[osint] US Army Hires Arabs as 'Iraqi' Extras for War Games in Germany
SPIEGEL ONLINE - February 9, 2007, 12:38 PM URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,465402,00.html TYPECASTING FOR IRAQ US Army Hires Arabs as 'Iraqi' Extras for War Games in Germany By Christian Fuchs The US Army in Germany is looking for 600 Arabic-speaking extras for its Iraq training exercises in Germany. Willing participants can earn €90 a day -- their main task is to not understand US soldiers. Does anyone here have anything against working with Americans? the gaunt German man asks the 29 Arab men and two women sitting in a bleak white-painted room in Berlin. Several people answer the question by standing up, taking their coats and leaving the room. You can leave any time, the German tells the others, somewhat forlornly. The German is in charge of a casting session for the United States military, which is currently looking for 600 Arabic-speaking extras for its war games in Germany with the help of classified ads in tabloid newspapers such as Berlin's BZ. Similar casting events are taking place in other major cities across Germany. The US Army plans to simulate the situation in Iraq from March 20 to April 11 in training exercises in Germany and want to add a touch of realism with the Arabic-speaking extras. The extras will live for three weeks at the Combat Maneuver Training Center (CMTC) in Hohenfels, Bavaria, located between Nuremberg and Regensburg. The 16,000-hectare training ground includes ten artificial villages. The extras are supposed to play the role of an Arab in Iraq for 24 hours a day, according to the casting agent in Berlin. The women have to wear headscarves, the men turbans. There is a mosque, a brothel, several barracks and dormitories where the extras -- known as Civilians on the Battlefield (COB) in military jargon -- will sleep. The extras have to play the roles of mayors, terrorists, pregnant women or traders. The US units taking part in the exercise will have certain tasks to complete as part of their training. The civilians' main task, on the other hand, will be to not understand the US soldiers. Learning respect The exercises are intended to help prepare US soldiers for the reality on the ground in Iraq. US President George W. Bush recently announced he plans to send 21,500 additional soldiers to Baghdad. One aim is to bring the city under control again, including house-to-house fighting, according to Benjamin Schreer, an expert in security policies at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP). It's particularly difficult to bring large groups of people under control in an urban environment in a foreign culture, he says. Militants often fire at US soldiers from the middle of groups of people, and it is exactly this kind of situation that will be practiced with the extras. One scenario will have 150 people simulating a mass demonstration, said the Berlin casting agent, who did not want to be named. In addition, the soldiers will be taught how to interact with Arabs. They will be taught rules and respect, the agent says. Many of the young soldiers have never left the US before and don't know how to behave in foreign cultures before taking part in such exercises. They had better learn fast: A few short weeks after the training in Germany, they will be fighting in Iraq. Bernhard Bergbauer took part in an earlier Iraq training session in Hohenfels in 2003. He is one of four German extras whose story is told in the new German documentary film Weltverbesserer auf dem Schlachtfeld (C.O.B. Civilians On The Battlefield). The US soldiers had a bit to learn, he says in the film. Afterwards they knew that you can't just say to a sheik, 'I don't fucking care who you are!' Instead they now know that this is an important person who must be treated with respect, he says. What do the Yanks care about a dead Arab? A debate begins in the Berlin casting session after the agent finishes his introduction. A Lebanese man wants to know how the roleplayers will be protected and if the press is allowed to be present at the training sessions for security. Who guarantees that we will be helped if the Americans make a mistake? he asks the room. What do the Yanks care about a dead Arab? The mood becomes agitated. No, not a single word of the operation will reach the outside world, there are no media there, says the German agent. He tries to reassure the potential actors: But you'll be employed by a German firm. There are strict security precautions. By this stage, more than half of the Arabs have already left the room. They were interested in taking part in a film, but the idea of spending 21 days surrounded by smoke grenades, camouflaged Jeeps and Blackhawk helicopters, pretending to be shot with infra-red weapons, doesn't seem quite so attractive. Some working days last ten hours, while others go on around the clock. The pay isn't that great either. An extra gets €90 ($117) per day -- if you leave
