RALEIGH, N.C. --- A father, his two sons and four other men living in North Carolina are accused of military-style training at home and plotting "violent jihad" abroad, federal authorities said Monday.
Associated Press Daniel Patrick Boyd: North Carolina resident has a past with terrorist training in Afghanistan and is accused of plotting "violent jihad" abroad with six other men, including his sons.
Officials said the men were led by Daniel Patrick Boyd, a married 39-year-old who lived in an unassuming lakeside home in a rural area south of Raleigh, where he and his family operated a drywall business.
But court records indicate Mr. Boyd was a veteran of terrorist training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan who fought against the Soviet Union.
"These charges hammer home the point that terrorists and their supporters are not confined to the remote regions of some faraway land but can grow and fester right here at home," U.S. Attorney George E.B. Holding said.
The seven men made their first court appearances in Raleigh on Monday, charged with providing material support to terrorism. If convicted, they could face life in prison.
The indictment said Mr. Boyd, a U.S. citizen, trained in Afghanistan and fought there between 1989 and 1992 before returning to the United States. Court documents charged that Mr. Boyd, also known as 'Saifullah,' encouraged others to engage in jihad.
Mr. Boyd's faith was so brash that, this year, he stopped attending worship services in the Raleigh area and instead began meeting for Friday prayers in his home.
"This is not an indictment of the entire Muslim community," Mr. Holding said. "These people had broken away because their local mosque did not follow their vision of being a good Muslim."
In 1991, Mr. Boyd and his brother were convicted of bank robbery in Pakistan -- accused of carrying identification showing they belonged to the radical Afghan guerrilla group, Hezb-e-Islami, or Party of Islam. They were each sentenced to have a foot and a hand cut off for the robbery, but the sentenced was later overturned.
The wives of the men told The Associated Press in an interview at the time they were glad the truth about their husbands had finally become known. The wives said the couples had U.S. roots but the United States was a country of "kafirs" -- Arabic for heathens.
Two of the suspects are Mr. Boyd's sons: Zakariya Boyd, 20, and Dylan Boyd, 22. The others are Anes Subasic, 33; Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan, 22; and Ziyad Yaghi, 21.
Hysen Sherifi, 24, a native of Kosovo and a U.S. legal permanent was also charged in the case. He was the only person arrested who was not a U.S. citizen.
It's unclear how authorities learned of the activities, although court documents indicate that prosecutors will introduce evidence gathered under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
The indictment claims Mr. Boyd traveled to Israel in 2007 with several of the defendants, hoping to engage in "violent jihad." The attempt was unsuccessful, though, and the men returned home, officials said.
Mr. Boyd was also accused of trying to raise money last year to fund others' travel overseas to fight. One of the men, Hysen Sharifi, allegedly went to Kosovo to engage in violent jihad, according to the indictment, but it's unclear if he did any actual fighting.
Manila - A few months after President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was catapulted into office in January 2001, she vowed to wipe out the Muslim Abu Sayyaf rebel group, which has links with al-Qaeda, during her term as president.
Every year since then, Arroyo claimed significant gains against the country's smallest Muslim rebel group but the guerrillas continue in their deadly ways, launching bomb attacks and kidnappings.
The nebulous Abu Sayyaf, which the military estimates to have between 200 and 2,000 members, has shown resilience in the past eight years despite the killing of its key leaders, as new commanders take over from the fallen ones.
Arroyo's government vowed again to wipe out the Abu Sayyaf guerrillas after they freed on July 12 the last of three Red Cross workers who were seized on Jolo Island, 1,000 kilometres south of Manila, on January 15.
'All that this is saying is we have not completed our job,' National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales said.
The Abu Sayyaf menace is just one of the security concerns that the Arroyo government failed to resolve during her eight-year presidency.
Peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the country's main Muslim rebel group, also failed to move forward and kept the strife-torn southern island of Mindanao on the edge of economic and political instability.
After five years of peace negotiations with the 12,000-strong MILF, the talks fell apart in August and ended in bloody clashes that killed more than 300 people and displaced more than 500,000.
The negotiations with the MILF started in earnest in 2003 under the tutelage of Arroyo. In July 2008, Arroyo told the country in her state of the nation address that a breakthrough in the talks with the MILF was achieved.
