[Kabar-indonesia] ST: Pentagon to Set Up Top Post on Asia [+WP: al-Qaeda Letter; JI Threat]

[JoyoNews at aol.com]

4 reports: 

- ST: Pentagon to Set Up Top Post on Asia

- Australians don't think Iraq war has reduced 
  terror threat: poll

- AAP: Jemaah Islamiyah less of a threat 
  now - Australia's Ambassador to Indonesia

- WP: Letter Gives Glimpse of Al-Qaeda's Leadership
  [Suggests terror leader in Iraq risked removal for 
  alienating Sunnis and rival insurgents]

The Straits Times (Singapore)
October 1, 2006

Pentagon to Set Up Top Post on Asia

Derwin Pereira, US Bureau Chief

WASHINGTON - THE Pentagon will embark on a major revamp of its
policy-making wing this week. For the first time, it will establish a
top-level post on Asia.

Defence sources said North Korea, the rise of China and terrorism in
the region prompted the move. It also aims to improve coordination
among US government agencies and foreign allies in the war on terror.

'The change reflects the importance of Asia in our long-term strategic
calculations,' an official told The Sunday Times.

US defence planners have increasingly focused on the region, especially China.

This year's Quadrennial Defence Review, a top-level reassessment of
the Pentagon's strategy, for example, identifies China as having 'the
greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States'.

Hedging against Chinese military ambitions and other possible
developments, the US has moved strategic bombers, aircraft carriers
and submarines to the Asian region over the last year.

However, the Pentagon's policy-making outfit - a nerve centre of 450
military and civilian officers that charts US' global military
footprint - has not clearly reflected Asia's importance. The
reorganisation aims to correct this.

For example, an Asia portfolio is being created for a senior Pentagon
official. He will hold the title of assistant defence secretary.

There will be three deputies under him. One will cover North-east
Asia, the other Central Asia, and the third South and South-east Asia.

These regions were previously lumped together under the office of the
assistant defence secretary for international security.

Sources said that the Pentagon's seasoned Asia hand, Mr Richard
Lawless, is the frontrunner for the Asia slot.

Now a deputy assistant secretary, Mr Lawless has been dealing with
regional issues such as US-Japan security ties and negotiating the
thorny problem of the relocation of American forces from South Korea.

He must, however, be nominated by President George W. Bush and
confirmed by the Senate - like four other assistant defence
secretaries in the new structure.

Three of them will be covering a particular region, either Europe, the
Middle East, or the Western Hemisphere.

If approved by Congress, a fifth assistant secretary will cover policy
areas that cut across regional lines, such as security cooperation,
partnership building and detainee affairs.

Defence Undersecretary Eric Edelman, who is heading the
reorganisation, told reporters recently that one major reason for the
changes was to iron out problems in coordination between various
agencies.

He revealed that Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who had a 'sense
that we were mis-aligned in some ways', had ordered the changes. There
were past tensions between the Pentagon and other agencies over the
war in Iraq, for example.

The restructuring would result in 'even less friction' since the
Pentagon's policy areas would be more closely aligned with the way the
State Department, White House National Security Council and even the
Defence Department's own regional military commands are organised,
including the US Pacific Command.

The changes - the first since 2002 when the post of assistant
secretary for homeland security was created - will be implemented in
phases until March 2007.

-------------------------------------

AFP, October 2, 2006

Australians don't think Iraq war has reduced terror threat: poll

The vast majority of Australians do not believe the war in Iraq has reduced 
the threat of terrorism, a survey from a foreign policy think tank has shown.

The Lowy Institute survey found 84 percent of respondents thought the US-led 
war in Iraq had done nothing to lower the threat of terrorism and 91 percent 
believed it had damaged the United States' standing in the Muslim world.

About two-thirds did not think the war, which the Australian government has 
strongly supported from its inception, would lead to the spread of democracy in 
the Middle East.

Some 85 percent of respondents said the Iraq experience should make nations 
more cautious about using military force to deal with rogue states.

The institute's executive director Alan Gyngell said the survey showed there 
was "pretty strong agreement" in the Australian community that the Iraq war 
had not worked.