[osint] Life Insurance for Palestinian Suicide Bombers
SPIEGEL ONLINE - February 9, 2007, 07:02 PM URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,465438,00.html ARAB BANK PAYS OUT BLOOD MONEY Life Insurance for Palestinian Suicide Bombers By Christoph Schult, Britta Sandberg and Ansgar Mertin An important bank in the Arab world offers accounts paying a type of life insurance to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. But now it could soon face a lawsuit from American lawyers representing the victims. On the morning of the day before he planned to blow himself up, Bassam Takruri wore a freshly ironed shirt, a blazer and polished shoes. At 10 a.m., the student said goodbye to his father, who gave him ten shekels in pocket money. It was a beautiful Saturday in May in the Palestinian town of Hebron. Everything seemed normal, at least for the rest of the family. The 18-year-old Bassam, a boy with dark, earnest eyes, was ambitious. He wanted to become an engineer. His father called him his best son. But he spent the last night of his life away from this family -- something many suicide bombers do so as not to lose their nerve at the last moment. On the Sunday morning of the day Bassam picked for his terror attack, Steve Averbach strapped on his pistol in a Jerusalem suburb just as he had been doing for years. Averbach was a police officer. It was early, not even 6 a.m. and his two small sons Sean and Adam and his wife Julie were still sleeping. At a stop in the northern part of Jerusalem, he boarded the No. 6 bus, a green accordion-stretch model. At around 5:45 a.m. it reached the stop at French Hill. Averbach scrutinized each new passenger. After serving in the anti-terrorist unit of the Jerusalem police department, he was now teaching the police, civilians and private security how to handle a weapon. His colleagues even called him Weapon Steve. As the bus began to pull away, a man ran up to the side and the bus driver stopped and opened the door. The man was wearing the black suit and skullcap of an observant Jew. But his beard was too thin. Seeing a bulge underneath the man's jacket, Averbach quickly stood up and headed toward the stranger. But Bassam, disguised as a devout Jew, was quicker than Averbach and he ignited his belt of explosives. Bassam died and Averbach survived seriously injured for life. A few weeks after the suicide bombing, the phone at the home of Bassam Takruri's parents rang. On the other end of the line was a representative of Muassafat Usar al Shuhada, or The Organization of Martyr Families. He told Bassam's mother that the family had received money, but that they would have to open an account at the Arab Bank in order to withdraw the first deposit. The Takruris were puzzled, but they did what the man said. Shortly thereafter money was transferred to the new account. From then on, Bassam's family received $200 (€152) each month for more than a year. The Arab Bank is one of the largest and most important financial institutions in the Arab world. The Jordan-based private bank, of which 40 percent is still held by the founding Schuman family, is active in 28 countries. The Jordanian monarchy even awarded Abd al Hamid Schuman a medal for his achievements and services to the country. But the bank has long been suspected of directing money used to finance terrorism in the Palestinian Territories. And accounts at its Palestinian branches are also supposedly used to pay a type of life insurance to the families of youthful suicide bombers, who blow themselves up with the aim of killing as many Israelis as possible. The blood money paid for a son turned murderer is 20,000 Saudi riyal -- roughly €4,000 or $5,000. The funds take a circuitous route to the accounts of those families that prove the death of their son by showing a death certificate at the Arab Bank branch in the Palestinian Territories. Then monthly deposits are made just like in Takruri's case. Suicide bombers with foresight can take care of all the necessary paperwork before they blow themselves to smithereens. A so-called Martyr Kit includes everything from a death certificate from the Palestinian Authority to an account card at the Arab Bank. The attack carried out by the student Bassam Takruri on May 18, 2003 was one of the worst at the time. He had several kilograms of explosives strapped around his waist and the power or the blast was so strong that the bus was catapulted from the street. Seven people died and 20 were injured. As the police found Steve Averbach's body inside the bus, his finger was still on the trigger of his pistol. He told them they should be careful since the weapon's safety was off. Then he lost consciousness. He spent five weeks in intensive care. Shards of glass had punctured his lungs and a ball bearing had penetrated his neck to become lodged between his third and fourth vertebrae. Since that day, Averbach has been paralyzed from the neck down. A year after the attack he
