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December 13, 2008
CRC Open-Source Intelligence Briefs
Maj. W. Thomas Smith Jr., Director of the Counterterrorism Research Center
BELGIUM: Police counterterrorism strike teams nabbed more than a dozen terror suspects – including one believed to be planning a suicide attack – all of whom were allegedly linked to Al Qaeda during Thursday raids in Brussels and Liege.
According to terrorism expert Dr. Walid Phares, the raids in Belgium “should remind strategists that the campaign against jihadism is much bigger than the wars in Iraq or in Afghanistan. Like India, Belgium was opposed to the invasion of Iraq and isn’t a main partner in Afghanistan. Yet it was and remains a target for the combat Salafists. This is further evidence that the jihadi threat is truly global and that the response must also be global. Today the Belgians have scored a daring victory for the international community.”
IRAQ: According to The Associated Press: “Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh agreed Iran has curtailed its activity inside Iraq. He said he thinks Iran has concluded that a new security agreement between the U.S. and Iraq poses no threat to Iran. Iran opposed the agreement as a blessing for foreign forces to remain in Iraq, and encouraged Iraq's democratic government to reject it.”
That from the piece, “US general: Iran backs off worst bombs in Iraq,” in which it is suggested that a recent reduction in the number of armor-piercing explosives — known as explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) — indicates a “deliberate choice” on the part of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to limit use of EFPs in Iraq.
Not so, according to a counterterroism source who tells me in an email, this is “naivete close to stupidity.”
LEBANON: Sources are telling us former Pres. Jimmy Carter’s recent offer to meet with internationally designated terrorist group, Hizballah (which by the way refused to receive him), and Carter’s upcoming visit to state-sponsor-of-terrorism, Syria; has the pro-democracy majority in Lebanon seriously concerned that Western leaders (including elder statesmen) are “clueless” as to the level of deception and the depth of influence the Iranian-Syrian-Hizballah axis already holds in Lebanon (Please see our story here.)
— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com.
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