Spotlight

The Women of Asgarda 

In the Ukraine, a country where females are victims of sexual trafficking and gender oppression, a new tribe of empowered women is emerging. Calling themselves the “Asgarda”, the women seek complete autonomy from men. Residing in the Carpathian Mountains, the tribe is comprised of 150 women of varying ages, primarily students, led by 30 year-old Katerina Tarnouska. Reviving the tribal traditions of the Scythian Amazons of ancient Greek mythology, the Asgarda train in martial arts, taught by former Soviet karate master, Volodymyr Stepanovytch, and learn life skills and sciences in order to become ideal women. 

Not only is it cool, but this ‘Tribe’ is one of the many sources of inspiration for this certain SRSister’s comic!

http://bitchesguidetoetiquette.tumblr.com/post/33357263505/shevilfempire-theseasonofthewitch-the-women

THE DEATH OF CHE GUEVARA:

A CHRONOLOGY

Compiled by:

Paola Evans, Kim Healey, Peter Kornbluh, Ramón Cruz and Hannah Elinson

OCTOBER 3, 1965: In a public speech, Fidel Castro reads a "Farewell" letter written by Che in April, in which Che resigns from all of his official positions within the Cuban government. The letter, which Che apparently never intended to be made public, states that "I have fulfilled the part of my duty that tied me to the Cuban revolution...and I say goodbye to you, to the comrades, to your people, who are now mine." (CIA Intelligence Memorandum, "Castro and Communism: The Cuban Revolution in Perspective," 5/9/66)

OCTOBER 18, 1965: A CIA Intelligence Memorandum discusses what analysts perceive as Che Guevara’s fall from power within the Cuban government beginning in 1964. It states that at the end of 1963, Guevara’s plan of "rapid industrialization and centralization during the first years of the Revolution brought the economy to its lowest point since Castro came to power." "Guevara’s outlook, which approximated present -day Chinese--rather than Soviet--economic practice, was behind the controversy." In July 1964, "two important cabinet appointments signaled the power struggle over internal economic policy which culminated in Guevara’s elimination." Another conflict was that Guevara wanted to export the Cuban Revolution to different parts of Latin America and Africa, while "other Cuban leaders began to devote most of their attention to the internal problems of the Revolution." In December, 1964, Guevara departed on a three-month trip to the United States, Africa, and China. When he returned, according to the CIA report, his economic and foreign policies were in disfavor and he left to start revolutionary struggles in other parts of the world. (CIA Intelligence Memorandum, "The Fall of Che Guevara and the Changing Face of the Cuban Revolution," 10/18/65)

FALL, 1966: Che Guevara arrives in Bolivia sometime between the second week of September and the first of November of 1966, according to different sources. He enters the country with forged Uruguayan passports to organize and lead a communist guerrilla movement. Che chooses Bolivia as the revolutionary base for various reasons. First, Bolivia is of lower priority than Caribbean Basin countries to US security interests and poses a less immediate threat, "... the Yanquis wouldn’t concern themselves... ." Second, Bolivia’s social conditions and poverty are such that Bolivia is considered susceptible to revolutionary ideology. Finally, Bolivia shares a border with five other countries, which would allow the revolution to spread easily if the guerrillas are successful. (Harris, 60, 73; Rojo 193-194; Rodríguez:1, 157;Rodríguez:1, 198)

SPRING, 1967: From March to August of 1967, Che Guevara and his guerrilla band strike "pretty much at will" against the Bolivian Armed Forces, which totals about twenty thousand men. The guerrillas lose only one man compared to 30 of the Bolivians during these six months. (James, 250, NYT 9/16/67)

APRIL 28, 1967: General Ovando, of the Bolivian Armed Forces, and the U.S. Army Section signed a Memorandum of Understanding with regard to the 2nd Ranger Battalion of the Bolivian Army "which clearly defines the terms of U.S.-Bolivian Armed Forces cooperation in the activation, organization, and training of this unit."

MAY 11, 1967: Walt Rostow, presidential advisor to Lyndon B. Johnson, sends a message to the President saying that he received the first credible report that "Che" Guevara is alive and operating in South America, although more evidence is needed. (Rostow 05/11/67)

JUNE, 1967: Cuban-American CIA agent Félix Rodríguez receives a phone call from a CIA officer, Larry S., who proposes a special assignment for him in South America in which he will use his skills in unconventional warfare, counter-guerrilla operations and communications. The assignment is to assist the Bolivians in tracking down and capturing Che Guevara and his band. His partner will be "Eduardo González" and Rodríguez is to use the cover name "Félix Ramos Medina." (Rodríguez:1, 148)

JUNE 26-30, 1967: Soviet Premier Aleksey Kosygin visits Cuba for discussions with Fidel Castro. According to a CIA intelligence cable, the primary purpose of his "trip to Havana June 26-30, 1967 was to inform Castro concerning the Middle East Crisis...A secondary but important reason for the trip was to discuss with Castro the subject of Cuban revolutionary activity in Latin America." The Soviet Premier criticizes the dispatch of Che Guevara to Bolivia and accuses Castro of "harming the communist cause through his sponsorship of guerrilla activity...and through providing support to various anti-government groups, which although they claimed to be "socialist" or communist, were engaged in disputes with the "legitimate" Latin American communist parties, those favored by the USSR." In reply Castro stated that Cuba will support the "right of every Latin American to contribute to the liberation of his country." (CIA Intelligence Information Cable, 10/17/67)

AUGUST 2, 1967: Rodríguez and González arrive in La Paz, Bolivia. They are met by their case officer, Jim, another CIA agent, and a Bolivian immigration officer. The CIA station in La Paz is run by John Tilton; eventually the CIA’s Guevara task force is joined by another anti-Castro Cuban-American agent, Gustavo Villoldo. (Rodríguez:1, 162)

AUGUST 31, 1967: The Bolivian army scores its first victory against the guerrillas, wiping out one-third of Che’s men. José Castillo Chávez, also known as Paco, is captured and the guerrillas are forced to retreat. Che’s health begins to deteriorate. (James, 250, 269)

SEPTEMBER 3, 1967: Félix Rodríguez flies with Major Arnaldo Saucedo from Santa Cruz to Vallegrande to interrogate Paco. (Rodríguez: 1, 167)

SEPTEMBER 15, 1967: The Bolivian Government air-drops leaflets offering a $4,200 reward for the capture of Che Guevara. (NYT 9/16/67)

SEPTEMBER 18, 1967: Fifteen members of a Communist group, who were providing supplies to the guerrillas in the southeastern jungles of Bolivia, are arrested. (NYT 9/19/67)

SEPTEMBER 22, 1967: Che’s guerrillas arrive at Alto Seco village in Bolivia. Inti Peredo, a Bolivian guerrilla, gives the villagers a lecture on the objectives of the guerrilla movement. The group leaves later that night after purchasing a large amount of food. (Harris, 123)

According to Jon Lee Anderson’s account, Che takes the food from a grocery store without paying for it after discovering that the local authorities in Alto Seco have left to inform the army about the guerrilla’s position. (Anderson, 785)

SEPTEMBER 22, 1967: Guevara Arze, the Bolivian Foreign Minister, provides evidence to the Organization of American States to prove that Che Guevara is indeed leading the guerrilla operations in Bolivia. Excerpts taken from captured documents, including comparisons of handwriting, fingerprints and photographs, suggests that the guerrillas are comprised of Cubans, Peruvians, Argentineans and Bolivians. The foreign minister’s presentation draws a loud applause from the Bolivian audience, and he gives his assurance that "we’re not going to let anybody steal our country away from us. Nobody, at any time." (NYT 9/23/67)

SEPTEMBER 24, 1967: Che and his men arrive, exhausted and sick, at Loma Larga, a ranch close to Alto Seco. All but one of the peasants flee upon their arrival. (Harris, 123)

SEPTEMBER 26, 1967: The guerrillas move to the village of La Higuera and immediately notice that all the men are gone. The villagers have previously been warned that the guerrillas are in the area and they should send any information on them to Vallegrande. The remaining villagers tell the guerrillas that most of the people are at a celebration in a neighboring town called Jahue. (Harris, 123)

1 p.m.: As they are about to depart for Jahue, the rebels hear shots coming from the road and are forced to stay in the village and defend themselves. Three guerrillas are killed in the gun battle: Roberto (Coco) Peredo, a Bolivian guerrilla leader who was one of Che’s most important men; "Antonio," believed to be Cuban; and "Julio," likely a Bolivian. Che orders his men to evacuate the village along a road leading to Rio Grande. The army high command and the Barriento government consider this encounter a significant victory. Indeed, Che notes in his diary that La Higuera has caused great losses for him in respect to his rebel cell. (Harris 123,124; NYT 9/28/67)) CIA agent, Félix Rodríguez, under the alias, "Captain Ramos," urges Colonel Zenteno to move his Rangers battalion from La Esperanza headquarters to Vallegrande. The death of Antonio, the vanguard commander [also called Miguel by Rodríguez], prompts Rodríguez to conclude that Che must be close by. Colonel Zenteno argues that the battalion has not yet finished their training, but he will move them as soon as this training is complete. Convinced that he knows Che’s next move, Rodríguez continues pressuring Zenteno to order the 2nd Ranger battalion into combat. (Rodríguez:1, 184)

SEPTEMBER 26-27, 1967: After the battle of La Higueras, the Ranger Battalion sets up a screening force along the river San Antonio to prevent exfiltration of the guerrilla force. During the mission, the troops captures a guerrilla known as "Gamba." He appears to be in poor health and is poorly clothed. This produces an immediate morale effect on the troops because they notice that the guerrillas are not as strong as they thought. "Gamba" says that he had separated from the group and was traveling in hope of contacting "Ramón" (Guevara). (Dept. of Defense Intelligence Information Report - 11/28/67).

