability to launch devastating strikes around the world despite multiple defeats in the Middle East, reports The Guardian.

Auckland Sri Lankans and human rights advocates at the vigil in Aotea Square today. Image: David Robie/PMC Federation of Tamil Associations of New Zealand (FTANZ) coordinator Dr Siva Vasanthan at the Auckland vigil today. Image: David Robie/PMC RNZ Checkpoint’s Alex Perrottet interviewing FTANZ president George Arulanantham at the Auckland vigil today. Image: David Robie/PMC

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Karina M. Tehusijarana and Moses Ompusunggu in Jakarta

Multiple deadly bombings in East Java and the brutal killing of six Indonesian police officers at the Mobile Brigade headquarters (Mako Brimob) in Depok, West Java, which took place within less than a week, have catapulted Jamaah Ansharud Daulah (JAD) into notoriety.

JAD, the largest Indonesian terror group pledging allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group, has played a significant role in the terror attacks.

“[The attacks] are connected to JAD, which is the main supporter of ISIS in Indonesia and was founded by Aman Abdurrahman,” National Police chief General Tito Karnavian has confirmed.

A family of suicide bombers linked to JAD attacked three churches across Surabaya on Sunday morning, killing at least 12 people and injuring 41 others.

Two attempted bombings were reported at two other churches in the East Java capital.

Later the same day, another explosion was reported at a low-cost apartment in the neighboring city of Sidoarjo. The latest attack took place on Monday morning, when a bomb exploded at the Surabaya Police headquarters.

In total, 25 people, including 13 suicide bombers, were killed and dozens injured in the series of bombings in Surabaya, which resembled the pattern of attacks carried out by the Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) movement at dozens of churches across Indonesia at the start of the millennium.

JI is said to have renounced violent jihad, leaving pro-IS group JAD as the most lethal terror group in the archipelago.

But what is JAD? And how influential is its founder, Aman?

ISIS supporters
But what is JAD? And how influential is its founder, Aman?

The Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) calls JAD “the largest faction of ISIS supporters in Indonesia,” consisting of followers of pro-IS ideologue Aman and Jamaah Anshorul Tauhid (JAT) leader Abu Bakar Baasyir.

The term JAD, which means “Partisans of the [Islamic] State Group,” was previously a generic term referring to anyone who had sworn allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, but is now specifically used by a group that was formed in Malang in November 2015 and has chosen Aman as its ideological head.

Aman was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2004 after a failed terror plot in Depok, West Java, and was released for good behavior in 2008.

Soon after his release, Aman collaborated with Ba’asyir to form a joint terrorism training camp in Aceh in 2010 that united the different terrorist groups, leading to another prison sentence of nine years.

Despite being behind bars, Aman has been accused of involvement in several other terrorist attacks across Indonesia, including masterminding the deadly January 14, 2016, Thamrin attacks in Central Jakarta.

The firebrand cleric, who graduated from the Institute for Islamic and Arabic Studies (LIPIA), was also allegedly involved in the May 25, 2017, bombings in Kampung Melayu, East Jakarta, that killed three policemen.

Aman and his followers believe that all security forces of an ansharut thoghut (idolatrous state) should be considered kafir (non-believers), whose property can be seized and blood can be shed.

Syrian obligation
After the declaration of the Islamic State by al-Baghdadi at Mosul, Iraq in June 2014, Aman believed that the Hegira, or emigration to Syria, was the obligation of all ISIS supporters.

Shortly before the 2016 Thamrin attacks Aman issued a fatwa that was widely circulated among extremist groups:

“Emigrate to the Islamic State and if you cannot emigrate, then wage jihad with spirit wherever you are, and if you cannot wage war or you lack the courage to do so, then contribute your wealth to those who are willing to do so. And if you cannot contribute, then urge others to undertake jihad. And if you cannot do that, then what is the meaning of your loyalty oath [bai’at]?”

The terror inmates who rioted last Tuesday evening at the Mako Brimob detention center reportedly demanded to speak with Aman, who is being held at the facility, during initial negotiations with police officers, a demand that the police later met.

The police, Tito said, suspected that the Surabaya bombings were motivated by the police’s actions in arresting leaders of JAD.

“They reacted [to the arrests] by carrying out retaliatory attacks, such as that which occurred at Mako Brimob.”

