Uighurs ready for Palau deal

WASHINGTON - SEVERAL Chinese Muslims held at Guantanamo for the past seven years are close to being sent to the remote Pacific archipelago of Palau in late August or early September, a lawyer said on Wednesday.

'They are at this point very likely to agree, they actually need to see a written agreement and sign that. That's what Palau wants them to do,' said George Clarke, a US attorney who has represented two 30-some-year-old Uighurs.

However, he cautioned that not all 13 remaining Uighur detainees would accept Palau's offer. 'It's going to be greater than four and less than 13, but nobody's signed the piece of paper yet,' he said.

The detainees, Turkic-speaking Muslims from far western China, met with US State Department officials this week. 'This is the first time they have actually had a formal answer. The real offer was only made last week, prior to that there was no offer,' Mr Clarke told AFP.

Those who do sign the agreement crafted by the State Department and the Palauan government, would leave for Palau 'at the end of this month or the beginning of September,' after having examined the documents and waited 15 days for approval from Congress, which now reviews all such decisions, Mr Clarke said.

In June, Palauan President Johnson Toribiong said that five of the 13 Uighurs still held at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay had expressed reservations about being released to his island nation, which has some 21,000 inhabitants. The men were hesitant due to fears that China would gain access to them, Mr Clarke explained. 'They have always been interested in Palau,' he insisted.

Beijing demanded the detainees be returned home to be tried, saying they belong to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). But US officials have denied the charges and refused to send them to China, fearing they would be tortured. In Palau, the Uighurs would first have a residency visa followed by a work visa, and their families could join them there, Mr Clarke said.

The detainees were part of a group of 22 Uighurs living in a self-contained camp in Afghanistan when the US-led invasion of the country began in October 2001, in the wake of the Sept 11 attacks on the United States that year.

They said they had fled to Afghanistan to escape persecution in their vast home region of Xinjiang in western China. The United States cleared them of any wrongdoing four years ago but the detainees have been in legal limbo ever since.

Four of the Chinese Muslims were flown from the Guantanamo prison camp in Cuba, where some 229 'war on terror' suspects are still held, to Bermuda in June. Another five were released to Albania in 2006.

Source: Straits Times.
Link: http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking+News/World/Story/STIStory_413170.html.

The Kremlin's Powderkeg: Moscow's Troubles In The Caucasus

The ongoing ethnic and political tensions between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea are becoming a threat to the leadership in Moscow. Although the Kremlin garnered respect as a result of its war with Georgia one year ago, the situation remains explosive in other parts of the Caucasus.

The old man has tea served to his guests. A hot wind blows off the Caspian Sea into his apartment above Makhachkala, the capital of the Republic of Dagestan. To the south lie the slopes of the Caucasus, the mountain range between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, a region hotly contested by major powers for centuries. Ali Aliyev, not wanting his guests to feel uncomfortable, closes the window and turns on the air conditioner.

The 77-year-old is better known by his artist's and war name Adallo. In one of the wistful poems for which he is known, he writes: "Alone in the festival of life, I smile at everything that touches my heart." The poet has a long beard, as white as the shirt he is wearing, and the seam of his gray trousers rests on his bare feet.

"I can only laugh when I hear that some call me the bin Laden of the Caucasus," he says, as he digs for an international list of wanted terrorists, which includes both his name and that of the founder of the al-Qaeda terrorist network, who is currently in hiding. "I can't even read Arabic." In Moscow, he is considered the chief ideologue of radical Islam within Russian territory - a dangerous troublemaker.

In the 1990s, Adallo joined Chechen leader Shamil Basayev's underground movement in the nearby mountains. Basayev was so ruthless he would even take hostages in hospitals, just as his collaborators would later take children hostage at a school in Beslan. Adallo has been under house arrest since he returned to Dagestan from exile in Turkey. His views are apparently unchanged: He still believes that an act of terror like the one that was committed in Beslan in 2004 - in which, in addition to the 31 terrorists, 334 schoolchildren, parents, teachers and soldiers died - is justified. "The Russians have killed far more innocent people in their war against Chechnya," he says.

The Dream of an Islamic Caucasus

Adallo is considered the intellectual father of the men who dream of an Islamic Caucasus, of a caliphate under the rule of Sharia law that would stretch across the region's current borders. Underground fighters in the region are now killing representatives of the government on a daily basis, while Moscow fights back just as brutally.

These are the incidents that occurred last week alone: On Sunday, a suicide bomber killed himself and six others in front of a concert hall in the Chechen capital Grozny; the next day, police shot eight suspected terrorists in a forest near Makhachkala; on Tuesday, four rebels died in a battle in the southern Chechen mountains, and that evening a bomb exploded near the house of the mayor of Magas, the capital of the Republic of Ingushetia.

In the first five months of this year, the Caucasus has already seen more than 300 attacks, in which 75 police officers and 48 civilians died. The authorities, for their part, have "liquidated 112 bandits," as Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced.

