The accusations of chemical weapons use in Syria come on a sombre and poignant anniversary that serves as a reminder of the brutality a pressured regime can unleash against its own people.
It was 25 years ago that Saddam Hussein dropped volleys of mustard gas and nerve agents on the citizens of the Kurdish town of Halabja – killing 5,000 people. It was the closing days of the Iran-Iraq war, Iranian troops had advanced and been welcomed by the long-suffering Iraqi Kurds – for that they paid an unimaginably heavy price.

The Kurdistan Regional Government rolled out the red carpet at the weekend to foreign dignitaries as it campaigns to have the attack officially recognised as genocide – a move taken by the UK last month.

Amid the swirl of speeches and performances to mark the event the gravity was somewhat lost, but away from the pomp and ceremony Halabja residents vividly recounted the minute-by-minute details of a day forever etched in their collective memory.

The war planes swooped in from the south, dropping their first payload at 11.35am. Khayal Wshyar, then aged 15 was washing up in the kitchen. Alone in the house she fled to hide in a neighbours basement, lucky to be upwind of the toxic gases that were seeping through her town. Her immediate family survived – though they still suffer from respiratory and eye problems – but 37 cousins, aunts and uncles were not so lucky.

She fled for the caves of the nearby border mountains, a damp cloth pressed to her face. Even after 25 years she cannot hold back the tears as she describes the horror on the town’s streets. Birds had fallen from the skies, animals lay motionless by the roadside, as did the bloated bodies of her friends and neighbours.

“It was hell,” she says. “Hell had arrived in Halabja.”

In the bright spring sunshine it is hard to imagine the horror she describes. It was a horror that was largely ignored by the international community – the US State Department attempted to apportion some of the blame on Iran. During the Iran-Iraq war Baghdad was seen as the lesser of two evils. It was with this knowledge that Saddam felt he had carte blanche to gas his own people with impunity, and did. Halabja was by far the worst incident, but the waters had been tested with other gas attacks during his Anfal campaign to crush the restive Kurds, which claimed a total of 182,000 lives.

Halabjans still feel a sense of abandonment, though now the resentment is largely focused on their regional government, which they claim has neglected this town that has already suffered so much. Anniversary celebrations were disrupted by a small but vociferous protest by local residents.

It is a sense of abandonment that the Syrians share as the international community dithers. Rebels accused the Bashar al-Assad’s forces of using chemical weapons for the first time late last year, but with the regime also claiming that weapons of mass destruction had been used this week the world has taken notice. The fog of war remains thick but the White House contends that there is no evidence of a chemical attack.

Reluctant to be involved militarily, the last thing the US wants is to be dragged over its seemingly flexible “red line”. But with more than 70,000 dead the lack of clear “red lines” gives a desperate Assad little reason not to lash out further.

“We feel their pain,” says Khayal. “The Kurds know what its like to cry and for no one to hear your voice.”

Published in The Independent

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has recruited a brigade of women to man checkpoints and carry out security  operations as he attempts to free up soldiers in his beleaguered army to fight the rebels.

The tattered rug of the floor of Radwan Salim’s tent is still damp after icy water swept through his tent last week. He sought refuge under a shop veranda with his wife and the 16 other members of his family  who live in the plastic-covered construction that he now reluctantly calls home.

“The rats came here try to get out of the rain, it’s only fit for rats,” says the 46-year-old, who fled from the Syrian city of Hama three months ago.

This bleak camp in Minieh, just north of Lebanon’s second city of Tripoli, is home to around 150 people. Not far from the motorway, the ramshackle enclave of tents is just one of numerous makeshift encampments that have sprung up as the country struggles to host the influx of refugees fleeing Syria’s civil war. The ground has turned to mud and the air is filled with acrid smoke as families burn anything they can find to stay warm.

The US-based aid agency International Rescue Committee (IRC) today warned of a “staggering humanitarian disaster” in the making. Millions remain in dire need of assistance within Syria and thousands continue to stream over the borders. The organisation urged governments to meet the UN appeal for $1.5bn in aid.

The UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, today gave a bleak assessment of the crisis, telling the BBC that it is an “almost impossible” challenge with “no solution in sight” to the disaster.

More than 600,000 Syrians have fled to neighbouring countries. In Lebanon, the UN says nearly 200,000 people have been documented or are awaiting registration but local agencies say the number is much higher.

With no official refugee camps in Lebanon, those fleeing the violence in Syria are forced to find shelter where they can. Conditions were bearable in the summer, but last week, when some of the worst storms in 20 years lashed Lebanon, families at Al Minieh said it had become intolerable.

“The temperature was zero, our finances are zero,” Mr Salim told The Independent. “It was absolutely the worst. We came with nothing but the clothes on our backs, we were not ready for the winter.”

Alia al-Jaffar arrived seven days ago from Al Qusair, just over the border in the province of Homs. She looks much older than her 30 years. Her husband stayed behind, too afraid to cross, leaving her with little means of supporting her four children. Her tent in Minieh is bare aside from one mattress and a few blankets in which her 10-year-old son huddles, suffering from a rasping cough. The open drain just outside her tent overflowed in the recent rains, sending the stinking water into her tent. She says she has agreed to pay $100 a month to the local landowner for the privilege of pitching a tent here, though she is not sure how she will find the money. Still, she’s glad she came.

“There was bombing again in our area, 13 people died in recent weeks, we were too scared to stay,” she says.

“You are sitting in your home and you don’t know where the next shell will fall. There is no bread, no electricity, what would make you stay? Here it is worse than I could have expected, and if I can’t find work the children don’t eat, but at least we have some peace.”

George Rupp, the ICR president who has recently returned from a trip to the region, said those not living in official camps are “grossly underserved and growing increasingly destitute and desperate”.

The ICR says the fear of “horrific” sexual violence is often the driving factor for many to leave Syria, with rape often committed in front of family members in an increasingly brutal sectarian war. Alia says it was one of the reasons her husband urged her to leave.

Many have given up hope of returning home soon. “Only God knows, maybe it will be five years, maybe six years, or maybe we’ll become like the Palestinians,” says Mr Salim.

Published in The Independent

A four-wheel-drive vehicle encrusted with silver and gold coins glints in the winter sun at a national day parade in Dubai. This is not a city with any qualms about appearing ostentatious. However, after its humbling debt crisis and subsequent bailout by the federal government, the emirate – one of seven that make up the United Arab Emirates – has been forced to rein in some of its natural extravagance over the past three years.