Arroyo said that both the government and the MILF peace panel reached an agreement on the thorny issue of territory and the pact would soon be signed. But after two weeks, Arroyo scrapped the agreement due to strong opposition even from her allies.
The non-signing of that key territory deal heightened the frustration of MILF members, prompting three guerrilla commanders to lead deadly attacks on dozens of villages and towns in Mindanao.
Manny Pinol, vice governor of the southern province of North Cotabato, said that unless the root causes of the problem in Mindanao were adequately addressed, the Muslim insurgency problem would persist.
'We have been telling [government officials] that the problem in Mindanao is not just the MILF,' he said. 'The MILF is only a manifestation of these problems. It's the years of neglect, deprivation, injustice poverty and lack of opportunities for the people.'
'They don't seem to listen to us,' Pinol added.
A similar fate befell efforts of the Arroyo government to negotiate peace with the 40-year-old leftist insurgency spearheaded by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CCP).
Data from the National Security Council (NSC) showed that while the leftist guerrillas have declined in number from from 25,000 in the 1980s to less than 6,000 now, they have intensified attacks against government targets since Arroyo became president.
Peace negotiations between the communist rebels and the government collapsed in 2004 after the guerrillas pulled out of the talks accusing the government of influencing foreign countries, including the United States and the European Union, into declaring the CPP a terrorist organization.
In the following years, clashes between government troops and the communist guerrillas intensified, causing more misery among civilians, especially in the impoverished countryside.
'This rebellion has kept the nation in a state of low intensity conflict, posing an obstacle to full economic development and political stability,' a 2009 NSC report about the internal security situation in the country said.
The report added that based on the estimates of the finance department, without the communist insurgency, the country's economy 'could still grow by as much as 2 per cent more.'
During Arroyo's state of the nation address on Monday, security issues and the problems of Muslim and communist insurgencies became mere footnotes in her annual speech.
'In these two internal conflicts the question is not who is going to win but why do Filipinos need to fight each other over issues that both sides know cannot be settled with force but only democratically?' Arroyo said.
People in Mumbai crowded behind a barricade outside where Ajmal Kasab is standing trial.
By VIKAS BAJAJ and LYDIA POLGREEN
Published: July 20, 2009
MUMBAI, India — The sole surviving gunman of the deadly rampage in Mumbai unexpectedly confessed in court here on Monday, adding his voice, matter-of-fact even as he spoke of opening fire into crowds, to what may be the most well-documented terrorist attack anywhere.
The Times's Vikas Bajaj on the unexpected confession of Ajmal Kasab, the only survivor among the team of gunmen who killed more than 160 people in Mumbai last November.
The gunman, Ajmal Kasab, 21, was the man in an infamous surveillance photograph, looking calm with a blue T-shirt and a machine gun. The photograph was one part of an extraordinary electronic record reviewed during the trial, which the judge ruled would go on. Other tapes showed his fellow gunmen shooting up luxury hotels. Recordings of intercepted phone calls provided a spooky, real-time narration between the handlers and the gunmen, who at times needed to be prodded into action and were stunned at the opulence of one hotel.
“Everything is being recorded by the media,” one of the handlers told the gunmen at the Oberoi Hotel. “Inflict maximum damage. Keep fighting. Don’t be taken alive.”
But it did not appear to be the evidence that prompted Mr. Kasab to confess to his role in the attacks, where more than 160 people were killed in November in luxury hotels, a train station, a popular cafe and a Jewish center. He said it was because his native Pakistan, which had denied any role in the attacks, had begun cooperating more with India and identified him as a participant.
“I don’t think I am innocent,” he said, speaking in subdued Hindi. “My request is that we end the trial and be sentenced.”
For the better part of a day he held the courtroom spellbound: he portrayed himself as a poor Pakistani who joined the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba only for money. But in the end, the mission was martyrdom, inflicting the greatest amount of death and chaos along the way. He told the court how he and his partner had assembled a bomb in a public bathroom at a train station, then planted another bomb in a taxi.
“I was firing, and Abu was hurling hand grenades,” he told the court, referring to his partner and to the assault on the train station, where more than 50 people were killed. “I fired at a policeman, after which there was no firing from the police side.”