The region is "one of the Kremlin's biggest problems," Alexei Malashenko, a security expert with the Moscow Carnegie Center warned lasted Wednesday. On the same day Gennady Saizev, the former head of the Alpha Group counterterrorism unit, said that violence is "increasingly threatening the entire nation."

From Adallo's perspective, when someone armed with a submachine gun forces his way into your apartment, you should be allowed to defend yourself with an ax. The apartment, in his metaphor, is the Caucasus, and Russia the intruder. He mentions former French President Charles de Gaulle, who he says was his favorite Western politician, because he gave Algeria its independence, but only after his country had waged a brutal colonial war. "Here in the Caucasus, the train has also left the station for the Russians."

A Tinderbox in the E.U.'s Backyard

It has been a year since Moscow waged a war in the region - against Georgia. The conflict focused the world's attention on the volatile Caucasus region once again. It was a war over South Ossetia, a small separatist republic that declared its independence in 1991 and over which Tbilisi was attempting to regain control. Russia crushed the Georgian army in the five-day war. But what does the victory mean for the rest of the region?
For Russia, it has meant dealing with pressure coming from two sides. In Russia's Caucasus republics of Dagestan, Ingushetia and Chechnya, Moscow is now under more pressure than ever to prove itself as a peacekeeping power that can guarantee security, create prosperity and rein in Islamists. Yet it must also increase its attractiveness for the countries south of the Caucasus range, so that Armenia, currently its most loyal ally in the region, and oil-rich Azerbaijan, which has managed to walk a fine line between Moscow and Washington, do not follow in Georgia's footsteps and fall under American influence.

Nowhere in the world are so many conflicts raging in such a small region than in the Caucasus, where roughly 40 ethnic groups speaking 50 different languages come together in an area about the size of Sweden. The region is home to only 26 million people, and yet they are separated by a total of 3,500 kilometers (2,180 miles) of borders, some of them contested.

Six wars have raged in the Caucasus since the collapse of the Soviet Union, making it the most dangerous region in proximity to the European Union.

It is precisely through the Caucasus that gas coming from Central Asia and Azerbaijan is expected to flow to Europe one day, bypassing Russia. The pipeline is less than 100 kilometers from the border of South Ossetia, the bone of contention in the most recent war, in a region where Moscow's tanks are now stationed.

All of these factors contribute to a general sense of nervousness among the major powers when it comes to the Caucasus. Russian President Medvedev had hardly finished meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama in Moscow in early July before he demonstratively hurried off to South Ossetia. A short time later, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden met with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in Tbilisi to assure him of Washington's support. At the same time, the United States sent the USS Stout, a destroyer, to the Georgian coast, while Russia amassed 8,500 troops for a military exercise dubbed "Caucasus 2009."

"No One Can Sleep Soundly Here Anymore"

This raises the question of who will control the Caucasus in the future. The West? The Russians? Islam?

With its speedy victory over Georgia last year, Moscow garnered respect in the region, where strength is seen as the highest virtue, and where in fact it has almost cult-like status. Russia has gained two protectorates, the breakaway Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and yet its actions elsewhere in the region have created a credibility problem. Even though the Kremlin has recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states, it continues to suppress similar separatist movements at home. In the case of Chechnya, Moscow's ventures have come at the cost of two wars and more than 100,000 presumed dead.

"Just take a look around in Dagestan and in the Caucasus," says Adallo, the poet, in Makhachkala. "No one can sleep soundly here anymore, neither the people nor those in the government."

Eight weeks ago, a sniper shot Dagestan's interior minister in the heart while he was attending a wedding. He was reputed to have participated directly in the torture of underground fighters, and after he was killed Moscow praised him as a "Russian hero." The mayor of Makhachkala, also a man with a dubious reputation, has survived 15 attempts on his life, and he now runs the lively coastal city from a wheelchair.

A new concrete road runs from Makhachkala into the mountains southwest of the city, enabling Russian tanks and Dagestani police patrols to move more quickly as they hunt down insurgents. There are an estimated 1,000 rebels in this region alone, men who have been unable to find jobs in the Caucasus and, while looking for work in neighboring Russia, are consistently referred to as "black asses," or second-class citizens. Such discrimination only fuels the spirit of resistance among the combative people of the mountains.

Russia's Poorhouse

Troops from the Russian Interior Ministry and the FSB, Russia's domestic intelligence agency, have surrounded the village of Gubden, and checkpoints dot nearby roads. Indignant local residents produce photos of the bodies of two men that show the signs of horrific torture. Meanwhile, the evening news on the government-run television station reports that the two were underground fighters killed in a gun battle with police.

The killings may have been an act of revenge for an incident that happened a few days earlier, when police were ambushed and shot to death. It is difficult to differentiate between victims and perpetrators in the Caucasus. Some underground fighters behave like common criminals when they demand protection money from local residents. The police and intelligence agents, on the other hand, have not shied away from killing innocent people so that they can report successes to Moscow in the hunt for terrorists.

