BLACK LIST UN n. 1287

Committee with respect Al-Qaida - Usama bin Laden - Taliban and other individuals, groups, undertakings and entities associated with them.

http://www.un.org/sc/committees/1267/pdf/consolidatedlist.pdf

I°. General information.

The Security Council Committee established pursuant to paragraph 6 of resolution 1267 (1999) concerning Al-Qaida and the Taliban and associated individuals and entities (hereafter referred to as the “Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee”) oversees the implementation by States of the three sanctions measures (assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo) imposed by the Security Council on individuals and entities associated with the Taliban, Usama Bin Laden and the Al-Qaida organization. The Committee maintains a Consolidated List of individuals and entities subject to the sanctions measures. By resolutions 1267 (1999), 1333 (2000), 1390 (2002), as reiterated in resolutions 1455 (2003), 1526 (2004), 1617 (2005), 1735 (2006), 1822 (2008) and 1904 (2009), the Security Council has obliged all States to:

- freeze without delay the funds and other financial assets or economic resources, including funds derived from property owned or controlled directly or indirectly
- prevent the entry into or the transit through their territories
- prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale, or transfer of arms and related material, including military and paramilitary equipment, technical advice, assistance or training related to military activities, with regard to the individuals, groups, undertakings and entities placed on the Consolidated List.

II°. Composition of the list.

The Consolidated List consists of four sections, specified below:

a) Individuals associated with the Taliban (135 individuals)
b) Entities and other groups and undertakings associated with the Taliban (none)
c) Individuals associated with Al-Qaida (259 individuals)
d) Entities and other groups and undertakings associated with Al-Qaida (92 entities)

All names and identifying information on the Consolidated List have been submitted to the Committee by United Nations Member States and international organizations. Individuals are listed alphabetically by their family name/surname/last name as it appears in Latin script. Entities are also arranged in alphabetical order. All geographical locations are reproduced as submitted and are cited without prejudice to their political or legal status. Narrative summaries of reasons for listing, where available, can also be found on the Committee’s website. Members States are strongly encouraged, wherever possible, to submit to the Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee, through their Permanent Missions to the United Nations in New York, any relevant information not currently included on the Consolidated List.

The Consolidated List maintained on this website was last updated on 21 October 2010, and supersedes all previous versions. Further changes will be made to the Consolidated List immediately following the relevant decision of the Committee. A press release documenting such changes will also be issued and posted in the "Press releases" section. The List is available in the PDF, XML and HTML formats.

Delistings: The names of 40 Individuals and 45 Entities have been removed from the Consolidated List. These delistings include 11 Taliban Individuals, 9 Taliban Entities, 28 Al-Qaida Individuals and 36 Al-Qaida Entities.

III°. Identifiers and acronyms in the list.

The Consolidated List has several fields for identifiers.

Where information is lacking, the letters "na" (not available) denote that the Committee has not yet been able to obtain it. Explanations of the fields used in the Consolidated List are provided below.

Individuals

- Permanent reference number. (see Guidance Note).
- Name 1, Name 2, Name 3, Name 4: Four separate name fields have been provided in order to accommodate the full range of naming conventions used in all cultures. For example, for Arabic names, Name 1 is the individual's first name/given name, Name 2 is the name of the individual's father, Name 3 is the name of the individual's grandfather and Name 4 is the individual's family name/surname/last name (if known).

In many instances, individuals included in the List are represented by less than four names. There are several possible reasons for this, such as: a) information regarding some parts of the complete name is unavailable; or b) the naming convention used for that individual does not employ all four components. Users should bear in mind that there is no universal standard for transliterating Arabic and other names into Latin characters. This can result in a number of variations in spelling. Cross referencing names with other elements of the information contained in the List and searching for different possible spellings of the same name is therefore highly recommended (see Guidance Note).

- Name (original script): Name as it would appear in the original script (e.g. Arabic, Cyrillic, Farsi/Dari, etc.)
- Title: Honorary, professional, religious or other title (current or last held).
- Designation: Official title/position/occupation.
- DOB: Date of birth, including alternative date(s) of birth.
- POB: Place of birth, including alternative place(s) of birth.
- Good quality a.k.a.: Alias(es) (also known as) sufficient for a positive identification. Note that names in this field are not separated as Name 1, 2, 3, 4 but are listed as full names.
- Low quality a.k.a.: Alias(es) (also known as) probably insufficient alone for a positive identification.
- Nationality: previous or current nationality or citizenship.
- Passport no.: Passport, travel or substitute/auxiliary document number(s).
- National identification no.: such as ID card numbers, Social Security numbers, Fiscal Code or Tax Identification numbers
- Address: permanent, temporary or previous residence(s) or address(es) for correspondence.
- Listed on: date on which the Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee placed the individual on the Consolidated List and of any amendments it made regarding the listed individual.
- Other information: Supplementary information relevant to identification of the individual.