His journey to Mumbai was at once banal and strange.
He told Judge M. L. Tahilyani that he was broke and tired of his job working for decorator in Jhelum, a small town in Pakistan, and making a pittance. He and a friend had hatched a plan. They would earn cash by robbing people. And to improve their banditry skills they would seek out military training from the easiest source available to a young Pakistani man: Islamic militants.
Mr. Kasab and his friend went to Rawalpindi, he said, and asked in the market where they might find mujahedeen. They were directed to the office of Lashkar-e-Taiba. Indian and American investigators say that Lashkar-e-Taiba planned the attacks in Pakistan. Although Pakistan initially denied that any of its citizens had been involved, it has now charged five men believed to be Pakistan-based Lashkar operatives with involvement. The organization’s founder, Hafez Saeed, has not been charged.
In the months before the attack, Mr. Kasab said in court, he and the other attackers were taken to a safe house in Karachi, the coastal city that is the commercial capital of Pakistan and is a world away from the Punjabi village where his family lived.
There the young men were cut off from the world. He said they and their trainers were not told where they would go next nor were they given any details about their mission, though it was clear that it would involve lethal weapons and deadly force.
“They told us we were to wait for some time,” Mr. Kasab said in court. “There was some problem.” They were warned sternly that “nobody will disobey” their orders.
In a month and a half, they were allowed out of the house only once for a training exercise when they were taught how to navigate the inflatable boats that they would use to leave Pakistani waters.
On Nov. 26, Mr. Kasab and nine other Pakistani men headed toward Mumbai in an inflatable dinghy, each of them armed with a Kalashnikov, a 9 millimeter, ammunition, hand grenades and a bomb containing explosives, steel ball bearings and a timer.
It is clear from the electronic record that the attackers seemed unworldly tools of their handlers.
In one video clip, the attackers wander through the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower hotel, seemingly dazed by the opulence of their surroundings. The 30-inch computer screens, huge windows, bathrooms and kitchens stunned the gunmen, most of them in their early 20s.
But they quickly snapped out of it, and the videos captured the muzzle flashes of the attackers’ Kalashnikovs as they opened fire in marbled hallways, kicking in hotel room doors and mowing down those hiding behind them.
A handler instructed a gunman, “For your mission to end successfully you must be killed.”
In the last recorded call just as the siege was about to end with an attack by Indian soldiers, a handler told one of the attackers at the Jewish community center: “Brother, you have to fight. This is a matter of the prestige of Islam.”
As one of the fighters lay bleeding, he told his handler: “I am shot, pray for me.”
And then: “Pray that God will accept my martyrdom.”
When the smoke cleared, Mr. Kasab was the only survivor among the attackers. He was arrested and confessed on camera, giving a slightly different version of his life story to his interrogators, who questioned him in his hospital bed. He later recanted that confession.
In that version, first aired in Dispatches, a documentary show on Channel 4 in Britain that obtained leaked recordings, Mr. Kasab said that he had joined Lashkar-e-Taiba at the urging of his father, who said he would earn a lot of money and would “give us some of the money, too, and we won’t be poor anymore. Your brothers and sisters will be able to get married. Look, son, the way these people eat and live comfortably, you will do so, too.”
Vikas Bajaj reported from Mumbai, India, and Lydia Polgreen from New Delhi. Hari Kumar contributed reporting from New Delhi.
A version of this article appeared in print on July 21, 2009, on page A1 of the New York edition.
Express News Service First Published : 19 Jul 2009 02:54:00 AM IST Last Updated : 19 Jul 2009 09:51:52 AM IST
HYDERABAD: The Andhra Pradesh police has nabbed Shaukatullah Ghori, a Hyderabadi, who is accused of involvement in the terror attack on the famous Akshardham Temple in Gujarat on September 24, 2002 which left 30 dead and over a 100 injured. Shaukatullah Ghori is the brother of most wanted terrorist Farhatullah Ghori, who is hiding either in Dubai or Pakistan. Police sources told Express that 44-year-old Shaukatullah arrived in the city from Saudi Arabia about three days ago. ‘‘He was nabbed at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Shamshabad.