SEPTEMBER 29, 1967: Colonel Zenteno is finally persuaded by Rodríguez, and he moves the 2nd Ranger battalion to Vallegrande. Rodríguez joins these six hundred and fifty men who have been trained by U.S. Special Forces Major "Pappy" Shelton. (Rodríguez:1, 184)

SEPTEMBER 30, 1967: Che and his group are trapped by the army in a jungle canyon in Valle Serrano, south of the Grande River. (NYT 10/1/67)

OCTOBER 7, 1967: The last entry in Che’s diary is recorded exactly eleven months since the inauguration of the guerrilla movement. The guerrillas run into an old woman herding goats. They ask her if there are soldiers in the area but are unable to get any reliable information. Scared that she will report them, they pay her 50 pesos to keep quiet. In Che’s diary it is noted that he has "little hope" that she will do so. (Harris, 126; CIA Weekly Review, "The Che Guevara Diary," 12/15/67)

Evening: Che and his men stop to rest in a ravine in Quebrada del Yuro. (Harris, 126)

OCTOBER 8, 1967: The troops receive information that there is a band of 17 guerrillas in the Churro Ravine. They enter the area and encounters a group of 6 to 8 guerrillas, opens fire, and killed two Cubans, "Antonio" and "Orturo." "Ramon" (Guevara) and "Willy" try to break out in the direction of the mortar section, where Guevara is wounded in the lower calf. (Dept. of Defense Intelligence Information Report - 11/28/67)

OCTOBER 8, 1967: A peasant women alerts the army that she heard voices along the banks of the Yuro close to the spot where it runs along the San Antonio river. It is unknown whether it is the same peasant woman that the guerrillas ran into previously. (Rojo 218)

By morning, several companies of Bolivian Rangers are deployed through the area that Guevara’s Guerrillas are in. They take up positions in the same ravine as the guerrillas in Quebrada del Yuro. (Harris,126)

About 12 p.m.: A unit from General Prado’s company, all recent graduates of the U.S. Army Special Forces training camp, confronts the guerrillas, killing two soldiers and wounding many others. (Harris, 127)

1:30 p.m.: Che’s final battle commences in Quebrada del Yuro. Simon Cuba (Willy) Sarabia, a Bolivian miner, leads the rebel group. Che is behind him and is shot in the leg several times. Sarabia picks up Che and tries to carry him away from the line of fire. The firing starts again and Che’s beret is knocked off. Sarabia sits Che on the ground so he can return the fire. Encircled at less than ten yards distance, the Rangers concentrate their fire on him, riddling him with bullets. Che attempts to keep firing, but cannot keep his gun up with only one arm. He is hit again on his right leg, his gun is knocked out of his hand and his right forearm is pierced. As soldiers approach Che he shouts, "Do not shoot! I am Che Guevara and worth more to you alive than dead." The battle ends at approximately 3:30 p.m. Che is taken prisoner. (Rojo, 219; James, 14)

Other sources claim that Sarabia is captured alive and at about 4 p.m. he and Che are brought before Captain Prado. Captain Prado orders his radio operator to signal the divisional headquarters in Vallegrande informing them that Che is captured. The coded message sent is "Hello Saturno, we have Papá !" Saturno is the code for Colonel Joaquin Zenteno, commandant of the Eighth Bolivian Army Division, and Papá is code for Che. In disbelief, Colonel Zenteno asks Capt. Prado to confirm the message. With confirmation, "general euphoria" erupts among the divisional headquarters staff. Colonel Zenteno radios Capt. Prado and tells him to immediately transfer Che and any other prisoners to La Higuera. (Harris, 127)

In Vallegrande, Félix Rodríguez receives the message over the radio: "Papá cansado," which means "Dad is tired." Papá is the code for foreigner, implying Che. Tired signifies captured or wounded. (Rodríguez:1, 185)

Stretched out on a blanket, Che is carried by four soldiers to La Higuera, seven kilometers away. Sarabia is forced to walk behind with his hands tied against his back. Just after dark the group arrives in La Higuera and both Che and Sarabia are put into the one-room schoolhouse. Later that night, five more guerrillas are brought in. (Harris, 127)

Official army dispatches falsely report that Che is killed in the clash in southeastern Bolivia, and other official reports confirm the killing of Che and state that the Bolivian army has his body. However, the army high command does not confirm this report. (NYT 10/10/67)

OCTOBER 9, 1967: Walt Rostow sends a memorandum to the President with tentative information that the Bolivians have captured Che Guevara. The Bolivian unit engaged in the operation was the one that had been trained by the U.S. (Rostow 10/9/67)

OCTOBER 9, 1967: 6:15 a.m.: Félix Rodríguez arrives by helicopter in La Higuera, along with Colonel Joaquín Zenteno Anaya. Rodríguez brings a powerful portable field radio and a camera with a special four-footed stand used to photograph documents. He quietly observes the scene in the schoolhouse, and records what he sees, finding the situation "gruesome" with Che lying in dirt, his arms tied behind his back and his feet bound together, next to the bodies of his friends. He looks "like a piece of trash" with matted hair, torn clothes, and wearing only pieces of leather on his feet for shoes. In one interview, Rodríguez states that, " I had mixed emotions when I first arrived there. Here was the man who had assassinated many of my countrymen. And nevertheless, when I saw him, the way he looked....I felt really sorry for him." (Rodríguez:2)

Rodríguez sets up his radio and transmits a coded message to the CIA station in either Peru or Brazil to be retransmitted to Langley headquarters. Rodríguez also starts to photograph Che’s diary and other captured documents. Later, Rodríguez spends time talking with Che and takes a picture with him. The photos that Rodríguez takes are preserved by the CIA. (Anderson, 793; Rodríguez:1, 193)

10 am: The Bolivian officers are faced with the question of what to do with Che. The possibility of prosecuting him is ruled out because a trial would focus world attention on him and could generate sympathetic propaganda for Che and for Cuba. It is concluded that Che must be executed immediately, but it is agreed upon that the official story will be that he died from wounds received in battle. Félix Rodríguez receives a call from Vallegrande and is ordered by the Superior Command to conduct Operation Five Hundred and Six Hundred. Five hundred is the Bolivian code for Che and six hundred is the order to kill him. Rodríguez informs Colonel Zenteno of the order, but also tells him that the U.S. government has instructed him to keep Che alive at all costs. The CIA and the U.S. government have arranged helicopters and airplanes to take Che to Panama for interrogation. However, Colonel Zenteno says he must obey his own orders and Rodríguez decides, "to let history take its course," and to leave the matter in the hands of the Bolivians. (Anderson, 795; Harris 128, 129; Rodríguez:1, 193; Rodríguez:2)

Rodríguez realizes that he cannot stall any longer when a school teacher informs him that she has heard a news report on Che’s death on her radio. Rodríguez enters the schoolhouse to tell Che of the orders from the Bolivian high command. Che understands and says, "It is better like this ... I never should have been captured alive." Che gives Rodríguez a message for his wife and for Fidel, they embrace and Rodríguez leaves the room. (Rodríguez:2; Anderson, 796)

According to one source, the top ranking officers in La Higuera instruct the noncommissioned officers to carry out the order and straws are drawn to determine who will execute Che. Just before noon, having drawn the shortest straw, Sergeant Jaime Terán goes to the schoolhouse to execute Che. Terán finds Che propped up against the wall and Che asks him to wait a moment until he stands up. Terán is frightened, runs away and is ordered back by Colonel Selich and Colonel Zenteno. "Still trembling" he returns to the schoolhouse and without looking at Che’s face he fires into his chest and side. Several soldiers, also wanting to shoot Che, enter the room and shoot him. (Harris, 129)

Félix Rodríguez has stated that, "I told the Sargento to shoot....and I understand that he borrowed an M-2 carbine from a Lt. Pérez who was in the area." Rodríguez places the time of the shooting at 1:10 p.m. Bolivian time. (Rodríguez:2)

In Jon Lee Anderson’s account, Sergeant Terán volunteers to shoot Che. Che's last words, which are addressed to Terán, are "I know you've come to kill me. Shoot, you are only going to kill a man." Terán shoots Che in the arms and legs and then in Che's thorax, filling his lungs with blood. (Anderson, 796)

OCTOBER 9, 1967: Early in the morning, the unit receives the order to execute Guevara and the other prisoners. Lt. Pérez asks Guevara if he wishes anything before his execution. Guevara replies that he only wishes to "die with a full stomach." Pérez asks him if he is a "materialist" and Guevara answers only "perhaps." When Sgt. Terán (the executioner) enters the room, Guevara stands up with his hands tied and states, "I know what you have come for I am ready." Terán tells him to be seated and leaves the room for a few moments. While Terán was outside, Sgt. Huacka enters another small house, where "Willy" was being held, and shoots him. When Terán comes back, Guevara stands up and refuses to be seated saying: "I will remain standing for this." Terán gets angry and tells Guevara to be seated again. Finally, Guevara tells him: "Know this now, you are killing a man." Terán fires his M2 Carbine and kills him. (Dept. of Defense Intelligence Information Report - 11/28/67).

