SSI News

Just a few weeks back, we watched the President of the United States as he warmly congratulated his outgoing Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, as the best Foreign secretary ever. And he took the opportunity to do this in an unprecedented way on CBS as Steve Kroft, a well-known sycophant, asked the two probing questions like this on the subject of Benghazi: “As the New York Times put it, you accepted responsibility, but not blame. Do you feel guilty in any way, in-- at a personal level? Do you blame yourself that you didn't know or that you should have known? That was the entire line of questioning over the Benghazi attacks. According to Larry Oconnor of Breibart, Steve Kroft asked Clinton the journalistic equivalent of "If you were a Libyan tree, what kind of tree would you be?"                        

 READ MORE at HSN

Tags: HSN, United States, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, homeland security network

Originally posted on DHS.gov.

Tags: America, first responder, first responders, homeland security, homeland security network, HSN, Hudson River, law enforcement, military, news, Obama, police, Port Authority, risk, security, SSI, Suspect, terrorism, United States, World Trade Center

MOSCOW, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Russia warned on Wednesday that an attack on Iran would cause a catastrophe and said U.S. and European Union sanctions against Tehran were aimed at triggering popular discontent by "strangling" the economy.

Tags: United States, global conflict, Iran, Russia

A new service that provides emergency responder training via a video on demand solution is starting a revolution in the way responders are receiving required monthly training. The service allows fire, police, EMS and military the ability to provide their entire training video library through an on demand delivery to any television. The service allows responders to select a video through a graphical menu on the television screen and then play, pause, restart, rewind or fast forward the video.

Tags: homeland security, United States, first responders, emergency, law enforcement

Abstract

After a brief discussion of the epistemological and phenomenological difficulties associated with the concept of lone wolf terrorism, a number of possible counter-terrorist approaches are discussed. Lone operator terrorist acts should be considered ‘black swan’ occurrences that are almost impossible to categorize or systematize, let alone forecast. Thus, not the profile of the perpetrator, but the modus operandi offer clues for a better response to this particular threat. Furthermore, almost all lone operators do display a degree of commitment to, and identification with, extremist movements – providing leads for preventing new rounds of radicalization within this potential group of sympathizers or followers. With the apparent increase of Islamist lone wolf terrorism and fears for right-wing extremists wanting to follow the example of the Norwegian mass murderer A.B. Breivik, new questions need to be posed, addressing the role of virtual communities with which lone operators identify themselves. 

Tags: homeland security, United States, counterterrorism, terrorism, Lone Wolf Distributtors

Terrorists are adapting and expanding

Tags: homeland security, threats, Obama, United States, terrorist, terrorism, al-Qaeda

TEHRAN, Iran -- Thousands of mourners chanted "Death to Israel" and "Death to America" on Friday during the funeral of a slain nuclear expert whom Iranian officials accuse the two nations of killing in a bomb blast this week as part of a secret operation to stop Iran's nuclear program.

Tags: terrorism, israel, United States, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, nuclear plants, Iran

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — An all-too-familiar sight at LAX and the rest of the nation’s airports will soon be coming to the city’s busiest train station.

Tags: United States, trains, planes, homeland security, TSA

Nature could come knocking when people build their homes at its doorstep. The wildland-urban interface, or WUI (pronounced "WOO-ee"), is the threshold where a fire consumes not only vegetation, but also infrastructure. Once it's crossed, flames can spread like – well, wildfire. In quick succession, houses smolder, burn, and fall like wooden dominoes and rob families of their homes and businesses. How can we be sure we're not leaving a welcome mat for disaster at our doorsteps?

Tags: homeland security, United States, wildfires

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is relying on a secret channel of communication to warn Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that closing the Strait of Hormuz is a “red line” that would provoke an American response, according to United States government officials.

Tags: global conflict, Obama, Iran, United States, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

BANGKOK — Thai police were on Friday questioning a Lebanese man with alleged links to Hezbollah militants as the U.S. Embassy warned of a "real and credible" threat of a terrorist attack against American citizens in Bangkok.

Tags: embassy, Bangkok, Hezbollah, United States, terrorism

Tags: Muslims, United States, Abu Bakar Bashir, terrorism, bomb

****The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Michael V. Hayden and do not necessarilt reflect the views of SSI, HSN or any other affiliated company or agency.*****

(CNN) -- Very little in life is truly inevitable. When briefing policy makers, I would try to point out that a lot of it wasn't even predictable (at least in any scientific sense). But surely what is happening in Iraq, the increasingly darkening clouds of sectarian division, can hardly be described as unexpected.

