GRI Security Brief

Middle East
* The first firm official date emerged in the steadily mounting preparations for a war with Iraq - the British government has announced it will deploy 20,000 troops to the Gulf on January 15th. This is 12 days ahead of the UN weapons inspectors deadline for reporting on their findings in Iraq - considered to be the trigger date for the United States to launch the final build-up to an invasion.
* Although we have for a year consistently suggested the end of January as the countdown, it is only fair to note that as the likelihood of war increases, the regional security situation will get more unpredictable. Such unpredictability hinges, for example, on the possibility of Saddam Hussein abdicating at the last minute and going into exile. But his defiant Army Day speech today, calling the UN inspectors "spies" and saying Iraq is fully prepared for war, made this look more unlikely.
* The double suicide bombing in Tel Aviv's central bus station area (killing 23 people and injuring 100 underscores the likelihood that as war starts it will plunge the Middle East (and the world) into even more dangerous instability with an increase in widespread terrorist attacks from many groups and organizations, as well as a possibility of either Hezbollah or Israeli actions opening a war front with Syria in Lebanon.
* The two wars - on Iraq and on terror - are set to converge while Iraq is under attack. Al-Qaeda will almost certainly seek to take advantage of the storm of protests and anti-Western feeling to attack Western targets. Intelligence agencies are getting almost daily reports of a myriad of terrorist groups attempting to reform, reorganize and set up operations.
* The attention of clients with interests in the Arab and Islamic world - including Pakistan, Indonesia and Turkey - is drawn to the recent violent anti-Western protests in Bahrain and Pakistan. These are likely to increase and spread, posing serious security threats for Westerners. The
threats are real, and expatriates must raise their security awareness, especially regarding security of movement.

A date in Baghdad
The New Year began with U.S. President George Bush still proclaiming, "war is a last resort," but telling massed troops at the largest American army base - Forth Hood in Texas - to be ready for battle. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw today (6th) briefed British ambassadors from around the world and also told them "war is not inevitable." But his main message was different in tone - saying that terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and rogue states such as Iraq are "part of the same picture," a clear bid to make a war on Iraq as justified as the one against al-Qaeda Official sources said Britain would start to deploy more than 20,000 troops to the Gulf and mobilize around 7,000 reservists on January 15th.

The deployment will include a Royal Navy task force led by the aircraft carrier Ark Royal and a British Armoured Division. This was the first official indication from the allies of a firm date for a war deployment, although the American build-up in the Gulf region has been mounting steadily for two months. Our experts suggest that should the American find the UN weapons' inspectors report inadequate on Jan 27th, Washington will see little reason to delay taking action against Iraq.

The UN weapons inspectors in Iraq this week continue to race against time - their reporting deadline of Jan. 27th - in the hunt for Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. Significantly, the inspectors continued to complain that the United States intelligence agencies still has not furnished them with the evidence they claim to have of where such weapons might be located. On Sunday (5th) the inspectors visited Basra city for the first time and also established a temporary base at Mosul to the north. Biological warfare experts from UNMOVIC, (the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission) travelled the 550 kilometres south from Baghdad to inspect two colleges of Basra University to gather information about professors and researchers.

Additionally, the UN experts established a temporary base at the Nineveh Palace hotel in Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, 400 km north of Baghdad and will visit sites in the region this week. Nuclear specialists went to the Al-Mamoun plant, 60 km south of Baghdad, the Al-Abour plant, 30 km west of the capital and an aluminium smelter. A chemical team visited the Ibn Sina firm, part of Iraq's military industrialization organization, 35 km north of Baghdad. A mixed team of chemical and ballistics experts visited a helicopter base at Al-Suwaira, some 60 km south of Baghdad, and a team of biological experts inspected an alcohol factory at Al-Khalis, 70 km northeast of the capital.
Meanwhile, in Baltimore the giant U.S. Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort equipped with a 1,000-bed trauma centre, set sail this morning (6th) for the Indian Ocean (6th) in readiness for war with Iraq, official sources say. It is the first time a large American hospital ship is being deployed in the area since the 1991 Gulf War. Other Washington sources report that U.S. Special Forces and CIA teams have already been secretly deployed to Iraq. Australia today denied reports it already has covert units inside Iraq.

The dilemmas grow
Although these Global Risk International reports have for a year consistently named early 2003 as the likely time for war with Iraq, it must be pointed out that as the war draws nearer, the situation is actually becoming more unpredictable. There are three possible events that would face the Bush administration with a huge dilemma:
· The UN weapons inspectors give Iraq a clean bill of health and say they have found nothing, and there is probably nothing to find.
· An internal coup d'etat in Baghdad
· Voluntary abdication and exile by Saddam Hussein. Coup - Of these uncertainties, a coup seems least likely. Even in a country like Iraq, the natural tendency is for the nation and leadership to unite against a foreign threat. However it is worth noting, because Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri last week wrote in a letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that the U.S. is violating international law by supporting opposition forces against Saddam. This may indicate that enough covert CIA and opposition activity is underway in Baghdad to worry the regime.