Later that afternoon: Senior army officers and CIA Agent, Félix Rodríguez, leave La Higuera by helicopter for army headquarters in Vallegrande. Upon landing, Rodríguez quickly leaves the helicopter knowing that Castro’s people will be there looking for CIA agents. Pulling a Bolivian army cap over his face, he is not noticed by anyone. (Rodríguez:1, 12; Harris, 130)

Che’s body is flown to Vallegrande by helicopter and later fingerprinted and embalmed. (NYT 10/11/67)

General Ovando, Chief of Bolivian Armed Forces, states that just before he died, Che said, "I am Che Guevara and I have failed." (James, 8)

OCTOBER 10, 1967: W.G. Bowdler sends a note to Walt Rostow saying that they do not know if Che Guevara was "among the casualties of the October 8 engagement." They think that there are no guerrilla survivors. By October 9, they thought two guerrilla were wounded and possibly one of them is Che. (Bowdler, The White House 10/10/67)

OCTOBER 10, 1967: Two doctors,. Moisés Abraham Baptista and José Martínez Cazo, at the Hospital Knights of Malta, Vallegrande, Bolivia, sign a death certificate for Che Guevara. The document states that "on October 9 at 5:30 p.m., there arrived...Ernesto Guevara Lynch, approximately 40 years of age, the cause of death being multiple bullet wounds in the thorax and extremities. Preservative was applied to the body." On the same day, and autopsy report records the multiple bullets wounds found in Guevara’s body. "The cause of death," states the autopsy report, "was the thorax wounds and consequent hemorrhaging." (U.S. Embassy in La Paz, Bolivia, Airgram, 10/18/67)

OCTOBER 10, 1967: General Ovando announces that Che died the day before at 1:30 p.m. This means that Che lived for twenty-two hours after the battle in Quebrada del Yuro, which contradicts Colonel Zenteno’s story. Colonel Zenteno changes his story to support General Ovando’s. (James, 15)

The New York Times reports that the Bolivian Army High Command dispatches officially confirm that Che was killed in the battle on Sunday October 8th. General Ovando states that Che admitted his identity and the failure of his guerrilla campaign before dying of his wounds. (NYT 10/10/67)

Ernesto Guevara, the father of Che, denies the death of his son, stating that there is no evidence to prove the killing. (NYT 10/11/67)

OCTOBER 11, 1967: General Ovando claims that on this day Che’s body is buried in the Vallegrande area. (James, 19)

OCTOBER 11, 1967: President Lyndon Johnson receives a memorandum from Walt W. Rostow: "This morning we are about 99% sure that "Che" Guevara is dead." The memo informs the President that according to the CIA, Che was taken alive and after a short interrogation General Ovando ordered his execution. (Rostow, "Death of Che Guevara," 10/11/67)

OCTOBER 11, 1967: Walt Rostow sends a memorandum to the President stating that they "are 99% sure that ‘Che’ Guevara is dead." He explains that Guevara’s death carries significant implications: "It marks the passing of another of the aggressive, romantic revolutionaries...In the Latin American context, it will have a strong impact in discouraging would -be guerrillas. It shows the soundness of our ‘preventive medicine’ assistance to countries facing incipient insurgency--it was the Bolivian 2nd Ranger Battalion, trained by our Green Berets from June-September of this year, that cornered him and got him." (Rostow 10/11/67)

OCTOBER 12, 1967: Che’s brother, Roberto, arrives in Bolivia to take the body back to Argentina. However, General Ovando tells him that the body has been cremated. (Anderson, 799)

OCTOBER 13, 1967: Walt Rostow sends a note to the President with intelligence information that "removes any doubt that ‘Che" Guevara is dead." (Rostow 10/13/67)

OCTOBER 14, 1967: Annex No.3 - three officials of the Argentine Federal police, at the request of the Bolivian Government, visited Bolivian military headquarters in La Paz to help identify the handwriting and fingerprints of Che Guevara. "They were shown a metal container in which were two amputated hands in a liquid solution, apparently formaldehyde." The experts compared the fingerprints with the ones in Guevara’s Argentine identity record, No. 3.524.272, and they were the same. (U.S. Embassy in La Paz, Bolivia, Airgram, 10/18/67)

OCTOBER 14, 1967: Students at Central University of Venezuela protest the U.S. involvement in Che’s death. Demonstrations are organized against a U.S. business, the home of a U.S. citizen, the U.S. Embassy and other similar targets.

OCTOBER 15, 1967: Bolivian President Barrientos claims that Che’s ashes are buried in a hidden place somewhere in the Vallegrande region. (Harris, 130)

OCTOBER 16, 1967: . The Bolivian Armed Forces released a communiqué together with three annexes on the death of Che Guevara. The communiqué is "based on documents released by the Military High Command on October9...concerning the combat that took place at La Higuera between units of the Armed Forces and the red group commanded by Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, as a result of which he, among others, lost his life..." The report states that Guevara died "more or less at 8 p.m. on Sunday, October 8...as a result of his wounds." Also, in order to identify his body it requested the cooperation of Argentine technical organizations to identify the remains to certify that the handwriting of the campaign diary coincides with Guevara’s. Henderson, the U.S. Embassy agent in La Paz, comments that "it will be widely noted that neither the death certificate nor the autopsy report state a time of death." This "would appear to be an attempt to bridge the difference between a series of earlier divergent statements from Armed Forces sources, ranging from assertions that he died during or shortly after battle to those suggesting he survived at least twenty-four hours." He also notes that some early reports indicate that Guevara was captured with minor injuries, while later statements , including the autopsy report, affirm that he suffered multiple wounds. He agrees with a comment by Preséncia, that these statements are "going to be the new focus of polemics in the coming days." (U.S. Embassy in La Paz, Bolivia, Airgram, 10/18/67)

OCTOBER 18, 1967: The U.S. Embassy in La Paz, Bolivia sends an airgram to the Department of State with the Official Confirmation of Death of Che Guevara. (U.S. Embassy, La Paz, Bolivia, 10/18/97)

OCTOBER 18, 1967: A CIA cable highlights the errors leading to Guevara’s defeat. "There were negative factors and tremendous errors involved in the death of Ernesto "Che" Guevara Serna and the defeat of the guerrillas in Bolivia... ." Che’s presence at the guerrilla front in Bolivia, " ... precluded all hope of saving him and the other leaders in the event of an ambush and virtually condemned them to die or exist uselessly as fugitives." The fact that the guerrillas were so dependent on the local peasant population also proved to be a mistake according to the CIA. Another error described in this cable is Che’s over-confidence in the Bolivian Communist Party, which was relatively new, inexperienced, lacking strong leadership and was internally divided into Trotskyite and Pro-Chinese factions. Finally, the cable states that the victory of the Bolivian army should not be credited to their actions, but to the errors of Castroism. " The guerrilla failure in Bolivia is definitely a leadership failure..."("Comments on the death of Ernesto "Che" Guevara Serna," 10/18/67)

OCTOBER 18, 1967: Fidel Castro delivers a eulogy for Che Guevara to nearly a million people --one of his largest audiences ever--in Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución. Castro proclaims that Che’s life-long struggle against imperialism and his ideals will be the inspiration for future generations of revolutionaries. His life was a "glorious page of history" because of his extraordinary military accomplishments, and his unequaled combination of virtues which made him an "artist in guerrilla warfare." Castro professes that Che’s murderers’ will be disappointed when they realize that "the art to which he dedicated his life and intelligence cannot die." (Anderson, 798; Castro’s Eulogy, 10/18/67)

OCTOBER 19, 1967: Intelligence and Research’s Cuba specialist, Thomas L. Hughes, writes a memorandum to Secretary of State, Dean Rusk. Hughes outlines two significant outcomes of Che Guevara’s death that will affect Fidel Castro’s future political strategies. One is that "Guevara will be eulogized as the model revolutionary who met a heroic death," particularly among future generations of Latin American youth. Castro can utilize this to continue justifying his defiance of the usual suspects--"US imperialism, the Green Berets, the CIA." Another outcome is that Castro will reassess his expectations of exporting revolutions to other Latin American countries. Some Latin American leftists "will be able to argue that any insurgency must be indigenous and that only local parties know when local conditions are right for revolution." (Intelligence and Research Memorandum, "Guevara’s Death--The Meaning for Latin America", 10/19/97)

NOVEMBER 8, 1967: The CIA reports that Cuba is threatening assassin a prominent Bolivian figure, such as President Barrientos or General Ovando, in revenge of Che Guevara’s death. ( CIA cable, 11/8/67)

JULY 1, 1995: In an interview with biographer Jon Lee Anderson, Bolivian General Mario Vargas Salinas reveals that "he had been a part of a nocturnal burial detail, that Che’s body and those of several of his comrades were buried in a mass grave near the dirt airstrip outside the little mountain town of Vallegrande in Central Bolivia." A subsequent Anderson article in the New York Times sets off a two-year search to find and identify Guevara’s remains. (Anderson,1)

JULY 5, 1997: Che Guevara biographer, Jon Lee Anderson, reports for the New York Times that although the remains have not been exhumed and definitely identified, two experts are "100 percent sure" that they have discovered Che’s remains in Vallegrande. The fact that one of the skeletons is missing both of its hands is cited as the most compelling evidence. (NYT 7/5/97)

JULY 13, 1997: A ceremony in Havana, attended by Fidel Castro and other Cuban officials, marks the return of Che’s remains to Cuba. (NYT 7/14/97)

OCTOBER 17, 1997: In a ceremony attended by Castro and thousands of Cubans, Che Guevara is reburied in Santa Clara, Cuba. (NYT, 10/18/97)

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LIST OF SOURCES

Anderson=Anderson, Jon Lee, Che Guevara : A Revolutionary Life, Grove Press, 1997.
Harris= Harris, Richard, Death of a Revolutionary: Che Guevara's Last Mission, W.W. Norton and Company Inc.,1970.
James= James, Daniel, Che Guevara: A Biography, Stein and Day, 1970
National Security Files, "Bolivia, Vol. 4" Box 8.
NYT=New York Times
Rodríguez:1=Rodríguez, Félix I., Shadow Warrior, Simon and Schuster Inc., 1989

Rodríguez:2=Rodríguez, Félix . BBC documentary, "Executive Action," 1992.
Rojo= Rojo, Ricardo, My Friend Che, The Dial Press, Inc., 1968
WT= Washingto   

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB5/http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB5/

 

 

Progress and fear in post-transition Somalia

Somalia’s transitional government came to an end on 20 August when a new government and parliament were sworn in. Major challenges to their legitimacy lie ahead – as well as fears of instability spilling over from Ethiopia – but the inauguration of the new parliament nonetheless marks a significant milestone in Somalia’s recovery.