"There's really no doubt now about what the Australian people think," he told 
public radio.

"The debate seems to be over about the reasons that we went into Iraq -- that 
is, 84 percent disagree with the statement that the threat of terrorism has 
been reduced by Iraq."

Pollsters conducted telephone interviews with 1,007 Australians in June and 
July for the survey, which has a 3.1 percent margin of error.

Prime Minister John Howard said Australians should not consider "cutting and 
running" from Iraq, even if they still harboured doubts about his government's 
decision to involve the country in the war.

"There can be debate about the original decision to go into Iraq but common 
sense tells us that we must finish the job, and to pull out before Iraq is 
ready to look after itself will simply hand a massive victory to the terrorists 
and to the worldwide terrorist cause," he said in his weekly radio address.

"It is in Australia's interests that the terrorists fail both in Iraq and in 
Afghanistan -- that is the view that all common sense Australians take."

Australia contributed about 2,000 troops to the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq 
and the number of military personnel on the ground now numbers about 1,400.

--------------------------------------

Jemaah Islamiyah less of a threat now - ambassador

Karen Michelmore

JIMBARAN BAY, Bali October 1 (AAP) -- Extremist group Jemaah 
Islamiyah (JI) is less of a threat today, one year after second Bali 
bombings, Australia's Ambassador to Indonesia, Bill Farmer, says.

But Mr Farmer said the Australian government still considered the
organisation a threat, and made no apologies for retaining its travel
warning advising Australians against visiting Bali.

Dozens of Australians made a pilgrimage to Bali today, with financial
assistance from the Australian government, to attend a memorial
service to mark the anniversary of last year's suicide bombings, which
killed 20 innocent people, mainly Indonesians.

Four Australians were killed - Newcastle residents Colin and Fiona
Swolinski, Jennifer Williamson and West Australian Brendan Fitzgerald
- and 17 other Australians injured.

After the early morning service on the beachside grounds of a hotel at
Jimbaran Bay, families and friends of those injured or killed laid
flowers and held each other on the beaches where the bombs exploded.

Two suicide bombers attacked restaurants at Jimbaran Bay, and a third
detonated a device at Kuta.

"Jemaah Islamiyah is a threat," Mr Farmer told reporters after the
service today.

"Clearly the police forces and other agencies of Australia and
Indonesia working together have had very significant successes and
have severely affected the capacity of JI to do what its done so
dreadfully here and elsewhere.

"But it's a threat.

"They are weaker than they were a year ago.

"I'm sure of that because of the success that our police agencies have
had ... they have been able to remove from the equation a number of
people who were involved in these hideous terrorist agencies in the
past years."

Authorities have caught 40 people who have since been convicted in
relation to the first Bali bombings in October 2002.

Four militants have recently been convicted for their role in last
year's Bali bombings and other trials are continuing.

But Mr Farmer said the Australian government still had a strong travel
warning in place about the island.

"It's up to Australians to make their own judgment about whether they
come here," he said.

"The advisory is based on our own assessment of the threat.

"It's also very much the same advice as many other countries - 
Canada, New Zealand, Britain and the US."

--------------------------------------

The Washington Post
Monday, October 2, 2006

Letter Gives Glimpse of Al-Qaeda's Leadership

Suggests terror leader in Iraq risked removal 
for alienating Sunnis and rival insurgents

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer

Six months before the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in June, a senior 
al-Qaeda figure warned him in a letter that he risked removal as al-Qaeda's leader in 
Iraq if he continued to alienate Sunni tribal and religious leaders and rival 
insurgent groups.

The author of the Dec. 11 letter, who said he was writing from al-Qaeda 
headquarters in the Waziristan region of Pakistan, was a member of Osama bin 
Laden's high command who signed himself "Atiyah." The military's Combating Terrorism 
Center at West Point, which last week released a 15-page English translation 
of the Arabic document made public in Iraq, said his real identity was 
"unknown."

