Syria's Jihadists and Hezbollah are two arms of one body
By Walid Phares  
Mideast Newswire and CRNews, January 16, 2008
 
In a first report issued by Stratfor on January 15, 2008, the intelligence report wrote: 
 
"The possibility remains that the attack was the work of jihadists operating in Lebanon. Many of these jihadist groups, which steadily are building up their presence in the country, are handled by Syrian military intelligence officers who might have an interest in destabilizing Lebanon and making life difficult for the U.S.-backed government of Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora — who is resisting demands by Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon’s ongoing political stalemate"

Asked by Mideast Newswire to comment, Professor Walid Phares, the director of the Future terrorism Project at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington said: "When we say the work of Jihadist on the strategic level, it should mean that the decision is taken by al Qaeda and its chapters independently from a Tehran Damascus decision.

Hezbollah's Billion Petrodollars
by Walid Phares
Human Events 01/11/2008

A few weeks ago, articles published around the world reported that Hezbollah is undergoing two major changes. Both portend greater violence from the Iranian-sponsored global terrorist network.
The first change is a shift in leadership responsibilities. A report published initially in the Saudi owned Sharq al Awsat said the office of Ayatollah Khomenei appointed deputy secretary general Sheikh Naim Qassim as the new supreme commander of Hezbollah forces and the personal representative of the Ayatollah in Lebanon. Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, according to this report remains as secretary general of the organization. Sources said this change in control and command is because of "differences in opinions" between Narsrallah and Qassim.

Why Mrs. Bhutto had to die
By Walid Phares
The Washington Times December 31, 2007

Former Pakistani Prime Minster Benazir Bhutto was murdered because of her potential actions in Pakistan, by the combined forces of jihadism in that country. In short, they executed her to pre-empt her future war of ideas. This was the bottom line and here is why.

The long-term plan of the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan during the 1990s was to eventually spread to Pakistan and seize power, and, ultimately after 1999, to seize the nukes, too. Miscalculating on September 11, Osama bin Laden lost Kabul and the jihadi war room crossed into their eastern neighbor. Plan B was then to seize Waziristan and gradually Talibanize the country, grabbing the "doomsday" devices in the end. For the last seven years, the jihadi hydra protected by the fundamentalist tribes, hooking up with the local Islamist movements and with tentacles deep inside the defense and intelligence apparatus, attempted to spread in that direction. President Pervez Musharraf, unable to determine the extent of radical influence in his own services, moved slowly and reluctantly on the containment strategies. This lost time resulted in several assassination attempts and allowed a widening of the jihadi networks in the country. Reacting to the breach of national security, he tightened the rope on the opposition, frustrating his secular opponents and alienating the nation's Supreme Court.

2007: A Global Assessment of the Confrontation
By Walid Phares
The American Thinker December 29, 2007
 
The conflict we call the War on Terror still continues at the end of 2007 and all indications are that its battlefields are expected to spread further, and escalate, in the upcoming year.

The following is a global assessment of the confrontation that has taken place since 2001, though the systematic war waged by the Jihadi forces against democracies and the free world began at least a decade before 9/11. This evaluation isn't comprehensive or definitive, but a collection of observations related to major benchmarks, directions and projections.

Global cohesion lacking

The main powers and allies involved in the War on Terror still lack global cohesion.  While the US integrates its efforts in the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq with its efforts globally to defeat al Qaeda and contain nuclear proliferation of rogue regimes like Iran, other powers and blocs of countries have different outlooks and plans. While Britain and other U.S partners in Europe espouse common views on the global scale, France, Germany, Spain and Italy agree on the Afghan theater but still are uninvolved in the Iraqi theater. All Atlantic partners, however, pursue al Qaeda and consider it -- along with other Salafi networks -- as the principal threat. Also, most Western partners perceive the Iranian threat as serious, although differ in the ways in which to respond.
 
Non-Western powers fighting Jihadist forces do not necessarily unite in the international arena against a common foe. India is targeted by Islamists but doesn't associate with the US-led efforts in the Middle East. Russia is also at war with Jihadi terror, yet it distances itself from the Afghan theater, opposes the US in Iraq, and worse, backs the two terror-spreading regimes in Tehran and Damascus.

Lebanon's Officers Under Terror Attack  
By Dr. Walid Phares
FrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, December 14, 2007

On December 12, a top Lebanese Army commander, Brigadier General Francois Hajj, was killed in a terrorist bombing in the suburb of Baabda southeast of Beirut. Hajj, 54, who was close to army commander Michel Sleiman and tipped to be his successor, was killed along with his bodyguard in a rush-hour blast. This was the first assassination of a high-ranking officer of the Lebanese Armed Forces in decades. The first set of questions is: Why was he murdered, who may have perpetrated this terror attack and what could be the consequences of this dramatic development?