But now the headline-grabbing mega-projects that defined its boom years are back. In the past fortnight, the emirate has unveiled an array of grand development plans, including a new “city” which will rise from the sands just outside central Dubai and contain 100 new hotels and green space a third bigger than London’s Hyde Park.

Breaking records is a favourite pastime for Dubai. The emirate is already home to the world’s tallest building –the 829.8m (2,722ft) Burj Khalifa – which dwarfs the dozens of gleaming towers that would, in any other city, be a dizzying skyline on their own. In the Burj Khalifa’s shadow sits Dubai Mall, the world’s biggest by area, where after browsing designer shops, visitors can go scuba diving in a shark tank.

The new city, to be named after the emirate’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, will include the even larger Mall of the World, with the capacity to welcome 80 million shoppers a year. Attached to it will be a Universal Studios branded “entertainment centre”.

The mammoth project, which will also contain art galleries and a golf course, was announced by Sheikh Mohammed with typical bombast. “The future does not wait for those who are hesitant. We do not anticipate the future. We build it,” he declared.

Just days later came the news that a £1.7bn plan for five new theme parks had also been approved. A Bollywood park offering live theatre shows will cater to affluent Indian visitors. While in town they will also be able to visit a replica of their beloved Taj Mahal, four times the size of the original, which will contain a five-star hotel. A Hollywood adventure park, children’s park, night safari and marine park are also planned.

Timed neatly to coincide with the third anniversary of Dubai’s £6bn bailout from Abu Dhabi, and its subsequent property market crash, it is clear that the country is keen to stress that the narrative that it has come full circle. The stock market surged on the news and the local press jumped on the announcements as evidence of a recovery. “Dubai on a white-knuckle ride to revival,” read a headline in the English-language newspaper The National.

All the indicators are positive, particularly when it comes to tourism. Dubai’s hotel occupancy is at a healthy 82 per cent and the number of foreign visitors grew by 10 per cent in the first half of the year. Over the past decade, the city has managed to position itself as a tourist playground, despite a steady drip of stories of Britons and other foreigners who have fallen foul of the strict laws on sex and alcohol.

Its bars and restaurants, many of them offshoots of familiar overseas establishments, remained thronged with expatriates and tourists in search of a good time.

While Lebanon and Egypt have seen their tourism industries badly hit by recent unrest, the United Arab Emirates has benefited by remaining an insulated safe haven – in part due to a no-tolerance approach towards dealing with dissent.

After diving in the wake of Dubai’s debt crisis, the property market is also showing signs of recovery; rental prices have risen by 17 per cent over the past year. In scenes reminiscent of Dubai’s headiest days, speculators can once more be seen queuing outside sales offices to invest in new developments.

“Dubai has turned a corner,” said Simon Williams, a senior economist at HSBC. “Those who rushed to dismiss the emirate as nothing more than a bust real-estate story back in 2009 have been proved wrong.”

But some question if it is too much too soon. The costs of Mohammed bin Rashid City have not been announced, but are expected to comfortably run into billions of dollars – raising concerns about financing when banks are still so cautious to lend.

“It is a hell of a statement to make in a pretty subdued international market,” said a Dubai-based partner at an international property firm, who pointed out that investors in previous pie-in-the-sky projects that have since been shelved indefinitely may not be happy about the announcements.

The emirate is yet to fully disentangle itself from the fallout of the 2009 crash. A special tribunal set up to resolve disputes related to the bailout of Dubai World and subsidiaries, including Nakheel – the developer of the artificial palm-tree shaped island off the Dubai coast – is still sifting through claims. Lofty projects such as a new palm-tree island near Jebel Ali, 50 per cent bigger than the first and containing four theme parks, have stalled and look unlikely to be revived. A quarter of the city’s residential units are empty, yet new building continues.

“Given the ongoing debt structuring and the emirate’s various other problems, it seems to me the best evidence available of the ruler’s ego, his lack of grasp on reality and the real need for sustainable economic development,” said Dr Christopher Davidson, a lecturer at Durham University and author of Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success.

At the time of Dubai’s bailout, there was widespread expectation that there would be strings attached by Abu Dhabi’s rulers as the capital attempted to rein in its boisterous brother to the north, and the ambitious new plans are likely to be raising some eyebrows in the capital, where development has progressed with more prudence.

“The challenge isn’t to generate growth but to ensure that the pace of growth is sustainable; some of the people I hear already seem to have forgotten the excesses that built up last time around and the damaging bust that they triggered,” added Mr Williams.

You don’t have to look far in Dubai to see the consequences of dreaming too big. An archipelago of artificial islands, shaped like a world map, is slowly being reclaimed by the sea.

In the desert outside the city stands the shell of the last large-scale leisure development – a 107-square-mile entertainment complex called Dubailand which was meant to house the world’s largest array of theme parks. The signs for what would have been Universal Studios are whipped by the sand, and its gate leads nowhere.

Published in The Independent

It is a fortnight since Amr Al Ali was smuggled unconscious over the border to Lebanon, with a graze to his lips from a ricocheting bullet and deep wounds in his legs and hands after an exploding rocket turned a breeze-block wall in front of him into concrete shrapnel.

Published in The Independent

DERIK, Syria — The speaker at a youth rally in this small city tucked into the far northeast of Syria’s Kurdish region has a sinister message for his audience.

“If you want to be free you must first shoot the traitor … after that you must fight the enemy,” he bellows over the assembled crowd, some of whom appear no older than five or six years old. The “traitors” he refers to are fellow Kurds.

Deep in the Kurdish heartland of the Al Hasaka region, this city of around 30,000 people sits amid some of the country’s most valuable oil reserves. Nodding pumpjacks dot the plains around the town, but residents complain they’ve been able to reap none of the benefits of the rich resources under the soil, instead toiling in the cotton and wheat fields that stretch out to the rugged Turkish mountains in the north, and the Iraqi border in the south. Traditionally one of the bastions of opposition to Baath Party rule, the Kurds, who make up around 10 percent of the Syrian population, have long been marginalized. But in the streets of Derik, where agricultural workers from the surrounding villages mix with the city’s burgeoning middle classes, there is an air of excitement — though one tinged with trepidation.