Somalia has lacked a stable and effective central government since the start of civil war in 1991, so the establishment of a new 275-member parliament is a hopeful sign of progress in the long UN-backed transition process. There are a number of reasons for cautious optimism. For one, the new parliament does not include any warlords after the Technical Selection Committee (TSC) successfully excluded them and anyone else suspected of committing human rights abuses. This was a move strongly welcomed by all Somalis.

The new parliament is also smaller than its predecessor, with over 60% of its members newly appointed and a good number of them highly educated. Involving the traditional elders in national state-building processes has been a positive development and there are now discussions about the establishment of a new house of elders similar to the one already established in Somaliland. This would be a positive development if implemented.

Against expectations, the timeline of the transitional roadmap also seems to have been broadly kept. With the new parliament in place, the new speaker and his two deputies to be elected on 26August, and the presidential election on 30August, overall public feeling is positive. Improved security in and around Mogadishu is another positive development boosting public confidence.

However, some major challenges also lie ahead. A key one is the credibility of the new parliament and government if any of the old political leaders come back to power. The Prime Minister and the Speaker are both in the new parliament and vying for the Presidency, but these leaders have already been accused of manipulating the traditional elders during the selection of new members of parliament, and manipulating the Technical Selection Committee (TSC) through threats to its members over disqualification. There are also quite a number of familiar faces from previous governments among new members of parliament, and the 30 percent gender quota has not been respected as some clans have failed to add many women to their list of parliamentarians. As a result, many Somalis unsurprisingly have doubts about how different the new parliament will be from previous ones.

There are also strong fears in Mogadishu that if President Sharif loses the presidential election, the security situation will get worse as he mobilises his power base. Over the last few weeks Sharif has made promotions in the army and the police and established new districts and regions – against the spirit of the new constitution – creating a new power struggle between him and the cabinet. He has also released over 200 Al-Shabaab suspects from prisons without court decisions and there are reports that he distributed guns to his clan militias.

On top of this, there is wide public scepticism about the new Draft Provisional Constitution, which many feel exacerbates all sorts of problems and political dynamics. These include social fragmentation and conflicts from secession or separation, foreign claims over Somali territory, the primacy of international laws over Somalia laws, and long-term foreign military occupation. However, there are high expectations among the public that the new parliament will revisit the Draft Provisional Constitution for harmonisation.
None of these challenges are insurmountable, but addressing them must be part of the immediate priorities of the new government.

The recent death of Ethiopia’s leader Meles Zenawi adds further potential for destabilisation, with Al-Shabaab reacting to his death with unconcealed joy. Zenawi had closer links with Somalia than any other Ethiopian leader, living in Mogadishu during the regime of Mengistu Hailmariam in Addis Ababa and leaving Mogadishu only a few months before Said Barre’s regime collapsed. Ethiopia’s information minister has stated in an interview with the BBC that his government’s policy towards Somalia will not change, meaning no immediate withdrawal of Ethiopian troops. However, there are fears in both Mogadishu and in East Africa of a political uprising in Ethiopia that would almost certainly change things for the worse in Somalia. Ethiopian troops currently control parts of Bay, Bakool and Gedo regions where they dislodged Al-Shabaab. Transitional government forces in those areas are no match on their own for Al-Shabaab militia. Similarly, Kenyan forces in the south and Ugandan and Burundian forces in and around Mogadishu are unlikely to be able to contain Al-Shabaab alone. Zenawi’s death conjures up a depressing set of possibilities.
The hope among many Somalis is as much for stability in Ethiopia as constitutional progress in their own country.

http://www.saferworld.org.uk/news-and-views/comment/52?utm_source=smartmail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=September+e-news 

US sees Israel, tight Mideast ally, as spy threat

WASHINGTON (AP) — The CIA station chief opened the locked box containing the sensitive equipment he used from his home in Tel Aviv, Israel, to communicate with CIA headquarters in Virginia, only to find that someone had tampered with it. He sent word to his superiors about the break-in.

The incident, described by three former senior U.S. intelligence officials, might have been dismissed as just another cloak-and-dagger incident in the world of international espionage, except that the same thing had happened to the previous station chief in Israel.

It was a not-so-subtle reminder that, even in a country friendly to the United States, the CIA was itself being watched.

In a separate episode, according to another two former U.S. officials, a CIA officer in Israel came home to find the food in the refrigerator had been rearranged. In all the cases, the U.S. government believes Israel's security services were responsible.

Such meddling underscores what is widely known but rarely discussed outside intelligence circles: Despite inarguable ties between the U.S. and its closest ally in the Middle East and despite statements from U.S. politicians trumpeting the friendship, U.S. national security officials consider Israel to be, at times, a frustrating ally and a genuine counterintelligence threat.

In addition to what the former U.S. officials described as intrusions in homes in the past decade, Israel has been implicated in U.S. criminal espionage cases and disciplinary proceedings against CIA officers and blamed in the presumed death of an important spy in Syria for the CIA during the administration of President George W. Bush.

The CIA considers Israel its No. 1 counterintelligence threat in the agency's Near East Division, the group that oversees spying across the Middle East, according to current and former officials. Counterintelligence is the art of protecting national secrets from spies. This means the CIA believes that U.S. national secrets are safer from other Middle Eastern governments than from Israel.

Israel employs highly sophisticated, professional spy services that rival American agencies in technical capability and recruiting human sources. Unlike Iran or Syria, for example, Israel as a steadfast U.S. ally enjoys access to the highest levels of the U.S. government in military and intelligence circles.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to talk publicly about the sensitive intelligence and diplomatic issues between the two countries.

The counterintelligence worries continue even as the U.S. relationship with Israel features close cooperation on intelligence programs that reportedly included the Stuxnet computer virus that attacked computers in Iran's main nuclear enrichment facilities. While the alliance is central to the U.S. approach in the Middle East, there is room for intense disagreement, especially in the diplomatic turmoil over Iran's nuclear ambitions.

"It's a complicated relationship," said Joseph Wippl, a former senior CIA clandestine officer and head of the agency's office of congressional affairs. "They have their interests. We have our interests. For the U.S., it's a balancing act."

The way Washington characterizes its relationship with Israel is also important to the way the U.S. is regarded by the rest of the world, particularly Muslim countries.

U.S. political praise has reached a crescendo ahead of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's scheduled meeting Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. Their relationship spans decades, since their brief overlap in the 1970s at the Boston Consulting Group. Both worked as advisers for the firm early in their careers before Romney co-founded his own private-equity firm. Romney said in a speech this past week that Israel was "one of our fondest friends," and he criticized Obama for what he called the administration's "shabby treatment" of the Jewish state.

"The people of Israel deserve better than what they've received from the leader of the free world," Romney said in a plain appeal to U.S. Jewish and pro-Israel evangelical voters.

Obama, who last year was overheard appearing to endorse criticism of Netanyahu from then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy, has defended his work with Israel. "We've gotten a lot of business done with Israel over the last three years," Obama said this year. "I think the prime minister — and certainly the defense minister — would acknowledge that we've never had closer military and intelligence cooperation."

An Israeli spokesman in Washington, Lior Weintraub, said his country has close ties with the U.S. A text message Saturday from the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the report "false."

"Israel's intelligence and security agencies maintain close, broad and continuous cooperation with their U.S. counterparts," Weintraub said. "They are our partners in confronting many mutual challenges. Any suggestion otherwise is baseless and contrary to the spirit and practice of the security cooperation between our two countries."

 The CIA declined comment.

The tension exists on both sides.

The National Security Agency historically has kept tabs on Israel. The U.S., for instance, does not want to be caught off guard if Israel launches a surprise attack that could plunge the region into war and jeopardize oil supplies, putting American soldiers at risk.

Matthew Aid, the author of "The Secret Sentry," about the NSA, said the U.S. started spying on Israel even before the state was created in 1948. Aid said the U.S. had a station on Cyprus dedicated to spying on Israel until 1974. Today, teams of Hebrew linguists are stationed at Fort Meade, Md., at the NSA, listening to intercepts of Israeli communications, he said.

CIA policy generally forbids its officers in Tel Aviv from recruiting Israeli government sources, officials said. To do so would require approval from senior CIA leaders, two former senior officials said. During the Bush administration, the approval had to come from the White House.

