Herald Sun (Australia)

3.26.2007, Monday

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21445071-662,00.html

Herald Sun (Australia)

March 26, 2007 Monday

FIRST Edition

Taliban threat

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 8

LENGTH: 158 words

AUSTRALIA is expected to shortly reveal it will send Special Air Service troops back to Afghanistan to counter the expected northern spring Taliban offensive.

Defence Minister Brendan Nelson said a study group sent to Afghanistan had reported back on the need for more Australian troops to fight the jihadists.

''We have had a scoping study done to look at whether we should increase our numbers . . . beyond the 400 we have got,'' Dr Nelson said.

''We believe there is a need, we think the Taliban will be mounting a very strong offensive shortly.''

Dr Nelson pulled the SAS out of Afghanistan in September but said the redeployment was necessary because of the nation's potential as a terrorist breeding ground.

''We are in Afghanistan because Afghanistan is the crossroads to a modern free world,'' he said.

US-based private intelligence group Stratfor said the annual spring thaw marked the beginning of the traditional combat season in the Hindu Kush.

http://www.cfr.org/publication/12944/chinas_political_safety_valve.html?breadcrumb=%2Fpublication%2Fpublication_list%3Ftype%3Ddaily_analysis

China’s Political Safety Valve

Pro-democracy groups march through Hong Kong to protest leadership elections. (AP/Vincent Yu)

March 26, 2007

Prepared by:

Carin Zissis

Social protests in China no longer startle. Hundreds and even thousands regularly gather to rail against local corruption, land expropriation, environmental degradation, or unpaid wages, often prompting harsh police crackdowns. In recent days, police teargassed protesters (Radio Australia) when the crowd blocked train lines in eastern China to protest redistricting they fear may threaten their social benefits. The unrest has not escaped Communist Party notice: An official newspaper advised local authorities to restrain (AP) from using force in protests that serve as a “collective appeal for help from violations of the law.” CFR Fellow Carl Minzner says in a new podcast that China lacks institutional means to address grievances at the local level, so protesters mount large-scale demonstrations to petition the central government for assistance.

If the issues discussed at the recently concluded National People’s Congress (NPC) serve as any indication, Beijing hopes to address the widening gap between the urban wealthy and rural poor causing instability, as an analysis by the Power and Interest News Report explains. The NPC has also sought to address the grievances (Xinhua) of the tens of millions of rural migrants moving to cities in search of work by requiring cities and provinces with large migrant populations to meet quotas for migrant representatives among their delegates at the 2008 NPC meeting. The degree to which the new NPC law will assist internal migrants remains to be seen, given that a large number of them move without official permission and, therefore, may not be included in counts that determine representation. A new Backgrounder looks at how China’s household registration system affects internal migrants, as well as the obstacles that prevent them from accessing social services.

One of the more controversial laws passed by the Communist Party’s Congress protects individual property rights. The new law includes a stipulation that “the property of the state, the collective, the individual…is protected by law, and no units or individuals may infringe upon it.” Philip I. Levy of the American Enterprise Institute writes that, despite China’s lack of an independent judiciary to protect against “predatory inclinations of high officials,” the law serves as an important first step in ensuring individual property rights.

The Economist reports (Subscription only) the property law “is mainly intended to reassure the country’s fast-growing middle class that their assets are secure.” The legislation could resolve land-ownership issues for rural farmers, who receive thirty-year leases for land plots, to renew leases after they expire. With land appropriation one of the chief causes of social protests in China, the property law seeks to show rural Chinese “that they, too, can have a direct impact on legislation,” says intelligence analysis site Stratfor. But the law does not prohibit land appropriations, effectively failing to protect (Asia Times) farmers’ land rights. Minzner says that even if the Communist Party passes legislation in response to collective action, the one-party system prevents the guarantee of such laws: “Unless you’re going to compromise or attempt to create independent institutions outside the control of your local party secretary, how do you actually make sure he’s abiding by what the national rules are?”

3.27.2007, Tuesday

http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=MTIyMjM2MjU4MA==

Asghari Case: Defection and Damage Control

Published Date: March 27, 2007

By Fred Burton

Ali Reza Asghari, a former Iranian deputy defence minister and Pasdaran commander, went missing from Istanbul several weeks ago. After his disappearance - which Turkish authorities say could have been as long ago as December but was not reported to them by Iran until early February - Arab newspapers began to insinuate that Mossad and the CIA were responsible for having had him abducted or killed. These claims were echoed by Iranian officials. Last week, however, the Saudi-owned Asharq Al-Awsat independent newspaper reported that Asghari had defected to the US government while travelling in Turkey. This report was confirmed by the Washington Post, which quoted a senior US intelligence official March 8 as saying Asghari was cooperating voluntarily - and fully - with Western intelligence agencies.

The United States and Iran have been locked in a covert "intelligence war" that has been raging for some time now. And, as in the Cold War, this war likely will involve the use of tactics ranging from assassinations and clandestine operations to propaganda, disinformation and the use of military proxies. Defectors and agents of influence also have been a feature of such wars in the past - which brings us back to the Asghari case.