[osint] Memo to the American Media from Sheikh Muhammad al-Zawahiri
The fact is that much of what is reported in the American media reflects not only the propaganda machines of the Left, but also that of our Jihadi adversaries© often the content from those machines is indistinguishable. Newspapers... serve as chimnies to carry off noxious vapors and smoke. -Thomas Jefferson Friday Digest PATRIOT PERSPECTIVE Memo to the American Media from Sheikh Muhammad al-Zawahiri Recently, I participated in a three-day national security forum with some knowledgeable military officers. The briefing focused on Fourth Generation Warfare in the Second Nuclear Age, and the formidable threats we face from Jihadi terrorists http://PatriotPost.US/papers/primer01.asp . The non-attribution policy of such briefings prohibits me from identifying any of the presenters, but I can tell you that one of them summed up the current nuclear WMD threat as paraphrased: If the American people could see the bone-chilling threats outlined in the [classified] cable traffic concerning al-Qa'ida and other Islamist terror networks, there would be little dissension about our military mission. Unfortunately, there is a wide gap between what the mainstream media reports about Iraq and other theater operations, and the underlying rationale for those operations, which are classified in order to protect methods and sources. Though there is an effort under way now to declassify more real-time intel, it won't close that gap because the major networks and print outlets are more concerned with political agendas, which most often mirror those of the far left. Consequently, their journalism contains much more fragrance than substance. Notably, the most senior presente r at the aforementioned briefing discussed the topic Media as Terrain - how our adversaries use the media as a battleground. He used this declassified quote to make his point: I say to you: that we are in a battle, and that more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media. That quote is from an intercepted and authenticated communiqué http://PatriotPost.US/news/zawahiri.asp from Osama bin Laden's chief lieutenant, Sheikh Ayman Muhammad al-Zawahiri to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, before Zarqawi's termination last June. The fact is that much of what is reported in the American media reflects not only the propaganda machines of the Left, but also that of our Jihadi adversaries. Too often the content from those machines is indistinguishable. Two weeks ago, this column took to task a mainstream-media organ ( http://PatriotPost.US/alexander/edition.asp?id=514 Newsweek ) for its cover story on Iraq entitled, We're losing. There was nothing particularly extraordinary about the Newsweek piece except that it typified the Leftmedia's relentless and traitorous http://PatriotPost.US/alexander/edition.asp?id=342 efforts to undermine America's will and national resolve to defeat a dangerous enemy. Indeed, Islamist leaders must be thrilled by the support they receive from American media Leftists -those sympathizers whom V.I. Lenin once famously dubbed http://PatriotPost.US/alexander/edition.asp?id=275 Useful Idiots. This week, among other egregious examples of Leftmedia dissent, was a notable tome that went beyond the normal disparagement of Operation Iraqi http://PatriotPost.US/Alexander/edition.asp?id=470 Freedom and instead adopted John http://PatriotPetitions.US/kerry/ Kerry's modus operandi: Don't just question the war, attack the credibility of our warriors http://PatriotPost.US/news/stuck.asp stuck in Iraq. The offender is William Arkin, a military analyst for NBC and writer for the Washington Post, whose bio fails to mention his previous employment and affiliation with Leftist organizations, including the Institute for Policy Studies, Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Last week, Arkin posted a column on the Post's website attacking U.S. military personnel. The column exposed the underlying contempt held by many MSM journalists for those who defend our nation. Arkin wrote, in part: Through every Abu Ghraib and Haditha, through every rape and murder, the American public has indulged those in uniform, accepting that the incidents were the product of bad apples or even of some administration or command order. So we pay the soldiers a decent wage, take care of their families, provide them with housing and medical care and vast social support systems and ship obscene amenities into the war zone for them, and their attitude is that we should, in addition, roll over and play dead, defer to the military and the generals and let them fight their war, and give up our rights and responsibilities to speak up because they are above society?...[T]he recent NBC report is just an ugly reminder of the price we pay for a mercenary-oops sorry,-volunteer force that thinks it is doing the dirty work. The indulged rapists and murderous mercenaries of whom