A non-bailable warrant was pending against him under POTA in a Gandhinagar Court in Gujarat,’’ the sources said. They said Shaukatullah Ghori, popular in Riyadh as Hafiz Saheb, was working as the Imam of a mosque in Riyadh. ‘‘He is not involved in any case in Hyderabad or any part of the State. His only involvement is in Akshardham Temple attack,’’ the sources said.
It is learnt that after going through the records, the Andhra Pradesh police is likely to send him to Gujarat shortly.
While two Pakistani terrorists were killed by the National Security Guards (NSG) in operation Vajra Shakti at the Akshardham Temple, three were sentenced to death and 10 to life imprisonment in the case.
We've been preparing for this for a long time. It came actually above terrorism as a threat to this country, and so we have the whole Cobra machinery, the inter-agency working; we'd gone through simulation exercises like Winter Willow where everyone was involved. And what we're seeing is that that is absolutely the right approach. No country was better prepared than this country.
Despite Johnson's defense of the government's swine flu preparations, Marr pushed Johnson on whether the fears associated with swine flu were overblown, especially reports that women shouldn't have babies. He agreed that indeed that advice was an overreaction.
Nevertheless, Johnson emphasized that the British government is the best prepared nation to combat swine flu, noting that it has stockpiled antivirals for more than 50 percent of the population and that a vaccine was on the way.
Also yesterday, the Telegraphreported that the government had drawn up contingency plans to minimize swine flu's spread. Plans included using "shipping containers and inflatable storage facilities as emergency mortuaries" while suggesting that local planners discuss the practicability of running crematoria "24/7."
The plan also recommends that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) issue fines and cautions for minor offenses rather than physically bring offenders into the court system.
"The prospect of a major crown court along with the prosecutor's department being brought to its knees by swine flu is something to be avoided at all costs," a CPS insider told the Telegraph.
The plans also discussed banning crowds from live sporting events, business continuity best practices, and longer sick leaves to guard against the flu's spread.
Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, at the launch of the Commonwelth Conversation '2 billion voices'. Have your say on the future of the Commonwealth Foreign Secretary, David Miliband helped launch a global debate on the future of the Commonwealth, 20 July 2009.
My first task is to thank Chief Emeka Anyaoko. It is right that he is here as we launch this discussion. Under his leadership the Commonwealth demonstrated its value. With Chief Anyaoko in the driving seat the Commonwealth issued the Harare Declaration, giving contemporary relevance to the Commonwealth’s beliefs and purposes, and defining a new mandate. It helped South Africa to end apartheid, and deployed a Commonwealth Observer Missions to assist with and monitor the historic 1994 elections.
I am here to launch a unique Commonwealth Conversation, not deliver a Commonwealth sermon. That is important because the modern Commonwealth has to unite disparate voices, and unity needs active engagement not just strong leadership. The Conversation will be open, global and focussed. I want to thank the Royal Commonwealth Society for leading the work of the Commonwealth Conversation. The RCS is one of the oldest and largest civil society organisations devoted to the Commonwealth. Yet in keeping with the spirit of juxtaposition in the modern Commonwealth, its leadership is new, energetic and full of ideas. The Case for Reform
I am proud to be Secretary of State for Commonwealth as well as Foreign Affairs. If you say the word commonwealth to me the image that comes to mind is of the tens of thousands of young Ugandans who gathered to meet Her Majesty the Queen in Kampala for the Heads of Government Summit in 2007. They were full of anticipation, expectation and excitement, proud of their own country but also proud to be part of a bigger family.
I am pleased that the UK is the single largest contributor to the Secretariat. Last year we provided over £33 million pounds through a range of Commonwealth institutions and have offered to raise our contribution to Commonwealth funding. In 2007/2008 we gave over £1 billion in bilateral development assistance to Commonwealth Countries.
But the starting point for our Conversation has to be the world around us not the organisation we care about. Because it is only by being relevant to the challenges and opportunities of the modern world that a relevant modern Commonwealth will be built.
When the Commonwealth was born a defining question in foreign relations was the end of empire and the emergence of a post-colonial age. Today, the defining feature of foreigns relation is a particular form of globalization. The deepening of links between nations is not new. Empire itself unleashed flows of money, goods, people and culture across national borders. But several things about the current form of globalization are unprecedented.