In late 2006, as the Bush administration was debating the so-called surge, there were few doubts that five brigades worth of professional combat power could buy down the hellish level of violence then inflicting that country. There was less certainty that even with a reduced level of violence the Iraqi government could leverage that reality to make meaningful political progress.

At one meeting I pointed out that to do so Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki would have to "govern beyond his life experience." Having lived for an extensive period in exile, fearing for his life and seeing Baathists bent on his murder at every turn, he was far from a sure bet to be the kind of visionary, inclusive leader that we all thought Iraq needed. The Shiite-dominated Iraqi military and police services were also problematic, as strengthening them without the necessary political development threatened to make what Sunnis and Kurds saw as a predatory force simply more effective in their predations.

Aware of these dangers, along with the surge, the Bush administration spared no energy in working to coax, coach and mentor al-Maliki into a broader approach toward governance. In addition to the tireless efforts of two talented ambassadors -- Zalmay Khalilzad and Ryan Crocker -- private, secure video conferences between the U.S. president and Iraqi prime minister were routine.

The substantial U.S. military presence and its large training mission were also used to prod the Iraqi military along the path of nonsectarian professionalism. So important was this presence that sustaining it by concluding a Status of Forces Agreement (the rules governing how foreign troops may operate in a nation) became a near obsession of the administration.

Even with that effort, the most that the traffic would bear was an extension through the end of 2011 although both parties knew that it could be subject to renewal. That was always going to be difficult; we knew it would be impossible without a president willing to invest significant political capital -- domestically and internationally -- to achieve it.

With that agreement unextended and now expired, al-Maliki appears to be acting out the darkest shadows of his own past. Over the last months, he has reneged on a power-sharing agreement with Sunnis in several key ministries, arrested hundreds of suspected Baathists (read Sunni oppositionists) and -- as the last American troops were leaving Iraq and fresh from an audience in the Oval Office -- he has now ordered the arrest of his own Sunni vice president, Tariq al-Hashimi, for alleged "terrorism."

Along with all of this, al Qaeda in Iraq greeted the U.S. withdrawal with a series of deadly bombings against largely Shiite targets. Al Qaeda was always expected to take advantage of the "seam" created by the handoff of counterterrorism operations from American to Iraqi control, but now even a badly weakened al Qaeda can exploit the sense of Sunni vulnerability that al-Maliki's actions have created.

The situation may yet be salvaged. America is not without tools. Ambassador Jim Jeffrey cut short his holiday home leave to return to Iraq and, as he has in the past, he will no doubt use his considerable skills in an attempt to defuse the situation. But the ambassador will have fewer tools at his disposal.

President Barack Obama has consistently characterized the withdrawal as a "promise kept," adding that "it's time to turn the page." For nearly a year, we witnessed the oddity of a president sticking to his campaign promise while parts of his government, particularly in the Defense Department, worked to extend the American presence. At Fort Bragg, North Carolina, however, the president brought down the curtain, telling the assembled soldiers that Iraq's future now was "in the hands of its people. America's war in Iraq will be over."

But in other, similar circumstances we have found a continued military presence to be invaluable, not for continued war making but to foster local progress and regional stability. Whatever the withdrawal means in purely physical terms in Iraq, the psychic impact there and in the region is that America is less interested. In Iraq that means that each of the factions are going to their sectarian corners and are preparing to come out fighting.

Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations points to Kosovo (itself a controversial intervention) as a model where a continued U.S. presence helps deter old protagonists from resuming shooting at one another. In Korea, history may judge that -- beyond the obvious defense value of U.S. forces -- they also nurtured the development of Korean democracy by retarding what would have been an even greater militarization of Korean society had they been absent. And in Europe, a U.S. footprint there says that the continent's importance to us is beyond rhetoric.

Clearly American military deployments cannot be governed by a principle of "once in, in forever." To put it bluntly, training wheels have to come off sometime. But in this case they may have come off based on something other than the needs or talents of the cyclist.

The White House has made efforts to downplay recent events in Iraq: certainly bad, but things we have seen before, and we expect that the Iraqis will muddle through.

White House spokesman Jay Carney summarized it this way: "This kind of political turmoil has been occurring in Iraq periodically, as they have taken steps forward and, occasionally, steps backward, but generally made progress. ... That will continue."

That is not inevitable. I would hesitate to predict it. I certainly would not casually base my policy on that expectation.