But counterterrorism officials said they believe he is Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, 
a 37-year-old Libyan who joined bin Laden in Afghanistan as a teenager during 
the 1980s. He has since gained considerable stature in al-Qaeda as an 
explosives expert and Islamic scholar. After becoming acquainted with Zarqawi in the 
western Afghan city of Herat in the late 1990s, he became al-Qaeda's main 
interlocutor with the fiery Jordanian.

Atiyah's name does not appear on any published U.S. government list of known 
or suspected terrorists. But his biography, as described by counterterrorism 
officials who agreed to discuss him on the condition that they not be named, 
offers a rare glimpse into the cadre of loyal senior aides who escaped with bin 
Laden into the mountainous Afghan-Pakistani border region in the fall of 2001.

The letter, the first document to emerge from what the military described as 
a "treasure trove" of information uncovered from Iraqi safe houses at the time 
of Zarqawi's death, provides new details of a debilitated al-Qaeda 
leadership-in-hiding, locating it in Waziristan.

"I am with them," Atiyah writes Zarqawi of the high command, "and they have 
some comments about some of your circumstances."

Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, said on a visit to the United 
States last week that he believes bin Laden and his top lieutenants are on the 
Afghan side of the border. U.S. military and intelligence officials have long 
believed that the al-Qaeda leadership is hiding in one of the tribal provinces 
on the Pakistani side of the border, and Atiyah's letter, if accurate, would 
confirm their location at the time it was written.

Atiyah bemoans the difficulty of direct communications between Waziristan and 
Iraq and suggests that it is easier for Zarqawi to send a trusted 
representative to Pakistan than the other way around. The "brothers," he writes, "wish 
that they had a way to talk to you and advise you, and to guide and instruct 
you; however, they too are occupied with vicious enemies here.

"They are also weak," he continued, "and we ask God that He strengthen them 
and mend their fractures. They have many of their own problems, but they are 
people of reason, experience and sound, beneficial knowledge. . . . This letter 
represents the majority of, and a synopsis of, what the brothers want to say 
to you."

Deemed authentic by military and counterterrorism officials, Atiyah's letter 
adds context to events in al-Qaeda's often rocky relationship with its Iraqi 
subsidiary, shedding new light on the depth of the organization's concern over 
Zarqawi and the limits of its control over him.

An earlier letter to Zarqawi, written in July 2005 by bin Laden deputy Ayman 
al-Zawahiri, made some of the same points in more formal and less pointed 
words. But it appeared to have little effect. In September 2005, Zarqawi released 
an audiotape accusing Sunni leaders and Shiites of cooperating with U.S. 
forces and promising their certain death.

Atiyah's letter begins with warm personal words for Zarqawi. "I am setting 
this out as an introduction," he says, because the rest of his letter "will be 
primarily about the negatives and cautioning against things that are perilous 
and ruinous."

Zarqawi had been placed in a position of high responsibility, Atiyah 
continues, but needed to expand his circle of advisers in Iraq and listen more to 
those with a better sense of al-Qaeda's wider political objectives. If his words 
led Zarqawi to wonder if he were being asked to step down, Atiyah writes, the 
response would be "not necessarily." But, he continues, "it is a possibility if 
you find at some point someone who is better and more suitable than you." 
Sharia law, he reminds, requires that "proper fitness be ordained."

Atiyah orders him not to make "any decision on a comprehensive issue" without 
consulting bin Laden, Zawahiri and the other "brothers." He said Zarqawi 
should improve his relationship with other Sunni insurgent groups in Iraq and be 
more judicious in using the al-Qaeda name in his operations.

Atiyah refers to a bombing in Jordan ordered by Zarqawi as the kind of 
operation that requires consultation. He urges the utmost caution "against 
attempting to kill any religious scholar or tribal leader who is obeyed, and of good 
repute in Iraq from among the Sunnis, no matter what." After they have succeeded 
in driving out U.S. forces and dismantling the Iraqi government, he writes, 
"then we can behave differently."

"Know that we, like all mujahiddin, are still weak. . . . We have not yet 
reached a level of stability. We have no alternative but to not squander any 
element of the foundations of strength or any helper or supporter."