Entities.

- Permanent reference number (see Guidance Note).
- Name: name of entity and any acronyms.
- Name (original script): name as it would appear in the original script (e.g. Arabic, Cyrillic, Farsi/Dari,)
- A.k.a.: Alias(es) (also known as) and any acronyms.
- F.k.a.: formerly known as and any acronyms.
- Address: Address(es) where entity is domiciled or registered or has branch(es)/office(s) or correspondence address(es).
- Listed on: date on which the Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee placed the entity on the - Consolidated List and of any amendments it made regarding the listed entity.
- Other information: Supplementary information relevant to identification of the entity.

IRAN - EU Sanctions - Official Journal of the European Union

The text of the Decision and Regulation 961/2010 concerning restrictive measures against Iran, recently published in the Official Journal of the European Communities (L 281 of 27 October 2010).

Decisions: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2010:281:0081:0095:EN:PDF

Regulations: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2010:281:0001:0077:EN:PDF

CIA suicide bomber: What went wrong depends on who you ask

In the wake of the deadly attack at one of its bases in Afghanistan, there is disagreement among CIA veterans about what went wrong.

Intelligence officials, both current and former, all agree that mistakes were made. But what that says about the broader problems in the CIA is a matter of debate. Ask some and it is a matter of communication. Others, a problem of a lack of experience.

In a report finalized this week, CIA Director Leon Panetta concluded it was a systemic failure within the agency and not the actions of one person or group that enabled a Jordanian informant to blow himself up along with nine other people at the remote CIA post.

The internal agency review indicated poor communications in the field and at headquarters, insufficient security measures at the base and lax management oversight all contributed to the circumstances that culminated with Humam Khalil Abi-Mulal Balawi detonating the bomb last December at the CIA forward operating base in Khost, near the border with Pakistan. Killed were seven CIA employees, an Afghan driver and a Jordanian intelligence officer. Six CIA officers were seriously injured.

The CIA and other government agencies were heavily criticized after 9/11 for not sharing information with each other, which might have prevented the deadly terrorist attacks. The agency has made a number of changes over the years to correct the problems. But following the failed attempt to blow up an airliner last Christmas, a Senate Intelligence Committee review faulted the CIA for failing to disseminate relevant intelligence about the suspected bomber to all offices and individuals who needed to know.

In the Khost case, CIA officers both in the field and at headquarters did not pass on pertinent information or did so through informal channels such as texting and e-mails. U.S. intelligence officials say the officers at the Khost base were not aware of all of the reporting on the informant which might have made them more cautious in dealing with the man they thought was a valuable asset.

A former senior intelligence officer familiar with the report said it appears to be more of a failure to appreciate the information than it was a failure to share it.

"I think it's less the impediments to moving information as it was to the judgment that this didn't deserve to be moved," said the former official.

A current U.S. intelligence official disputed any contention that the CIA continues to have an information-sharing problem. He said the situation with the Christmas Day bombing attempt on a U.S.-bound aircraft was very different from what happened leading up to Khost. The airliner incident pointed to a problem with putting the bits and pieces of information together - connecting the dots - to prevent a potential attack.

The official said the issue with Khost was with vetting the asset.

"Concerns were raised in Washington and overseas that Balawi might be a double agent, but they weren't properly communicated," said the official, and added, "No one - even those who expressed skepticism - thought he was a possible suicide bomber."

However, a former intelligence officer who served mostly overseas in various hotspots, said the real problem was a failure of leadership in the field, and blamed bosses at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, for putting a person not qualified in charge of the base.

The CIA post was lead by Jennifer Matthews, one of the CIA's top al Qaeda analysts, who had spent very little time in overseas assignments and had been in charge of Khost for only a few months.

The current and former officials that CNN talked to never questioned the decision to meet with the informant - there was reason to believe he had critical information - but some wondered how he could get so close to so many CIA employees before anyone attempted to search him.

The former spy said all informants in that region have to be considered a threat no matter how much they have been vetted.

"Any time you're 10 miles from the federally administered tribal areas in Pakistan, you have to believe every asset is a danger and that everything you do could get you killed," said the officer.

Even the current U.S. intelligence official indicated, "someone was probably going to die that day, even if Balawi had been searched further out."

But the former operative did not believe Matthews, who was among those killed in the attack, had the necessary experience in the field to understand the full scope of the perils.