Tags: Shiite Muslims, Sunni, United States, military, Iraq, Michael V. Hayden

It sentences an Iranian-American to death for alleged spying.

Announces it's begun enriching uranium at a heavily fortified underground facility.

Threatens to close the Strait of Hormuz, sending shivers down the spine of world oil markets.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad jets off to Latin America, visiting countries that love to take pot shots at the United States.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland calls Iran "desperate," dismissing the trip as "flailing around...to find new friends."

But some Iran-watchers are worried that desperation could cause Iran to make dangerous, unpredictable moves.

Karim Sadjapour with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace tells CNN "there's a Persian saying that, when you have wild cat trapped in room, leave the door open to let it out."

"Iran is cornered," he says.

Tehran is hurting, hit by stiff economic sanctions aimed at forcing it to "come clean," as Obama administration officials put it, on its nuclear program. The U.S. has imposed sanctions on banks that deal with Iran's Central Bank, and the European Union is close to imposing an embargo on Iranian oil exports.

Some U.S. lawmakers want the noose tightened even more. The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, says, "The Iranian threat is entering a new, even more dangerous stage."

Pointing to Iran's threats to close the Strait of Hormuz and to ratchet up its uranium enrichment, Ros-Lehtinen is calling for "immediate, comprehensive, crippling sanctions on the regime."

"An Iran with a nuclear breakout capability is an Iran with a nuclear weapon. We cannot delude ourselves into thinking we have time to spare."

Internally, the Iranian regime is under severe pressure. Inflation is surging. The deputy economy minister says inflation could reach 22% by the end of March. The Financial Times reports that official unemployment for those under 25 is 29.1 % but experts believe it could be double that.

The country holds parliamentary elections March 2 and, fearful of destabilization, the government is tightening surveillance of its Internet users.

Sadjapour warns that instability could have devastating consequences. There is "legitimate concern," he says, "that the hardliners in Tehran are purposely trying to provoke some type of a U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran in order to repair Iran's deep internal fissures, both between a disgruntled population against the regime and amongst Iran's political elites themselves."

Sadjapour calls that a "trap" that the United States and Israel "should be very careful about walking into."

Although Ahmadinejad's Latin American swing through Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Ecuador is making headlines, several Iran experts downplay its impact. They note that the Iranian president is not visiting the region's heavyweights, Brazil and Argentina.

"I think this is for domestic consumption in his own country," Julia Sweig of the Council on Foreign Relations, tells CNN, "to show that he is not isolated, despite sanctions, and despite U.N. resolutions. In Latin America, generally, he doesn't really have much of a political base."

Stephen Johnson, director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, calls the trip an "opportunity to shore up solidarity."

"The current leaders of Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Ecuador," he writes, "have little but praise for the Iranian leader and share the Islamic Republic's objective of offsetting the influence of the United States on the world stage. They will likely continue to offer a platform to criticize Western ideas of democracy and free markets, both in meetings and as a base for Iran's hemispheric public diplomacy efforts."

A key figure is Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Johnson says. Chavez has helped Iran evade sanctions on banking and industries that support its military. "In private, Chavez could offer to help Iran sidestep the latest sanctions against its banks and oil exports," Johnson says.

The countries Ahmadinejad is visiting aren't doing it just to help him, Johnson says; they're also hoping for more aid from Tehran.

For Cuba, for example, Iran has supplied credit and loaned funds for transportation infrastructure improvements. Nicaragua got promises of money for a hospital, hydroelectric projects, and a dry canal between the Pacific and Atlantic coasts.

"In Venezuela," Johnson says, "it has gone much further, rehabilitating an old tractor plant, establishing a car factory, and constructing subsidized housing."

Have all these projects been carried out? That's not clear, Johnson says, but Iran's president is likely to bring more promises to his Latin American friends. And, caught in the stranglehold of tighter world pressure, Ahmadinejad needs all the friends he can get.

Tags: nuclear plants, uranium, Venezuela, Cuba, Hugo Chavez, Ahmadinejad, Strait of Hormuz, United States, terrorism, Iran

Craig Baxam of Laurel was arrested Friday and charged with attempting to provide material support to al-Shabaab by joining its ranks in Somalia.

Baxam, 24, wore a long white tunic to his first appearance in court Monday. When asked by a judge if he understood the charge against him, he said yes. Baxam faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted. A hearing was set for Wednesday.

According to a court document, Baxam joined the Army in 2007 and attended eight months of advanced individual training for cryptology and intelligence. He was stationed at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, N.C., and served in Baghdad and Korea.