As President Bashar al-Assad’s forces are struggling to contain a bloody 19-month uprising, the Kurds in the country’s northeast have largely been left to their own devices. The Assad regime still remains a presence in Derik, and its loyalists can be seen holed up in the intelligence building in the center of the city — but they do not come out or react to the presence of foreign journalists. A freshly painted sign in the main square displays new name, in the formerly banned Kurdish language. “Azadi (Freedom) Square,” it reads.

However, as the Kurds seize their opportunity to put in place the building blocks of autonomy — and cultural centers blossom and new courts and local councils open — there are fears that political infighting could shatter the fragile calm.

Hassan Kojar, the speaker at the gathering, is affiliated with the Democratic Union Party (PYD), a Syrian Kurdish party linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the separatist militia which has been fighting an invigorated campaign against Ankara in recent months.

“There are some traitors among the Kurds speaking ill of Ocalan, but speaking ill of Ocalan is speaking ill of all the Kurds,” he continues.

A large flag above him bears the face of the PKK’s incarcerated founder, Abdullah Ocalan, whose image can be seen hanging from the walls of most public buildings in Derik, which also goes by its Arabic name al-Malikiyah. PKK graffiti can be seen scrawled the walls near the city’s main square.

Rival Kurdish parties complain that the PYD is holding a tight grip on power, not allowing them to participate in new institutions or hang the red, green, and white flag emblazoned with a yellow sun that is used in Iraqi Kurdistan. Instead, a yellow, red, and green striped flag preferred by the PYD, flies above local buildings.

The internal disputes are threatening to derail efforts to build the foundations of an autonomous region in the northeast of Syria. Local officials refrain from talking of independence, instead stressing they want federalism or autonomy, but what is clear is that they are determined to run things here themselves, racing to put in place the means to protect and govern before the state’s or the opposition’s attention turns to this resource rich region.

However, for neighboring Turkey, the dominance of a party linked to its bitter adversary, is provocation — and a development that could spark further conflagration of the Syrian civil war outside the country’s borders.

At Derik’s newly opened Mala Gel, or People’s House, set up to arbitrates in local disputes, 20 of the 30 council members belong to the PYD, according to one council member. The party also runs the new local police station and town checkpoints, which are manned by armed civilian volunteers.

“They are controlling everything now with weapons,” says Mohammed Ismail, a grey-haired, bespectacled politician and leader of the Kurdish Democratic Party. A photograph of him meeting Massoud Barzani, the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, sits in pride of place in his living room. Ismail complains that members of his group have suffered harassment and been detained.

Lacking their own political figurehead, most Syrian Kurds look to either the PKK’s Ocalan in Turkey, or Barzani in Iraq, for leadership. With its links to the PKK, which has in the past found common cause with the Assad regime and now once again has its interests aligned in a mutual hostility toward Turkey, rumors have flown that the PYD has made common cause with the Syrian regime. In the Barzani camp are a slew of more traditional political parties that attract the Kurdish intellectuals and, like the Iraqi Kurdish president, have more favorable relations with Turkey and the United States.

It’s difficult to assess which of the two broad factions has the most support. From a cramped workshop in central Derik, a young artist named Serbest Cacan sells wooden key rings etched with the faces of the two political leaders. He says they are equally popular. “This one nobody buys,” he says, pulling out another bearing the face of President Assad.

Why the Assad regime has left the Kurdish region alone remains unclear, but it may be a move to avoid opening up another front in the civil war or a gambit to rile Turkey, which has expressed concern about the dominance of a PKK offshoot in the area. The PKK, deemed a terrorist organization by the European Union and United States, has in the past found a common cause with Assad, with Ocalan previously spending a decade in exile in Syria, a history that has spurred rumors that its Syrian offshoot has cut a deal with the regime. As Turkey becomes Assad’s enemy number one, their interests fall into line once more, whether or not a formal agreement has been struck, a claim the PYD’s leader Saleh Muslim Mohammed vehemently denies.

“This regime has tortured us and killed us and should be gone,” says the rotund moustachioed politician, speaking from his far star hotel room in neighboring Iraqi Kurdistan. He points to clashes that took place in Kurdish towns and villages on July 19, when YPG forces launched a coordinated attack on Assad troops, as proof that there was no coordination with the Syrian government.

One person in Derik died in the fighting. Nazir Younes Ramadan, a 55-year old man who spent 11 years in regime jails — including the notorious Tadmour prison — says that when he heard the YPG was launching an attack on the eight government soldiers stationed in his village of Dirka Barave, about 12 miles outside Derik, he took his gun and rushed to join them.

“Because it’s near the border everyone has guns. At first we said that we don’t want to fight, just arrest them, but the Army started to shoot,” he explains, pulling down the collar of his shirt to show the bullet wound to his collar bone that kept him in a hospital for two months. “We could have killed all of them but we let them go free.”

The PYD’s Mohammed also refutes the allegation that his party is preventing other parties participating, making the case that his faction is the only one sufficiently organized to run things. At checkpoints “there should be three of them and three of us, but some of them don’t have people to send and then they say the PYD is not letting them share,” he says, adding that civilians just volunteer themselves, and are not paid salaries.

At a dusty shack next to a checkpoint on the edge of Derik, Sadoon Omar, an image conscious 20-year old student, is on his shift at the post.”We are just civilian security, we want to protect the city,” he says, readjusting the blue keffiyeh around his neck. Though he says he is not a member of the PYD and is not paid by the group, his Kalashnikov was provided by the local asayis (“security”) station in Derik, which is run by the PYD.

Omar said he received no training other than briefly being shown how to shoot his gun, and other guards at town checkpoints appeared equally poorly trained and armed. But that doesn’t mean the Kurds can’t hold their own among Syria’s many armed factions: They are also protected by a secretive paramilitary group called the Popular Protection Units, known by its Kurdish initials YPG.

Though the PYD denies that it has any armed wing, the YPG — whose men now man the borders with Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan — is often described as such. “They are all the same,” claims Ismail.

The force, which Mohammed says numbers around 1,500 fighters, appears well armed. At the border, the men drive trucks mounted with duska machine guns, their faces obscured by keffiyehs. A recently released video filmed by a PYD-affiliated channel shows hundreds lined up in a clearing in the woods; the film switches to slow motion as the men run past the camera, AK-47s in hand. Fighters vow protect the Kurds and their territory and their new institutions.