A Heavy Burden on the Kremlin's Budget

On the surface Achulgo, a mountain stronghold perched at 2,100 meters (6,890 feet) above sea level, seems peaceful enough. An elderly woman is selling postcards depicting a likeness of Imam Shamil, who is still revered as a hero by the mountain peoples today. Shamil resisted the Russian army in the 19th century, when Moscow subjugated the Caucasus. In 1855, the war of conquest consumed one-sixth of the budget of czarist Russia, costing Moscow more than it cost the British to subjugate India.

The region still places a heavy burden on the Kremlin's budget today. Moscow has established a garrison for 3,000 soldiers in the town of Botlikh, in a valley near the border with Chechnya and Georgia. In the town square, the face of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is displayed on a poster that promises gas and electricity to local residents. Both services have in fact been provided, and yet the town's 11,000 residents are still unhappy. The garrison takes up pasture land they need for their cows and, worse yet, the Russians threaten traditional customs. One of the town elders complains bitterly about the wives of Russian officers, who do their shopping in the local market "wearing short skirts or men's clothing." By men's clothing he means trousers.

The affluence local residents had anticipated, on the other hand, has yet to materialize. During the Soviet era, Botlikh was known for its apricots. Today, however, the town's small juice factory is shuttered, its business ruined by the high cost of shipping products to Russian cities. The Kremlin spends billions in aid on the Caucasus, and Moscow covers 80 percent of Dagestan's national budget. The Caucasus is Russia's poorhouse.

It is a 1,300-kilometer journey from Dagestan to Abkhazia, on the western flank of the mountain chain, along the M29 transit road. The cities along the way illustrate the waning influence of the central government in Moscow. Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen dictator installed by Putin, has built the largest mosque in the Caucasus in the capital Grozny. His word is law, and he rules the republic as if Chechnya were an independent country. It was in Chechnya that activist Natalya Estemirova sought to expose the human rights violations of the Kadyrov regime - until she was murdered last month.

The "Cote d'Azur of the Soviet Union"

Ingushetian President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov was severely injured in a bomb attack in June near the capital Magas. The Russian security forces there have barricaded themselves behind a 10-meter fence meant to protect against rebel grenade attacks. Farther along the road, near Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia, is Beslan, the site of the 2004 hostage crisis. The only city in the region with an air of hope about it is the Black Sea resort Sochi, the future site of the 2014 Winter Olympics.

It is a three-hour drive from Sochi to Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia, which Moscow now treats as an independent country, but only to irritate Tbilisi. In the government building, a white Stalin-era structure surrounded by palm trees and renovated hotels, a stocky man with a high forehead says that he feels wedged "between the little empire of Georgia and the big empire of Russia." Stanislav Lakoba is the coordinator of security services in the Abkhazian government. A historian, he is viewed with suspicion in Moscow for having written several books in which he refutes the Russian version of history, according to which Abkhazia joined the czardom "voluntarily" in 1810.

Lakoba has long been considered a mastermind of the Abkhazian independence movement. Unlike the bitterly poor South Ossetians, who want to be united with North Ossetia on the Russian side of the border, the idea of real independence appeals to many of Abkhazia's 200,000 residents. A critical press there finds fault with Moscow's dominant role in the 220-kilometer coastal strip, which, as the "Cote d'Azur of the Soviet Union," once attracted 2 million tourists a year.

Since Lakoba's boss, Abkhazian President Sergei Bagapsh, announced his support for a plan to allow foreigners to buy local real estate, the threat of a fire sale to Russians has been the main topic of conversation in the city's cafes. "We could soon end up like the Indians, who sold Manhattan for cheap necklaces," warns the editor-in-chief of a local daily newspaper.

In his book "The History of Abkhazia," Lakoba describes how his homeland was afflicted by forced displacement, punitive expeditions and bloody ethnic cleansing, sometimes initiated by Moscow and sometimes by Tbilisi. One of the victims was Lakoba's great-uncle Nestor. He was the leader of the Abkhaz Autonomous Republic when Georgian Communist leader Lavrentiy Beria poisoned him in Tbilisi in 1936, simultaneously poisoning the relationship between Abkhazians and Georgians.

Lakoba sums up the policies of the Bolsheviks' predecessors when he writes: "Czarism needed Abkhazia without Abkhazians." But which Abkhazia needs Putinism today? Russia's strongman, who wants to prevent NATO barracks on Georgian soil from encroaching on his summer home in Sochi, treats Abkhazia and South Ossetia as his pawn against foreign influence. Lakoba, on the other hand, envisions Abkhazia as a "small, neutral and cosmopolitan state."

Vestiges of a Civil War

The road to the impoverished provincial city of Gali, 70 kilometers south of Sukhumi, is lined with burned-out houses, vestiges of the 1990s civil war. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Georgian national guard and paramilitary units attacked Abkhazia, which was seeking independence and was supported in its effort by Moscow. The conflict claimed the lives of 8,000 soldiers and civilians on both sides and forced 240,000 people to flee Abkhazia.