Though he previously had no religious affiliation, he began reading about Islam on a website less than two weeks before leaving the Army in July 2011, according to the document. The document says Baxam kept his conversion a secret, but his roommate figured it out because he saw Baxam's prayer rug and books.

After leaving the Army, Baxam is said to have spent time reading and praying, and he considered it his duty to go live in a place governed by Islamic law. He left the United States in December, flying out of Baltimore, and was arrested in Kenya, allegedly on his way to neighboring Somalia. Kenyan authorities suspected he was traveling to Somalia to join al-Shabaab. He was allegedly carrying with him between $600 and $700 he intended to give to al-Shabaab. Baxam was interviewed by FBI agents in Kenya and arrested on his return to Maryland.

When FBI agents interviewing him asked what he thought his role would be with al-Shabaab, he said "he would just be another body there." He also allegedly said he was "looking for dying with a gun in my hand."

He told FBI agents that living an Islamic way of life in the United States is oppressive, and that to live as a Muslim in the United States a person has to compromise. He said he finds the constant playing of music and display of pictures in the U.S. disrespectful.

Before leaving the U.S., Baxam allegedly destroyed his computer and threw it in the trash because he did not want to leave a record of his activities.

There is no allegation that anyone else either in the U.S. or abroad was involved in his decision to travel to Somalia.

Reached by telephone on Monday, Baxam's father declined to comment and said he was undergoing dialysis. The court document charging Baxam says he told officials that if he were released he would take care of his dying father and, if his father should die, he would then try to join al-Shabaab again.

Baxam's mother, an attorney, also attended his court hearing Monday but declined comment, as did John Chamble, a lawyer appointed for Baxam by the court.

Tags: Islam, crime, Craig Baxam, United States, terrorism

The documents, part of an extradition order by the Mexican Foreign Ministry against the Colombian supplier, describe American counternarcotics agents, Mexican law enforcement officials and a Colombian informant working undercover together over several months in 2007. Together, they conducted numerous wire transfers of tens of thousands of dollars at a time, smuggled millions of dollars in bulk cash — and escorted at least one large shipment of cocaine from Ecuador to Dallas to Madrid.

The extradition order — obtained by the Mexican magazine emeequis and shared with The New York Times — includes testimony by a Drug Enforcement Administration special agent who oversaw a covert money laundering investigation against a Colombian trafficker named Harold Mauricio Poveda-Ortega, also known as “The Rabbit.” He is accused of having sent some 150 tons of cocaine to Mexico between 2000 and 2010. Much of that cocaine, the authorities said, was destined for the United States.

Last month, The Times reported that these kinds of operations had begun in Mexico as part of the drug agency’s expanding role in that country’s fight against organized crime. The newly obtained documents provide rare details of the extent of that cooperation and the ways that it blurs the lines between fighting and facilitating crime.

Morris Panner, a former assistant United States attorney who is an adviser at the Center for International Criminal Justice at Harvard, said there were inherent risks in international law enforcement operations. “The same rules required domestically do not apply when agencies are operating overseas,” he said, “so the agencies can be forced to make up the rules as they go along.” Speaking about the Drug Enforcement Agency’s money laundering activities, he said: “It’s a slippery slope. If it’s not careful, the United States could end up helping the bad guys more than hurting them.”

Shown copies of the documents, a Justice Department spokesman did not dispute their authenticity, but declined to make an official available to speak about them. But in a written statement, the D.E.A. strongly defended its activities, saying that they had allowed the authorities in Mexico to kill or capture dozens of high-ranking and midlevel traffickers.

“Transnational organized groups can be defeated only by transnational law enforcement cooperation,” the agency wrote. “Such cooperation requires that law enforcement agencies — often from multiple countries — coordinate their activities, while at the same time always acting within their respective laws and authorities.”

The documents make clear that it can take years for these investigations to yield results. They show that in 2007 the authorities infiltrated Mr. Poveda-Ortega’s operations. Mr. Poveda-Ortega was considered the principal cocaine supplier to the Mexican drug cartel leader Arturo Beltran Leyva. Two years later, Mexican security forces caught up with and killed Mr. Beltran Leyva in a gunfight about an hour outside of Mexico City.

As for Mr. Poveda-Ortega, in 2008 he escaped a raid on his mansion outside Mexico City in which the authorities detained 15 of his associates and seized hundreds of thousands of dollars, along with two pet lions. But the authorities finally captured him in Mexico City in November 2010.