Israel is not America's closest ally, at least when it comes to whom Washington trusts with the most sensitive national security information. That distinction belongs to a group of nations known informally as the "Five Eyes." Under that umbrella, the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand agree to share intelligence and not to spy on one another. Often, U.S. intelligence officers work directly alongside counterparts from these countries to handle highly classified information not shared with anyone else.

Israel is part of a second-tier relationship known by another informal name, "Friends on Friends." It comes from the phrase "Friends don't spy on friends," and the arrangement dates back decades. But Israel's foreign intelligence service, the Mossad, and its FBI equivalent, the Shin Bet, both considered among the best in the world, have been suspected of recruiting U.S. officials and trying to steal American secrets.

Around 2004 or 2005, the CIA fired two female officers for having unreported contact with Israelis. One of the women acknowledged during a polygraph exam that she had been in a relationship with an Israeli who worked in the Foreign Ministry, a former U.S. official said. The CIA learned the Israeli introduced the woman to his "uncle." That person worked for Shin Bet.

Jonathan Pollard, who worked for the Navy as a civilian intelligence analyst, was convicted of spying for Israel in 1987 when the Friends on Friends agreement was in effect. He was sentenced to life in prison. The Israelis for years have tried to win his release. In January 2011, Netanyahu asked Obama to free Pollard and acknowledged that Israel's actions in the case were "wrong and wholly unacceptable."

Ronald Olive, a former senior supervisor with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service who investigated Pollard, said that after the arrest, the U.S. formed a task force to determine what government records Pollard had taken. Olive said Israel turned over so few that it represented "a speck in the sand."

In the wake of Pollard, the Israelis promised not to operate intelligence agents on U.S. soil.

A former Army mechanical engineer, Ben-Ami Kadish, pleaded guilty in 2008 to passing classified secrets to the Israelis during the 1980s. His case officer was the same one who handled Pollard. Kadish let the Israelis photograph documents about nuclear weapons, a modified version of an F-15 fighter jet and the U.S. Patriot missile air defense system. Kadish, who was 85 years old when he was arrested, avoided prison and was ordered to pay a $50,000 fine. He told the judge that, "I thought I was helping the state of Israel without harming the United States."

In 2006, a former Defense Department analyst was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison for giving classified information to an Israeli diplomat and two pro-Israel lobbyists.

Despite the Pollard case and others, Olive said he believes the two countries need to maintain close ties "but do we still have to be vigilant? Absolutely. The Israelis are good at what they do."

During the Bush administration, the CIA ranked some of the world's intelligence agencies in order of their willingness to help in the U.S.-led fight against terrorism. One former U.S. intelligence official who saw the completed list said Israel, which hadn't been directly targeted in attacks by al-Qaida, fell below Libya, which recently had agreed to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

The espionage incidents have done little to slow the billions of dollars in money and weapons from the United States to Israel. Since Pollard's arrest, Israel has received more than $60 billion in U.S. aid, mostly in the form of military assistance, according to the Congressional Research Service. The U.S. has supplied Israel with Patriot missiles, helped pay for an anti-missile defense program and provided sensitive radar equipment to track Iranian missile threats.

Just on Friday, Obama said he was releasing an additional $70 million in military aid, a previously announced move that appeared timed to upstage Romney's trip, and he spoke of America's "unshakable commitment to Israel." The money will go to help Israel expand production of a short-range rocket defense system.

Some CIA officials still bristle over the disappearance of a Syrian scientist who during the Bush administration was the CIA's only spy inside Syria's military program to develop chemical and biological weapons. The scientist was providing the agency with extraordinary information about pathogens used in the program, former U.S. officials said about the previously unknown intelligence operation.

At the time, there was pressure to share information about weapons of mass destruction, and the CIA provided its intelligence to Israel. A former official with direct knowledge of the case said details about Syria's program were published in the media. Although the CIA never formally concluded that Israel was responsible, CIA officials complained to Israel about their belief that Israelis were leaking the information to pressure Syria to abandon the program. The Syrians pieced together who had access to the sensitive information and eventually identified the scientist as a traitor.

Before he disappeared and was presumed killed, the scientist told his CIA handler that Syrian Military Intelligence was focusing on him.

http://news.yahoo.com/us-sees-israel-tight-mideast-ally-spy-threat-132232395.html

EGIS /EGID under Spotlight

In the aftermath of Rafah border massacre, I thought I would give it a deeper look on our Intelligence Service. I mainly wanted to know if they had done their job or not... But then the question I had to answer at the first place: Whats their job??

So I started reading the 90 articles 1971's Law 100 which defines and explains its role, status and functions.

Yet, what even seemed more interesting was their image and how they have tried to forge it recently.
Although known for being extremely secretive, they took an unprecedented PR step recentely (a month ago) by releasing a 40 minutes documentary about its history and giving a glimpse on its operations.

The well done interesting documentary certainly leaves a positive impression on any normal Egyptian citizen. Yet, the last incidents has affected the image they have been trying to build as one of the very few last standing effective bodies of the Egyptian State. The declarations of General Murad Mwafi, the ex spy chief who retired (sacked in a chic way), about having informed the president  previously about the attack isnt enough to discharge the agency from the responsibility.



One book can help giving a look on its history

A History of the Egyptian Intelligence Service: A History of the Mukhabarat, 1910-2009 by Owen L. Sirrs (London: Routledge, 2010), 271 pp., endnotes, bibliography, index.
Books on Arab intelligence services are in short supply. Yaacov Caroz, a former Mossad officer, published the most recent one, The Arab Secret Services, in 1978.7 Owen Sirrs, a former senior intelligence officer and Arab specialist at DIA and now with the University of Montana has produced a fine, well-documented volume on the Egyptian intelligence service—al-mukhabarat in Arabic—that adds significantly to public knowledge. While the focus of his book is on the Egyptian service—“the oldest, largest and most effective in the Arab world”—Sirrs discusses those in other Middle Eastern countries as well.
The book is divided into four parts and begins in 1910. The first part deals with the British-sponsored service (under the Egyptian monarchy) designed to counter threats from nationalist and Islamic parties and, later, the Axis powers in WW II. It concludes with the failure of the service to prevent the coup in July 1952 that brought Nasser to power. The second part is concerned with the Nasser period (1952-70), when the domestic security service, or GID (General Investigations Directorate), the EGIS (Egyptian General Intelligence Service)—modeled after the CIA (44)—and the MID (Military Intelligence Department) were established. The major threats during this formative period came from the Muslim Brotherhood, dissident military officers, and communists. Sirrs also examines how the services performed during the Suez Crisis of 1956, the Yemen Wars in 1962-67, and the 1970 War of Attrition. Part three deals with the services under Anwar Sadat (during 1970-1981), their operations associated with the 1973 war with Israel, and the services’ failure to prevent Sadat’s assassination. Part four brings the story to the rule of the now deposed President Hosni Mubarak. The principal operations discussed here include threats from the local Islamic community and how they have been sternly and effectively muted. Sirrs also explores the controversial role of the mukhabarat—he uses this term synonymously with intelligence service—and the CIA’s rendition program.

In each part of his book, Sirrs analyzes the mukhabarat performance in several areas: collection, evaluation, counterintelligence, covert action, and liaison with foreign services. Background data on principal figures, human rights issues, organizations, and power struggles are also included. Several short case summaries illustrate operations. For example, he reviews the controversial case of Ashraf Marwan, whom both Egypt and Israel claim as their best agent. As Sirrs notes, Marwan died under suspicious circumstances and the ambiguity remains.

“One in four Arabs is Egyptian,” write Sirrs. (197) This fact and Egypt’s close links to the United States make this book an important source for the general reader, for students of international relations, and certainly for anyone desiring to become a professional intelligence officer.

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol.-55-no.-1/the-intelligence-officers-bookshelf.html

Although I am not totally convinced about the content of the following articles, I published them to test a different analysis point of view about the whole subject.  

Egypt's Intelligence Agency: Emerging from the Shadows
Friday 20 July 2012 by Louisa Loveluck, Administrator, Middle East and North Africa Programme
  
The death of Omar Suleiman has taken many by surprise. The poor health of Egypt's intelligence chief had been a closely guarded secret, causing the news that he had been seeking medical treatment to come out of the blue.
As the dust settles after the election of President Mohamed Morsy, the death of a key member of the former regime raises fresh questions about the role of Egypt’s intelligence agencies in the country’s rocky transition.

Mubarak's confidante
Egypt’s revolution was one of the most well-documented uprisings in history. For 18 days, images of heroism in the face of regime brutality were splashed across the world’s front-pages. But if the revolution was televised, so was the moment it faced extinction. The image of a dour Omar Suleiman announcing the imminent transfer of power to the military can now be read as the moment that Egypt’s counter-revolution broke out into the open.
During a short-lived presidential campaign, Suleiman attempted to distance himself from the former regime. In reality, the intelligence chief had been one of Hosni Mubarak's closest confidantes. Appointed head of Egypt's powerful General Intelligence Service (GIS) in 1993, Suleiman had burnished his reputation for regime loyalty through years as Mubarak's bodyguard. The agency expanded its powers considerably during his time at the helm, gaining influence over key areas of domestic and foreign policy. By 2009, Suleiman had risen to become one of the region’s most powerful intelligence chiefs.