UN report - The issue of the forthcoming UN weapons report is more of a problem for the administration, for serious political reasons. Our best guess at this point is that the Americans will find a less-than-damning UN report to be "inadequate" - just as it did with Iraq's self-declaration last month. The experts have so far examined more than 230 sites for evidence of chemical, biological, and nuclear arms programs since November 27, and the pace and scope of the inspections continue to increase. So far it appears Iraq has cooperated comfortably with the inspections. One inspector, speaking anonymously, recently said the more than 100 inspectors on the ground have met little resistance from the Iraqis and have failed to find anything of substance. If that goes in the report and the U.S. fails to provide its own evidence to the contrary, Bush is likely to face a world explosion of protests against starting a war. Peace activists are already proclaiming that Saddam has been successfully contained as a regional threat - and that was the object of post Gulf War UN resolutions, so war is unnecessary. Is such resistance erupted in American public opinion, Bush would have a serious problem committing troops to "a new Vietnam."
Abdication - The abdication of Saddam Hussein is the solution most Arab governments fervently want to see and the one on which they are now expending most of their diplomatic efforts. Our sources suggest Saudi Arabia in particular is pressing Washington to allow the Arabs a last opportunity for a diplomatic solution after January 27, even if the UN reports Iraq to be violation of its disarmament obligations. "We are trying to convince the Americans not to rush to war," said one Arab diplomatic source, "but to give influential Arab governments a chance to persuade Saddam to depart the scene."

However, our diplomatic sources say there is not the slightest indication from Baghdad that Saddam is considering such a move, and his defiant speech today - saying Iraq is fully prepared for war and calling the UN inspectors "pure intelligence agents" - made abdication look even less likely our sources suggest he might not do so until the last minute when an American invasion is imminent. From what is known of Saddam's mentality, it appears that he would regard resignation and exile as humiliating, and prefer to make a defiant last stand as an Arab Moslem leader facing the infidel unbowed. Reports have appeared in Iranian newspapers, citing German and Iranian diplomatic sources and suggesting that Russian President Vladimir Putin might try to persuade Saddam to step down and offer him sanctuary in Moscow.

Protests will mount
After weekly prayers on Friday (3rd), thousands of people filled the streets of Pakistani cities warning the U.S. to stay out of Iraq. "If the United States attacks Iraq, there will be open war here," said Maulana Samiul Haq, a leader of the new Islamic party alliance, outside Islamabad's Red Mosque. "War against Iraq is war against Islam," chanted protestors marching through Lahore.

In Bahrain, hundreds took to the streets after prayers for a second consecutive Friday to show solidarity with Iraq. "Iraq will be but the first step in a scheme ushering in US occupation of the whole Gulf region and control of its resources," said Hassan al-Aali, who heads a non-governmental organization in Bahrain that was one of the organizers of the protest. "No bases, no assistance (to the U.S.), no stockpiling," the protestors chanted.

This is a picture that will be repeated in ever-escalating vehemence across the Arab and Islamic world, as war looms nearer. More protests are likely to erupt in Turkey, Indonesia, Iran, as well as across Western Europe, but it is in Arab and Islamic states that Western expatriates need
to be most on guard and companies need to have substantive and adequate security precautions in place.
In such volatile places, security of movement is of paramount importance, since most attacks on individual foreigners take place while they are moving between work and home or social centres.

Terror factor
So where is the war on terrorism, now that the war on Iraq is moving to centre stage? The double suicide bombing in Tel Aviv's central bus station area (killing 23 people and injuring 100) underscores the likelihood that as war starts it will plunge the Middle East (and the world) into even more dangerous instability with an increase in widespread terrorist attacks from many groups and organizations, as well as a possibility of either Hezbollah or Israeli actions opening a war front with Syria in Lebanon. It should be noted that there was no "lull" before the Tel Aviv bombing, as the media are reporting. More than 40 suicide attacks were foiled or aborted since the last successful one in Jerusalem in November.

The same goes for international terrorism, there is no lull - just a planning phase, and some attempts that failed or were foiled by counter-terrorist organizations.
Foiled or failed terrorist plans do not make much news only spectacularly successful ones do, so by its very nature the next major terrorist attack is always the one not expected. However, intelligence agencies are getting almost daily reports of a myriad of terrorist groups attempting to reform, reorganize and set up operations.

In Egypt the authorities this weekend arrested more than 40 suspected members of the Islamic Jihad group, said to be planning attacks against foreign targets in Egypt, according to Arab diplomatic sources. The targets were said to be "foreign interests in Cairo and several major personalities and vital installations," but no further details have emerged. The ringleader is named as Ehab Ismail, who is said to have formed three cells that used the Internet to contact Jihad members abroad and "also rented a headquarters to be a factory to be used to make
explosives." Egypt is also reported to have arrested 14 members of the country's main and oldest Islamist opposition group, the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, which has thousands of followers, especially in southern Egypt. They include Tareq Mohammed Abdel-Gawwad, a grandson of the movement's former leader, Mustafa Mashhur, who died in November. Ten of the detainees, said to be mainly academics and lawyers, were arrested at a meeting in Cairo. The rest were seized in different parts of the city. Although officially banned since 1954, the Brotherhood controls 17 of the Egyptian parliament's 454 seats.
Meanwhile, American intelligence sources have said what they call "ships of concern," controlled by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda, are being tracked.

The sources say about 15 cargo freighters around the world are being followed by air or satellite or surveillance and could be used to transport al Qaeda operatives, bombs or money.

Note for shipping
We have no serious piracy reports from the Middle East, Horn of Africa or Red Sea regions in recent weeks. We have two reports of minor attacks in Indonesia (Balikpapan anchorage) in the last week of December, and a more serious one off Semporna, Sabah, Malaysia in which three pirates armed with M-16 guns hijacked two speedboats towing a barge. Five crew members were left adrift and were later rescued by passing ships. Off Somalia the last serious hijack was at the end of July, but serious piracy warnings remain in force. Somali waters remain high-risk for hijackings. Ships not making scheduled calls at Somali ports should keep at least 50 miles and if possible 100 miles from the Somali coast. The northern and north-eastern coast is particularly risky.