Because of that civil war, not even the smallest political faction can imagine reintegration into Georgia today. The "territorial integrity of Georgia" demanded by Americans and Europeans is currently nothing but an empty phrase.

A road dotted with deep potholes, with more oxen on it than people, leads from Gali to the border between Abkhazia and Georgia. At the border checkpoint, uniformed Abkhazians serve in rusty metal huts, reinforced by Russian FSB border guards living in gray tents surrounded by a barbed-wire fence.

German prisoners of war built the bridge spanning the Inguri River into Georgia proper after World War II. The murky water flows between the warring Caucasus republics. Georgian villages on the opposite bank shimmer, mirage-like, in the sweltering early afternoon heat.

A hunched-over, 80-year-old woman wearing oversized rubber boots is trudging toward the bridge. She lives in a village on the Abkhazian side and is returning from a hospital stay in the nearby Georgian city of Zugdidi. The woman is too poor to pay the fare of one Lari, or about 42 cents, to cross the bridge on a horse-drawn cart. But then help arrives, as a convoy of four white, armor-clad jeeps flying the blue flag of the European Union slowly approaches the bridge. An officer from Lithuania gets out of one of the jeeps, speaks to the woman and gives her the Lari.

Since a Russian veto in the United Nations Security Council barred U.N. troops from patrolling in Abkhazia, and since the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), yielding to pressure from the Russians, abandoned its missions in Georgia proper, Abkhazia and Ossetia, the E.U. has been providing the only international observers in the crisis-stricken region. The E.U. contingent patrolling the 170-kilometer Georgian border with Abkhazia consists of 69 men from 13 nations, including 22 Germans.

Carsten Frommann, a blonde senior police detective from the eastern German city of Dessau who has already served in Sudan, gives the order for the convoy to continue along its route. "In case of frontal attack, all vehicles are to drive in reverse, in case of an attack at the center, the vehicles at the front should move forward and the ones at the back should move backward," he recommends, before the group reaches the "dirty triangle," a few square kilometers along the border zone where smugglers have been causing trouble lately.

Since June, the E.U. observers have referred to the area as the "bloody triangle." In one incident, a mine exploded, killing the driver of the mission's ambulance. But everything is going smoothly today, with the exception of a small incident in Paluri, a village of 1,000 inhabitants, where an angry crowd forces the convoy to come to a standstill. The villagers have been without electricity for one-and-a-half months. "There are those here who would like us to be in charge," says Wolfram Hoffmann, a retired colonel in the German military, the Bundeswehr.

What Has Russia Gained from the War?

Just past the Georgian border crossing, along the Inguri River, there is a large billboard depicting a likeness of Georgian President Saakashvili, wearing a pinstriped suit and a red tie, and the slogan: "We are Uniting Georgia." Saakashvili, who came to power in Georgia's Rose Revolution in 2003, has reinvigorated the Georgian economy through privatization and with the help of foreign aid money.

He has built roads, curbed police corruption and ensured a relatively reliable supply of power, water and gas. But none of this counts at the moment. Since his attempt to reintegrate South Ossetia by force failed, his opponents have taken to calling him "Mikheil the Destroyer." Nevertheless, his decline in popularity has not brought him down yet - despite Moscow's fervent hopes that it would - because the West continues to support him and the opposition is deeply divided.

What has Russia gained from the 2008 war in Georgia? It has secured control over two small pieces of territory in the southern Caucasus, with a combined land area slightly larger than Jamaica and recognized only by Nicaragua. Much of the remaining southern Caucasus, with its natural resources and energy corridors, is choosing its own path, while lawlessness in the northern Caucasus becomes more and more pervasive by the day. "The Kremlin hasn't the slightest idea what to do next in this region," says Moscow political scientist Malashenko.

It is only on the Armenian border with Turkey, in the village of Lusarat at the foot of snow-covered Mt. Ararat, that the farmers appreciate the Russians, referring to them as "brothers who protect us." Moscow's troops are protecting the Armenian border, and Russia is training Armenian officers and supplying the country with almost all of the natural gas it needs. It owns the pipelines in Armenia, most of the country's power plants, the largest mobile network operator and even the government-run savings banks.

But 80 percent of Armenia's exports pass through Georgia. Because of the Russian-Georgian war, the government in Yerevan has recognized how economically isolated the mountainous country is, prompting it to cautiously approach reconciliation with archenemy Turkey. It has also moved forward with plans to reopen the border with Azerbaijan, closed since the 1993 war between the two countries. If that happens, a new bridge could be built across the river that forms the border at Lusarat, opening up a new point of entry for tourists and trade.

A village resident sits at a table in the shade of an apple tree. Whenever he receives a call on his mobile phone, he hears a curt voice, instead of the standard ring tone, that says: "Comrade, pick up the phone. Stalin wants to talk to you." The humble outpost of Lusarat is all that is left, on the border with a NATO country, to bear witness to the empire of the former Soviet dictator, a native Georgian. Every year, on a day set aside to honor the border troops, the villagers embrace the Russian soldiers and bring them apricots and apples.

