03-Dec-17: Understanding Jordan's king and his "holistic" approach to terror

Yesterday in Jordan [Screen grab]

Regular readers know we pay more than the usual amount of attention to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. It's where our daughter Malki's murderer lives free as a bird.

And even though

• she has boasted over and again for the cameras and the media of her central role in the 2001 bombing attack on the people inside Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria; and 
• she confessed in an Israeli court in 2003 to the calculated murder of 15 innocent victims, most of them children, and to having done this on behalf of the Islamist terror regime, Hamas, whose first-ever female terror agent she is reputed to be; and 
• the US government, the US Department of Justice and the FBI want her arrested and extradited to face Federal charges in a Washington court

Jordan's ruler King Abdullah II, aware of her celebrity status among his people, has stubbornly presided over a series of measures whose effect is to spit in the eye of the Americans, to deny the validity of the 1995 Jordan/US Extradition Treaty and to ensure one of his kingdom's - and the Arab world's - most admired females remains free to pursue her career of incitement to terrorism, Islamist values and the murder of Jewish children.

Nigeria's president and entourage hear from Jordan's
king on how Jordan has defeated terror [Image Source]

Jordan is currently hosting an event variously termed (depending on which media channels you consult) the Aqaba Retreat, the Aqaba Process or the Aqaba Meetings. (Aqaba is a resort town located at Jordan's southern-most tip, adjacent to the much smaller Israeli resort of Eilat.)

Jordan's semi-official English-language mouthpiece focused on who was there in an official-sounding report yesterday ["King meets with leaders, officials as Aqaba Meetings kick off: Gathering aimed as venue to bolster security, military cooperation in the fight against terrorism", Jordan Times, December 2, 2017]:

• "His Majesty King Abdullah on Saturday met with the presidents of a number of African countries and representatives of nations participating in the two-day Aqaba Meetings to discuss the global efforts to fight terrorism and extremist ideologies, especially in West Africa..." 
• "The participants [include] senior officials from the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Romania, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Cyprus, Canada, Brazil, Japan, Australia, India, Indonesia, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Nigeria, Mauritania, Antigua and Barbuda, Mali, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Chad, and Burkina Faso, in addition to representatives of regional and international organisations..." 
• "His Majesty also held meetings with US Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis, Brazilian Minister of Defence Raul Jungmann, French Minister of State attached to the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, UK Minister of State for the Armed Forces Mark Lancaster, and High Representative of the African Union Pierre Buyoya... On the sidelines of the Aqaba Meetings, King Abdullah met with President of Nigeria Muhammadu Buhari, President of Guinea Alpha Condé, President of Niger Mahamadou Issoufou, and President of Mali Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, a Royal Court statement said."
• "The Aqaba Meetings were launched by the King to maintain international and regional coordination and cooperation in the fight against terrorism within a holistic approach, and to discuss security challenges in regions around the world that are dealing with terrorism hotspots, with the aim of identifying shortcomings and coordinating efforts to fight terrorism."
• "The meetings are part of His Majesty’s initiative to reach out to countries around the world and coordinate with them on this issue, since the anti-terrorism fight “must be a joint, international effort, based on close coordination and consultations, to counter the global threats of terrorism and extremism”, the statement said... 

A brief Associated Press report makes plain what we find so perplexing about this:

Jordan's state news agency says King Abdullah II is hosting a high-level conference on fighting terrorism and extremist ideologies, particularly in West Africa... The agency says the conference is the latest in a series launched by Jordan's monarch to reach out to other nations and help coordinate the fight against terrorism... Jordan's king is seen as a key Western partner in the battle against Islamic extremism. ["West Africa is focus of Jordan counter-terrorism conference", AP, December 1, 2017]

For us, the elephant in the room is Ahlam Tamimi. 

Source: Al Jazeera

Abdullah has treaty obligations to the US. His father signed a 1995 Extradition Treaty with the Clinton Administration in 1995 and in its wake several Jordanian terrorists and felons were shipped off to face the US justice system. Though his media, aided by compliant reporters and editors outside Jordan, put up a facade that makes it seem extraditing Tamimi to the US is somehow problematic, it's clear that it's Tamimi and the specific crimes to which she has confessed that are the problem. And the real story. 

