Eurasia Security Watch: No. 203

MORE AID FOR PALESTINIAN SECURITY FORCES
As part of the U.S. government's renewed focus on Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, Congress is sending $109 million to Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton to train more battalions of Palestinian Authority security forces under the control of President Mahmoud Abbas. Three such units have already been trained in Jordan. Gen. Dayton is expected to seek funding to train a total of ten battalions in all as part of an effort to allow for U.S.-trained PA security forces to assume responsibility from the Israeli Defense Forces in West Bank cities and towns. Such battalions have in the past been deployed in Jenin, Jericho, Bethlehem and Hebron. (Jerusalem Post, June 12, 2009)

ANOTHER ROUND IN TURKEY'S IDEOLOGICAL TUG-OF-WAR
The behind-the-scenes struggle between Turkey’s Islamist ruling political party, the AKP, and its secular opponents in the military and judiciary has again broken into the open. In the latest dust-up, government officials from the AKP have announced they will seek legal action after a liberal newspaper, Taraf, released a “report” that implicated the military in a plot against the AKP and a separate Islamist movement made up of followers of Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen. At the center of the firestorm is a four page document allegedly drafted by a military colonel outlining plans to discredit the AKP and the “Gulenists” by sowing divisions among their ranks and “plant[ing] weapons and ammunition” to make it appear as if the groups were harboring militants. The latest row comes amidst a government investigation already underway against a “suspected right-wing network accused of plotting a coup.” (Istanbul Zaman, June 17, 2009)

AT SCO, CHINA STEALS THE SHOW
China has announced a massive, $10 billion economic loan package to Central Asia at the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Yekaterinberg, Russia. Though details of the grant weren’t released, China is in an aggressive push for influence in the region employing its economic “soft power” to gain concessions and access to Central Asia’s vast natural resources – often at Russia’s expense. Through state banks, China lends to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan on favorable terms and has twice in recent months outmaneovered Russia in the economic sphere. In March, it loaned Kazakhstan $10 billion for equity in a Kazakh oil company that Russia had attempted to purchase and a contract for future oil supplies. Then in May, China agreed to lend Turkmenistan $3 billion to help develop a giant gas field that Beijing hopes will feed a pipeline to China, “break[ing] Russia’s stranglehold on central Asian gas export routes.”

However, China’s “philanthropy” was not the only headline to come out of the latest meeting of the SCO, a group suspected by some of harboring aspirations to become an alternative to NATO. The organization also accepted Sri Lanka and Belarus as official observers or “dialogue partners,” adding the pair to a list that includes Mongolia, India, Pakistan, and Iran. Hamid Karzai, president of “guest country” Afghanistan, was present at the summit, as was Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was welcomed as the “new president” of Iran despite the West’s refusal to acknowledge his re-election until mounting charges of fraud are investigated. Ahmadinejad used the SCO forum to rail against West, calling the “age of empires” over and insisting that the “international capitalist order is retreating.” The embattled president also urged SCO members to accelerate cooperation, proposing to develop a joint bank and set up political and economic committees. (Financial Times, June 17, 2009)

THE CYBER FRONT IN THE GAZA WAR
Israeli officials have disclosed that their country suffered a massive cyber attack during its January offensive against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. Israeli government websites were briefly paralyzed, temporarily suspending service on the country’s Home Front Command site, which “instructs citizens how to protect themselves from attacks.” The cyber attack is reported to have borne a resemblance to the Internet attacks on Georgia during the Georgia-Russia war last summer, and Israeli officials believe a “criminal organization from the former Soviet Union” may have played a role. (Tel Aviv Ha’aretz, June 15, 2009)