Now that the PYD and the YPG have won the upper hand in Syria’s Kurdish regions, they show no sign of letting potential rivals gain a foothold. They have been accused of blocking a force of Syrian Kurdish army defectors trained in camps across the border in Iraqi Kurdistan from returning back to Syria, where Barzani had said he hoped they could be used as a defensive force. The return of the 650 trained fighters allied with Barzani could weaken the PYD’s grip on the Kurdish territories.

“We refused them entry because basically we have a popular militia here, and if anyone wishes to protect the Kurdish areas, they should join us,” an unnamed YPG commander told the Kurdish English language newspaper Rudaw. “We cannot accept any other armed forces outside the YPG, if we did, then the Kurdish areas will become a battlefield.”

There have been efforts to forge unity between the PYD and other Kurdish factions. In July, Barzani called the quarreling parties to the Iraqi city of Erbil to sign a power sharing agreement. The result was the Kurdish Supreme Council, which attempted to balance power between the PYD and other Kurdish Syrian parties.

On the ground, however, tensions between the groups remains high. In Derik, hundreds of Kurds loyal to the PYD’s rivals take to the streets to call for the regime’s ouster on Wednesday rather than the traditional Friday, when the PYD holds its protest. Unlike on Fridays, at the Wednesday protest there is not an Ocalan poster in sight, and the traditional golden-sunned flag is waved by the crowds who chant in support of Barzani’s peshmerga, rather than the protection units.

With fighting raging across Syria, however, the Kurds’ only hope of securing their interests is to put aside their differences in the face of a shared enemy. Most Kurdish factions are not only suspicious of Assad, but also the Free Syrian Army, which they distrust due its historical ties to Turkey. Daham Ali, a member of Derik’s Mala Gel council, explains that the Kurds want to be a third power in Syria. “First the state, second the Free Syrian Army, and thirdly the Kurds. We are not with the state or the Free Syrian Army.”

At the youth rally, however, unanimity is hard to come by. Kojar’s tirade against “traitors” continues, not only covering those in opposition to Ocalan, but also those in contact with the rebels and the regime.

“There are some Kurdish traitors who are in contact with the Free Syrian Army and have asked them to come to this area,” he says. “There are some traitors in our movement who have been in contact with the government. The FSA, they aren’t Kurds, and they’d sell out all of Kurdistan for five Syrian pounds. Our sons are here to protect the Kurds. They are from Derik, and Qamishli and Efrin, and they are in their thousands.”

Published in Foreign Policy 

AL HASSAKA, SYRIA – A single patrol car sits outside the new police station in the town of Girkilige in Syria’s oil-producing heartland, the lettering on its side freshly painted in the Kurdish language.

From the dilapidated three-roomed building, once a government-owned pumping station, Rayzan Turkmani, a clean-cut young man toting a Kalashnikov rifle, heads a ragtag force of 140 local volunteers. He explains plans to open a training academy for recruits within the month.

“It’s an emergency situation, so we have to move fast,” he says. “We are working for autonomy, and to manage ourselves … We must be ready when the regime falls.”

Syria’s approximately 1.7m Kurds, nearly 10 per cent of the population, are the only group with a history of organised opposition to President Bashar al-Assad’s regime but while many towns have seen anti-government protests during the 18-month uprising, they have refrained from joining the armed opposition.

As the uprising has evolved, however, the Kurds – largely concentrated in the country’s north-east, which holds a significant portion of Syria’s limited but vital oil reserves – have been quietly preparing for a post-Assad future, opening police stations, courts and local councils that they hope will form the foundations of an autonomous region.

The proliferation of newly hung Kurdish flags and signs in the mother tongue in al-Hassaka province give the impression of liberation after years of rule under the Ba’ath party, which expropriated land in Kurdish areas, suppressed expressions of Kurdish identity and arrested thousands of Kurdish activists, especially after riots shook the Kurdish areas in 2004.

But the effort at self-governance is taking place while the regime troops maintain a presence in many of the region’s towns and cities, appearing to turn a blind eye to what would have previously been an unthinkable threat to its power.

Mr Turkmani points to a building a few hundred metres away, where the two-starred Syrian state flag flutters overhead.
“Bashar’s police station,” he says. “They just play cards all day. They have nothing to do.”

The state’s inaction may be a strategic move to avoid opening up another front of conflict or, as many in the Syrian opposition say, could be designed to invigorate the Kurdish separatist movement in Turkey in order to rattle Ankara as it funnels support to the rebel Free Syrian Army.

Turkey, once a friend of the Assad regime but now one of its chief outside opponents, has expressed concerns that new institutions in the region are dominated by the Democratic Union party (PYD), which is known for its close links to the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK). The PKK is listed as a terrorist organisation by the EU and US, and its militants have stepped up their campaign in eastern Turkey in recent months.

Tensions have been rising along the Turkish-Syrian border in recent weeks. On Tuesday a government official from the Turkish province of Mardin said that Turkish troops had shot and killed two “terrorists” and wounded a third while returning fire on militants who were attempting to enter the country.

Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group, told the French news agency, AFP, that the three men were PYD members.

Portraits of Abdullah Ocalan, the incarcerated PKK leader, gaze down from the walls of newly opened local council buildings in Girkilige, where citizens queue to sign up for handouts sent from Iraq or to seek arbitration in local disputes.

“He is a hero for all Kurds,” says Daham Ali, a committee member at the freshly opened Mala Gel, or People’s House, in the town of Derik, which lies in the foothills of the mountains on the Turkish border, reeling off the names of Syrians who have died in the insurgency against Turkey.

Rival parties say the group lacks significant support and accuse the PYD of working in collaboration with the Assad regime – a claim the party denies.

“We cannot kiss the hand that kills us,” PYD leader Saleh Muslim Mohammed, says, adding that hundreds of the party’s members still languish in regime jails. But as fledgling institutions take root, the PYD’s political dominance is causing friction on the ground.

“Ocalan’s school works only in oppression and propaganda for the youth to take guns and fight,” said Mohammed Ismail, leader of the Kurdish Democratic party. A picture of him meeting the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, Masoud Barzani, who is backing some of the Kurdish rivals to the PYD, sits on a shelf behind him. “Barzani has never used terrorism, never bombed a restaurant,” he says.

As Mr Ismail talks he receives a phone call, after which he says a young activist from his party has been detained by the PYD at a demonstration.
“This happens – they take people, they disappear for a few days,” he says. “Maybe they release them, maybe they don’t.”