Though no one in the mainstream media seems to have picked this up yet, there's a clear analysis of the legal mess into which Jordan has inserted itself while giving its native jihadist killer safe harbor. See "Pressure on Jordan: Refusal to extradite mastermind of deadly 2001 Sbarro suicide bombing in Jerusalem contravenes international law and agreements" [Michelle Munneke JD of American University Washington College of Law, in National Security Law Brief, October 28, 2017]:

This analysis means the United States should not give up on attempting to extradite Al-Tamimi. If other countries place enough pressure on Jordan due to concerns of Al-Tamimi’s danger and susceptibility to planning another attack, Jordan may change its position. Al-Tamimi is above all else, a significant danger that Jordan should take seriously—if not for the world, for Jordan’s own citizens that live amongst Al-Tamimi.
Jordan should reconsider its position and permit extradition in the case of Al-Tamimi for the safety of Jordanians, and citizens of other nations that may be subject to another attack by Al-Tamimi. Thwarting extradition not only violates the principle of comity, but it also perpetuates the international danger presented by Al-Tamimi.

But for most people, this isn't about law but simply crime and punishment. Tamimi was sent by her Hamas masters in the summer of 2001 to kill Jews. Especially Jewish children. She succeeded by all of their perverted measures. And she's now free, extremely well-compensated, raising a family and a media celebrity.

She has never denied the facts. And she has been applauded - literally - time and again in her public appearances throughout Jordan as well as in her well-publicized VIP speaking visits/travels to such countries (listed alphabetically) as Algeria (December 2011), Kuwait (July 2012 and March 2014), Lebanon (April 2012 and January 2015), Qatar (April 2012, again December 2013), Tunisia (April 2012 and November 2015) and Yemen (April 2014). 

She hosted a popular weekly TV program called “نسيم الأحرار” [Transliteration: “Nassem al-Ahrar”] meaning “Breezes of the Free” between February 2012 until September 2016.  Devoted to Palestinian Arab prisoners and their families, it appears to have been designed to bolster their morale, act as a two-way conduit of information and to encourage more of the kind of the kind of acts that turned these terrorists into prisoners in the first place. Tamimi stopped being its presenter in September 2016 at about the time she was very briefly (for a single night) taken into custody by Jordanian authorities pursuant to an Interpol arrest order at the behest of the US Department of Justice.

Tamimi and her connections publicly thank Jordan's judiciary and
leaders for getting her off the hook with the FBI and the US
Department of Justice - though the pursuit continues [Source] 

Jordan is a family-run business that like so many other Arab polities presents itself as a nation-state and even as a constitutional democracy, which is a real stretch given the total domination exercised by the British-installed Hashemites that have run it since the 1920s. 

Thus it was no secret to Jordan's Royal Palace that Tamimi was recording a weekly tribute to terrorism-and-Islamism in an Amman studio (Amman, Jordan's capital, is where she lives). And that it was uploaded and broadcast around the world every week for years by the Hamas-owned Alquds satellite television network. Her appalling show was and still is rebroadcast by a multitude of Arabic and non-Arabic websites that stream all or some of the programming put out by Alquds. The king and his Hashemite Kingdom never had any problem with any of this. Their "principled opposition" to terror only stretches so far. 

In April 2017, an Australian TV journalist told us privately that Tamimi had been advised by the Jordanian authorities to lower her profile in the wake of a Jordanian Court of Cassation decision that Jordan's 1995 extradition treaty with the US was unconstitutional. In particular, he told us, the "Jordanian authorities have now banned her doing any media interviews". Our impression is she is taking the advice seriously for the time being. 

Before that, and for several years from her home base of Jordan, she appeared numerous times as the presenter on several Alquds TV specials - including a number of propaganda programs that went to air in the summer of 2014 as fighting raged between Hamas Gaza and the IDF. She may be the most influential and important female public figure in Hamas.

So what does the Royal Hashemite Palace and its central personage say to all this?

Nothing, at least not publicly. Nor can we expect them to respond for so long as he and they continue to be absurdly feted as central players in their "holistic" struggle to defeat the terrorists by the likes of the most senior politicians of the United States, the UK and Europe. 