This officer as well as others that CNN spoke to did not place the blame directly on Matthews.

"She was a fine al Qaeda analyst, but she wasn't prepared for the field and the people who sent her out there are ultimately responsible for what happened," said the former operative.

Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA bin Laden unit who hired Matthews, said she was equipped to handle the job.

"She had more experience, more training than a great number of people we send overseas to go into harm's way," said Scheuer. He believes there was probably less rigorous security with the informant because he had been recruited by the Jordanian spy service, a trusted ally.

Most of the current and former intelligence officers would not speak on the record because of the sensitivity of the issue within the agency.

CIA spokesman George Little took exception to those who he felt spoke ill of fallen colleagues, saying, "Criticizing them is bad enough, but doing so anonymously is even more shameful."

But it does raise the question of whether the CIA has a sufficient number of skilled operatives - people with language proficiency, cultural awareness and war-zone training - to work in the terrorist mine fields overseas.

One of the recommendations in the CIA Khost review called for "expanding our training effort for both managers and officers on hostile environments and counterintelligence challenges."

According to the CIA, more than 50 percent of the current workforce came on board following the 9/11 attacks.

The U.S. intelligence official said there is a very seasoned group of younger officers who are more experienced to deal with today's high-risk assets than their counterparts during the Cold War days.

The new generation has served in war zones - in Iraq, in Afghanistan - and has been trained to deal with deadly terrorists, said the official, who added, "Cold War officers generally did not fear for their lives."

The former senior intelligence official agreed that the quality of covert officers is really good, but acknowledged there are a lot of junior people in senior roles. "There is an expanded force, expanded mission which is going to be stretched and extended, but you have to play with the team you got," said the former official.

A former overseas operative said the bench is thin. "There are not enough trained operatives and certainly there are not enough with the skill sets for the region," the officer said, referring to the Middle East and southwest Asia. The officer worried about a young workforce and the potential for lethal mistakes in the field.

Scheuer said the officers at Khost were "emblematic" of the problems faced by the CIA in the current international environment. "The agency and military are stretched to the breaking point in terms of people. You don't have three, four, five years to train people before they go overseas. It's just the nature of the game," he said.

There could also be a cultural aspect that influences the actions of covert officers. The U.S. intelligence official said, "CIA officers are trained to protect their sources, who risk their freedom or lives to provide us information that helps protect our country. One lesson learned is that the agency needs to step up its evaluation of assets in dangerous areas, especially the war zones."

What really bugs Scheuer about all of the finger-pointing surrounding the Khost incident is that people seem to forget there is a "talented, patient, clever opponent" out there.

"The enemy beat us. The British intelligence service, the American service, any service would have been proud to conduct the operation they conducted against us. This was a heck of an operation and they got us even though we've torn the guts out them for 14 years," said Scheuer.

The Dogs of War: Theatre Ballistic Missile Defence Awaits NATO Countdown

On the 19th and 20th of November, NATO Heads of State will gather in Lisbon, Portugal for a so-called ‘summit’ meeting. This much-hyped event will have been planned and prepared during the Foreign Affairs and Defence Ministerial Meetings conducted in Brussels this month.

Although no specific agenda has been released for these meetings, it is relatively safe to assume that two widely divergent topics - the progress of the Afghan war and the subject of missile defence (the defence of NATO territories and populations against medium to long range ballistic missiles) will once again emerge as two red-flag topics during the course of these discussions.

A two-fold complication
These two topics may not seem closely related, but in actuality, they are very closely bound.
This is not based on the supposition that NATO forces deployed in Afghanistan are under any significant ballistic missile threat.

Taliban insurgent forces, even if they had been able to procure a portion of the Scud B inventory abandoned by USSR at the end of its Afghan campaign (which seems highly unlikely), would not be able to deploy or even maintain them. Deployment, preparation and launch of a 300 km range missile with liquid propellants require a minimum control of real estate, both on the ground and in surrounding air space.

This lack of control is quite evident in insurgent operations, where the creation of political instability supersedes territorial control.

Rather, the relationship between Afghan operations and missile defence is, quite simply, financial.

At this point, allow me to reference the guidance provided by official NATO doctrine :“Since NATO took command of ISAF in 2003, the Alliance has gradually expanded the reach of its mission, originally limited to Kabul, to cover all of Afghanistan’s territory. Accordingly, the number of ISAF troops has grown from the initial 5000 to around 120 000 troops from 47 countries, including all 28 NATO member nations.”

Delivering on the promise
This impressive build-up must needs be backed by a sharply increasing fiscal investment. In part, this effort is provided directly by those nations deploying troops and equipment under the NATO command.