The terrorists’ decision to launch the attacks in Surabaya, Tito said, may have been related to the recent conviction of the leader of JAD’s East Java chapter, Zaenal Anshari, for smuggling weapons to Indonesian militants in the southern Philippines.

Zaenal is the second-in-command in JAD after Aman.

Orchestrated attacks
The incidents in Depok and Surabaya were part of a number of recent terror attacks or attempted attacks allegedly orchestrated by JAD-linked militants.

Residents stand next to human body parts at a scene where two bombers launched an attack at Kampung Melayu bus terminal in East Jakarta on May 25, 2017. ADEK BERRY / AFPResidents stand next to human body parts at a scene where two bombers launched an attack at Kampung Melayu bus terminal in East Jakarta on May 25, 2017. ADEK BERRY / AFP (AFP/Adek Berry)

Since the Thamrin bombings in January 2016, counterterror officials have thwarted numerous attempted attacks by suspects affiliated with JAD in various regions across Indonesia.

In January 2017, the US State Department said it had designated JAD as a terrorist group, which in practice prohibits US citizens from being involved with it.

The deadly riot at Mako Brimob, which led to a 36-hour standoff between terror inmates and security forces, and the string of bombings in East Java, may have shown that the group has ramped up its capability to launch terror attacks.

Karina M. Tehusijarana and Moses Ompusunggu are reporters of The Jakarta Post.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The gloomy portrait of the Middle East today should not obscure that peace is achievable. The basic premise for any such peace must be to preserve the territorial integrity of states. This means countering all forces that exist only to pursue their dystopias at the expense of others and with the help of outsiders, including Daesh and PKK/YPG terrorists. Their vision of endless bloodshed must be countered and defeated.

Daesh has largely been militarily defeated, but that’s not only because groups trained and armed by the United States dealt it a final blow. They were defeated due to the dedicated work of the Iraqi Army and a global coalition operating from Turkey. The weaknesses of Daesh were most clearly exposed after Turkey became the only NATO army to directly engage — and unsurprisingly crush — it in Jarablus in northern Syria. A prospective regrouping of Daesh is now being prevented by the dedicated work of a coalition that includes Turkey, which maintains the largest no-entry list of foreign terrorist fighters and runs the world’s biggest civilian anti-Daesh security operation.

The appeal of the ideology of Daesh, al Qaeda, and other affiliates will not easily go away. Terrorist acts on our streets were carried out before Daesh and would continue independently of its armed operations in the Middle East. The fight against terrorism must continue with full vigor but with greater emphasis on timely intelligence gathering, financial measures, and anti-recruitment and radicalization measures.

A point of discord with the United States is its policy of arming the PKK/YPG to act as foot soldiers, even as they have a history of terrorism. This is a legally and morally questionable policy that was prepared by the Obama administration in its waning days and somehow crept into the Trump administration. The United States has played into the hands of all its critics and opponents by deciding to form an alliance with terrorists despite its own values and its 66-year-old alliance with one of their primary targets, Turkey.

I have been pleased to see many NATO allies distance themselves from this U.S. policy, which flies in the face of our alliance’s values. It also runs against our common interests in the region and beyond. I hope that my designated counterpart, incoming Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and National Security Advisor John Bolton would see it a priority to correct the course.

Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, and other countries in the Middle East face destructive pressure from transnational forces that threaten their survival. Their difficulties in turn provide an excuse and opportunity for all sorts of interventions by all sorts of countries and nonstate actors. The result isn’t just a blood bath but massive migration and terrorist pressure against Turkey and the rest of Europe, which is at its doorstep. Their chaos also acts as an incubator of hatreds and threats against the United States. Resilient nation-states must form the basis of any order and stability in the Middle East. The vision of Bashar al-Assad will eventually lose, but a united Syria must ultimately win the long war.

Turkey’s Operation Olive Branch, which has involved a military incursion into Syria, is above all an act of self-defense against a build-up of terrorists who have already proved aggressive against our population centers. As host to 3.5 million Syrians, Turkey also intends Olive Branch to clear roadblocks to peace in Syria posed by opponents of the country’s unitary future. The massive PKK/YPG terrorist encampments across our borders served a double purpose. One was to open a supplementary front for PKK terrorist operations, in addition to the one in northern Iraq and unite them to form a continuous terrorist belt. The weapons and military infrastructure we have seized in Afrin decisively prove this assessment. The second purpose of the terrorists’ encampments was to form territorial beach-heads for their own statelet to be built upon the carcasses of Syria and Iraq on the areas vacated by Daesh. Olive Branch stops the descent into a broader war and soaring terrorism that would engulf Europe and the United States. Instead, it opens an artery toward peace.