Opposing parties now hold separate demonstrations against the regime, and some express concern that friction might spill over into conflict. But in the meantime the PYD is the one that appears to be consolidating control.

At a party youth rally in Derik, the speaker rouses the crowd with a message from Mr Ocalan to the Syrian Kurds, which he says was given to a lawyer on a recent prison visit.

“You must not be with Assad, you must not be with the opposition, you must be the third power in Syria,” he quotes Mr Ocalan as saying. “You must prepare 15,000 soldiers to protect the Kurdish areas. If you don’t take this strategy you will be crushed … Every young Kurd must prepare themselves to join up and protect their motherland.”

Published in Financial Times

As his country erupted in the kind of unrest not seen in Syria for nearly 30 years, Bashar al-Assad last week gave the impression of a leader plagued by self-doubt, dithering as the tide of history threatened to wash over him.

Only two months before, the Syrian president had seemed so much more sure-footed, confidently predicting that the wave of revolution sweeping aside the old order elsewhere in the Middle East would never reach his shores. But his own people, drawing inspiration from their Arab brethren to take on one of the region’s most repressive regimes, confounded him.

On the streets, Mr Assad’s forces responded in predictable fashion. In the south, in and around the dusty city of Deraa, protesters were mown down in their scores.

North of Damascus, in the coastal city of Latakia close to the tribal seat of the Assad family, loyalist snipers took up positions on rooftops and balconies to pick of unarmed demonstrators one by one.

Yet of the president himself there was no sign. A man whose every move, no matter how insignificant or mundane, is normally covered in breathless tones by state television appeared to have vanished at precisely the moment many of his people yearned to see him.

As the days passed, aides appeared with almost comedic mistiming last week to announce that the president would appear “within hours”, “tomorrow” and finally “within two days”.

When he did so, they predicted, he would announce major concessions, hinting strongly that the president would lift Syria’s hated emergency laws, in place since the Ba’ath party seized power in a 1963 coup.

Amid opposition jokes that they were “waiting for Godot,” Mr Assad finally appeared before parliament on Wednesday, his much anticipated speech frequently interrupted by legislators eager to praise the president with outbursts of poetry.

But many in the rest of the country, even those who have defended Mr Assad as maligned and misunderstood, were thunderstruck.
In a brief speech bereft of conciliatory gestures, Mr Assad dismissed the protesters as conspirators in the pay of foreign powers, hinted that Israel was the principal plotter, and then claimed to welcome “the battle” thrust upon him.

It was a defiant performance. Unlike other Arab autocrats who sought to appease protesters with concessions, Mr Assad was essentially inviting his opponents into a showdown and threatening even bloodier retribution if they accepted.

The strategy yielded some dividends. With an unprecedented security presence on the streets – 5,000 troops alone in the city of Deraa – fewer protesters turned out on Friday than organisers had. Those who did were, in many cases, beaten, tear-gassed and shot, with unconfirmed reports of 25 new fatalities.

On Saturday, residents in the city of Homs spoke of new crackdown with police storming houses and dragging hundreds of people away to unknown destinations.

Mr Assad’s actions represented the classic behaviour of an uncompromising dictator. And yet, even though Syria was regarded as a rogue state by the Bush administration and has chosen Iran rather than the United States as its champion, many in the West were determined to see the president as a moderate.

Speaking two days before Mr Assad gave his now notorious address, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, continued to persist with the line that the Syrian president’s hands were tied by hardliners within the regime.

But former senior Syrian officials and even members of Mr Assad’s family have told The Sunday Telegraph that this perception is a fallacy deliberately fostered by the regime and that, in fact, the president is one of the main enemies of change.

Providing a rare assessment of the inner-workings of the Syrian regime, they told The Sunday Telegraph that Mr Assad was more likely than not to side with a group of hardliners led by Rami Makhlouf, his billionaire first cousin, and Assef Shawkat, his brother-in-law.

Others also place the president’s brother Maher, the head of the presidential guard who is blamed by many Syrians for the deaths in Deraa, at the heart of a powerful faction of hawks at the centre of power.

For these men, all members of Syria’s minority Allawite sect of Shia Islam, the prospect of granting concessions can only result in the weakening of President Assad’s hold on power and their fear of the people’s vengeance is overwhelming.

Already protesters, who are largely drawn from Syria’s Sunni majority, have attacked and destroyed company buildings owned by Mr Makhlouf, who is believed to be the country’s richest man.

“If you are genuinely going to enact change and fight corruption, then some of the first people to be held accountable are going to be come very powerful figures close to the president like Rami Makhlouf,” said Ribal al-Assad, a first cousin of the president who is based in London and heads the Organisation for Freedom and Democracy in Syria. “So obviously they aren’t going to want change.”

The president did have the option of making concessions in his speech, and it was a course advocated by some pragmatists close to the centre of power.

The day before it was given, Mr Assad met 20 or so members of the Ba’ath Party Central Committee, where opinion was largely split on whether to enact reforms immediately or to concede nothing to the protesters.

According to some reports, an hour before the president spoke he tore up a version of his address that would have struck a more conciliatory note, although this version is challenged by others.

That Mr Assad came down with the hardliners was not the result of pressure or outmanoeuvring, former officials say — despite persistent rumours of a split within the ruling family.

“Essentially the family are of one mind,” said one with close links to the Assad family. “You have to remember that, at the end of the day, it’s Bashar pulling the strings here. He’s the only one who can give orders here.”

Such views are echoed by serving officials in Damascus who say westerners who believe Mr Assad to be a reformer have fallen for a elaborate ruse laid by the regime.

“There is no power struggle,” said one government official privately critical of the president’s refusal to grant concessions. “I think this rumour has been spread because they want to protect the president.

“Some forces want to make people believe that he is a puppet. It’s a lie just to keep him pure. People who think there is a conflict amongst the elite are either very naive or are playing the old game.”

Why some western officials persist in granting Mr Assad the benefit of the doubt, especially given his alliance with Iran and support for the militant Islamist groups Hamas and Hizbollah, may seem a mystery.

But the president is seen as a stabilising influence who might not have made peace with Israel, but has at least refrained from war to recover the occupied Golan Heights. Any leader brought to power in a popular revolution might not be so accommodating. But there is also a lingering belief, one held by Dennis Ross, President Obama’s principal Middle East advisers among others, that Mr Assad would reform if he wasn’t held back by an old guard he inherited from his father and predecessor Hafez.