The significance of Asghari's disappearance stems entirely from his background. Not only did he serve as Iran's deputy defense minister under former President Mohammed Khatami, but he also is a retired general who was a commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in the 1980s and 1990s. Therefore, the Iranians clearly have worried that he might be providing Western intelligence agencies with a wealth of information on the capabilities of the Iranian armed forces, and possibly helping to improve their understanding of the relationship between the IRGC (or "Pasdaran," in Farsi) and Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Iraqi Shiite groups such as the Mehdi Army and the Badr Brigade.

Given his background, he also would be in a position to shed light on the Pasdaran's clandestine abilities abroad and perhaps identify other Iranian intelligence officers. In other words, Asghari could prove an important (and timely) catch for US intelligence, especially if he had been working with the United States as an "agent in place" for a long period. In an intelligence war - or just at routine levels of good old-fashioned espionage - the defection of a figure like Asghari can prove useful in more ways than one. To understand this case and its potential twists and turns a bit better, let's take a look at the definitions and specific stages of the intelligence process surrounding defections: vetting, extraction and debriefings.

Defectors

To begin at the beginning, a "defector" is a person who abandons allegiance to one country in order to serve another. Like other intelligence sources, there are two basic types of defectors: those who are sought, or recruited, and those who volunteer. Sources who are recruited are approached by intelligence agencies because they are in a certain position in government or society and have access to what is deemed important information. They are people who can provide the information to satisfy key intelligence requirements.

While some sources might leave their native countries soon after being recruited, there have been many cases when it was found, after defection, that the person had worked as either an agent in place or an "agent of influence" - someone who can help to shape government policy, public opinion or even military decisions - for the recruiting country. Such agents can stay in place for years before "coming in from the cold," or physically defecting, to the recruiting country.

Well-positioned agents in place provide unique insight into the thinking, mindset and planning of the leadership of the government on which they have been spying. They provide crucial insight that cannot be gathered through technical means. In other words, you can use technology to take a picture of a man or listen to his telephone conversations, but those things might not provide you with information or even very good clues about his thoughts and plans. That kind of information comes only from human sources with the right access.

The second type of defector, the one who volunteers, is called a "walk-in" - because, frequently, they literally do walk into the embassy or consulate of a foreign country and volunteer their services. Walk-ins are problematic because they often appear when they are least expected; therefore, intelligence-gathering operations involving walk-ins are often hectic affairs that must be quickly conceived and implemented. Furthermore, if the person who walks in is not careful, their very presence at a foreign embassy can out them to the host country's counterintelligence forces (which can be expected to be monitoring the embassy).

That makes it difficult to retain a walk-in as an agent in place, and adds to the challenges of getting him out of the country when needed for an in-depth debriefing. However, it can be done: CIA officer Aldrich Ames was a walk-in to the Soviet Embassy in Washington but the KGB (and its successor, the FSB) managed to work him as an agent in place for nearly 10 years before he was detected and arrested. A highly placed source like Ames is a dream come true for an intelligence officer - and the worst nightmare for a counterintelligence service.

Vetting the source - to affirm whether he or she is genuine - is an important part of all espionage recruitment operations, and defectors are not excepted from this rule. Many walk-ins turn out to be "fabricators," "dangles" (people sent into the embassy in an order to identify the nondeclared intelligence officers stationed there) or "double agents" (those who appear to be defectors but who actually are used to spread disinformation and to determine how the opponent's intelligence service functions). While there is not much danger of a source who is targeted for recruitment being a fabricator, there is a danger of that person being a dangle, or a double agent. Vetting of both the source and the information provided by the source is essentially a continuous process; the defector will be closely monitored (and subjected to polygraph exams) throughout his period of employment.

Extraction

Once a spy has been identified, recruited and initially vetted - and found to be of value - the intelligence service must determine the best way to use that person. As noted, the source might be left in place to collect additional information, or whisked out of the country for a debriefing. Either way, the source must eventually be extracted from the country in a clandestine fashion. This extraction process is sometimes called an "exfiltration" - the opposite of an infiltration.

While some extractions can be dramatic, not all of them are Hollywood productions involving submarines and special operations forces. Because such operations are not only dangerous but also costly, they are carried out only under extreme circumstances. Most extractions are intended to be far more low-key: Quite often, the sneakiest way to commit an operational act is to do it in a mundane fashion, in plain sight. Therefore, it is far more common for defectors to leave their home countries under the ruse of taking a vacation or, as with Asghari, for business reasons. (That said, people are still occasionally smuggled out of embassy parking garages in the trunks of a cars.)

Time is an important consideration in extractions: Generally, the more time one has to plan and execute an extraction, the smoother and more low-key it will be. Location is also critical. Getting a person out of an open society is much easier than getting them out of a repressive society with strict travel regulations.

Once a defector gets to a third country for "vacation" or to "attend a conference," they can be picked up and spirited away. But again, time is a critical factor: If a person is watched closely by his government and cannot stray far from a security officer, or "minder," those planning the extraction will have significantly less time to operate than they otherwise would. Once the defector is in custody, he can be furnished with false documentation and secreted away in much the same way a subject is in an extraordinary rendition. In fact, much of the US government's expertise in handling renditions was derived from its operations to extract defectors.

It is even easier if the third country is friendly to the extracting country. For instance, in the Asghari case, Turkey is known to cooperate with US intelligence and the presence of (heavily trafficked) US air bases in the country would make it quite simple to get a defector from a third country out of Turkey without being detected.