According to the newly obtained documents, Mexico agreed to extradite Mr. Poveda-Ortega to the United States last May. But the American authorities refused to say whether the extradition had occurred.

“That’s how long these investigations take,” said an American official in Mexico who would speak only on the condition that he not be identified discussing secret law enforcement operations. “They are an enormously complicated undertaking when it involves money laundering, wires, everything.”

The documents, which read in some parts like a dry legal affidavit and in others like a script for a B-movie, underscore that complexity. They mix mind-numbing lists of dates and amounts of illegal wire transfers that were conducted during the course of the investigation.

One scene described in the documents depicts the informant making deals to launder money during meetings with traffickers at a Mexico City shopping mall. Another describes undercover D.E.A. agents in Texas posing as pilots, offering to transport cocaine around the world for id="mce_marker",000 per kilo.

Those accounts come from the testimony by a D.E.A. special agent who described himself as a 12-year veteran and a resident of Texas. There is also testimony by a Colombian informant who posed as a money launderer and began collaborating with the D.E.A. after he was arrested on drug charges in 2003. The Times is withholding the agent’s and the informant’s names for security reasons.

In January 2007, the informant reached out to associates of Mr. Poveda-Ortega and began talking his way into a series of money-laundering jobs — each one bigger than the last — that helped him win the confidence of low-level traffickers and ultimately gain access to the kingpins.

A handful of undercover D.E.A. agents, according to the documents, posed as associates to the informant, including the two who offered their services as pilots and another who told the traffickers that he had several businesses that gave him access to bank accounts that the traffickers could use to deposit and disperse their drug money.

In June 2007, the traffickers bit, asking the informant to give them an account number for their deposits. And over a four-day period in July, they transferred tens of thousands of dollars at a time from money exchange houses in Mexico into an account the D.E.A. had established at a Bank of America branch in Dallas.

According to the testimony, the traffickers’ deposits totaled id="mce_marker" million. And on the traffickers’ instructions, the informant withdrew the money and the D.E.A. arranged for it to be delivered to someone in Panama.

Testimony by the informant suggests that the traffickers were pleased with the service.

“At the beginning of August 2007, Harry asked my help receiving $3 million to $4 million in American money to be laundered,” the informant testified, referring to one of the Colombian traffickers involved in the investigation. “During subsequent recorded telephone calls I told Harry I couldn’t handle that much money.” Still, the informant and the D.E.A. tried to keep up. On one occasion, they enlisted a Mexican undercover law enforcement agent to pick up $499,250 from their trafficking targets in Mexico City. And a month later, that same agent picked up another load valued at more than id="mce_marker" million.

The more the money flowed, the stronger the relationship became between the informants and the traffickers. In one candid conversation, the traffickers boasted about who was able to move the biggest loads of money, the way fishermen brag about their catches. One said he could easily move $4 million to $5 million a month. Then the others spoke about the tricks of the trade, including how they had used various methods, including prepaid debit cards and an Herbalife account, to move the money.

The next day, the informant was summoned to his first meeting in Mexico City with Mr. Poveda-Ortega and Mr. Beltran Leyva, who asked him to help them ship a 330-kilogram load to Spain from Ecuador. The documents say the shipment was transported over two weeks in October, with undercover Ecuadorean agents retrieving the cocaine from a tour bus in Quito and American agents testing its purity in Dallas before sending it on to Madrid.

The testimony describes the informant reassuring the traffickers in code, using words like “girlfriend” or “chick” to refer to the cocaine, and saying that she had arrived just fine. But in reality, the testimony indicates, the Spanish authorities, tipped off in advance by the D.E.A., seized the load shortly after its arrival, rather than risk losing it.

Tags: United States, Colombian Drug traffickers, drug war, Mexico drug cartels

In late July, 27 AK-47s were stolen from a Fort Irwin warehouse, officials said. Those close to the case, who would speak only under the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the subject, said investigators believe gang members were involved in the theft.

One source said the base had hired parolees, and officials are investigating the possibility parolees may have been involved in the heist. The source believes that since the theft, the base has discontinued the practice.

Gus Bahena, interim director of the public affairs office at Fort Irwin, said authorities couldn't comment on whether the base hires parolees, but did state officials were aware of gang issues.

Christopher Grey, spokesman for the Army's Criminal Investigation Command in Quantico, Va., confirmed the independent agency that investigates felony-level crimes was actively working the Fort Irwin case but wouldn't comment on the details, stating they wanted to maintain the integrity of the investigation.

As of April of this year, the NGIC has identified gang members from 53 gangs who are serving in the military. Members of 37 of those gangs -- including the notorious 18th Street and Mara Salvatrucha 13 -- have infiltrated the Army. Twenty-eight gangs have been identified within the Marine Corps' ranks and five in the Air Force.

The exact number of enlisted gang members is hard to come by, as many times investigators only see graffiti or paraphernalia as evidence of gang activity. For example, investigators found evidence that the motorcycle gang Devils Diciples [sic] -- the same one California State University, San Bernardino Professor Steven Kinzey is allegedly tied to -- has members in the military, but that evidence was found in areas where several branches have access.

While it appears the Army has the largest problem with gangs, some experts feel other branches may be underreporting the number of gang members within the rank and file.

"I think the problem -- percentage wise -- is bigger in the Marines but there are no statistics to back that up since the Marines fail to admit it ever existed," said Richard Valdemar, a retired Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department sergeant and gang expert. "In incidents I am personally familiar with, it seems to be mostly in the Marines."

According to the latest NGIC report released last month, gang members are getting their hands on a variety of military-grade weapons including rifles, grenades, artillery rounds and even body armor.

In the first week of November, a known gang member and his wife were arrested in Adelanto after Victor Valley SMASH Gang Team officials found several weapons in their home including a military artillery round in their garage.

Earlier this year, a field artillery round was found in an Apple Valley home, according to sheriff's reports. When it was detonated in the open desert, it created a 6-foot crater.

It didn't surprise ex-Hammerskin Nation gang member and former Marine T.J. Leyden to hear gangsters are getting their hands on heavy explosives.

"It's a lot harder to get firearms and rifles off a base but artillery rounds aren't that difficult," he said.

According to Leyden, rifles and firearms are counted three times daily but when it comes to artillery rounds, it's much easier to give false numbers.

"It's easy to say you fired 10 rounds when you only actually fired eight or six," the former Hesperia resident said.

While it may be more difficult to smuggle assault rifles and similar weapons off bases and into the hands of gang members, it's being done.

In November 2010, three former Marines were arrested in Los Angeles for selling assault weapons to members of the violent street gang, Florencia 13, according to the NGIC report. That same month, a Navy Seal from San Diego and two others were arrested in Colorado for smuggling about 18 military-issued machine guns from Iraq and Afghanistan to be sold and shipped to buyers in Mexico. It was unclear if any of the servicemen were gang members.

Gang experts feel a more stringent qualification process during recruitment plus continued vigilance and education about gangs and their practices could help identify gang members within the ranks.

"Every gang member in the military is a crap shoot," Valdemar said. "To whom do his loyalties truly stand with? We don't really know. That is the problem."

Tags: United States, violence, weapons, Gangs

"We are determined to maintain a ready and capable force, even as we reduce our overall capacity," the administration said in a summary of its defense priorities released as the president began to speak. "Our global responsibilities are significant; we cannot afford to fail."

The administration singled out China and Iran, pledging to keep sea lanes open and successfully combat missile, electronic, cyber and other threats.

"Over the long-term China's emergence as a regional power will have the potential to affect the U.S. economy and our security in a variety of ways," the summary noted.

The new strategy is the result of months of study at the Pentagon. It reflects a high-stakes, high-wire balancing act by Obama as he faces a more austere budget climate combined with continued high U.S. responsibilities at home and overseas.

"The balance between available resources and our security needs has never been more delicate," the administration said.

With his announcement at the Pentagon, Obama hopes to reassure the military brass, as well as send a clear message to allies and adversaries that the U.S. maintains its ability, and willingness, to fight.

"The tide of war is receding," Obama said in his prepared remarks. "But the question that this strategy answers is what kind of military will we need after the long wars of the last decade are over. And today, we're moving forward, from a position of strength."

"Yes, our military will be leaner, but the world must know—the United States is going to maintain our military superiority with Armed Forces that are agile, flexible and ready for the full range of contingencies and threats."

Obama's announcement coincides with multiple missile tests by Iran in recent days and comments by Iranian leaders that they could choke off the Strait of Homuz, a major transit point for world oil supplies.

The announcement also comes amidst frequent criticism of the president and his defense priorities from his political rivals, including candidates for the Republican presidential nomination.

In a signed introduction to the new priorities, Obama called this a time of transition, noting the successful raid on the Osama bin Laden compound and the death of the al Qaeda leader, as well as the end to the war in Iraq and progress in Afghanistan.

"The fiscal choices we face are difficult ones, but there should be no doubt, here in the United States or around the world - we will keep our Armed Forces the best-trained, best-led, best equipped fighting force in history," Obama wrote.

"States such as China and Iran will continue to pursue asymmetric means to counter our power projections capabilities, while the proliferation of sophisticated weapons and technology will extend to non-state actors as well," the administration document said.

Titled "Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense," it provides the bare bones of a defense strategy that will become more detailed as the White House and Congress prepare the 2013 budget.

The plan already has run into opposition from Republicans on Capitol Hill and GOP presidential candidates concerned about paring back the military. In addition, conservative defense analysts say the plan steps away from the long-time U.S. commitment to be able to wage two major wars simultaneously.

There is no overt mention in the strategy document, however, that the U.S. is stopping its policy of being ready to fight two-ground wars simultaneously, but the reduced size suggests that is the case.

The Republican Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said Thursday that the plan was "a lead from behind strategy for a left-behind America."

"The president has packaged our retreat from the world in the guise of a new strategy to mask his divestment of our military and national defense. This strategy ensures American decline in exchange for more failed domestic programs," Rep. Buck McKeon, R-California, said in a statement Thursday.

"In order to justify massive cuts to our military, he has revoked the guarantee that America will support our allies, defend our interests, and defy our opponents. The president must understand that the world has always had, and will always have a leader. As America steps back, someone else will step forward."

And in a signal of how carefully the administration had orchestrated this announcement in the midst of fiscal austerity as well as a presidential campaign year, the nation's highest ranking military man also threw his weight behind the reforms.

"It is a sound strategy," the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey said in prepared remarks. "It ensures we remain the pre-eminent military in the world. It preserves the talent of the all-volunteer force. It takes into account the lessons of the last ten years of war."

Dempsey referred to the uproar over the change from a two-war policy.

"Our strategy has always been about our ability to respond to global contingencies wherever and whenever they happen. This does not change," Dempsey said. "We can and will always be able to do more than one thing at a time. More importantly, wherever we are confronted and in whatever sequence, we will win."

He said he was pleased with the outcome of the strategy review. "It's not perfect," Dempsey said. "It gives us what we need, in this world and within this budget."

The administration noted the high cost of a decade of wars, with more than 46,000 men and women wounded and more than 6,200 members of the armed forces killed.

In another recognition of hard economic times, the strategy includes a promise to help veterans find work in the civilian economy.

"As the Department reduces the size of the force, we will do so in a way that respects these sacrifices," the administration noted. "This means, among other things, taking concrete steps to facilitate the transition to those who will leave the service. These include supporting programs to help veterans translate their military skills for the civilians workforce and aid their search for jobs."

Defense contractors and civilian workers also will feel the impact of Thursday's announcement and how it ripples through the system of defense contracts in coming years. Boeing has announced that one of its plants, which produces B-52 and 767 tankers in Wichita, Kansas, which now employs more than 2160 workers, will shut.

"The decision to close our Wichita facility was difficult but ultimately was based on a thorough study of the current and future market environment and our ability to remain competitive while meeting our customers' needs with the best and most affordable solutions," said Mark Bass, Boeing vice president said in a press release.

Tags: budget, war, United States, Obama

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The Afghan Taliban said Tuesday they have reached a preliminary deal with the Gulf state of Qatar to open a liaison office there, in what could be a step toward formal, substantive peace talks to end more than a decade of war.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid indicated the liaison office will conduct negotiations with the international community but not with the Afghan government - a condition that President Hamid Karzai has indicated he would reject. Mujahid did not say when it would open.

For the United States and its allies, the idea of a Taliban political office in the Qatari capital of Doha has become the central element in efforts to draw the insurgents into peace talks.

"Right now, having a strong presence in Afghanistan, we still want to have a political office for negotiations," said Mujahid. "In this regard, we have started preliminary talks and we have reached a preliminary understanding with relevant sides, including the government of Qatar, to have a political office for negotiations with the international community."

Mujahid's emailed statement also said the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan - the name of Afghanistan under Taliban rule - has "requested for the exchange of prisoners from Guantanamo."

He was referring to a Taliban demand that the U.S. military release about five Afghan prisoners believed to be affiliated with the Taliban from the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The Taliban are holding Bowe Bergdahl, a 25-year-old U.S. Army sergeant from Hailey, Idaho, who is the only U.S. soldier held by the insurgents. He was taken prisoner June 30, 2009, in Afghanistan.

From the American perspective, other trust-building measures would involve assurances that the insurgents cut ties with al-Qaida, accept the elected civilian government of Afghanistan and bargain in good faith.

For the U.S., one goal of talks with the Taliban would be to identify cease-fire zones that could be used as a steppingstone toward a full peace agreement that stops most fighting.

The Obama administration wants to use its current extensive military campaign and an acknowledged but incomplete plan for a long-term American military presence in Afghanistan as leverage to draw the Taliban to talks with Karzai's representatives.

The gradual process of handing over areas of the country to Afghan security control would ideally be marshaled toward encouraging peace talks, by identifying areas where a test ceasefire could be tried, a senior administration official told The Associated Press last week.

There was no immediate comment from the Afghan government to the Taliban statement, but Karzai had agreed not to oppose the opening of a Taliban office in Qatar.

However, the Taliban statement appeared to restate the militants' long-held position that they would speak directly to the U.S. government and not to the Karzai administration, which they consider a puppet government.

"There are two essential sides in the current situation in the country that has been ongoing for the past 10 years. One is the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and the other side is the United States of America and their foreign allies," Mujahid said.

That could torpedo talks before they begin.

Karzai has stressed his country will accept no "foreign intervention" in its plans to seek a negotiated peace with the Taliban. The U.S. has agreed that any peace talks with the Taliban would have to be led by the Afghans.

Wahid Muzhda, a former Taliban foreign ministry official and an analyst on issues related to the group, said any future talks would probably be "between the Americans and Taliban, but the Afghan government or High Peace Council representatives will be in the talks."

He said a 70-member High Peace Council set up by Karzai more than a year ago has made little or no headway, and that the U.S. had gone ahead with behind-the-scenes talks because the Afghan government was unable to on its own.

Such talks with Taliban representatives have been going on for months in Europe and the Persian Gulf region though they are now on an unofficial hiatus at Karzai's request.

Afghan experts said the Taliban's decision to open an office in Qatar could be the result of the U.S.-led coalition's military campaign in southern and eastern Afghanistan. Raids by special operations units have also rounded up hundreds of low and midlevel Taliban commanders.

"This proposal has been on the cards for many months, and it's logical that the Taliban would want to increase their options at some point ahead of 2014," when NATO is due to end its combat role, said Theo Farrell, a professor of war studies at King's College, London.

"The question is why now? It could be a sign that the Taliban are feeling the pressure of the military campaign," he said. "But it could also be the result of an internal power play, with those leaders holding a more accommodating view prevailing over the hard-liners and trying to open avenues of contacts with the government."

The prospect of formal peace talks suffered a serious setback in September when Burhanuddin Rabbani, a former president and the head of the High Peace Council, was assassinated by an attacker posing as a Taliban peace emissary.

After Rabbani's death, Karzai said peace efforts could take place only if the Taliban established a political office that would be authorized to conduct talks on a peaceful end to the 10-year war.

But Karzai initially balked when the plan for Qatar appeared to have been settled without him, officials said.

Early last month, Kabul recalled its ambassador to Qatar for consultations over reports that the Taliban was planning to open an office there. Karzai backed down last week, saying his government would accept the Qatar office to hold peace talks, although Saudi Arabia or Turkey would be preferable venues.

Despite talk of peace, violence persisted in Afghanistan.

Two bomb attacks killed six people in southern Afghanistan's Kandahar city.

First, a suicide bomber driving a motorcycle killed four civilians and a police officer. Gen. Abul Razaq, Kandahar provincial police chief, said the attack also wounded 16 people, including three police officers and six children. The bomber detonated his explosives at a police checkpoint, he said.

Hours later, another bomb blast killed a child, wounding five police officers and seven civilians. Dr. Kamal Shah of the local Mirwais Hospital said the attack appeared to have targeted a passing NATO convoy.

Also in the south, NATO said Tuesday that one of its service members was killed by a roadside bomb. A statement said the death occurred on Monday. It gave no further details about the soldier's nationality or where exactly the blast occurred.

A total of 544 NATO troops were killed in Afghanistan in 2011, the 10th year of the war. The figure was considerably lower than for 2010, when more than 700 troops died.

About 840 Afghan soldiers and policemen were killed in 2011.

Tags: Qatar, taliban, Gulf, Afghanistan, Zabiullah Mujahid, President Hamid Karzai, Doha, terrorist, peace, Guantanamo Bay, Bowe Bergdahl, Karzai, United States, Wahid Muzhda, High Peace Council, NATO