When he came to power in 2000, Mr Assad, who trained in London as an ophthalmologist, certainly seem to promise much, raising hopes of a new era of freedom.

His young, glamorous wife Asma, born and raised in Britain, instantly became an icon of her husband’s ambitious programme of reform.

Known as the Damascus Spring, it was a time of lively and social debate. But the reforms were to prove short lived. In 2001, the recently established salons and dialogue forums were stamped out by the government, democracy advocated were jailed and hopes of real reform extinguished.

The remnants of his father’s regime were blamed for the clampdown – but over the years, the excuses have worn thin.
“He’s been in power for 11 yeas now,” said Nadim Houry, a Syria researcher at Human Rights Watch. “After 11 years you can’t still be part of the new guard.
“At some point you have either to believe in reform or not and over the past 11 years he hasn’t really taken any major risks or steps. The game of blaming others might work in year one, but not now.”

Published in The Sunday Telegraph

Agents of Kidon, the department of Mossad that carries out assassinations, can spend decades waiting for the perfect moment to strike a target on their “wanted list”. Mahmoud al Mabhouh was probably watched closely for months. His Damascus home would have been scouted out, phones tapped and the comings and goings of neighbours and visitors meticulously recorded. Although there is no certainty that Mossad was responsible for the killing, both Dubai Police and intelligence analysts say it fits their pattern, and the Israeli government hasn’t denied involvement.

The Hamas chief would have known that Israeli agents had him in their sights, patiently waiting for an opportunity, one that came on January 19. It is unclear why al Mabhouh chose to travel without his bodyguards that day; there was no space on the plane for his security contingent but he took it anyway. A surveillance team would have tailed him to the airport but his assassins already had a tip-off as to where he was heading – the hit squad, which according to Dubai police was made up of seven operatives, was lying in wait in Dubai when al Mabhouh touched down on Emirates flight EK912 at 2.55pm.

“For such an operation you need very precise intelligence, and whoever did this had it,” said Yossi Melman, a journalist with Haaretz newspaper who has written two books on Israeli intelligence agencies. “They knew when he was coming, where he was staying, the room number, everything.” That information may have come from a source inside Hamas. Israeli agents try hard to infiltrate enemy groups. Those based in Palestine are easier to compromise – members are more readily turned when threats can be made on their families.

Just how much groundwork was done before the attack would have depended on how far in advance the tip-off came. Dubai Police have said the suspects were only in the country for 24 hours, but they may have made an earlier reconnaissance mission if they had information in advance. Mossad can spend months scouting out the venue for an attack and reportedly in the past they have returned to a military base in the Negev desert, where the surroundings are modified to resemble the building or street where the attack is planned, and the hit is rehearsed again and again.

However, if necessary, they can act swiftly. “They have teams that are practised in these types of operations and are ready to move on very short notice if they get a tip-off,” said Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Saban Centre for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, who served with the Central Intelligence Agency for 29 years. The team of seven thought to have killed al Mabhouh is “about the right size” for a Kidon hit squad, according to Mr Reidel, who also served as the former director for near east affairs on the US National Security Council.

Two or three would be needed for the hit itself. Other agents would have kept watch in the lobby and hotel corridors. One would have been waiting in a car outside so the group could make a quick escape and another may have acted as a “safety net” ready to provide alternative escape plans or documents if something went wrong. Exact details of how al Mabhouh died are murky. He checked into Al Bustan Rotana Hotel that afternoon, reportedly using a false identity, and asked for a room with no balcony and sealed windows. He was given room 130, on the first floor, where he spent about an hour before leaving at about 5pm.

From the hotel he would have been tailed, with the surveillance team informing their colleagues on his return. According to Dubai Police, al Mabhouh let his assassins into his room. The police have said they believe he was electrocuted with a stun gun before being strangled, but have not ruled out poisoning. The assassins had already left the country when al Mabhouh’s body was found the next day, a “Do not disturb” sign hanging from his door.

Mossad is known for elaborate assassination techniques that often sound as though they are plucked straight from a spy novel. In a bungled attempt on Khalid Meshaal in 1997, agents sprayed nerve gas into the Hamas leader’s ear as he entered his office in Amman. However, they usually work with lightning efficiency. In his book Gideon’s Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad, Gordon Thomas claims that the Mossad assassination squad that took out Khalil al Wazir, Yasser Afrafat’s deputy, in Tunis in 1988 took just 13 seconds to enter and leave his villa, shooting dead his driver, two bodyguards and the Palestinian leader, who was also known as Abu Jihad.

Thomas describes the level of preparation that went into the attack. “For two months Mossad agents conducted an exhaustive reconnaissance of Abu Jihad’s villa. Access roads, points of entry, fence heights and types, windows, doors, locks, defences, the routing employed by Abu Jihad’s guards: everything was monitored, checked and checked again,” he said. Israel is suspected in the assassinations of numerous members of enemy organisations and nuclear scientists for regimes hostile to Israel.

There is no doubt that al Mabhouh would have been a prime target. He was involved in the kidnap and killing of two Israeli soldiers 20 years ago and is alleged to have been directly involved in providing arms to the Gaza Strip. “They do have a most-wanted list of people they believe are responsible for acts of terror in the past and they try to follow their movements,” said Mr Riedel. “They’re prepared to follow people for years. They followed Imad Mughniyah, the Hizbollah operative killed in Damascus, for decades until they had opportunity to get him. The fact that this person has been on their wanted list for a long time would only further point the finger at Mossad.” Kidon, Hebrew for bayonet, was thought to have about 48 agents in 1998, six of whom were women. They are largely in their 20s, extremely fit and meticulously trained. Due to the highly secret nature of their operations, information on Israeli hit squads often comes from just one source and is difficult to verify.

Nonetheless, some details have trickled out over the years from former operatives, although accounts are often fiercely rebutted by officials and dismissed as fantastical. Victor Ostrovsky, a former Mossad operative, explained Kidon’s tactics to Gordon Thomas. “They are taught how to use the weapon appropriate for the target. Strangulation with a cheese-cutter if the victim is to be killed at night. A handgun fitted with a silencer. A nerve agent delivered by an aerosol or injection.”

