In case you were wondering how the world of South started, I give you this: I’m reminded that President Franklin D. Roosevelt felt compelled to sequester Japanese foreign nationals after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and it appears that the threat of harm to America from Isis now is just…
Hezbollah’s Spycraft in the Spotlight
The ongoing terrorism trial of Hossam Yaakoub in Cyprus may have several consequences, including deciding whether the European Union will declare Hezbollah to be a terrorist organization. Its current impact is to show how much better Hezbollah operatives have gotten at basic covert tradecraft. A recent Washington Post article about…
Hezbollah’s Headaches: Syria and Bulgaria
Hezbollah has been in the news over the past few weeks for two issues: its alleged responsibility for a suicide bombing in Bulgaria, and the spillover effects from the civil war in Syria. On 19 July last year, a suicide bomb gutted a tour bus near Burgas Airport in Bulgaria,…
Criminal Element: The al-Mabhouh Caper, and a Book Giveaway
Doha 12 is inspired by a real-life incident: Mossad’s 2010 assassination in Dubai of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. I’ve written a summary of this operation and its fallout for the good folks at Criminal Element, and now it’s available for your delectation. As an added incentive to check it out,…
Real Intelligence: A CIA Analyst Critiques Zero Dark Thirty
How close to reality is Zero Dark Thirty? The Pacific Standard online magazine ran on 16 January an article written by Nada Bakos, a former CIA analyst and targeteer, in which she compares the hunting-bin-Laden movie to her own work in the Agency’s Counterterrorism Center, and then with the Zarqawi…
Mossad, Admitting the Obvious
Israel has finally admitted what was one of the most ill-kept secrets from its “secret war”: it assassinated PLO second-in-command Abu Jihad in 1988. The story, released on Thursday in the Yediot Aharonot newspaper (although I have yet to find it on ynetnews.com, the English-language online version), claims Mossad worked…
Hezbollah’s Image Campaign: Theme Parks, Anyone?
In Doha 12, Hezbollah launches its effort to eliminate the Doha 12 (including Our Heroes) as part of their worldwide publicity/propaganda campaign. Hezbollah is one of the most sophisticated users of media, image and messaging in the terrorist world, with their own newspapers and satellite TV channel. But a theme…