Atiyah's December missive seemed to produce at least temporary results. In 
January, Zarqawi's organization, al-Qaeda in Iraq, announced it was melding 
operations with other Sunni insurgent groups under a new umbrella organization 
called the Mujaheddin Shura Council. But any hopes of appealing to Shiites -- 
seen by al-Qaeda as an interim necessity that would be abandoned once U.S. forces 
were ejected -- was eliminated when Zarqawi-affiliated forces blew up an 
important Shiite shrine, the golden-domed al-Askari mosque in Samarra, in 
February. A number of Sunni tribal leaders in Iraq's Anbar province have also been 
killed this year under the Shura Council banner.

Since Zarqawi's death in a U.S. air raid near the Iraqi city of Baqouba in 
June, the new leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, has appeared 
more in tune with al-Qaeda's wishes and has reached out to Sunni tribal and 
religious leaders. Competing for their support with the U.S.-backed Iraqi 
government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, al-Muhajer on Thursday issued a public 
appeal for their forgiveness and pledged to respect their scholarship and status.

Atiyah is no longer in Waziristan, according to U.S. officials who declined 
to speculate on his current whereabouts. But they said he was not in U.S. 
custody and expressed certainty that he is still alive. Asked what priority they 
attach to his capture, one official said: "He is an important figure. . . . The 
world would be a much safer place with him off the streets."

The official said that Atiyah is one of a number of senior al-Qaeda figures 
whose names have not been made public. "We knew about him," he said. "There are 
a lot of key al-Qaeda people that might not be on lists for the general 
public or the press." Rita Katz, whose Washington-based SITE Institute monitors 
extremist Web sites, said she believes that Atiyah is a "top al-Qaeda strategist" 
who frequently appears on a password-protected site under the name of Louis 
Atiyah Allah. "He's the one the jihadists go to when they have a question. He 
tells them what to do, what fatwahs to provide. He communicates with the jihadi 
online community."

The counterterrorism official declined to say whether the government believes 
Louis Atiyah and Atiyah Abd al-Rahman are the same person.

Atiyah's journey from Libya to a prominent position in the al-Qaeda hierarchy 
began like that of many young Muslims who traveled to Afghanistan to join the 
Afghan mujaheddin fighting a Soviet military occupation in the 1980s. Many 
were recruited and organized there by bin Laden, a charismatic Saudi who had 
joined the mujaheddin cause. U.S. officials said Atiyah was principally based 
around the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad.

In the early 1990s, after a brief return to Saudi Arabia, bin Laden 
transferred his operations to Sudan. The 1991 U.S. action against Iraq had given him a 
new cause, and his al-Qaeda organization, formed of the foreign recruits he 
had organized in Afghanistan, declared war against the U.S. military presence in 
the Persian Gulf.

As bin Laden organized in Sudan, Atiyah went to Algeria, where he is believed 
to have fought with the Armed Islamic Group (known as GIA, its French 
initials).

When the Taliban took power in Kabul in 1996, bin Laden returned to 
Afghanistan, where Atiyah joined him in establishing terrorist training camps. After 
his release from a Jordanian prison, Zarqawi arrived in Afghanistan in 1999. 
Although he had only a tenuous relationship with al-Qaeda, Zarqawi took bin 
Laden's money to set up his own training camp near Herat to prepare to overthrow 
the Jordanian government in Amman.

It was in Herat, U.S. officials believe, that a relationship was established 
between Zarqawi and Atiyah.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Zarqawi traveled to Iran and then to 
northern Iraq. After U.S. forces invaded Iraq in March 2003, he leveraged his 
al-Qaeda connections to gain legitimacy and adherents to an anti-U.S. insurgency. 
In October 2004, he changed the name of his burgeoning organization to al-Qaeda 
in Iraq.

Atiyah's liaison role was "more a function of his long-term ties to al-Qaeda 
and his relationship with the al-Qaeda central leadership and their interest 
in seeing him assume this role as opposed to a close relationship with 
Zarqawi," a counterterrorism official said.

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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