Kidon’s most famous mission, Operation Wrath of God, which the unit was created for, was to take out those directly responsible for the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics. The account of Yuval Aviv, who claims to have headed the death squad, was published in 1984 book Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team by George Jonas, on which the Stephen Spielberg film Munich was based.

Israeli agents did not lack the ability to assassinate al Mabhouh in Damascus, where he lived, as the killing of Mughniyah in the city two years ago shows. But they would have jumped at the chance to take out al Mabhouh while he visited Dubai. “Dubai is much easier environment for an operation like this,” Mr Reidel said. “You can come in and leave posing as a European or Canadian tourist and never be detected. In Damascus, you’re operating in a police state.”

Targets are always at their most vulnerable when they travel, according to Dr Mustafa Alani, the senior adviser in security and terrorism at the Dubai-based Gulf Research Centre. “When they are travelling, they usually only have two or three people protecting them, rather than a whole system,” he said. “They have to travel through public places, hotels and airports, and it all leaves them more open to an attack. The fact that he was travelling alone just made it more of an opportunity.”

Claims by Mahmoud Zahar, a senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, that Israeli agents may have entered the Emirates as part of the delegation of Uzi Landau, the Israeli national infrastructures minister, for the World Future Energy Summit earlier in the month, have been rubbished by analysts. “It’s preposterous,” said Dr Alani. “You don’t bring people in to do this kind of thing with a minister taking part in an international conference.”

Israel’s past assassinations on foreign soil have sometimes had serious diplomatic repercussions. In the attempt on Meshaal in Amman, the two men who tried to carry out the hit travelled on Canadian passports, which sparked a row in which Canada withdrew its ambassador to Israel. Jordan also reacted with anger. It had captured two of the agents involved and refused to release them until Benjamin Netanyahu handed over an antidote to the nerve agent sprayed into Meshaal’s ear.

But with such a minimal level of relations between Israel and the UAE, there is unlikely to be significant diplomatic fallout from the Dubai attack. “The pattern of Israeli behaviour over many years, and particularly under prime minister Netanyahu, is that they are prepared to run the diplomatic risks and take the political damage in return for accomplishing this kind of missions,” said Mr Riedel. He said there was no question that the prime minister would be involved in the decision-making process.

Just how many killings Mossad is responsible for is not clear. Some say the agency has assassinated 530 Iraqi scientists alone. However, many say these estimates are inflated. Mr Yossi argues that no more than 50 terrorists or scientists working to create weapons of mass destruction have been killed by the organisation since its inception, although this figure does not include “targeted killings” in the West Bank and Gaza, which are undertaken by the IDF and Shin Bet, the domestic security service. Whatever the numbers, there is no doubt that Kidon is capable of working with deadly efficiency.

“These kind of spy wars are something that the Israelis have excelled at for a long, long time,” said Mr Riedel.

Published in The National

I get lonely sometimes because I have never found a true Muslim friend,” an internet poster called Farouk1986 – Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab – wrote on an Islamic internet forum in 2005, aged 18.”I have no one to speak too [sic], no one to consult, no one to support me and I feel depressed.”

Born in Nigeria to well-to-do parents on December 22, 1986, Abdulmutallab is the youngest of 16 children. His father, Umaru Abdulmutallab, 70, is a highly respected banker who recently retired as chairman of First Bank Nigeria in December. He also served as a member of the country’s Federal Executive Council and was awarded the title of Commander of the Order of the Niger for services to the country, one of Nigeria’s highest accolades.

Umaru took special interest in his youngest son after noting his academic promise, and while other siblings studied at government colleges, Abdulmutallab was sent to the British School of Lomé, a prestigious academy in Togo that is popular with the Nigerian elite.

Abdulmutallab began boarding in 2000, at age 13, and outwardly appeared to thrive during his teenage years, excelling at school with a keen interest in current affairs. “He was one of my star students,” said Mike Rimmer, who taught history to Abdulmutallab during his first three years at the school. “He had so much going for him.”

But contradictions between Abdulmutallab’s appearance and his actions are continuing to emerge. Few who knew him seem to have had any inkling that on December 25 he would board Northwest Airlines flight 253, from Amsterdam to Detroit, with a package of the highly explosive pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) sewn into specially made underwear. He allegedly attempted to detonate the bomb with a syringe filled with liquid.

To his teachers he was bright and sociable; those who knew him at university described him as friendly, engaging and even lazy. His family said that until recently Abdulmutallab had never shown any “attitude, conduct or association that would give concern”.Even British security officials have said he had “never shown up on the radar screen” as a threat.

Investigators are trying to pin down exactly where Abdulmutallab formed his views, by examining his internet activity, time in Yemen and years at university in London.

Like many teenagers, Abdulmutallab appears to have reached out to the internet for support and comfort, cloaking his internal struggle with religion from those who knew him.

With a new technology-savvy generation of al Qa’eda at large, the world’s private boarding schools and universities can become recruiting grounds for those who prey on the lonely and confused.

In one of the first of 310 posts on the Islamic Forum website http://www.gawaher.com thought to be made by Abdulmutallab, the poster describes himself as being in a “dilemma between liberalism and extremism”.

But this internal struggle is at odds with his outward appearance at the time. Mr Rimmer described him as “fresh-faced, intelligent and gregarious”.

“I don’t remember him ever saying anything radical,” he said. “I do recall him explaining the reasoning of the Taliban when the Bamiyan statues were destroyed but I can’t recall if he agreed with their reasoning.

“Somewhere along the line somebody got to him and filled his head with bizarre nonsense and his heart with hatred,” Mr Rimmer said.

Pictures provided by Mr Rimmer of Abdulmutallab on school excursions show a smiling schoolboy, but he is often slightly removed from the rest of the group, and on the internet he said that although he laughed and joked with his peers, he found it difficult to fit in as he did not go “partying” like others, and yearned for “meaningful discussions with good Muslims”. Over time his religious views may have hardened.

When Farouk1986 first joined the forum in January 2005 he talked passionately about Liverpool Football Club, joking with other members about matches and praising Frank Lampard. He argued that the players’ actions off the pitch did not necessarily mean a team should be boycotted for religious reasons.

“As long as we do not support the bad things they do, and only enjoy our football, I think all is cool,” the poster said.

By November, after Abdulmutallab spent a summer studying Arabic in Yemen followed by several months at university in London, Farouk1986′s views had changed. He posted: “I’m in no position to say spectating and playing football is haram, but I think if we want to reach a high level of Piety [sic], it is best to stay away from it.”