Be Wise on Kosovo
By Walid Phares

December 13, 2007 The American Thinker

Over the past few months a number of Western leaders, including senior United States figures, have lent their support to separating the province of Kosovo from the Republic of Serbia, based on the fact that a majority of the inhabitants in the province, ethnic Albanians, wishes this to be done.

The U.S Secretary of State and European top diplomats have been working on the assumption that the ultimate outcome of the crisis should be to see another new Republic emerging in the Balkans from the rubble of former Yugoslavia. Their participation in the UN-sponsored negotiations, along with Serbia, Kosovo, Albania and Russia, has been heading toward the endpoint of breaking one nation state's territory into two states, ignoring the historical context, consequences, and important principles, with far-reaching unpleasant consequences when these principles serve as precedents elsewhere.

Underlying all of this is a not-so-hidden agenda: an anticipated so-called diplomatic dividend for pleasing the Muslim world. A prominent US legislator declared over the summer that granting Kosovo its independence would please the Muslim world and would show that America is not anti-Islamic. The Kosovo affair has this assumed extra importance in this precarious post 9/11 era, as a token. But it risks kindling a chain reaction of explosive crises around the world.

Misestimating Iran's Nuclear Strategies

By Walid Phares 
World Defense Review 
December 10, 2007 

The release to the US Congress of the NIE Iranian threat report has unleashed a wave of discussions streaming directly into the debate about the war on terror. From there, obviously, the ripple effects of the findings – plus their politicization – are feeding the critics of the War in Iraq; but more importantly, impacting both the friends and the foes of the United States, including principally the Iranian regime.

Basically, Americans and their allies are faced with a new assertion, created by this intelligence estimate, that the decision makers in Tehran had already abandoned their nuclear military strategy as of 2003; and hence, the US and its coalition would be at fault if it engaged in any military action against targets inside Iran. Specifically, due to American intelligence conclusions, the public – both domestic and international – are being led to believe that in the fall of 2003, the Iranian leadership had decided to stop its process of building an atomic weapon; and that further, today, in the fall of 2007, there aren't Iranian nuclear threats to America, to the region and to the international community.

Osama targets Europe
By Walid Phares
The Washington Times December 6, 2007

The latest message of Osama bin Laden is strangely trying to convince the Europeans — six years later — that they were wrong to follow the United States into Afghanistan. As al Qaeda's war room has showed in the past, they often project trends. In February 2003, bin Laden called on the jihadis to head to Iraq, "for Baghdad, the second capital of the Caliphate would be falling into the hands of the infidels" way before the U.S. Marines brought down the Saddam Hussein statue in April. In this tape, he is asking the Europeans to leave the battlefield of Afghanistan now, as events are expanding further on their continent. The hidden message in his speech is by far greater than the words aired on al Jazeera.

The message says the Soviet occupation has failed, and so will Americans and Europeans in Afghanistan. He "reminded them" of the tremendous mistake they made by assisting U.S. troops in dislodging the Taliban in 2001. "I am responsible for the attacks of 9/11," said bin Laden, thus "he" was the man behind the massacre of Manhattan, not the Taliban. He added — the classic refrain — that "it was in response to aggression in Palestine and Lebanon." U.S. spokesmen rushed to "explain" that the Afghans are "happier now because they are better administered."

Bin Laden and Future Jihad in Europe

by Walid Phares
World Defense Review November 30, 2007

What is interesting about the latest audio message of Usama Bin Laden, carried by al Jazeera, is its delayed argumentation. Strangely he is trying to convince the Europeans – seven years later – that they are wrong to follow the United States into Afghanistan.

In his speech – regardless of the ritual investigative questions regarding the location, technology and other details – the central issue appears to be his growing concern with the European role in Afghanistan, and, perhaps through it, the potential growth of that role in the fight against the forces of Jihadism worldwide. Indeed as a reader of the Jihadi strategic mind, I feel that the speech writers (Bin Laden himself or his "advisors") are looking ahead in their perception of future European involvement in the so-called War on Terror. And as al Qaeda's war room has showed in the past, they are skilled at anticipating trends.

MEMRI Special Dispatch Series - No. 1768
November 16, 2007

Debate on Iranian Policies in the Middle East

The following are excerpts from a television debate on Iran's policies in the Middle East, between Lebanese-American Middle East studies researcher Dr. Walid Fares and Iranian researcher Muhammad Sadeq Al-Husseini. The debate aired on Al-Jazeera TV on September 25, 2007

Dr. Walid Fares: "In my opinion, it is the Iranian regime that wages wars. It is this regime that started these wars, threatens its neighbors, supplies weapons and equipment to the terrorists, and declares that it will wipe out entire emirates and countries. The Iranian regime transfers weapons to the Taliban even though it hates them, because it wants to fan the flames of war against the democratically elected government in Kabul. The Iranian regime still occupies the Arab Tunb islands, and it has recently threatened to annex Bahrain.