Just so long as they're not Jordanian terrorists.

30-Jan-13: In fighting terrorism, fear cannot be a substitute for moral clarity: Two political figures speak from personal experiences of terror

Trimble and Aznar [Image Source]

We posted here yesterday ["29-Jan-13: What their view on Hezbollah tells us about Europe's counter-terrorism strategy"] about the European Union's pusillanimous stance on banning one of the world's most dangerous and active terror organizations, Hezbollah.

The Times of London has a leading op ed column today written by two former political figures who have deep first-hand experience of terrorism. In their essay, entitled "Don’t mince words. Hezbollah are terrorists", José María Aznar who was was prime minister of Spain from 1996 until a few days after the Madrid railway massacre of 2004, and Lord Trimble, First Minister of Northern Ireland between 1998 and 2002 and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 1998, begin with the antithesis to yesterday's Guardian op ed about which we blogged last night: "29-Jan-13: Is the threat of terrorism greater now, or less?". They open with these words:

Jihadi terrorism is still alive and, as events in Mali and Algeria show us, poses a direct threat to us. The turmoil in North Africa reminds us that jihadism has no boundaries and that when confronting terrorism it is always better to prevent it rather than deal with its consequences. 

As we noted yesterday, the EU prefers not to face the reality of terrorism. Trimble and Aznar point to what is and is not being done about Hezbollah to make their case. About last summer's terrorist bombing in Bulgaria of a bus-load of Israelis, they point out that

despite this atrocity some European governments are not willing to declare Hezbollah a security threat and put it on the EU terrorist list. This refusal is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of the group. Hezbollah is not just a Lebanese militia group and political party. It is the long arm of Iran. From its conception by Tehran in 1982, it has been committed to the revolutionary goals of the international expansion of Shia Islam, as dreamt of by the Ayatollah Khomeini. The fact that it holds seats in the Lebanese Parliament and posts in the Cabinet does not mean that its leaders see themselves as just another Lebanese faction — albeit one that murders its political opponents (a UN tribunal found that the assassination of Rafic Hariri, the Lebanese Prime Minister was a Hezbollah plot). On the contrary Hezbollah has a global vision and reach. It has perpetrated attacks in places as distant as Argentina, Georgia, Israel, Thailand, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, as well as Lebanon. It has been involved in illegal but very lucrative activities in Latin America and West Africa. 

They then address a dimension of this issue that often drives us crazy - the willingness of many to make an artificial distinction between the so-called "military wing" of terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, and their political, charitable and who-knows-what-other front activities. People who think like that, say the authors, are wrong. Hezbollah is a single body and needs to be condemned and blacklisted in all its manifestations:

...Every part plays a role in the overall strategy. The leaders in charge of its hospitals and schools, the military leader and the political representatives all sit together under the secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah. His deputy, Naim Qassem, was quoted as recently as October, saying: “We don’t have a military wing and a political wing. We don’t have the Party of Allah and the Party of Resistance. These differences do not exist and are rejected.” Hezbollah is committed to violent revolution. It sees itself as being in total confrontation with our way of life. The idea that engaging Hezbollah through the Lebanese political process and institutions would moderate it has proved to be a dangerous illusion. And today it is actively intervening in Syria on behalf of Bashar Assad; we will know soon about the atrocities conducted by its militants there... We know from our own experience in Spain and Northern Ireland that terrorism cannot be defeated unless you tackle all the tentacles that serve the purposes of the terrorists, and that includes the political and financial front organisations. Make no mistake — terrorist groups use all the means at their disposal to survive, flourish and achieve their plans.

About the claim by certain European governments that this is somehow not the right time to put Hezbollah on the EU terrorist list, they correctly ask:

But what more is needed to let us take such a decision? Official bodies, private research, parliamentary inquiries, one after another, have revealed the terrorist connections.

Addressing one of the reasons European states have held back from condemning Hezbollah, they write

We understand the caution of nations that have citizens living in Lebanon or peacekeeping troops deployed there. But fear cannot be a substitute for moral clarity. We need to remember that Unifil II (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) was deployed in 2006 to disarm Hezbollah, not to become its hostage... Hezbollah is already present and active on European soil; its illegal activities and networks cover the continent. It has shown that it is willing to strike in Europe. That is why European governments must move now to stigmatise Hezbollah and its activities, vision and goals.

