What Have I Missed?

I've been hard at work over here - see my BlackBerry, PDA, and notebook on the table next to my noontime nosh? - but soon it will be time to put down the pick and return to my domestic office routine.

I've been becalmed in the internet doldrums for about ten days now, so I'm out of touch with the Blogosphere. The hectic pace of work - cough, cough - has prevented me from surfing the web as usual. That, plus the infuriating lack of a free Wi-Fi signal in or near my fancy TDY hotel. It seems every coffee shop in Israel has free Wi-Fi, but the further upscale you go the rarer it is to get a freebie. I may have to consider actually paying money for internet access like it was, I don't know, 1990 or something.

Funny thing - When I visited a Jerusalem convent hostel the other day, one of the Sisters told me "we have wine list here." At least, that's what I heard. But it turned out she really said "we have wireless here." And so they do, free Wi-Fi all throughout the residences, chapels, dining hall, and grounds. Next time, I'm staying there.

On The Road Again

And I'm off for a week or two of TDY, during which I will subject myself to flights of over 14 hours in economy class, at great risk to my physical and mental well-being.

I'm not taking a computer with me, in order to lighten the load in my carry-on bag. I find I can stay in touch pretty well by using an old Palm T/X to catch free Wi-Fi signals in coffee shops. I'll read the Weekly Round-Up on that little 320x480 screen while on the beach in Tel Aviv this Friday. And, if I'm patient enough to enter text with a tiny stylus, I should be able to send a few posts.

U.S. Consulate Peshawar Vehicle, Four Employees, Detained At Army Checkpoint

Local news media were present during a stand-off between four consulate employees and Pakistani military and police in Peshawar today. It appears to have been a standard exercise in harassment, with the military stopping and holding one of our vehicles, and our employees refusing to either get out of their car or to move it elsewhere. Once diplomatic identities were established, our employees were free to go.

Here's what the media reported about the four foreigners detained in Peshawar:

PESHAWAR: Army personnel detained four Americans after they were stopped at an army check post in Peshawar. However, they were allowed to leave after almost two hours.

According to Express 24/7 reporter Sumaira Khan, the foreigners travelling in a grey land cruiser were stopped at an army check post opposite the destroyed CID office after they failed to follow protocol.

FC Cantt. released a statement saying they men were released after official confirmation was received verifying the identities of the four men. Their passports and documents were in order.

A police officer on site said that the misunderstanding came about after the American officials failed to follow protocol. Given the current law and order situation, police and army personnel took every precaution to ensure the safety of foreigners in the area.

It was initially believed that these men were members of Blackwater or Xe corporation. The foreigners said they maintained that they were staff of the US consulate and lived in the diplomatic enclave.

It was later verified that the four men in fact belonged to the US embassy in Islamabad and were present lawfully in the country.

The number plate displayed on the back of their car, bearing numbers IDF 7582, was found to be fake.

The car also had another numberplate, one which is normally issued to diplomats, resting on their dashboard bearing numbers CD-64-164.

They refused to talk to either the media or Pakistani security officials present at the scene.

They had failed to follow protocol reserved for foreigners moving in the city.

US officials are supposed to inform police and intelligence officials.

The check post where they were stopped is near Gora Qabristan area of Peshawar and is in close vicinity of the destroyed CID office in Peshawar as well as an SSG paratroopers schools along with residences of FIA and intelligence officials.

[TSB note: the CID office was destroyed in a suicide attack by Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan on May 26. It is located on Jamrud Road, very close to our consulate residences. There is nothing at all suspicious about consulate vehicles being there, despite insinuations by the local press about sensitive sites.]

Police and army officials released the men after official confirmation of their links with the US consulate was received. The four men had produced documents including a diplomatic passport, indicating that they were staff of the US consulate. Their visas were valid.

The had locked themselves in their car and were refusing to speak to security officials, waiting for a representative from the US consulate or the embassy.

It was two weeks ago that another consulate vehicle was ambushed with a roadside bomb while traveling in the vicinity of Jamrud Road.

Even without that photo above, I can easily imagine how the tension of living under constant threat from both terrorist groups and our host government's security services is wearing on our employees in Peshawar.

Yemen's President Saleh Suddenly In Need Of A Good Hospital

The Saudis have been negotiating a cease-fire in Yemen's civil war, and now it looks like they might go a step further and ease President Saleh out of the country.