He said he had come to his decision after a “good analysis” of the relevant hadith.

“Let’s save our honour and religion and try and stay away from footbal [sic] and do sporting activities that are more Islamically beneficial,” he said.

Though the posts under the screen name Farouk1986 have not been officially confirmed to be Abdulmutallab’s, security officials have said they are investigating them, and the events described by the poster closely follow the 23-year-old’s life.

Farouk1986 describes himself as Nigerian, at boarding school, and talks about his summer in Yemen in 2005. He introduces himself as Umar, but “you can call me Farouk”, the name by which Abdulmutallab’s friends and family also knew him.

Even with jihadi forums heavily monitored, the internet provides an easy route to find the like-minded, with the availability of every kind of Islamic message on offer.

Farouk1986 asks for a link to a “jihad forum” from a fellow Islamic Forum contributor calling himself Jihad4Ever, going on to say he hopes to meet the other posters in another forum where they can share “useful knowledge”.

The Islamic Forum is monitored by moderators, and supporting cult or sectarian ideas, or supporting civilian killings, is banned. But sites sympathetic to al Qa’eda such as Muntada al Ansar al Islami and al Ekhlas are less restrictive.

The news service Agence France-Presse has quoted family members as saying that Abdulmutallab was “radicalised” during his stint as a student at University College London, but even before leaving for the UK he was talking about his “jihad fantasies” on the internet.

“I imagine how the great jihad will take place, how the Muslims will win insha Allah and rule the whole world, and establish the greatest empire once again!!!” he wrote in February 2005.

During this time Abdulmutallab was becoming increasingly isolated from his family, who are moderate Muslims. Ultimately he cut all ties with them, leading to his father reporting him two months ago to intelligence services who, until then, seem to have been unaware of any threat from Abdulmutallab.

In 2005, Abdulmutallab expressed his dissatisfaction with his family’s religious practices, saying their practice of blessing non-meat when travelling had led him to avoid them and eat out.

On previous visits to the UK he said he regularly worshipped at the London Central Mosque in Regents Park, but after moving there reportedly forged ties with the East London mosque, which has been criticised for hosting a talk by Anwar al Awlaki, a Yemeni cleric who is alleged to be a recruiter for al Qa’eda and has been described as the “bin Laden of the internet”.

One of his school friends, Kwesi Brako, told CNN that London was where Abdulmutallab became increasingly religious, and isolated from his old friends.

At secondary school he already stood out for his devotion, praying five times a day. His classmates nicknamed him “The Pope” for his piety, but it was in London that he began to wear traditional robes and sandals, even in the winter, Mr Brako said.

Abdulmutallab became vice president of UCL’s Islamic Society, and then president from 2006 to 2007, throwing himself into the role.

A spokesman for the Federation of Islamic Societies told a Nigerian newspaper that students and staff had been “shocked and horrified” at the arrest of someone they had considered “engaging, friendly and keen to seek a common cause for all people”.

“If these allegations prove true, then many fellow students would undoubtedly feel this to be a breakdown in trust,” he said.

The fact remains that British university campuses are a target for groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir, which aims to bring about a united Muslim Caliphate and has been accused of preaching hate.

With about 600,000 Muslims in London, it would not have been difficult for the Nigerian to seek out those who shared his views or helped to further radicalise them.

The cleric Mr al Awlaki is now a focus of the investigation into how Abdulmutallab came to try to blow up the US-bound airliner. He was in regular contact with the Fort Hood shooter, and the Wall Street Journal reported that US investigators have uncovered intelligence “chatter” indicating contact between Mr al Awlaki and Abdulmutallab.

While many al Qa’eda-affiliated clerics are only accessible to an Arabic-speaking audience, Mr al Awlaki, with his English website and Facebook page, holds appeal for English-speaking youths.

The young Nigerian travelled to Yemen twice, supposedly to study Arabic, first in 2005, then again in August 2009. In between his graduation from university in 2008 and his arrival in Yemen, Abdulmutallab is known to have travelled to Dubai, where he studied at Wollongong University, but he seems to have kept a low profile while in the country.

It was on his return to Yemen in August that the US intelligence services reportedly began to pick up information on a “person of interest” known as “The Nigerian” meeting with al Qa’eda in the country, but this was not linked with information later obtained from Abdulmutallab’s father. Since the attack, al Qa’eda in Yemen has said it trained Abdulmutallab and claimed responsibility for the attempted bombing.

Even those who met Abdulmutallab over the past few months said his outward appearance contradicted his actions. Though devout, his classmates at the Sana’a Institute for the Arabic Language said he did not seem “radical in a violent sense” and one of his teachers said there were “broad contradictions” between his general behaviour and what he attempted to do.

Abdulmutallab had been placed on the US watch list only because his father reported him to authorities and he had been denied a visa to Britain not because of any connections to terrorist organisations, but because he had given the name of a bogus educational institution on his application.

Gone are the times when frequent trips to training camps in Afghanistan or Pakistan would alert the authorities to questionable individuals. Younes Tsouli, a Moroccan-born UK resident, was found guilty of incitement to commit acts of terrorism in 2007. His crimes were carried out entirely over the internet.

Latest reports say that Abdulmutallab spent barely 30 minutes in Lagos after arriving from Ghana on a Virgin Nigeria flight. According to the Nigerian information minister, his passport was cleared for entry into the country at 8.08pm and then for departure to Amsterdam at 8.35pm. He was in possession of a passport and valid US visa, issued by the embassy in London in 2008.

Abdulmutallab’s connections to Yemen have brought the growing problem of militancy in the beleaguered nation, which is also fighting an internal secessionist movement, into the spotlight. Fear is growing that Christmas Day may have just been a test run, and more attacks are to come.

Abdulmutallab, who was described as “calm and lucid” during the attack, has said there are others like him; growing bands of disaffected young men travelling to al Qa’eda’s mountain hideouts for training, and the Yemeni foreign minister warned that there may be hundreds more like him, willing give up their lives for al Qa’eda’s cause.

It emerged this week that a Somali man attempted to board a plane bound for Dubai last month with a device similar to Abdulmutallab’s. If, like Abdulmutallab, these would-be bombers are able to go through life without raising alarm bells to those who know them, the challenge increases for intelligence services trying to track this new generation of chameleon terrorists.

Published in The National