What more must happen before that view is heard and comprehended?

20-Jan-13: While some would claim the Algerian hostage-killers are terrorists, others, the BBC for instance, would see them as...

The screenshot at right is snapped from the home page of BBC World Service just now.

This past Thursday (see "17-Jan-13: 'Kidnapping' 'militant' 'hostage-taking' Islamists and the Algerian terror attack now underway") and multiple times in the past, we - and numerous others - pointed out that the BBC refrains from invoking the concept of terrorism in all its lexical variations unless it is taken from someone's direct speech. The full strategy document is called "Language when Reporting Terrorism | Guidance in Full".

It starts promisingly enough:

We must report acts of terror quickly, accurately, fully and responsibly.

But then rapidly sinks:

The word "terrorist" itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding... We should not adopt other people's language as our own; our responsibility is to remain objective...

From years of watching the skew built into much of the BBC's reporting of terrorism and especially Islamist terrorism, we long ago came to the conclusion that what the BBC is marketing in this document is an amoral strategy that reflects poorly on those who create and stand behind its policies.

This might be a good time to remind readers of a critical piece we wrote about the BBC and its management back in August 2011 [online here] and a specific quotation there from a Joanna Mills, an editor at BBC World Update, eight years earlier: 

"It is the style of the BBC World Service to call no one a terrorist, aware as we are that one man's terrorist is another one's freedom fighter." 

As we wrote on Thursday:

We have utter contempt for the circumlocuting Bush House ideologues who have been taken prisoner in the cognitive warfare raging around them of which they seem to be almost totally unaware. 

But now, as details emerge of the brutal killings in Algeria of innocent gas field workers by the jihadist, terrorist thugs, we feel we feel the need to apologize for part of what we wrote.

Sorry. Bush House is in fact no longer the location from which BBC World Service broadcasts. It moved its operations six months ago to Broadcasting House, a central London property that was spectacularly upgraded for the BBC at a cost of over a billion pounds sterling (which surprisingly turns out to have been not enough). The new headquarters includes a gargantuan underground shelter to protect the news people from potential attacks by terrorists militant suicide activists.

17-Jan-13: 'Kidnapping' 'militant' 'hostage-taking' Islamists and the Algerian terror attack now underway

Mokhtar Belmokhtar: "Veteran, one-eyed jihadist-cum-gangster" who leads
an Al Qaeda offshoot, but large parts of the media
don't dare call him terrorist [Image Source: Dagbladet, Norway]

A major terrorist attack, and a massive intervention by local authorities against the terrorists, are going on at this moment in Algeria.

If you tune in to the BBC (among other similarly afflicted news reporting sources) right now, you will not see the word 'terror', the word 'terrorist' or the word 'terrorism' anywhere in the reporting, though every single reader and viewer of the BBC's products understands that the story is all about terrorism.

In brief, what happened is that yesterday (Wednesday) morning around 4 am, a gas plant located in the In Amenas natural gas field of eastern central Algeria, operated by energy giant BP, Statoil of Norway and the Algerian state oil company, Sonatrach [source] came under terrorist attack - that's what US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called it. The New York Times says the attack by the "armed extremists" is "retaliation for the French military intervention in Mali" on which we reported three days ago [see "14-Jan-13: How do you say "proportionality" in French?"]

The terrorists are led by a man The Independent calls "a veteran, one-eyed jihadist-cum-gangster called Mokhtar Belmokhtar". 41 foreign workers and hundreds of Algerians were immediately taken hostage. Some later escaped; others appear to have been killed by Algerian forces in a military operation this morning. The death and injuries toll is provisional - it's clear that in the fog of the current events, the real results will come only later.

During the past hour (according to Atlantic Wire):

A spokesperson for UK Prime Minister David Cameron says he was no informed about the operation before it began, but wishes he had been. Cameron "told the Algerian PM in a call that he would have preferred to have been informed beforehand" and is "extremely concerned" about the "very grave and dangerous situation." The United States has dispatched a surveillance drone to observe the situation at the plant, according to CBS News.