The New York Times has reported that Saleh is being taken to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment after being wounded in yesterday's attack on his palace. (What, they don't have a hospital in Sana'a?)

Supposedly, Saleh was only slightly wounded in that attack, but he hasn't been seen in public since. For him to leave the country now is almost as good as an admission that he is stepping down.

WASHINGTON — President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen was being taken to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment on Saturday, a day after an attack on his compound wounded him and several members of his ruling circle, Saudi officials said.

Since the attack, which Mr. Saleh blamed on his tribal rivals, the Ahmar family, Yemeni officials have insisted that the president was only lightly injured. But he did not make an expected appearance on television on Friday, instead releasing an audiotape in which he slurred his words, suggesting that he might be sedated.

The Saudi announcement, which was denied by Yemeni officials, raises further questions about the extent of his injuries. And it may present an avenue for change in a Yemeni political crisis that has seemed unsolvable in recent months, in part because of Mr. Saleh’s repeated refusal to step aside in favor of a coalition government favored by other leaders in the region.

Earlier Saturday, at least six other Yemeni officials who were injured in the attack were transported to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment, according to a statement released by Yemen’s official news agency. They were all said to be high-ranking members of the ruling party, including the prime minister. The attack, apparently using a mortar or rocket, caused an explosion in a mosque on the grounds of the expansive presidential palace where the men were praying. Seven of the president’s guards were killed in the attack and at least nine people were wounded beside Mr. Saleh.

It isn't clear to me whether Saleh has actually departed Yemen at this time, or if he has merely accepted the Saudi's offer. Once he is in the Saudi's hands, he is no longer really in control in Yemen.

Another One Bites The Dust

An al-Qaeda commander who planned attacks on U.S. interests in Pakistan is the latest to fall to Predator drones over South Waziristan, the Associate Press reports:

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – A top al-Qaida commander and possible replacement for Osama bin Laden was killed in an American drone-fired missile strike close to the Afghan border, the militant group he heads and a Pakistani intelligence official said Saturday.

Ilyas Kashmiri's death is another blow to al-Qaida just over a month after bin Laden was killed by American commandos in a northwest Pakistani army town. Described by U.S. officials as al-Qaida's military operations chief in Pakistan, he was one of five most-wanted militant leaders in the country, accused in a string of bloody attacks, including the 2008 Mumbai massacre.

His death was not confirmed publicly by the United States or Pakistani officials. Verifying who has been killed in the drone strikes is difficult. Initial reports have turned out to be wrong in the past, or are never formally denied or confirmed by authorities here or in the United States.

But a fax from the militant group he was heading — Harakat-ul-Jihad al-Islami's feared "313 Brigade" — confirmed Kashmiri was "martyred" in the strike at 11:15 p.m. Friday in South Waziristan tribal region. It vowed revenge against America. [TSB note: see the fax here]

-- snip --

The 47-year-old Pakistani, said to be blind in one eye and missing a finger, was one of the country's most accomplished — and vicious — militants. He was so close to al-Qaida's central command that he had been mentioned as a contender for replacing bin Laden.

Indian officials have alleged he was involved in the 2008 Mumbai siege that killed more than 160 people. He has also been named a defendant in an American court over a planned attack on a Danish newspaper that published cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in 2005.

Kashmiri has most recently been linked to last month's 18-hour assault on a naval base in Karachi. He is also accused of masterminding several bloody raids on Pakistan police and intelligence buildings in 2009 and 2010, as well as a failed assassination attempt against then-President Pervez Musharraf in 2003.

The U.S Department of State says he organized a 2006 suicide bombing against the U.S. consulate in Karachi that killed four people, including an American diplomat.

The American diplomat was David Foy, who was accompanied by Iftikhar Ahmed, a local employee of the consulate, when they were ambushed as their car approached the consulate's outer checkpoint. A Pakistani Army Ranger assigned to the checkpoint was also killed.

The U.S. State Department had recently offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the location of Kashmiri.

Do we owe someone some money? If so, that is exactly how I would want my tax money spent.

Two Thumbs Up For A CIA Documentary Film

H/T to The Snake's Mommy for telling me about the most interesting Cold War history artifact that I've seen in some time, a CIA in-house documentary film about the long imprisonment in China of CIA Operations Officers John Downey and Richard Fecteau.

