Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

*** Taleban Warning To Collaborators.  Following the assassination in Afghanistan on 12 July of Ahmad Wali Karzai, a brother of President Karzai, the Taleban issued a statement warning people who continue “working for the infidel occupants of Afghanistan”.

The statement warns: "If they continue their jobs for which they are paid, in that case with the help of Almighty they will face the fate of Gen Daud Daud [killed in a suicide bomb attack] and Ahmad Wali Karzai...and they would be the loser in this world and the world after death as well."

*** Russia reports increase in terrorism.  According to the Russian Interior Ministry, the number of terrorism-related crimes in the first six months of 2011 increased by almost one-third.  According to the ministry: “As many as 370 terrorism-related crimes were registered in January-June 2010, up 28.9% compared with the first six months of 2010.”

*** Russia’s Mideast conundrum.  Moscow will not have endeared itself to many supporters of the Arab Spring with its strong opposition to international action (military in the former case, diplomatic in the latter) against Libya and Syria.  In the case of Libya, Russia says that UN Security Council resolution 1973 is being “grossly violated” by Nato.  On Syria, Moscow is arguing that putting pressure on President Bashir al-Assad only encourages extremists within the opposition to increase their violence in the hope of forcing a military intervention by Nato.  Russia believes the approach towards Yemen has been slightly more even-handed and should be the model.

However, Moscow will have in some degree compensated for its lack of enthusiasm for overturning the dictatorships in Libya and Syria by its performance at the 11 July Middle East Quartet meeting (comprising the US, EU, Russia, and the UN) aimed at restarting negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.  The Palestinians were looking for a Quartet statement calling for negotiations to begin using the 1967 lines, with mutually agreed swaps, as a baseline and for the ending of Israeli construction in east Jerusalem and the settlements.  Israel wanted any statement to include a reference to Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people, and for language ensuring that any agreement would signify an end to the conflict.

According to a senior Israeli official, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov took pro-Palestinian positions throughout the talks and would not allow a reference to the Jewish and democratic state to be included in the concluding statement of the meeting and so no statement was issued.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said on 12 July that if the Quartet cannot agree on acceptable guidelines for Israel-Palestinian negotiations, he will continue with his plan to go to the United Nations in September to seek full membership for a Palestinian state.