For now, here's the provisional assessment (via Daily Mail) of the foreigners who were taken hostage:

• NORWAY: Nine employees of Statoil
• UNITED STATES: Seven Americans have been captured, according to the terrorists. The US says its citizens are involved but has given no numbers.
• BRITAIN: “Several” British nationals are among the hostages, the UK government says.
• JAPAN: At least three of the hostages are Japanese, according to the Japanese media.
• MALAYSIA: Two Malaysians being held, the government says.
• IRELAND: A 36-year-old Irish man is among the hostages, according to Ireland’s government.
• FRANCE: President Francois Hollande confirmed Thursday that French nationals were among those being held.

Here's the BBC's terrorism-free version:

BBC World Service: Algeria siege: 'Victims' as army tries to free hostages

Algerian forces have moved against Islamic militants holding hostages at a gas facility in eastern Algeria, the state news agency reports. Four foreign hostages were freed but the operation resulted in a number of "victims"... Algerian soldiers had been surrounding the facility near In Amenas that kidnappers occupied on Wednesday, after killing a Briton and an Algerian. Reports quoting militants said at least 34 hostages and 14 kidnappers died. Militants told Mauritania's ANI news agency that seven foreign hostages were still alive after the Algerian military raid. Nearly 600 Algerian workers and four foreign hostages - two from Scotland, one from France and one from Kenya - were freed during the operation... An Irishman who had been kidnapped was freed and has spoken to his family, Ireland's foreign ministry said.... "About half" the foreign hostages had been freed. In Algeria's Liberte, Salim Tamani writes that it could signal the start of reprisals for Algeria allowing French jets to use its airspace for actions in Mali. Salem Ferdi writes in Algeria's Le Quotidien d'Oran that the attack "will have disastrous consequences for the Algerian oil and gas industry". In France, Pierre Rousselin writes in Le Figaro that Algeria is "a country in which any French intervention gives rise to mistrust. Its resistance against the terrorist threat must be supported". [Note that the
BBC's absurdly ideological policy specifies that while the word terrorism cannot be used in the ordinary way, it can be quoted when someone else uses it.] The Algerian military targeted two vehicles as they tried to escape from the site with an unknown number of people on board. Militants told local media that Algerian forces had opened fire from the air. The militants earlier said they were holding 41 foreign nationals. They are believed to include British, Japanese, US and Norwegian citizens. Algerian Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia earlier said the kidnappers were Algerian and operating under orders from Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a senior commander of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) until late last year. [The name of the terrorist organization can be stated, but the fact that the terrorist organization is a terrorist organization cannot.] Mr Ould Kablia said the kidnappers had not entered Algeria from a neighbouring country. One statement purported to be from the hostage-takers called for an end to the French military intervention against Islamist rebels in neighbouring Mali. Algeria allowed France to use its airspace during its operation against Islamist militants who occupied northern Mali last year. The French operation began on Friday. [more from BBC World Service]

A part of us feels sorry for the writers and editors forced to put together reports about fast-moving terrorist attacks carried out by kidnapping militant hostage-taking Islamists. But on a moment's further reflection, we have utter contempt for the circumlocuting Bush House ideologues who have been taken prisoner in the cognitive warfare raging around them of which they seem to be almost totally unaware.

It's too early by far to summarize the ongoing events in this major terror attack other than to say there has already been a horrifying loss of innocent lives - dozens of people from many national backgrounds, according to the latest AP report - and there will be significant economic fallout. Concerning the latter, the Washington Post's analyst writes this:

The biggest economic pain, though, will of course be in Algeria itself. The In Amenas field produced $3.9 billion a year in exports. Energy is a big component of the Algerian economy, and this crisis, even once it ends, could risk scaring off potential investors. If you were a European energy executive, how much money would you want to put into North Africa right now?

Further reading

• The Atlantic: Mokhtar Belmokhtar, The Terrorist Behind Algeria's Hostage Crisis: Turns out the al Qaeda-affiliated militant has been on a UN watchlist since 2003
• USA Today: Algeria says 600 hostages freed; terrorists say 35 died
• Daily Mail (UK): Thirty-five foreign hostages are feared dead after a helicopter air strike by Algerian forces on the BP gas plant seized by al-Qaeda-linked terrorists