If Moscow had its way, every village in the Caucasus would be like Lusarat. But not even at the Kremlin does anyone believe that the past can repeat itself.

Jordan's King Abdullah stands by Palestinian right of return

Amman - Jordanian King Abdullah II said Tuesday his country would continue to support the right of Palestinian refugees to return to homes that they fled upon Israel's foundation in 1948. "Our adherence to the refugees' right of return and compensations is a firm attitude that cannot be changed, and no power will be able to forced on Jordan any attitude that runs counter to our interests," the monarch said in a meeting with army commanders.

Abdullah said that he was responding to "rumours circulated by those who have suspicious agendas and who sought to undermine Jordan's stability."

He alluded to recent reports in the Arab press alleging that Jordan and other moderate Arab countries were under pressure from US President Barack Obama to accept peace for the settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict, including resettlement of Palestinian refugees where they live in Arab countries.

"I have followed up what has been said about the refugees issue, which is regrettable. Our attitude towards the refugees issue will not change, and our adherence to their right of return and reparations is firm and unquestionable," King Abdullah said.

Resolution 194, adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 1948, six months after Israel's foundation, called for the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes and payment of compensation for those who choose not to return.

Jordan hosts 1.8 million Palestinian refugees and their descendants, according to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).

Kashmir resolution crucial to peace in South Asia: Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Nearly three weeks after the Indo-Pak joint statement in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Pakistan on Wednesday insisted that there was no change in
its foreign policy and raked up its demand for an "independent Kashmir" for "long-lasting" peace in South Asia.

Asked if Pakistan's foreign policy had witnessed a U-turn in recent times, Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit said there was no major change in the country's stance on issues concerning external affairs.

"There has been no change in our foreign policy. We want an independent Kashmir. We want the Kashmir issue to be resolved in accordance with the wishes of the people," Basit told newsmen here.

There was no mention of Kashmir in the Indo-Pak joint statement that was issued on July 16 after the meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistan counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani in Sharm-el-Sheikh on the sidelines of the summit of Non-Aligned Movement.

In the joint statement India and Pakistan said "dialogue is the only way forward" and New Delhi agreed to "discuss all issues with Pakistan, including all outstanding issues".

"On a basic level until the issue of Kashmir is resolved we cannot imagine long-lasting peace in the region," Basit said.

He said with a democratically-elected government at the helm in Pakistan, the diplomatic tools available with it had increased.

"We can use these tools better to achieve our foreign policy objectives," Basit said.

He maintained that dialogue was necessary to address all issues between the two countries.

"As far as India is concerned, we have issues, which should be resolved through dialogue. We have always tried to do so. Presently terrorism is a major problem before us which needs to be addressed," he said.

Talking to reporters in Karachi, Basit said there is a need to shift from a paradigm of conflict to one of cooperation as far as relations between Pakistan and India are concerned.

Calling for a change of mindset, he said there are about 400 million people living below the poverty line in India and poverty is also one of the challenges confronting Pakistan.

Basit said he was optimistic that the Indian leadership and people would understand that that terrorism and militancy are issues facing the entire region.

He also hoped they would understand the need for shifting the paradigm with regard to ties between the two countries from conflict to cooperation.

Replying to a question about the Mumbai terror attacks, he said those responsible for the incident should be brought to book and punished.

Pakistan is not oblivious to its defense needs and there will be no compromise on the credible defense of the country, Basit said.

"We would fully protect the country's interests," he added.

Responding to another question, he said Pakistan and the US are together in the fight against terrorism. Referring to US drone attacks within Pakistani territory, he said, "We are aware of the concerns of the people of Pakistan and these drone attacks should be stopped."

Blackwater Founder Implicated in Murder

Jeremy Scahill

August 4, 2009

A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company's owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince's companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life."

In their testimony, both men also allege that Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq. One of the men alleges that Prince turned a profit by transporting "illegal" or "unlawful" weapons into the country on Prince's private planes. They also charge that Prince and other Blackwater executives destroyed incriminating videos, emails and other documents and have intentionally deceived the US State Department and other federal agencies. The identities of the two individuals were sealed out of concerns for their safety.

These allegations, and a series of other charges, are contained in sworn affidavits, given under penalty of perjury, filed late at night on August 3 in the Eastern District of Virginia as part of a seventy-page motion by lawyers for Iraqi civilians suing Blackwater for alleged war crimes and other misconduct. Susan Burke, a private attorney working in conjunction with the Center for Constitutional Rights, is suing Blackwater in five separate civil cases filed in the Washington, DC, area. They were recently consolidated before Judge T.S. Ellis III of the Eastern District of Virginia for pretrial motions. Burke filed the August 3 motion in response to Blackwater's motion to dismiss the case. Blackwater asserts that Prince and the company are innocent of any wrongdoing and that they were professionally performing their duties on behalf of their employer, the US State Department.

The former employee, identified in the court documents as "John Doe #2," is a former member of Blackwater's management team, according to a source close to the case. Doe #2 alleges in a sworn declaration that, based on information provided to him by former colleagues, "it appears that Mr. Prince and his employees murdered, or had murdered, one or more persons who have provided information, or who were planning to provide information, to the federal authorities about the ongoing criminal conduct." John Doe #2 says he worked at Blackwater for four years; his identity is concealed in the sworn declaration because he "fear[s] violence against me in retaliation for submitting this Declaration." He also alleges, "On several occasions after my departure from Mr. Prince's employ, Mr. Prince's management has personally threatened me with death and violence."

In a separate sworn statement, the former US marine who worked for Blackwater in Iraq alleges that he has "learned from my Blackwater colleagues and former colleagues that one or more persons who have provided information, or who were planning to provide information about Erik Prince and Blackwater have been killed in suspicious circumstances." Identified as "John Doe #1," he says he "joined Blackwater and deployed to Iraq to guard State Department and other American government personnel." It is not clear if Doe #1 is still working with the company as he states he is "scheduled to deploy in the immediate future to Iraq." Like Doe #2, he states that he fears "violence" against him for "submitting this Declaration." No further details on the alleged murder(s) are provided.

"Mr. Prince feared, and continues to fear, that the federal authorities will detect and prosecute his various criminal deeds," states Doe #2. "On more than one occasion, Mr. Prince and his top managers gave orders to destroy emails and other documents. Many incriminating videotapes, documents and emails have been shredded and destroyed."

The Nation cannot independently verify the identities of the two individuals, their roles at Blackwater or what motivated them to provide sworn testimony in these civil cases. Both individuals state that they have previously cooperated with federal prosecutors conducting a criminal inquiry into Blackwater.

"It's a pending investigation, so we cannot comment on any matters in front of a Grand Jury or if a Grand Jury even exists on these matters," John Roth, the spokesperson for the US Attorney's office in the District of Columbia, told The Nation. "It would be a crime if we did that." Asked specifically about whether there is a criminal investigation into Prince regarding the murder allegations and other charges, Roth said: "We would not be able to comment on what we are or are not doing in regards to any possible investigation involving an uncharged individual."

The Nation repeatedly attempted to contact spokespeople for Prince or his companies at numerous email addresses and telephone numbers. When a company representative was reached by phone and asked to comment, she said, "Unfortunately no one can help you in that area." The representative then said that she would pass along The Nation's request. As this article goes to press, no company representative has responded further to The Nation.

Doe #2 states in the declaration that he has also provided the information contained in his statement "in grand jury proceedings convened by the United States Department of Justice." Federal prosecutors convened a grand jury in the aftermath of the September 16, 2007, Nisour Square shootings in Baghdad, which left seventeen Iraqis dead. Five Blackwater employees are awaiting trial on several manslaughter charges and a sixth, Jeremy Ridgeway, has already pleaded guilty to manslaughter and attempting to commit manslaughter and is cooperating with prosecutors. It is not clear whether Doe #2 testified in front of the Nisour Square grand jury or in front of a separate grand jury.

The two declarations are each five pages long and contain a series of devastating allegations concerning Erik Prince and his network of companies, which now operate under the banner of Xe Services LLC. Among those leveled by Doe #2 is that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe":

To that end, Mr. Prince intentionally deployed to Iraq certain men who shared his vision of Christian supremacy, knowing and wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis. Many of these men used call signs based on the Knights of the Templar, the warriors who fought the Crusades.

Mr. Prince operated his companies in a manner that encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life. For example, Mr. Prince's executives would openly speak about going over to Iraq to "lay Hajiis out on cardboard." Going to Iraq to shoot and kill Iraqis was viewed as a sport or game. Mr. Prince's employees openly and consistently used racist and derogatory terms for Iraqis and other Arabs, such as "ragheads" or "hajiis."

Among the additional allegations made by Doe #1 is that "Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq." He states that he personally witnessed weapons being "pulled out" from dog food bags. Doe #2 alleges that "Prince and his employees arranged for the weapons to be polywrapped and smuggled into Iraq on Mr. Prince's private planes, which operated under the name Presidential Airlines," adding that Prince "generated substantial revenues from participating in the illegal arms trade."

Doe #2 states: "Using his various companies, [Prince] procured and distributed various weapons, including unlawful weapons such as sawed off semi-automatic machine guns with silencers, through unlawful channels of distribution." Blackwater "was not abiding by the terms of the contract with the State Department and was deceiving the State Department," according to Doe #1.

This is not the first time an allegation has surfaced that Blackwater used dog food bags to smuggle weapons into Iraq. ABC News's Brian Ross reported in November 2008 that a "federal grand jury in North Carolina is investigating allegations the controversial private security firm Blackwater illegally shipped assault weapons and silencers to Iraq, hidden in large sacks of dog food." Another former Blackwater employee has also confirmed this information to The Nation.