First, the relationships between nations are overwhelmingly based on free will not conquest. Global cooperation is voluntary not imposed.
Second, the degree of interdependence means that national interests between countries overlap to such an extent that we can genuinely talk about shared interests. Welfare and security go hand in hand rather than at the expense of each other: whether in respect of trade and climate change or nuclear proliferation, health pandemics and global financial regulation, it is not unreal to talk about the only solutions being win-win solutions.
Third, globalization has dispersed power that was once concentrated. It is not just people and goods that have taken flight, it is authority. With the economic growth in India and China power is shifting eastwards. With greater real-time access to information and ideas, power is shifting downwards from governments towards people. And as citizens and governments alike recognise the reality of their interdependence power is also shifting upwards. Regional institutions such as the EU, AU and ASEAN are playing a greater role. Greater demands are being made on global institutions. In 2000 the UN had 30,000 peacekeepers deployed around the world. Today that figure has risen to 94,000. And the London Summit in April showed that the world’s leading economies now accept that economic governance increasingly has to be conducted at global level.
Yet despite the growing dependence on international rules and institutions, the truth is that the current international system was designed for another age. It was fashioned for a world exhausted by total war and designed to cater to the needs of small and relatively closed economies. The security threat was that of one state against another, not of non-state actors. In recent years it has become increasingly apparent that our rules and institutions have failed to keep pace with global change. This has undermined both their legitimacy and their effectiveness.
And I think that while that narrative of interdependence, of international institutions that are too weak is my stock introduction to foreign policy speeches, it is vital that the debate about the future of the commonwealth situates itself in the modern world as it.
That is why the Britishgovernment has long argued for systemic reform of the international system. We need to renew our multilateral system to make it more relevant and more representative. That means reforming the UN Security Council to include India, Brazil, Germany, Japan and African representation. It means making the EU fit for 27 countries, with a wider range of tasks including in foreign and defence policy. It means NATO adapting to a world where the greatest threats to Western Europe come from non-state actors not other states. It means International Financial Institutions that are more representative of the modern economic world. And across the piece it demands enhanced partnership and greater practical cooperation.
This is where the Commonwealth comes in. In 2008, after a review of FCO strategy, we made the reform of international institutions one of the top four foreign policy priorities for Britain. Alongside our efforts to reform institutions that wield and use hard power we also need to renew those dedicated to soft power. Because the truth is that without the understanding and relationships at the heart of soft power, hard power will be far less effective.
I have previously talked of the Commonwealth’s important mission. Its power lies, first, in the strength and clarity of its shared values. Despite their differences, each and every one of its members has made a commitment to freedom and democracy; to the eradication of poverty and inequality; and to peace, the rule of law and opportunity for all. This transcendence of political, economic and social barriers in the name of basic human values provides the Commonwealth with an ideological grounding that goes far beyond its colonial roots.
Second, the mission stems from its ability to speak to close to a third of the world’s population. And speaking to as well as for its members is something that the Commonwealth needs to do much better. Of its two billion citizens, half are under 25. So it is or should be the voice of the future.
Third, its diversity. Fifty-three countries, spanning all five continents, come together as equals in the Commonwealth. But this diversity is more than geographical: the organisation represents 800 million Hindus, 500m Muslims, 400m Christians. And it encompasses some of the wealthiest countries in the world, alongside some of the poorest; some of the most powerful alongside some of the most vulnerable.
So there are real assets on which to build. The Future of the Commonwealth
To decide on where the Commonwealth should go, it is necessary to understand where it has come from.
At its birth the Commonwealth’s purpose was clear: it provided a link between Britain and its former colonies; a relationship close enough to reflect historic ties, but distant enough to respect the independence of it members. In the 1960s, as it expanded from ten members to thirty, the depth of its common values and interests grew. Charismatic independence leaders, from Nehru to Nkrumah, came together to shape the position of the Commonwealth on critical issues such as de-colonisation, Rhodesian independence or apartheid in South Africa.
In recent years, as the list of global challenges has grown, the Commonwealth has sought to engage in new areas and has taken on a broader role, for instance trying to tackle hard security issues such as terrorism. At the same time, with more countries recognising the reality of interdependence, new international organisations and multilateral forums have sprung up. International cooperation has become a crowded field.