That being said, NATO, itself, maintains a proprietary budget dedicated to funding operations, as well as to the development and maintenance of sophisticated tools of Command, Control, Communications and Information which are crucial in this type of campaign.

Of course, most will understand that these ‘sky rocketing’ expenditures for the support of ISAF operations have the highest degree of priority for NATO commanders.

Simultaneously, however, the NATO Infrastructure budget has to fund major programmes already approved and initiated. These include the new NATO Air Command and Control System (ACCS), successor to the old NADGE (NATO Air Defence Ground Environment), the NATO communications infrastructure as well as the Active Layered Theatre Ballistic Missile Defence (ALTBMD) programmes.

If, alongside these current obligations, one adds the immense pressure for several (if not all) of NATO countries’ governments to strictly limit their defence budgets, one may garner a healthy respect for the current situation regarding the NATO infrastructure budget and the way it affects the ability for NATO to undertake a new major programme like missile defence. In two words: ‘no money’, at least until member states disengage from Afghan operations.

At this stage, permit me to highlight some unofficial budgetary estimates which have been circulated concerning the cost of a complete missile defence system (including sensors, weapons and the associated Command, Control and Communications infrastructure).

Put bluntly, we are talking about five digit figures in the millions of Euros or dollars. Even if one spreads these budgetary requirements over, say 10 to 15 years, they are still well above what NATO nations can afford.

Playing the Russia card
The financial hurdle is only one of two major issues plaguing the future of NATO missile defence. The second is politics, and specifically, NATO’s political relationship with Russia. Missile defence had become a major bone of contention (together with the anticipated ratification of Ukraine and Georgia as new NATO members) during the twilight years of President George W. Bush’s administration.

This was directly related to the ‘Ballistic Missile Defence System – European Component (BMDS-EC)’, a US initiative involving installation in central Europe (Poland and the Czech Republic) of permanent sensors and weapons.
Some may interpret this as an act signifying a return to a sort of new Cold War, but the fact is that it threatened the basic consensus among NATO Nations – and this is the key to any NATO decision.

Considering his mandate put forth in mid 2009, Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen had to find a way to mitigate these two major (financial and political) risks and maintain NATO’s course on the missile defence track.

His public strategy was clear and concise.

Concerning funding: missile defence “is the kind of investment that makes sense. Extending missile defence to cover not only deployed troops, but Allied populations at home as well, would cost less than €200 million over ten years.” (extract from NATO press release, June 2010)

Concerning Russia: “NATO wants Russia to be a real stakeholder in European and international security. We need Russia as a partner in resolving the great issues of our time. We should explore the potential for linking the US, NATO and Russia missile defence systems at an appropriate time” (address at the Western Alliance's Brussels HQ in September 2009).

Defining value and cementing partnerships
The question then remains, how did tens of billions shrink to €200 Million? The explanation is quite simple. The underlying goal is seemingly to avoid NATO investment in any type of missile defence sensor or weapon and, instead, to rely on member nations (mostly, if not uniquely, the US) for the provision of their own resources.

This would limit NATO investment in the common Command, Control and Communication (C3) architecture linking these resources together and enabling a NATO central command within the larger ballistic missile strategic framework .

In addition, this C3 architecture would only be a limited extension of the one already in development, which is intended for the protection of deployed NATO troops against Theatre Ballistic Missiles (ALBMD).

Concerning a notional partnership with Russia, all NATO nations will agree that the idea is sound, but the question remains: can we place our undivided trust in a tangible linking between US, NATO and Russian missile defence systems (something which would actually go beyond mere lip service shared by two Commanders in Chief)? This would indeed prove to be both a technical and poltical challenge.

In the final analysis, it bears some hypothesising as to the outcome of the next summit on missile defence.

Confirmation of the benefits for NATO of a (limited) missile defence effort.
No clear decisions on when to initiate said programme. Perhaps some elements of a generic roadmap to the start of the programme, but nothing preparing a significant financial commitment anytime soon.

Renewed call for cooperation between NATO and Russia on European security and missile defence. (note that a NATO-Russia summit may be held in parallel)
Security and defence sector forecasts run the peril of standing side by side with current events – only to be proven false in the final tally. My biggest fear in submitting the above prediction is that I may actually be proven right.

Contributor: Brigadier General Michel Billard has recently retired from his position as Programme Manager for the NATO Theatre Missile Defence Programme.

Mini Manual Of The Independent Counterterrorist

Mini Manual Of The Independent Counterterrorist

NATO official: Bin Laden, deputy hiding in northwest Pakistan

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri are believed to be hiding close to each other in houses in northwest Pakistan, but are not together, a senior NATO official said.