I know that in the age of post-truth there is a broad campaign to cast shadows over Olive Branch. Not a day passes without us encountering calumnies. The truth is that we have taken utmost care to avoid civilian casualties and this has become one of the most successful operations the world has seen anywhere anytime in that regard.

It has been alleged that our operation impedes the fight against Daesh because the YPG terrorists are now focused on resisting the Turkish military’s advances. I think that this choice by the YPG demonstrates the folly of any strategy that involved relying on the group in the first place. But, rest assured, Turkey will not allow Daesh to regroup one way or the other and shall work with the United States to that effect.

We should also resist any framing that portrays Olive Branch as a fight of Kurds against the Turks. It should be obvious that the PKK and YPG terrorists do not represent the Kurds. The YPG has expelled some 400,000 Kurds from the territory it seized in Syria. Turkey wants all Kurds to live in peace and prosperity in all the countries they straddle. The PKK’s micronationalism and terrorism are a disservice to everyone including the Kurds.

An equally important point is to find a way to put the Middle East on the path of development. Central to this vision must be a peaceful, stable, prosperous Iraq thriving under its current constitutional order. In February, the international community made a start at a donors’ conference in Kuwait, pledging $30 billion to Iraq, one-sixth of which was provided by Turkey alone. But Iraq needs much more in aid; I call on all my counterparts, in recognition of the benefits of a healthy and friendly Iraq, to help fund a major reconstruction effort. It would be no less instrumental in building peace than the Marshall Plan was for Europe.

The Middle East must be kept safe from the threat of sectarianism, spheres of influence, resurgent imperialisms, royal family feuds, and extremism of all sorts, religious and otherwise. The states and peoples of the region — and those affected by it — have suffered enough. A road map toward such a successful future may already be emerging, with Turkey’s resolute leadership. I hope the United States chooses to seize the moment and support that vision of peace.

Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk

Indonesia is beefing up its elite Detachment 88 (Densus 88) unit in light of increased threats from local and international terror networks, says National Police Chief General Tito Karnavian.

There will be additional 600 policemen assigned to the squad, bringing the total headcount to 1300, reports The Straits Times.

“We now have Isis, not only Al-Qaeda elements. We are also seeing those who, through the internet, got self-radicalised, learnt how to make bombs and made attack plans,” said General Tito at a media briefing in Jakarta.

“Therefore, the Detatchment 88 must be beefed up.”

General Tito, who was involved in various high-profile terrorist raids when he was a field officer with Detachment 88, said silent operations must be stepped up, meaning more preemptive strikes were needed.

This in turn required higher detection capability, he added.

-Partners-

Tasks within Detatchment 88 are divided into various operations: arrests and raids; investigation and cross examination; interrogation; wiretapping; and evidence handling.

Won praise, condemnation
The unit has won praise for the many raids it has made on militant networks in Indonesia, foiling attacks and arresting terrorist suspects.

However, it has also been heavily criticised for a repressive role in West Papua against indigenous self-determination and civil society groups.

In 2017, Detatchment 88 arrested 154 and killed 16 terrorists during raids, with 14 officers injured and four killed during the raids operations.

The unit made more than 150 arrests in 2016, disrupting terror plots, including the planned launch of rocket attacks on Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands from Batam island.

General Tito also unveiled plans to send more police officers for overseas studies, saying he was inspired by the late Singapore prime minister Lee Kuan Yew in his bold move in preventing corruption.

The police force has, for the first time, received an allocation of 120 scholarship positions from the Finance Ministry to send its personnel abroad. This would mean a record number of officers studying overseas in coming years.

Waves of new faces
“We want to have big waves of new faces and a less corrupt culture,” said General Tito.

“When they return to Indonesia, they will have their own community who think the same way and who will be the agents of change. We want to replicate the Singapore concept. This is what Singapore did.”

He noted that when young policemen were sent to the United States, Britain and other countries with a less corrupt culture, they would be shaped accordingly.

The plan is to send 100 of the 300 fresh graduates from the police academy overseas as well as scores of other early-career policemen, he added.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz