International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards chief Olli Heinonen (left) and Iran nuclear negotiator Javad Vaidi speak to reporters Thursday after several days of meetings in Tehran (Atta Kenare/Getty Images) Iran, IAEA Reach Nuclear Negotiations Agreement Talks this week between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency resulted in an agreement on further negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Jan. 11). Negotiators “reached an agreement on the modality for resolving the remaining outstanding issues” on the Iranian nuclear effort, according to IAEA safeguards chief Olli Heinonen...Full Story

Al-Qaeda Working to Infiltrate U.S., Report Warns A draft of the new U.S. National Intelligence Estimate warns that al-Qaeda is increasing its efforts to place operatives inside the United States, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, July 12)...Full Story

Nuclear Inspectors Head to North Korea Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency are on their way to North Korea to begin monitoring the shutdown of the country’s plutonium-producing Yongbyon nuclear reactor, the Associated Press reported today (GSN, July 13)...Full Story

	Friday, July 13, 2007

Al-Qaeda Working to Infiltrate U.S., Report Warns A draft of the new U.S. National Intelligence Estimate warns that al-Qaeda is increasing its efforts to place operatives inside the United States, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, July 12). The assessment, which must be approved by all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies before being finalized, would represent the consensus thinking of top intelligence analysts over an extended period. Over the next three years, the United States is likely to contend with a “persistent and evolving terrorist threat” from al-Qaeda and other militant Islamist groups “driven by the undiminished intent to attack the homeland and a continued effort by terrorist groups to adapt and improve their capabilities,” the analysis said. U.S. officials have said on several occasions that terrorist operatives could enter the United States through Europe, where most citizens do not need visas to make the trip. “Europe could become a platform for an attack against this country,” Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said yesterday on CNN.  However, the report stated that counterterrorism measures put in place internationally since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, have “constrained the ability of al-Qaeda to attack the U.S. homeland again and have led terrorist groups to perceive the homeland as a harder target to strike than on 9/11.” The report said that al-Qaeda is believed to be maintaining efforts to acquire chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.  It also expressed a growing concern about people on U.S. soil adopting militant Islamist views. The report’s conclusions were similar to those in an analysis prepared this year by the National Counterterrorism Center, AP reported. In a series of television appearances yesterday, Chertoff described a “gut feeling” that the United States is in greater danger of attack this summer.  He noted recent declarations from al-Qaeda leaders, the group’s ability to train in South Asia with relative impunity, the increasing range of attacks in Europe and North Africa, and a history of terror attacks that took place during the summer. Al-Qaeda has restored three of four major assets necessary for an attack in the United States, according to the report:  a safe location in Pakistan near the country’s border with Afghanistan, senior leadership and midlevel operatives.  The Associated Press was unable to identify the missing final element. There is frustration among some U.S. national security officials and lawmakers that the Bush administration has continued to treat Pakistan as an ally while al-Qaeda has been able to increase its activity in the border region, AP reported. “Is this a Motel 6 for terrorists?” Representative Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) asked recently (Katherine Shrader, Associated Press/The Guardian). Back to top

Bush Names Ambassador to Libya; Senators Dismayed President George W. Bush on Wednesday nominated the first U.S. ambassador to Libya in nearly three decades, drawing fire from four Democratic senators opposed to the maneuver, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, April 6). Bush tapped Gene Cretz, now a senior diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Israel, to help continue normalizing relations between the two nations.  There had been no diplomatic relations between Tripoli and Washington since 1980, though tensions with the North African nation have relaxed since Libyan leader Col. Muammar Qadhafi renounced his nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs in 2003 (see GSN, April 28, 2004). The United States opened a diplomatic office in Tripoli in 2004 but did post an ambassador there, AP reported. The Senate must approve the nomination (Associated Press I/USA Today, July 12). Four senators decried the nomination and indicated they would block it until Qadhafi compensates the families of U.S. citizens killed in Libyan-sponsored terrorist attacks, AP reported. All the senators from New York and New Jersey senators want Qadhafi to first follow through on his pledge to pay $2.7 billion to the families of the 270 people killed in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.  Most of the victims were U.S. citizens. The senators also want Libya to compensate the families of two U.S. soldiers killed in the 1986 bombing of a Berlin disco (Associated Press II/Yahoo!News, July 12). Back to top

Iran, IAEA Reach Nuclear Negotiations Agreement Talks this week between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency resulted in an agreement on further negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Jan. 11). Negotiators “reached an agreement on the modality for resolving the remaining outstanding issues” on the Iranian nuclear effort, according to IAEA safeguards chief Olli Heinonen. “If this cooperation continues, we expect this will not be sorted out tomorrow, but in a reasonable (time in the) future,” he said. Officials had “constructive” talks and made “good progress” in the three sessions this week, said deputy Iranian nuclear negotiator Javad Vaidi. Anonymous Iranian officials said the modalities referenced by both Heinonen and Vaidi included a framework for discussions between Tehran and the U.N. nuclear watchdog.  Negotiators yesterday focused their attention on a “transparency plan” put forth by Iran in hopes of resolving outstanding IAEA questions about the nuclear effort. Heinonen would only say that his agency and Iran had “agreed on four, five steps,” AP reported. “We will continue our dialogue within the next few weeks so that we can tackle all outstanding issues,” he said. Iran says its nuclear program is intended only to produce energy, while the United States and other Western nations suspect it masks a weapons component.  Tehran has defied two U.N. Security Council resolutions that it halt uranium enrichment activities.  The Security Council is preparing to take up the issue again, possibly leading to further sanctions against Iran (Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press I/Washington Post, July 12). During this week’s meetings, Iran also agreed to allow IAEA personnel to this month inspect the heavy-water nuclear reactor at Arak, AP reported (see GSN, Nov. 22, 2006).  The agency previously had been banned from the facility, which U.S. and Western officials have argued could be a plutonium production site furthering Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Officials also reached agreement on resolving “remaining issues regarding Iran’s past plutonium experiments”; replacing IAEA inspectors who have been prohibited from entering Iran; determining strategies for heightened monitoring of Iranian uranium enrichment work; and “clarifying the open issues … associated with the score and content of Iran’s enrichment program,” according to an IAEA statement. Those issues include “uranium contamination found on equipment” at a military location — potentially indicating the existence of a military nuclear program — and “studies related to specified projects,” again possibly referring to potential weapons work, the agency said. Officials are set to meet this month at IAEA headquarters in Vienna to “finalize the work plan on these issues,” the agency said (George Jahn, Associated Press II/Washington Post, July 13). Meanwhile, roughly 50 companies are being investigated in Germany on suspicion of illicitly supplying technology to the Iranian nuclear power plant at Bushehr, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday. At least 12 of the firms knew their material was heading to Iran, said prosecutor Christoph Lange. In one instance, the Vero firm of Berlin allegedly shipped material for construction of the reactor through Poland and Russia and then to Iran. The Russian-built reactor remains unfinished (see GSN, July 5; Agence France-Presse I/Yahoo!News, July 12). Elsewhere, the U.S. Commerce Department announced yesterday that it had sanctioned five Iranian firms linked to the country’s nuclear and missile programs, AFP reported. The entities placed on the agency’s Entity List are the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Mesbah Energy Co., Kala Electric Co., Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group and Shahid Bakeri Industrial Group. Three of those participate in “prohibited nuclear activities” while two support “prohibited rocket systems and unmanned aerial vehicle activities,” the Commerce Department said. Companies placed on the Entity List are essentially cut off from conducting business with U.S. companies.  The U.S. Treasury Department has already sanctioned the same five firms (Agence France-Presse II/Yahoo!News, July 12). Back to top       Nuclear Inspectors Head to North Korea Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency are on their way to North Korea to begin monitoring the shutdown of the country’s plutonium-producing Yongbyon nuclear reactor, the Associated Press reported today (GSN, July 13). The team is expected to arrive tomorrow.  It would be the first group of agency inspectors allowed into the country since Pyongyang ejected all IAEA personnel in 2002. That was followed by years of negotiations aimed at curtailing North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.  Pyongyang agreed in February to dismantle that program, beginning by halting operations at Yongbyon under IAEA supervision.  That could occur in a matter of days, after the arrival of the first shipment of fuel oil pledged to North Korea under the February agreement. “With the kind of help which we (have received) from the D.P.R.K. in the past few weeks, we think that we will do our job in a successful way,” said agency team leader Adel Tolba. The inspectors are transporting 2,200 pounds of equipment to be used for the ongoing monitoring of the reactor after its closure. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, Washington’s lead negotiator at the six-party talks, said he hopes to see rapid progress in the denuclearization process this year, AP reported. “We’d like to get a full declaration (of all nuclear facilities) in a few months and disabling of the reactor by the end of the year,” he said in Japan, ahead of next week’s six-nation meeting in Beijing (Carl Freire, Associated Press I/Yahoo!News, July 13). Hill said that North Korea must rejoin the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty if it wants to receive a nuclear power reactor, The Korea Herald reported.  North Korean leaders “understood” the U.S. position on the matter during Hill’s trip last month to Pyongyang, he said (Lee Joo-hee, The Korea Herald, July 14). The North Korean military today called for direct negotiations with the U.S. military “for the purpose of discussing the issues related to ensuring the peace and security on the Korean Peninsula,” AP reported. “It is easy to miss a chance, but difficult to get it,” according to a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency.  That statement added that continued U.S. pressure could undo the progress made toward disassembling Pyongyang’s nuclear program. The U.S. military is studying the proposal, a spokesman in South Korea said (Burt Herman, Associated Press II/Time, July 13). The North Korean statement appears to be an effort to achieve strategic superiority in possible talks on a peace deal to officially end the Korean War, analysts told Agence France-Presse. “This proposal is aimed at taking the initiative in starting talks on the issue of replacing the armistice with a peace system, which should come in parallel with progress in efforts to resolve the nuclear issue,” said professor Kim Keun-sik of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. “This is not going to impose any obstacle to the six-party talks,” he said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 13). Back to top       China Revamping Nuclear Missile Sites, Report Says Notable changes have been made to apparent ballistic missile launch sites in north-central China, possibly bringing northern India and Russian nuclear facilities within range, the Federation of American Scientists reported yesterday (see GSN, July 12). Commercial satellite images taken late last year showed great activity at the missile sites, situated roughly 10,000 feet above sea level in the Delingha Mountain Range.  Experts long thought the area housed Dongfeng 4 liquid-fuel ICBMs but the images now show what might be solid-fuel Dongfeng 21 medium-range missiles, the FAS analysis said. The mobile-launched Dongfeng 21 has an estimated range of 1,330 miles and was China’s first solid-fuel ballistic missile.  It might be able to carry a nuclear warhead with a yield of 200-300 kilotons, according to the FAS report. Working with the 1,330-mile range, the Delingha site brings three Russian ICBM sites as well as a Russian strategic bomber base into range.  The missiles could also reach much of northern India, including New Delhi, according to the report (Hans Kristensen, Federation of American Scientists, July 12). Back to top       Nuclear Security Measures Set For Pan American Games The International Atomic Energy Agency assisted Brazilian authorities in preparing safeguards against nuclear and radiological attacks at the 15th Pan American Games opening today in Rio de Janeiro, the U.N. nuclear watchdog announced (see GSN, June 21). The agency provided equipment and training for detecting radiation-related crimes, along with advice on means for securing dangerous material, according to a press release.  It also provided Brazilian authorities with leads on potential illicit trafficking of radioactive materials in the region and helped to develop coordinated responses to an attempted attack. Hundreds of thousands of spectators are expected to watch 6,000 athletes from the Americas compete through July 29, according to the IAEA release. “The IAEA has been hard at work for over 50 years in radiation safety and security,” said Anita Nilsson, the agency’s nuclear security director, in the release.  “We are now further developing these skills as they become increasingly relevant to large-scale public events like the Pan American Games” (International Atomic Energy Agency release, July 12). Back to top

N.C. Community Tests Response to Anthrax Attack A North Carolina community simulated a terrorist attack Wednesday to test its ability to manage a major health crisis, the Durham Herald-Sun reported (see GSN, April 19, 2006). The mock anthrax attack involved several hundred “victims” at a Durham County mall.  Dubbed a “mass-dispensing exercise,” the drill at a county middle school tested the local, state and federal deployment of anthrax antidote from the Strategic National Stockpile. “If biological agents are released into this community, it is the department’s goal to have a plan that will protect the health and safety of Durham County residents by minimizing the spread of infectious diseases, controlling the extent of illness and limiting or preventing death,” said Brian Letourneau, Durham County public health director. The simulation involved Durham County emergency and medical agencies, along with public health officials from eight nearby counties and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While official results have yet to be released, those involved with the test made preliminary comments. “Not to sound like I am tooting their horn, but there was nothing major,” said Will Moorhead of contractor EnviroSafe, which is evaluating the drill.  “It was mostly a succession of minor things,” he added, referring to glitches in the response. The main issues included the gear by which responders identified themselves, what radio channels they used and how directional signs were posted, Moorhead said. “If something happened today, we could take care of it,” said a Durham County spokeswoman.  “But we will be tweaking our plan” (Andrew Dunn, The Herald-Sun, July 12). Back to top

Japanese Cult Nerve Agent Maker Loses Appeal A member of the Aum Shinrikyo cult today lost his appeal of a death sentence handed down for his part in the deadly 1995 sarin nerve agent attack in Tokyo, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Sept. 18, 2006). The Tokyo High Court upheld the 2003 conviction of medical doctor Tomomasa Nakagawa.  The nerve agent Nakagawa helped to produce killed 12 in the subway system and claimed seven victims in an earlier attack, a court spokeswoman said. Nakagawa was also convicted of involvement in other murders carried out by the cult, AP reported. More than 12 cult members, including leader Shoko Asahara, have been sentenced to death.  To date, none have been executed (Kozo Mizoguchi, Associated Press/International Herald Tribune , July 13). Back to top

U.S., Azerbaijan Discuss Missile Defense Officials from Azerbaijan and the United States met this week in Washington to discuss missile defense and other security issues, Inside the Pentagon reported (see GSN, June 21). The U.S. delegation to the nations’ 10th annual “bilateral security dialogue” included representatives from the State, Defense, Homeland Security and Treasury departments.  The team was led by Assistant Secretary of State Stephen Mull and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Mathew Bryza. Azerbaijan’s delegation was headed by Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov. “We consulted and agreed on next steps on a broad array of national and regional security issues, including our counterterrorism cooperation, maritime and border security programs, nonproliferation concerns (and) missile defense,” the State Department said in a July 9 statement. Russia has suggested that the United States use an existing Azeri radar base as part of its European missile defense plans rather than a planned site in the Czech Republic (Inside the Pentagon, July 12). Back to top

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