So clear direction, identity and purpose is at a premium. And the search for greater focus in all three domains is at the heart of this Conversation - to engage not just governments but other opinion formers, media and civil society - and of course a wide range of citizens - across all 53 members, on the role of the Commonwealth for the future. As the polling that has been presented today makes clear, this clarity of direction, identity and purpose is much needed. The British Government’s view is that the Commonwealth needs to be clear about its distinctive role and focus on its strengths and advantages. Our starting point is to break this down into three areas.
First extending what is common between us, by focussing foremost on the values and principles that we all signed up to. In essence this means prioritising democracy and human rights. Because with the wave of democracy of the 1990s seemingly having plateaued, these rights and values are increasingly contested. And because the Commonwealth has important tools at its disposal: the ability to censure members who seriously or persistently violate basic norms, the Commonwealth Observer Missions which provide technical support for elections, and the 80 or so Commonwealth Associations which work across the Commonwealth and in some cases beyond promoting freedom of the media, supporting civil society and developing education initiatives. The point about democracy and human rights is that the battle is never entirely won and so it needs the Commonwealth. Just look at Zimbabwe. We will know there is real progress there when we are able to welcome Zimbabwe back into the Commonwealth.
Second, extending our shared wealth, not only economically but also socially and intellectually, by building on the Commonwealth's current strengths. Our heritage means that most of our members share not just the English language, but legal and financial systems. This gives us a competitive edge when it comes to trade and business the Commonwealth today accounts for 20% of global trade - and it is a platform we should seek to build on. This heritage also creates obvious educational links. The Commonwealth Scholarships and English language training are excellent development tools. I believe the changes last year will make the Scholarship scheme more effective, more useful and more sustainable.
Third and finally, capitalising on our diverse membership. As the Commonwealth contains two members of the G8, five of the G20, twelve of the Islamic Conference, over half of the G77, as well as members of the EU, AU and ASEAN, it is uniquely placed to drive the renewal of our international architecture that I talked about earlier. Given its youth, and the fact that a number of its members, from Bangladesh to the Maldives, are on the front-line, climate change should be an urgent focus.
If two billion voices can speak together at the Copenhagen Conference just two weeks after the Commonwealth Heads of Government meet in Trinidad then we could play a very powerful role in securing the ambitious global deal we need. But the battle for low carbon development is not just a one off challenge. Rich countries seeking a transition to low carbon, poor countries seeking to avoid the mistakes of industrialised countries, need to come together in a decades long drive to live within the resources of a single shared planet. They need economic, social and cultural norms to change in fundamental ways. I believe the battle against climate change should be a unifying focus for the Commonwealth, involving not just practical exchange of ideas but political voice across barriers of region, race and religion. Institutional Change
If we are to renew and refresh our Commonwealth, we need to ask hard questions not just about our priorities but our structure, institutional arrangements and membership. We need to re-examine not just what we do, but how we do it.
That means modernising the Commonwealth Secretariat; ensuring our programmes are effective, that they are targeted at those who need them most and deliver real value for money. We also badly need to find new ways to engage the two billion people we represent. The polling data released today shows that too few people understand what the Commonwealth is for, let alone appreciate the work it does. We must ensure that it reflects the interests and aspirations of our citizens, that it creates opportunities and opens networks for them whether in business, education, sport or politics.
And finally we must extend our membership to those who share our values, who meet the criteria and who want to join. As we saw in the 1960s when the Organisation expanded from ten to thirty, new arrivals inject new dynamism. Broadening the membership does not dilute the shared values or weaken the shared purpose, it enhances it. We have said before that we support Rwanda’s application because its inclusion would help bind Rwanda into our shared values and principles. Let it not be the last. Conclusion
In 1946 Nehru said that "The world, in spite of its rivalries and hatreds and inner conflicts, moves inevitably towards closer cooperation and the building up of a world commonwealth". This world, he expanded, was one in which there is the “free cooperation of free peoples, and no class or group exploits another".