"Nobody in al Qaeda is living in a cave," said the official, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the intelligence matters involved.

Rather, al Qaeda's top leadership is believed to be living in relative comfort, protected by locals and some members of the Pakistani intelligence services, the official said.

Pakistan has repeatedly denied protecting members of the al Qaeda leadership.

The official said the general region where bin Laden is likely to have moved around in recent years ranges from the mountainous Chitral area in the far northwest near the Chinese border, to the Kurram Valley which neighbors Afghanistan's Tora Bora, one of the Taliban strongholds during the U.S. invasion in 2001.

Tora Bora is also the region from which bin Laden is believed to have escaped during a U.S. bombing raid in late 2001. U.S. officials have long said there have been no confirmed sightings of bin Laden or Zawahiri for several years.

The area that the official described covers hundreds of square miles of some of the most rugged terrain in Pakistan inhabited by fiercely independent tribes.

The official also confirmed the U.S. assessment that Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban, has moved between the cities of Quetta and Karachi in Pakistan over the last several months.
The official would not discuss how the coalition has come to know any of this information, but he has access to some of the most sensitive information in the NATO alliance.

However, Richard Holbrooke, the special U.S. envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, said there was nothing new to what the official was saying.
"We hardly have a day that goes by where somebody doesn't say they know where Osama bin Laden is," said Holbrooke, who was in Rome, Italy, for a conference on Afghanistan.
As for Pakistan, Holbrooke said it was ultimately up to Islamabad to decide how to craft its fight against the Taliban.

"The United States and our allies -- all would encourage them to do as much as they are able to do," Holbrooke said. "There's been a long discussion about whether ... they would go into other parts of the border area. That is for them to decide on the basis of their resources."
Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik said Monday that similar reports of bin Laden and Mullah Omar's whereabouts have proven false in the past.
Malik denied the two men are on Pakistani soil, but said that any information to the contrary should be shared with Pakistani officials so that they can take "immediate action" to arrest the pair.

The NATO official, who has day-to-day senior responsibilities for the war, offered a potentially grimmer view than what has been publicly offered by others.
"Every year the insurgency can generate more and more manpower," despite military attacks, he said.

Although there has been security progress in areas where coalition forces are stationed, he said in other areas, "we don't know what's going on."
He pointed to an internal assessment that there are 500,000 to 1 million "disaffected" men between the ages of 15 and 25 along the Afghan-Pakistan border region, he said. Most are Afghan Pashtuns and make up some of the 95 percent of the insurgency who carry out attacks just to earn money, rather than fight for a hard-core Taliban ideology.

The official said it is now absolutely vital for the Afghan government to address the needs of this group with security, economic development and jobs in order for the war to end and for Afghanistan to succeed.
"We are running out of time," he said.
In recent days Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has made a number of public statements expressing some optimism about the progress of the war. Petraeus "doesn't think time is running out, " his spokesman Rear Adm. Gregory Smith told CNN.
The NATO official said the entire scenario is made more complex by the fact that "there is a huge criminal enterprise in this country [Afghanistan]," dealing in human, drug and mineral trafficking. Those crimes are also tied into the insurgency.

He acknowledged the overall strategy now is to increase offensive airstrikes and ground attacks in order to increase the pressure on the Taliban and insurgent groups to come to the negotiating table with the current Afghan government.
There is a growing sense that many insurgent leaders may be willing to accept conditions such as renouncing al Qaeda because they want to come back to Afghanistan.

But, the official cautioned, hard core Taliban groups such as the Quetta Shura run by Mullah Omar, the Haqqanis, the HiG (Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin) and the Pakistani Taliban still could potentially muster as many as 30,000 fighters.
The U.S. continues to face a more localized insurgency in the south. In places like Marja and the Helmand River Valley, the majority of the fighters are captured within a few miles of their homes.

The insurgent leader Mullah Abdullah Zakir has increased his strength in the south, the official said. He essentially exerts some levels of control and influence both in the greater Kandahar region and across the south from Zabul to Farah province.

The official continued to stress the urgency of getting the Afghan government to deal with the multitude of problems it faces.

Right now, the U.S. war plan approved by President Barack Obama extends through 2014, the official said. That is the official document that spells out matters such as troop rotation schedules.

The U.S. military could sustain a war "'indefinitely," the official said. But the goal is to achieve reconciliation and allow the Afghan government to function and provide security and services to the people.

Without that, he said, "we will be fighting here forever."

Fonte: CNN Hada Messia