Both individuals allege that Prince and Blackwater deployed individuals to Iraq who, in the words of Doe #1, "were not properly vetted and cleared by the State Department." Doe #2 adds that "Prince ignored the advice and pleas from certain employees, who sought to stop the unnecessary killing of innocent Iraqis." Doe #2 further states that some Blackwater officials overseas refused to deploy "unfit men" and sent them back to the US. Among the reasons cited by Doe #2 were "the men making statements about wanting to deploy to Iraq to 'kill ragheads' or achieve 'kills' or 'body counts,'" as well as "excessive drinking" and "steroid use." However, when the men returned to the US, according to Doe #2, "Prince and his executives would send them back to be deployed in Iraq with an express instruction to the concerned employees located overseas that they needed to 'stop costing the company money.'"

Doe #2 also says Prince "repeatedly ignored the assessments done by mental health professionals, and instead terminated those mental health professionals who were not willing to endorse deployments of unfit men." He says Prince and then-company president Gary Jackson "hid from Department of State the fact that they were deploying men to Iraq over the objections of mental health professionals and security professionals in the field," saying they "knew the men being deployed were not suitable candidates for carrying lethal weaponry, but did not care because deployments meant more money."

Doe #1 states that "Blackwater knew that certain of its personnel intentionally used excessive and unjustified deadly force, and in some instances used unauthorized weapons, to kill or seriously injure innocent Iraqi civilians." He concludes, "Blackwater did nothing to stop this misconduct." Doe #1 states that he "personally observed multiple incidents of Blackwater personnel intentionally using unnecessary, excessive and unjustified deadly force." He then cites several specific examples of Blackwater personnel firing at civilians, killing or "seriously" wounding them, and then failing to report the incidents to the State Department.

Doe #1 also alleges that "all of these incidents of excessive force were initially videotaped and voice recorded," but that "Immediately after the day concluded, we would watch the video in a session called a 'hot wash.' Immediately after the hotwashing, the video was erased to prevent anyone other than Blackwater personnel seeing what had actually occurred." Blackwater, he says, "did not provide the video to the State Department."

Doe #2 expands on the issue of unconventional weapons, alleging Prince "made available to his employees in Iraq various weapons not authorized by the United States contracting authorities, such as hand grenades and hand grenade launchers. Mr. Prince's employees repeatedly used this illegal weaponry in Iraq, unnecessarily killing scores of innocent Iraqis." Specifically, he alleges that Prince "obtained illegal ammunition from an American company called LeMas. This company sold ammunition designed to explode after penetrating within the human body. Mr. Prince's employees repeatedly used this illegal ammunition in Iraq to inflict maximum damage on Iraqis."

Blackwater has gone through an intricate rebranding process in the twelve years it has been in business, changing its name and logo several times. Prince also has created more than a dozen affiliate companies, some of which are registered offshore and whose operations are shrouded in secrecy. According to Doe #2, "Prince created and operated this web of companies in order to obscure wrongdoing, fraud and other crimes."

"For example, Mr. Prince transferred funds from one company (Blackwater) to another (Greystone) whenever necessary to avoid detection of his money laundering and tax evasion schemes." He added: "Mr. Prince contributed his personal wealth to fund the operations of the Prince companies whenever he deemed such funding necessary. Likewise, Mr. Prince took funds out of the Prince companies and placed the funds in his personal accounts at will."

Briefed on the substance of these allegations by The Nation, Congressman Dennis Kucinich replied, "If these allegations are true, Blackwater has been a criminal enterprise defrauding taxpayers and murdering innocent civilians." Kucinich is on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and has been investigating Prince and Blackwater since 2004.

"Blackwater is a law unto itself, both internationally and domestically. The question is why they operated with impunity. In addition to Blackwater, we should be questioning their patrons in the previous administration who funded and employed this organization. Blackwater wouldn't exist without federal patronage; these allegations should be thoroughly investigated," Kucinich said.

A hearing before Judge Ellis in the civil cases against Blackwater is scheduled for August 7.

Speeding Stars Confirm Bizarre Nature of Faraway Galaxies

Stars in a distant galaxy move at stunning speeds — greater than 1 million mph, astronomers have revealed.

These hyperactive stars move at about twice the speed of our sun through the Milky Way, because their host galaxy is very massive, yet strangely compact. The scene, which has theorists baffled, is 11 billion light-years away. It is the first time motions of individual stars have been measured in a galaxy so distant.

While the stars' swiftness is notable, stars in other galaxies have been observed to travel at similarly high speeds. In those situations, it was usually because they were interlopers from outside, or circling close to a black hole.

But in this case, the stars' high velocities help astronomers confirm that the galaxy they belong to really is as massive as earlier data suggested.

Bizarre, indeed

The compact nature of this and similar galaxies in the faraway early universe is puzzling to scientists, who don't yet understand why some young, massive galaxies are about five times smaller than their counterparts today.

"A lot of people were thinking we had overestimated these masses in the past," said Yale University astronomer Pieter van Dokkum, leader of the new study. "But this confirms they are extremely massive for their size. These galaxies are indeed as bizarre as we thought they were."