Sixty years on Nehru would be astonished at some of the progress, but surely he would also be desperately disappointed by some of the basic failings of international cooperation. Distances have shrunk and interests have become more closely aligned. Yet our work of building up this common wealth is far from complete. Too many lives are blighted by the diseases of prejudice, ignorance and corrupted government as well as the injuries of poverty and conflict.
So my theme for this Conversation is simple: more common, more wealth. With more common action and common effort, greater unity of focus and collective effort, we can and will create more wealth, not just in the narrow, material sense but in terms of our cultural and social diversity, in terms of the rich tapestry of our lives. Even at sixty, demographics makes the Commonwealth one of the youngest international organisations. So let this Conversation show that sixty is the new forty, and set this organisation on the road to an active and effective middle age.
Indonesian police released on Wednesday images of the two men believed to have carried out the suicide bomb attacks on two luxury hotels in Jakarta last week that left nine dead and more than 50 wounded.
The sketches were based on the heads of two bodies found in the J.W. Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in the aftermath of the explosions, police said.
The body found in the Ritz-Carlton belonged to a man between 20 and 40 years old with dark skin tone and short dark hair, police said. The body found at the Marriott belonged to a lighter-skinned man between age 16 and 17.
More than 50 people, including two Canadians, were injured after a pair of suicide bombers posing as guests attacked the Marriott and Ritz-Carlton on Friday morning.
Militant's wife detained
No official suspects have been named, but authorities say they suspect the attacks were planned by Noordin Mohammed Top, a Malaysian fugitive who heads a breakaway faction of the Southeast Asian militant network Jemaah Islamiyah.
Local television reported Wednesday that investigators had detained and interviewed one of Top's wives, Arian Rahma.
Counterterrorism police have stepped up their manhunt for Noordin — who has been at large for many years and narrowly escaped capture several times — because they believe explosives found at the scene Friday were similar to those used in earlier blasts.
Noordin is accused of masterminding an attack on the same Marriott hotel that killed 12 people in 2003, as well as a 2004 strike on the Australian Embassy that killed 10 and the 2005 bombings on Bali that killed 20.
— Strategic Decision Support Modelling with Morphological Analysis —
General Morphological Analysis (GMA) is a computer-aided method for structuring and analysing the total set of relationships contained in multi-dimensional, non-quantifiable, problem complexes. Developed by the Swedish National Defence Research Agency in the middle of the 1990s, it can be used for structuring complex policy and planning issues, developing scenario and strategy laboratories, and analysing organisational and stakeholder structures. GMA is especially useful for working with so-called Wicked Problems.
The Swedish Morphological Society is a non-commercial, scientific site whose purpose is the dissemination of knowledge concerning the scientific use of morphological analysis, its theory and practice. We present articles and links on morphological analysis, its pioneer Professor Fritz Zwicky (California Institute of Technology), and on Projects where morphological analysis has been utilized. A preliminary Tutorial: "Modeling Complex Socio-Technical Systems using Morphological Analysis" is on the tutorial page.
Download List
Please Note: This is a register of the articles that can be downloaded from the Swedish Morphological Society's website. Some of these articles appear on other pages, and if you have already downloaded material from other pages, you may get duplicates. This list will be continually updated.
All documents in PDF-format.
