Eurasia Security Watch: No. 223

.style3 { color: #434172; } .style4 { font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; } .style5 { font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; color: #5C6276; } .style6 { text-decoration: underline; } THE MAKINGS OF A GULF STRATEGIC UMBRELLA
President Obama’s restructuring of U.S. missile defense plans will include stationing an advanced radar station in an unnamed “Gulf state” to complement the U.S.-operated X-Band radar site that was installed at Israel’s Nevatim air base back in 2008. Under the strategy, a still-to-be-determined Gulf Arab ally would receive a second X-Band (AN/TPY-2) radar station which would work in concert with the Israeli station to feed information to batteries of the Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) theater missile defense systems deployed in the Gulf, and to U.S. Navy cruisers and destroyers offshore, forming a security “umbrella” around America’s Middle Eastern allies. Meanwhile, the number of Patriot batteries deployed in Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE and Bahrain are expected to grow. However, while officials remain confident about the strategy, out of a handful of “candidates” no Gulf state has yet volunteered to host the second X-Band. (Reuters, May 28, 2010)

SECRET ARMS DEPOTS IN SYRIA
A leading British newspaper has been shown satellite images of what security officials describe as secret arms depots in Syria used by Hezbollah to run weapons to bases in southern Lebanon or the Beka’a Valley. Syria has long been recognized as a sponsor of Hezbollah and an interlocutor between the Lebanese-based terrorist group and its primary patron in Iran. “The military hardware is either of Syrian origin or sent from Iran by sea, via Mediterranean ports, or by air, via Damascus airport. The arms are stored at the Hezbollah depot and then trucked into Lebanon.” Citing Western sources, the paper asserts that Israel planned to bomb a Hezbollah arms convoy crossing into Lebanon from Syria but yielded to Washington, which is trying to pressure Damascus diplomatically to half the arms transfers. The news follows reports earlier this year of the transfer of two Scud missiles to Hezbollah, a development some Israeli officials warned would be a “game-changer.” (Times of London, May 28, 2010)

AQI, ON ITS HEELS
Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Iraq has been neutralized and has “lost connection” to al-Qaeda’s central leadership based in Pakistan. The assessment by General Ray Odierno, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, is based on an estimate that 34 of the 42 top al Qaeda in Mesopotamia have been killed or captured. Odierno said his forces were able to “get inside of [al Qaeda’s] network,” through operations in Mosul, northern Iraq, bringing valuable intelligence that eventually led to the killing in April of the terrorist organization’s top two leaders, Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi. Despite the success, however, Odierno insisted “I will never take my eyes off al Qaeda... We will always watch them.” (New York Times, June 4, 2010)

A BOND BETWEEN THE BROTHERHOOD AND ELBARADEI
The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest opposition group and a conservative Islamist movement with affiliates around the globe, has thrown its weight behind the political reform campaign of Mohammed ElBaradei, Egyptian presidential candidate and former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). This month in Cairo, ElBaradei, who intends to compete in the 2011 presidential race, met with Mohammed Said Al Katatni, the leader of the Brotherhoods parliamentary bloc, which has announced it will cooperate with ElBaradei’s recently-formed, secular-liberal political party, the National Association for Change. The Brotherhood is likely to help collect signatures in support of ElBaradai’s campaign, however, a leading Brotherhood official insisted the group was “not supporting a man, we are supporting the institution.”

Noting that the Brotherhood’s spiritual leader, Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie, was not at the meeting, Diaa Rashwan, an Egyptian political expert, mused that there are “real differences” between the Brotherhood’s political faction and its ideological faction over an alliance with ElBaradei. ElBaradei returned to Egypt this year after a dozen years at the IAEA, demanding an end to Egypt’s 30-year emergency law, insisting on the right of independents to run in presidential elections, and inviting foreign observers to monitor Egypt’s historically corrupt elections. (Dubai The National, June 5, 2010)

SAUDI MILITANTS REFUSE REHABILITATION
Saudi Arabia has received as many as 120 Islamist extremists detained by the U.S. at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp on Cuba, and the U.S. has learned that as many as 25 have returned to militancy. Abdulrahman Al-Hadlaq, Director General of the General Administration for Intellectual Security, has noted that “20 percent of the [Guantanamo] Saudis relapsed in to militancy compared to 9.5 percent of other participants.” The Saudis have put a total of 300 prisoners, including domestic detainees, through a specifically-designed rehabilitation and re-education program run by moderate clerics while the government provides the detainees with financial aid. The program, which has been touted as a success by Saudi officials, has been criticized by some in the West precisely for the possibility that the prisoners will relapse. (Reuters, June 20, 2010)