I was generally aware that the two had been captured when their plane went down over mainland China during the Korean War and that they were not released until the Nixon administration's rapprochement with China, but the entire story is much more complicated and interesting. You can read it here, in a CIA in-house journal article:

Beijing’s capture, imprisonment, and eventual release of CIA officers John T. Downey and Richard G. Fecteau is an amazing story that too few know about today. Shot down over Communist China on their first operational mission in 1952, these young men spent the next two decades imprisoned, often in solitary confinement, while their government officially denied they were CIA officers. Fecteau was released in 1971, Downey in 1973. They came home to an America vastly different from the place they had left, but both adjusted surprisingly well and continue to live full lives.

Even though Downey and Fecteau were welcomed back as heroes by the CIA family more than 30 years ago and their story has been covered in open literature — albeit in short and generally flawed accounts — institutional memory regarding these brave officers has dimmed. Their ordeal is not well known among today’s officers, judging by the surprise and wonder CIA historians encounter when relating it in internal lectures and training courses.

Downey and Fecteau were not joyriding on a CIA support flight over China, as the "generally flawed" accounts had it, but were assigned to that flight in order to operate a winch and recover an agent who was to be picked up from the ground using the All-American System, a modified version of a military mail retrieval technique. [See more on that system here. My thanks to commenter Charles Lathrop for correcting my error in first describing that as the Skyhook system, which was a later development.] However, the agents on the ground had been captured and were fully cooperating with the Chinese, and the support flight was shot down. The doubled agents even sent a signal reporting that the agent extraction had been successful, with the result that the CIA assumed its aircraft must have crashed on its return flight, and all aboard were initially reported dead.

The documentary is titled "Extraordinary Fidelity." You can watch it on YouTube, or - but only if you have an hour to spare - click on the embedded video below.

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Bombs Explode In Benghazi's De Facto Diplomatic Enclave, No Reported Casualties

This appears to have been a minor and ineffective attack, employing very small explosive charges set inside or underneath two or three cars in the parking lot of the Tibesti Hotel, the place where most diplomatic organizations that are in contact with the rebel's National Transitional Council have set up shop. (Check the flags in the photo above to see which countries have a presence there.) Rebel spokesmen have said that no one was killed or injured.

Here's the New York Times report, Bomb Explodes Outside Hotel in Rebel-Held City in Libya:

BENGHAZI, Libya — An explosion struck Wednesday evening in a parking lot outside a Benghazi hotel that was a central meeting place for Libya rebel leaders, diplomats and journalists.

It was not immediately clear whether there were any injuries. Footage on the satellite channel Al Jazeera showed two cars on fire, and at least three others that appeared to be badly damaged, suggesting the blast was caused by a car bomb.

The parking lot stretches in front of the Tibesti Hotel, where diplomats, including the United States envoy, have been staying while in Benghazi, the eastern Libyan city that has been the base of the uprising against the Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. But the hotel is only lightly guarded by uniformed security guards and soldiers.

The United Nations and other groups also keep offices in the hotel, which has become a hub of power for the rebel leadership. The hotel coffee shop serves as a favorite spot for deal-making and negotiations.

In recent days, the European Union foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, along with the Italian foreign minister, Franco Frattini, held news conferences at the hotel.

ABC News has a few details:

Abdul-Basit al-Shihida, a senior rebel security official, blamed Gadhafi agents. "The initial investigation showed that it was a TNT bomb that was thrown under the car. We have video from the hotel that shows the cars." The video did not show anyone throwing a bomb, but he insisted the bomb, about 200 grams (7 ounces) of TNT, was not inside the vehicle.

Driver Ahmed Gulak, 35, driver, said he was in the hotel when bomb went off. "I heard an explosion and went out to see what happened. I saw two cars on fire," he said, blaming agents of the Gadhafi regime. He said he drove his own car away from the scene despite a shattered windshield.

The photos indicate how small the bomb blasts were, because there appears to be no collateral damage around the burning cars. Note in particular the unbroken glass globes on the parking lot's light poles. That substantiates the rebel security official's estimate that the explosive charges were in the 200 gram range.

My bottom line: It wasn't much of an attack, but it demonstrates that Qaddafi loyalists are present and willing to act against the international community in Benghazi. And, of course, it underlines the lack of security around those international entities.

Here's hoping that the U.S. and other nations with diplomats in the Tibesti will step up their game. If they have sufficient national interest to send representatives to Benghazi in the first place, then they have sufficient interest to see that those representatives are reasonably well protected.