• Morphological Analysis - A general method for non-quantified modeling Adapted from a paper presented at the 16th Euro-Conference on Operational Analysis, Brussels (1998). http://www.swemorph.com/pdf/gma.pdf
• Modeling Complex Socio-Technical Systems using Morphological Analysis Adapted from an address to the Swedish Parliamentry IT Commission, Stockholm, December 2002. http://www.swemorph.com/pdf/it-webart.pdf
• Developing Scenario Laboratories with Computer-Aided Morphological Analysis Presented at the 14th International Command and Control Research and Technology Symposium (ICCRTS), Washington DC – June 15-17, 2009. http://www.swemorph.com/pdf/cornwallis3.pdf
• Problem Structuring using Computer-Aided Morphological Analysis This is the post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of the article published by JORS. The definitive publisher-authenticated version, Ritchey, T. Problem Structuring using computer-aided morphological analysis, Journal of the Operational Research Society (2006) 57, 792-801, is available online at: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jors/journal/v57/n7/abs/2602177a.html http://www.swemorph.com/pdf/psm-gma.pdf
• Modelling Society's Capacity to Manage Extraordinary Events Adapted from a paper presented at the SRA (Society for Risk Analysis) Conference in Paris, 15-17 November, 2004. http://www.swemorph.com/pdf/sra.pdf
• Strategic Decision Support using Computerised Morphological Analysis Presented at the 9th International Command and Control Research and Technology Symposium, Copenhagen, 14-16 September, 2004. http://www.swemorph.com/pdf/iccrts1.pdf
• Modeling Multi-Hazard Disaster Reduction Strategies with Computer-Aided Morphological Analysis Reprint from the Proceedings of the 3rd International ISCRAM Conference, Newark, NJ (USA), May 2006. http://www.swemorph.com/pdf/multi.pdf
• Scenarios and Strategies for an Extended Producer Responsibility System Adapted from a Study for the Swedish Ministry of the Environment. http://www.swemorph.com/pdf/epr9.pdf
• Threat Analysis for the Transport of Radioactive Material using Morphological Analysis in Packaging, Transport, Storage & Security of Radioactive Material, prm481.3d 18/2/2009, The Charlesworth Group, Wakefield. http://www.swemorph.com/pdf/ma-patram1.pdf
• Using Morphological Analysis to Evaluate Preparedness for Accidents Involving Hazardous Materials Study for the Swedish Rescue Services Board, presented at the 4th International Conference for Local Authorities, Shanghai, November, 2002. http://www.swemorph.com/pdf/chem2.pdf
• Nuclear Facilities and Sabotage: Using Morphological Analysis as a Scenario and Strategy Development Laboratory Adapted from a Study for the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate, and presented to the 44th Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management - Phoenix, Arizona, July 2003 http://www.swemorph.com/pdf/inmm-r2.pdf
• Protection against Sabotage of Nuclear Facilities: Using Morphological Analysis in Revising the Design Basis Threat Adapted from a Study for the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate, and presented to the 44th Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management - Phoenix, Arizona, July 2003 http://www.swemorph.com/pdf/dbt1.pdf
THE director-general of Japan’s Maritime Bureau, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, Shigeru Ito, has praised national legislators as two Japanese warships prepare to protect international shipping off Somalia from tomorrow.
New legislation, in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law and the Sea, that enables the Japanese government to punish acts of piracy and protect ships regardless of their nationality, takes effect on July 24.
“Japan has dispatched two warships from the Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force since March to protect commercial ships. Under the establishment of this new law, Japan can now fulfill its responsibility in anti-piracy acts as a member of the international community,” Mr Ito told Lloyd’s List.
Although Japan’s escort operation has up to now been limited to ships only related to Japan, this new legislation enables the government to protect vessels regardless of their nationalities from acts of piracy.
“Japan can fight piracy more appropriately and effectively by co-operating with other nations,” said Mr Ito.
“MSDF’s escort vessels Harusame and Amagiri left Japan on July 6 as the second contingent on escort duties for the anti-piracy operation,” he added.
On July 15 MLIT started pre-registration and escort application at the Gulf of Aden, off Somalia, to be escorted in accordance with the new legislation.
The widening of Japan’s anti-piracy role to include international vessels came three days after the Pakistan Navy assumed command of combined task force 150 for the third time.
Rear Admiral Muhammad Zakaullah took over the control of the task force, which operates in the area around the Gulf of Aden, Red Sea and Indian Ocean from French Navy Rear Admiral Alain Hinden.
Speaking at the handover ceremony in Bahrain Admiral Hinden said: “Above all else we have taken a stand and shown that millions of square miles of ocean are not the property and playground of the smuggler, the pirate, the terrorist and the trafficker.
“We have shown, on the high seas, that in combination with our regional neighbours, we will make the effort, and bear the burden of enforcing the rule of international law of the seas, hundreds of miles from shore and thousands of miles from our home countries.”
Adm Zakaullah added: “In accordance with the policy of collaborative maritime security, Pakistan Navy, despite resource constraints, remains committed to play its role to realise the shared goal of regional stability and security.”
The task force is one of three operating in the Gulf of Aden that have been formed by Nato, the European Union and combined forces that together have more than 30 warships.
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