America's point man
Under Suleiman, the GIS became a key player in the American-led 'war on terror'. Describing the mukhabarat chief as Mubarak's 'consigliore' in a 2007 Wikileaks cable, US officials awarded him a central role in their counterterrorism efforts. From 1995 onwards, Egypt became an important site for American extraordinary rendition programmes and GIS officials were involved in the torture of detainees in line with the investigative aims of the CIA. According to a 2006 report by the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the Bush Administration’s belief that there were links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein was based on the testimony of Libyan national Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi. It was later revealed that his assertions had come under extreme duress at the hands of the GIS. Repeated allegations linking Suleiman to other rendition cases underline the role that the GIS director had come to play on the global stage.

'The eye of the Egyptian intelligence does not sleep.'
Suleiman’s death presents a fresh opportunity to examine the position of the GIS in the post-Mubarak era. Reform of Egypt’s repressive security apparatus was an important demand of the January revolution but 18 months on, the most notable power shift has in fact occurred in the GIS’s favour. This was firmly emphasized last week when a documentary commemorating the organisation’s 57th anniversary aired on national television. The message was an ominous one: 'The eye of the Egyptian intelligence does not sleep.'

If President Morsy can accumulate sufficient authority, there is an outside chance that he will attempt to bring the GIS under control. But the odds would be stacked against him in this endeavour. His formal powers are limited and any challenge to the mukhabarat’s authority will meet with resistance from powerful enemies. The GIS’ legacy of brutal suppression of Islamist groups – a crusade spearheaded by Suleiman – still festers between the two camps. As a result, intelligence officials are reported to be obstructing the Muslim Brotherhood from securing the government ministries that would oversee the GIS.

The picture is further complicated by an uneasy relationship between the intelligence directorate and Egypt's military council. The two institutions share a common interest in preventing the president from taking full control of the levers of state security. This potentially powerful convergence of interests may yet be tempered by GIS mistrust of the army’s opaque dealings with the Muslim Brotherhood, but the outcome of such suspicions are difficult to predict.
Suleiman's death may mark the end of a significant chapter in Egypt's history, but the GIS he leaves behind remains a potent force. Regardless of internecine struggles to come, the loss of the mukhabarat’s figurehead will do little to diminish a power that runs far deeper than its public fascia.
http://www.chathamhouse.org/media/comment/view/184865



Egypt intelligence agency tries to reclaim image


Published July 18, 2012, Associated Press

CAIRO –  Egypt's top intelligence agency, long a secretive power behind the country's ruling system, is taking a small but unprecedented step out of the shadows in an apparent attempt to win the public's support in the face of potential challenges from the new Islamist president.

In an unusual move, the General Intelligence Service — known as the "Mukhabarat" in Arabic — released a 41-minute-long documentary boasting of its achievements, presenting itself as the defender of the nation and vowing to continue to protect the country.
"The eye of the Egyptian intelligence does not sleep," the narrator says. In one of the film's many dramatic images, it shows footage of a falcon — the agency's symbol — circling in the sky and swooping down to snatch up a snake.

"Behind the curtains, the men of Egypt's intelligence services continue to monitor issues, analyze facts, confront offenses, carry out operations and succeed in achievements without us knowing what they look like or who they are," the narrator says.
The documentary, aired late last week on private and state-run Egyptian TV stations, also plays heavily on widespread anti-Israel sentiment among Egyptians, saying the agency has protected Egypt from plots by Israel and its Western allies. It shows footage from World War II, including images of Jews interned in Nazi camps, and says that Jews plotted for "a nation created on the land of Palestine."

The film, titled "The Word of a Nation," was a highly unusual public relations move for an agency which traditionally stays hidden, has an opaque but pervasive role and is described by experts as "a state within a state." The agency oversees espionage efforts abroad but also plays a significant role domestically. It was a crucial underpinning of Hosni Mubarak's 29-year rule, working to suppress his opponents and ensure the loyalty of institutions nationwide.

Former intelligence officer Gen. Sameh Seif al-Yazal told The Associated Press that the film was made to raise awareness about the importance of the agency after it came under attack by some for not doing its job and was criticized as serving remnants of Mubarak's regime.
But it comes at a time when the agency and other key parts of the old system are looking to defend their turf and their sway over the country after the election victory of the new president, Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. The group was the chief nemesis of Mubarak's regime and was repressed by his widely-hated state security services and the Mukhabarat itself.

In theory, the intelligence agency and other security services would now report to Morsi — but they and the military are believed to be pushing back to ensure that does not happen and that Morsi does not get to name the government ministers who would oversee them.
"For many years, the (agency) saw the Brotherhood as their prime enemy," said Heba Morayef, a researcher for Human Rights Watch in Egypt. "And because of the treatment the Brotherhood saw for many years, there is a fundamental mistrust and an inherent power struggle that is yet to be addressed."

Eventually, the Brotherhood may try to reshape the security agencies. "If restructuring doesn't happen immediately, it will sooner or later," Morayef said. "The battle hasn't started yet."
Already, the Brotherhood is in a power struggle with the military, which has ruled since Mubarak's fall. It has formally handed over power to Morsi, but before doing so it seized overwhelming authorities for itself that retain a large degree of control and restrain the new president. The military's head, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, vowed that the army would never allow the Brotherhood to dominate the country.

The Mukhabarat and the military are in "complete cooperation and understanding" with one another, Gen. al-Yazal said. The intelligence agency's building is located behind the walls of the Defense Ministry in Cairo. Intelligence chiefs are often from the military. Throughout most of its history, the intelligence agency's chief was never named, until the last decade when its head Omar Suleiman emerged in a public role as Mubarak's right-hand man.

Suleiman was one of the most powerful figures in Mubarak's inner circle, serving as his intelligence chief since 1993 and then as his vice president during the 2011 uprising. He was dubbed "Mubarak's black box" because of his reputation as the regime's holder of secrets. When Mubarak fell, he was replaced as intelligence chief by Murad Muwafi.
Suleiman briefly tried to run for president — provoking a furious outcry from those who launched the revolution against Mubarak — but failed to qualify on technical grounds.

Now the Mukhabarat have faced sharp criticism from Morsi's Brotherhood as well as pro-democracy activists who fear it will keep its grip on the state. Some have been calling for the prosecution of Suleiman for his connections to Mubarak's regime, notorious for its political repression and corruption.

"Suleiman's papers should not have been submitted to the elections commission, but to the courts," said Mohammed el-Beltagy, a leading Brotherhood member and former lawmaker, during a recent interview on the privately-owned ONTV. "This (the agency) is at the heart of Mubarak's regime, which used to rely on the intelligence services and state security."

During Mubarak's trial, in which he was sentenced to life in prison for failing to stop the killing of hundreds of protesters during the revolt against him, prosecutors and lawyers for the victims' families accused the intelligence agency of being uncooperative in the investigation and of destroying tapes and other vital documents incriminating police of targeting unarmed protesters.

This month, Morsi issued a presidential decree to re-open all the investigations. The investigative committee, though, will likely not have authority to investigate the military's involvement in deadly protests since Mubarak's toppling.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/07/18/egypt-intelligence-agency-tries-to-reclaim-image/#ixzz233dqORSU

Narco-States: Africa's Next Menace

By DAVIN O'REGAN - Published: March 12, 2012 

Since emerging as Africa’s first narco-state in the mid 2000s, Guinea Bissau’s slide toward instability has been swift and precipitous. The homicide rate has spiked by 25 percent and is now nearly three times the global average. Meanwhile, poverty levels have remained near the very bottom of world rankings. Over the last five years its score on the well known “Failed States Index” has plunged more than any other country.

Enlarge This Image

Cocaine traffickers, mostly from South America, first visited this sleepy West African country almost a decade ago. Guinea Bissau offered a backdoor route into the booming European cocaine market and was virtually risk free on account of its weak, easily corruptible government agencies. Co-optation, after all, is the preferred method of South America’s drug cartels. 

Narco-corruption quickly penetrated the highest levels of power, including the office of former President João Bernardo Vieira, who was assassinated in March 2009. Leading military officers have since been designated “drug kingpins” by the U.S. government. As a result of such corruption, the narcotics trade flourished and may now surpass the entire value of the national economy.

Were Guinea Bissau an isolated case, these events would be sad but strategically insignificant. Unfortunately, the country may be but Africa’s first narco-state.

In recent years, traffic in heroin, amphetamines and cocaine has expanded dramatically across Africa, growing into a roughly $6 billion to $7 billion illicit industry on the continent, according to conservative estimates. As in Guinea Bissau, these drug profits are filtering to the upper echelons of power in Africa, even in some of the continent’s so-called “anchor states” such as Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa. Members of Parliament, police officials and government ministers have been implicated in drug smuggling over the past year. 

This raises a host of concerns. Narco-corruption imperils the continent’s recent unprecedented economic boom, which averaged 5 percent annually over the last decade and is projected to outstrip all other regions in the next five years. Likewise, roughly 60 percent of African countries are now on a democratic path, a trend that could easily be reversed with the instability brought on by drug networks. Trafficking also threatens to destabilize an increasingly vital supplier to global oil and gas markets, including a fifth of U.S. oil imports. 

Ominously, Africa’s growing drug trade is also amplifying a range of international security threats. Hezbollah and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb have become involved in narco-trafficking. They earn millions from Africa’s cocaine trade. Much of this money may go to purchasing the sophisticated weaponry that has flooded Africa’s black markets following the fall of the Qaddafi regime, including Semtex explosives popular with terrorist groups that were recently seized by Nigerian security units following a battle with Qaeda militants. 

The African trafficking corridor to Europe also provides South American groups a low-risk alternative to the increasingly cut-throat cocaine transit routes in the Americas. In Pakistan, where the heroin trade continues to fuel instability and violence, Africans account for roughly half of all annual drug trafficking arrests.