Scientists used the new velocity measurements, conducted with the Gemini South telescope in Chile and the Hubble Space Telescope, to test the mass of a galaxy identified as 1255-0. The same way that the sun's gravity determines the orbiting speed of the Earth, the galaxy's gravity, and thus its mass, determines the velocities of the stars inside it.

The researchers found that indeed, the galaxy is exceptionally dense.

Given its distance of 11 billion light-years, galaxy 1255-0 is seen as it existed 11 billion years ago, less than 3 billion years after the theoretical Big Bang. Among other galaxies we can observe from this time period, about 30 to 40 percent are compact like this one. But in the modern, nearby universe, astronomers don't find anything similar.

Something wrong?

Somehow, high-mass galaxies from the young universe grow in size but not in mass – they spread out but maintain their overall heft – to become the high-mass galaxies we see today.

"It's a bit of a puzzle," van Dokkum told SPACE.com. "We think these galaxies must grow through collisions with other galaxies. The weird thing is that these mergers must lead to galaxies that are larger in size but not much more massive. We need a mechanism that grows them in size but not in mass."

So far, such a mechanism is elusive, but astronomers have some ideas. Perhaps these galaxies expand their girth by merging with many small, low-mass galaxies. Or maybe these galaxies eventually become the dense central regions of even larger galaxies.

"It could also still be that we are doing something wrong," van Dokkum said. "But I think at the moment you could say that the ball is somewhat in the court of the theorists. Hopefully they can come up with some kind of explanation that we can test further."

Government map shows dire Afghan security picture

By Paul Tait

KABUL (Reuters) - Almost half of Afghanistan is at a high risk of attack by the Taliban and other insurgents or is under "enemy control," a secret Afghan government map shows, painting a dire security picture before presidential elections.

The threat assessment map, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, shows 133 of Afghanistan's 356 districts are regarded as high-risk areas with at least 13 under "enemy control."

The map, which bears the logos of Afghanistan's Interior Ministry and the army as well as the United Nations Department of Safety and Security, was produced in April 2009, before a dramatic escalation of violence ahead of the August 20 ballot.

The Interior Ministry was not immediately available for comment despite several telephone calls and emails on Wednesday.

The map shows virtually the entire south of the country under extreme risk of attack, a vast swathe stretching from Farah in the west through Helmand province in the south and east toward provinces such as Paktia and Nangarhar near the Pakistan border.

The Taliban have vowed to disrupt the poll and have called on Afghans to boycott the vote. Their traditional strongholds have been in the south and east but their influence has steadily spread to the west and north, even to the outskirts of Kabul. It shows at-risk areas on three sides of the capital.

In a dramatic attack demonstrating their new reach, Islamist insurgents fired up to nine rockets into the capital early on Tuesday, the first attack of its kind in several years.

Attacks across the country this year had already reached their worst level since the Taliban were toppled by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in 2001 and escalated further after thousands of U.S. Marines launched a new offensive in Helmand last month.

The offensive, and a similar British thrust in Helmand, were the first under U.S. President Barack Obama's new regional strategy to defeat the Taliban and its Islamist allies and stabilize Afghanistan.

For a link to the map, click here

CRUCIAL TEST

Escalating violence threatens to overshadow the ballot, which in turn is seen as a crucial test of Obama's new strategy and of Kabul's ability to stage a credible and legitimate ballot.

"The Afghan National Security Forces and the International Security Assistance Force are ready to secure the upcoming elections and we expect that no major security incident will take place during the elections," said Ministry of Defense spokesman General Zaher Azimy.

The United Nations confirmed the map's authenticity but said it had merely played an oversight role, helping with graphics.

"The map is an Afghan government map," said U.N. spokesman Aleem Siddique in Kabul. "It's certainly not for us to speak publicly on it or comment on it or define it," he said.

The map, entitled ANSF Provincial/District Threat Assessment, 23 April 2009, provides some of the first concrete evidence of poor security that may threaten voter turnout in Afghanistan's southern Pashtun belt, President Hamid Karzai's power base.

Potentially poor turnout in the south is one of the biggest threats to Karzai's chances of re-election. He is the clear front-runner in a slowly diminishing field of 35 challengers.

A poor turnout in the south would increase the likelihood of a second round run-off if no candidate gets more than 50 percent in the first round of voting, election observers say.

That would in turn open the chance for one of Karzai's main rivals, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah or ex-finance minister Ashraf Ghani, to build a coalition to take on Karzai, who has ruled since 2001 and won the first direct vote in 2004.

The ANSF threat map also appears to back up fears first expressed by think-tank the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS) that much more of Afghanistan was under threat than the government and foreign forces had acknowledged.

It said last December the Taliban held a significant presence in 72 percent of Afghanistan by the end of 2008, a dramatic increase on the previous year. Their research was based on one or more reported attacks in an area a week.

NATO and the Afghan government, however, rejected the ICOS report, formerly known as the Senlis Council, saying the Taliban were only present in the south and east.