Most worrying is the persistence of these challenges. The prolonged drug violence that continues to claim thousands of lives in Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala and elsewhere is tragically clear evidence of such intractability. Narco-trafficking is by definition a transnational challenge. Therefore, this shouldn’t simply be viewed as an African problem.

Modest efforts have been made against Africa’s accelerating narco-trafficking networks. The United States has frozen assets and imposed sanctions against a few alleged African drug traffickers, including Mozambique’s richest citizen and a major donor to the ruling political party as well as an assistant trade minister in Kenya. 

If more frequently used and reinforced by similar pressure from European and other governments, these tools could deliver even better results. Were the African Union to impose restrictions and embargoes, as it did during a recent political crisis in Guinea, breakthroughs in deterrence and cooperation toward a more comprehensive counternarcotics agenda could be achieved. 

In Africa’s drug trafficking hubs such as Nigeria, Ghana, Mozambique, Kenya and South Africa, a primary aim must be to stem traffickers’ infiltration of critical state institutions. Africa’s anti-corruption commissions and offices of inspectors general should be strengthened with expanded authorities, resources and autonomy. Political party systems must also become more transparent and accountable to prevent drug profits from buying Africa’s elections, which are becoming more frequent and expensive. 

Now is the best chance to head off the creation of more narco-states in Africa and prevent a new scourge from sinking roots in this long-suffering continent. The job will be much harder once the kingpins are running the show. 

Davin O’Regan is a research associate at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University in Washington who specializes on transnational organized crime issues in Africa.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/opinion/narco-states-africas-next-menace.html?_r=1  

 

The Rising Threat from Nigeria's Boko Haram Militant Group

By Scott Stewart

The U.S. Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, issued a warning Nov. 5 indicating it had received intelligence that the Nigerian militant group Boko Haram may have been planning to bomb several targets in the Nigerian capital during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, also known as Eid al-Kabir, celebrated Nov. 6-8. The warning specifically mentioned the Hilton, Nicon Luxury and Sheraton hotels as potential targets.

The warning came in the wake of a string of bombings and armed attacks Nov. 4 in the cities of Maiduguri, Damaturu and Potiskum, all of which are located in Nigeria’s northeast. An attack also occurred in the north-central Nigerian city of Kaduna. The sites targeted in the wave of attacks included a military base in Maiduguri and the anti-terrorism court building in Damaturu. Militants reportedly attacked these two sites with suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs). The Nigerian Red Cross reported that more than 100 people were killed in the attacks, while some media reports claimed the death toll was at least 150.

According to AFP, a spokesman for Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the attacks Nov. 5 and threatened more attacks targeting the Nigerian government until “security forces stop persecuting our members and vulnerable civilians.” On Nov. 7, a Boko Haram spokesman claimed that his group employed only two suicide operatives in the attacks and not 12 as reported by some media outlets.

Though Eid al-Kabir passed without attacks on Western hotels in Abuja, a deeper examination of Boko Haram is called for, with a specific focus on its rapidly evolving tactical capabilities.

Boko Haram

Boko Haram, which means “Western education is sinful” in Hausa, was established in 2002 in Maiduguri, the capital of Nigeria’s Borno state. It has since spread to several other northern and central Nigerian states. The group officially is known as Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad, Arabic for “group committed to propagating the Prophet’s teachings and jihad.” Some in the country have referred to Boko Haram as the Nigerian Taliban in reference to the group’s call for Shariah throughout Nigeria. (At present, only the northern part of the country adheres to Shariah.) In June, a spokesman claiming to represent Boko Haram amended this demand, instead calling for what the group defines as a stricter form of Shariah in the northern Nigerian states where Shariah already is the law.

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With approximately 150 million people, Nigeria is the most populous African country and one of the most densely populated countries in the world. It has some 250 distinct ethnic groups, with the dominant groups being the Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa-Fulani, along with a smaller but critical fourth group, the Ijaw. These groups are in constant tension as they attempt to dominate the nation’s politics and the allocation of its natural resources. Approximately half the country is Muslim and half is Christian (though many Nigerians follow traditional religions). As reflected by the adjacent map, which depicts the sites of the Nov. 4 attacks as well as the Nigerian states governed by Shariah, the Muslim population predominates in the north while Christians predominate in the south. The Muslim north is parched and devoid of significant resources (agriculture is the north’s economic mainstay). This contrasts sharply with the economic environment in southern Nigeria, an area that includes Lagos, the country’s vibrant commercial capital and the business hub for much of West Africa, and the Niger Delta region, home to about 90 percent of the country’s large crude oil and natural gas sector.

In addition to ethnic tensions, Nigeria has experienced frequent and intense bursts of sectarian violence between Christians and Muslims, especially in the areas where the two religions overlap, like Jos in the northern tip of Plateau state. This struggle pits the powerful Hausa-Fulani from the north, which tends to be Muslim, against a number of smaller local ethnic groups that tend to be Christian. Indeed, Boko Haram has been involved since its inception in several outbursts of inter-communal violence, including the November 2008 violence that saw some 800 people killed in Jos, the July 2009 violence that saw more than 700 people killed in Jos, and the January 2010 violence in Jos that claimed 450 lives.

Following the July 2009 violence, which brought Boko Haram to the world’s attention, Boko Haram founder Mohammed Yusuf and his deputy, Abubakar Shekau, were both killed. Yusuf died in police custody, allegedly during an escape attempt, though his followers have called his death an extrajudicial execution.

Since the destruction of Boko Haram’s leadership, the exact structure and makeup of the group has been unclear. Boko Haram now seems to lack organizational structure or strong leadership. If the group has any central leadership, it has maintained a very low profile since Yusuf’s killing. It may even be in hiding, possibly in a neighboring country. Mixed messages have emerged from various individuals claiming to speak for Boko Haram. Some figures have come across as more moderate and willing to negotiate, while others have been more strident, rejecting talks. This difference makes it appear that Boko Haram comprises a loose confederation of militants operating relatively independently from one another, rather than a cohesive, hierarchical organization pursuing a unified set of objectives.

Ramping Up

Boko Haram initially was involved mostly in fomenting sectarian violence. Its adherents participated in fairly rudimentary attacks involving clubs, machetes and small arms. By late 2010, the group had added Molotov cocktails and simple improvised explosive devices to its tactical repertoire, as reflected by the series of small IED bombing attacks against Christian targets in Jos on Christmas Eve in 2010.

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Boko Haram also conducted a number of armed assaults and small IED attacks in 2011. The IEDs involved in these attacks were small devices either thrown from motorcycles or left at the attack location.

On June 16, Boko Haram made a huge operational leap with the detonation of its first suicide VBIED. The attack was directed against the police headquarters in Abuja. While it proved largely ineffective — security kept the vehicle in a parking lot away from the targeted building — the attack nonetheless represented a significant tactical development in that it demonstrated that Boko Haram had mastered a completely new aspect of terrorist tradecraft. Employing a suicide VBIED is a far cry from throwing a few sticks of dynamite with a piece of time fuse at a police station or leaving a small IED with a crude timer outside a church. The VBIED was also quite sizable; it destroyed some 40 vehicles in the parking lot.

Significantly, the attack occurred outside Boko Haram’s traditional area of activity, proving the group can now project power at least as far as Abuja. Reports emerged in September indicating that Boko Haram was threatening to conduct attacks in the Niger Delta, though these threats have yet to materialize. The Niger Delta is significantly farther from Boko Haram’s base in the north than Abuja, which is in central Nigeria. Distance aside, ethnic and linguistic differences would make it difficult for Boko Haram members to operate in the Delta without being detected.

Recruiting and training a suicide operative who can conduct successful missions when an organization has no history of such operations is no small feat. Frequently, poorly prepared suicide operatives back out of missions. By being able to recruit, indoctrinate and then send out a suicide operative who can complete his mission, Boko Haram enjoys a great deal of operational latitude.

Taken together, these facts illustrate the large operational leap Boko Haram accomplished in 2011. It is very unusual for a militant group to achieve such a significant operational leap absent outside training or assistance. In many past cases, that outside assistance came from state sponsors. For example, the Soviet Union and its allies assisted various Marxist revolutionary groups, Iran and Syria have assisted Hezbollah, and the United States and Pakistan aided the Afghan mujahideen. Non-state actors also have been involved in such training, however, with Hezbollah having taught al Qaeda how to construct large VBIEDs and al Qaeda trainers having taught others how to construct IEDs in their training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

On June 14, 2010, Abu Musab Abd al-Wadoud, the leader of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), told Al Jazeera that his group would provide Boko Haram with support and weapons to build strategic depth in Africa. We initially viewed the claim with some skepticism, as al-Wadoud had made previous unfounded claims that his group was going to expand. Following that announcement, however, we continued to receive reports that Nigerians associated with Boko Haram had been seen at AQIM training camps in the Sahel and that some of them even had received training from the jihadist group al Shabaab in Somalia.

While we have not received hard confirmation of these reports, we believe that the rapid uptick in Boko Haram’s bombmaking capability provides strong circumstantial evidence that such an interchange did indeed happen between Boko Haram and one, or perhaps both, of those African jihadist groups.

On Aug. 26, Boko Haram conducted a second suicide VBIED attack in Abuja, this time attacking a U.N. compound. This attack proved far more successful than the June attack against the police headquarters. The VBIED driver managed to enter the compound by ramming an exit gate, then maneuvering his vehicle into a parking garage before detonating it. The attack also stands out in that the U.N. compound was located in the diplomatic district of Abuja, where numerous high-profile facilities are located, demonstrating that Boko Haram possessed the ability to spot a soft target amid harder targets like foreign embassies and government buildings. The group’s preoperational surveillance efforts also permitted it to accurately identify a security weakness — the exit gate — which it then successfully exploited. This attack was Boko Haram’s first attack against a transnational target rather than against a government or sectarian target. Boko Haram sees the many U.N. development programs in Nigeria as an affront, as have the various jihadist groups in places like Algeria, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan and Pakistan that also have attacked the United Nations because of its programs.

The Hotel Threat

All of this, then, helps us place the recent hotel threat into perspective. While Boko Haram’s attacks against hardened targets largely have proved unsuccessful, the group has clearly displayed the ability to conduct attacks against soft targets in Abuja. It also has demonstrated a desire to hit transnational targets.

As we have previously discussed, measures taken to harden diplomatic facilities have caused militant groups to come to regard hotels as attractive targets. Striking an international hotel in a major city like Abuja would allow militants to make the same kind of statement against the West as they could by striking an embassy. Hotels often are full of Western business travelers, diplomats and intelligence officers. This makes them target-rich environments for militants seeking to kill Westerners and gain international media attention without having to penetrate the extreme security of a hard target like a modern embassy.

While it is possible that the intelligence report referenced by the U.S. Embassy was inaccurate, or a ruse by Boko Haram, someone in Boko Haram quite plausibly was planning such an attack. Jihadist groups have launched multiple attacks against hotels in Jakarta, Indonesia, in July 2009, in the Jordanian capital of Amman in November 2005, and in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula in July 2005. Even the November 2008 armed assaults in Mumbai targeted multiple hotels. With Boko Haram’s U.N. attack mirroring jihadist attacks against the United Nations elsewhere, the group similarly could be planning to mirror attacks by jihadists against hotels elsewhere.

In the wake of the Nov. 5 U.S. Embassy warning, security has been ramped up around hotels in Abuja and especially around those hotels mentioned as specific targets. Given the long history of violence in Nigeria, Nigerian authorities have gained much experience in dealing with militancy. Their tactics often have been quite brutal. Therefore, we are doubtful that Boko Haram successfully could strike these specific hotels in the immediate future. If, however, the group has prepared VBIEDs for such an operation, they would likely employ them against other, softer targets in the near future. Once a VBIED is prepared, it is vulnerable to detection. Militant groups do not like to leave such devices assembled for very long given the risk of losing such a valuable asset. Instead, VBIEDS tend to be employed shortly after being constructed.

It is quite possible, however, that these hotels will remain on Boko Haram’s target list. The attack plan could be revisited once security around the hotels is reduced or once Boko Haram’s operational leadership evolves to the point that it possesses the sophistication to plan and execute attacks against harder targets.

On Nov. 2, Nigerian authorities claimed to have thwarted a bomb plot planned for the Eid holiday. A man they arrested in connection with the plot allegedly possessed explosives that he planned to use to create package bombs. Whether the man was in any way linked to the string of attacks that occurred Nov. 4 or if he was planning an independent operation remains unknown. At the very least, the arrest did not allow authorities to foil the many attacks executed Nov. 4. The arrest probably resulted from the house-to-house searches in Maiduguri that resumed after an arms amnesty for militants ended Oct. 31. These security operations in Maiduguri have reportedly caused some Boko Haram members to move elsewhere, such as neighboring Yobe state.

While the Nigerian government did uncover a warehouse on the outskirts of Abuja used to construct VBIEDs while investigating the U.N. bombing, Nigerian authorities do not appear to have identified the operational planners and bombmakers responsible for the high-level VBIED attacks, much less arrested them. The longer these individuals are allowed to operate, the more experience they will gain — and the deadlier they will get. It will be important to watch the tactical details of the next Boko Haram attacks for signs that its leadership is maturing as terrorist planners.

Read more: The Rising Threat from Nigeria's Boko Haram Militant Group | STRATFOR

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The deal has been discussed since Shalit was captured in 2006, now the time has come for 1028 families to be reunited. Phyllis Bennis Last Modified: 18 Oct 2011 08:43 Like so many other diplomatic and political initiatives in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the recent announcement of a new prisoner release is based on the same solution that has been proposed dozens of times before - only to collapse because the time, and often Israeli political will, wasn't right. In this case, the separate announcements made by Hamas leader Khaled Meshal and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, asserted that Hamas would release Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, captured by Hamas in 2006, while Israel would release 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, some of whom have been in jail for decades. As Tony Karon wrote in Time magazine's blog: "Win-win outcomes are all too rare in the Middle East, but the agreement that will see Hamas free captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for a reported 1,000 Palestinian prisoners will allow each of its stakeholders to claim victory." That arrangement has been bandied about for years. The fact that it now appears imminent (though its success cannot be claimed until all the prisoners walk out of jail) reflects two seemingly contradictory realities: Israel, the occupying power, continues to control the lives of the occupied Palestinian population, and new regional and international conditions are challenging Israel in dramatic ways. Asymmetry of power The control Israel wields over the occupied Palestinian population is evident in the disparity of the prisoner exchange: Palestinians, in this case Hamas, control the life of exactly one Israeli, a captured soldier (and, in fact, Hamas violated international law by denying Shalit access to the Red Cross). On the other side, even if we put aside Israeli control of land, borders, economy, food, education, and virtually every facet of life in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, Israel directly maintains power over the lives of thousands of Palestinian prisoners, some convicted in military courts (illegal under the Geneva Conventions), and others, including elected members of the Palestinian parliament, imprisoned under administrative detention orders (similarly illegal). Almost from the moment Shalit was captured, Palestinians attempted to arrange a prisoner swap - his freedom in exchange for the freedom of a thousand or more Palestinian prisoners. In this high-stakes poker game, with so many human lives at stake, Shalit was and remains the Palestinians' only chip. In fact, holding Shalit for a future prisoner exchange was the only reason for Hamas to detain him at all. Israel gained far more in holding thousands of prisoners (about 6,000 at the moment, up to 11,000 at a time in recent years). As the occupying power it gains complete control over individuals it believes - or claims to believe - represent a security threat. It demoralises the prisoners' families, friends, neighbours and political allies. It undermines the family unity that provides the crucial basis for Palestinians' sumud, or steadfastness, in resisting occupation. And it weakens the already minimal power of Palestinian leaders in the occupied territories, as their inability to win the freedom of the prisoners dilutes their tenuous claim to authority. Again and again, Israel considered - and ultimately rejected - similar deals to release large numbers of Palestinian prisoners in return for the freeing of Shalit. What changed? As the Arab Spring, new governments in the region, changing regional power relations, the Palestinian statehood bid at the UN, and political shifts inside Israel all came together, both sides of the prisoner deal faced new pressures. Hamas, which governs in the Gaza Strip, suddenly had to answer a rare surge of support (whether long-term or not remains unclear) for its political rival, the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank. When the PA's leader Mahmoud Abbas, speaking in the name of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, brought the demand for Palestinian statehood and UN membership to the General Assembly last month, he won a sudden increase of popular acclaim. Although Hamas had long sought exactly this kind of prisoner swap, part of the recent effort was likely influenced by its longstanding political rivalry with the PA. Particularly because Hamas' selection of prisoners to be released was carefully drawn to include not only Hamas members but activists from all political factions, and from all parts of the occupied territory, the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, broad popular excitement was certain. Rumours swirled that Marwan Barghouti, perhaps the best-known Palestinian prisoner and a noted leader of Fatah's younger generation, would be included, as well as perhaps Ahmed Sadat, a respected leader of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who has been imprisoned for almost a decade. But then superseding rumours denied that either Sadat or Barghouti would be included. So, questions about the list remain - including whether elected Palestinian legislators would finally be freed. Regional shifts Other changes had to do with the region. Despite the recently escalating tensions between the population and the military council which holds overall power in Egypt, the post-Tahrir Square Egyptian government is playing a significantly new role in the region. Particularly, it has placed a high priority on helping to negotiate a Palestinian unity agreement between Hamas and Fatah, and, reportedly, was involved in negotiating the current prisoner deal. Turkey, similarly, has been playing a far more intensive regional role in support of Palestinian rights. And with Israel facing a region without being able to count on its longstanding (however uneasy) allies in Cairo and Ankara, Netanyahu was getting worried. The Israeli leader's political fears were undoubtedly also heightened by his dwindling popularity at home. Israel's growing isolation in the region is now matched by a rising opposition to Netanyahu's leadership, demonstrated most vividly in the Tel Aviv protests throughout the summer. Although they began with protests over rising housing costs (and never did make the critical link with Israeli occupation), the demonstrations rapidly morphed into a broad political attack on Netanyahu, punctuated with the previously unimaginable equation of Israel's elected prime minister with despised Arab dictators. "Mubarak … Assad … Bibi Netanyahu" emerged as the iconic chant of the protesters. So, a sudden shift toward acceptance of the prisoner deal, despite his previous claims that such an arrangement would somehow put Israel at risk, became a political necessity for Netanyahu. The broad public demand for the government to "do something" to win the release of Shalit had resonated across the political spectrum in Israel, and achieving that will certainly raise Netanyahu's beleaguered electoral fortunes. The question now remains whether the deal will go through, whether 1,027 Palestinian families and one Israeli family, plus all the millions on both sides waiting, will finally see their loved ones walk free. Phyllis Bennis is a Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies and the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. Her books include Calling the Shots: How Washington Dominates Today's UN. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.