May 23, 2006: #2

Intelligence agency's focus turns to spies on the ground By Bill Gertz, WashTimes, May 9, 06

The Central Intelligence Agency will continue a shift toward developing networks of agents overseas while losing some of its role in analyzing intelligence, Bush administration officials said yesterday.

Some CIA analytic units will be moved to other agencies, such as the new National Counterterrorism Center, as part of ongoing reforms and the appointment of Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden to succeed outgoing CIA Director Porter J. Goss. [....]

Mr. Negroponte told reporters yesterday that the CIA will "remain the intelligence community's premier human intelligence agency." He said that Gen. Hayden, currently the second highest-ranking official at DNI, will coordinate all human spying if confirmed by the Senate.

CIA analysis will remain a "center of excellence" for all intelligence agencies, Mr. Negroponte said, making no reference to the transfer of analytic units.

CIA reforms are on the way to "increasing their human intelligence and their analytic capabilities by 50 percent," he said. [....]

East Turkestan Islamic Movement (China, separatists) US Council on Foreign Relations, Updated: November 2005

* What is the East Turkestan Islamic Movement?
* Does the ETIM have ties to al-Qaeda?
* Does the ETIM target Americans?
* What kinds of attacks has the group launched?
* Why did the United States decide to target the ETIM?
* Is China cracking down on separatist groups?
* Do all Uighurs want to separate from China?

What is the East Turkestan Islamic Movement?

A small, militant Muslim separatist group based in China ’s western Xinjiang province—a vast, thinly populated region that shares borders with several countries, including Afghanistan and Pakistan . The East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) is one of the more extreme groups founded by Uighurs, the Turkic-speaking ethnic majority in Xinjiang, seeking an independent state called East Turkestan . [....]

Does the ETIM have ties to al-Qaeda?

U.S. and Chinese officials say it does, but some experts are less sure. The State Department reports that the ETIM has a “close financial relationship” with Osama bin Laden’s terror network.

[....] But while experts agree that hundreds of Uighurs left China to join al-Qaeda and its Taliban hosts in Afghanistan , some China specialists doubt that the ETIM currently has significant ties to bin Laden’s network.

China might not agree to a separation.



Memory Lane: "among the Uighurs in China"

I had posted this last August but I believe the link disappeared ... as so often happens.

Where bin Laden is, why he's still alive -- Author: Boy Scouts could get terror chief who's still planning 'American Hiroshima' -- SEARCHING FOR OSAMA Paul L. Williams, Aug. 6, 05

[. . . . ] Osama is almost always surrounded by fawning attendants who hail him not as Sultan bin Laden or Emir bin Laden but rather as "awaited enlightened one," the title reserved for the Mahdi."

The Mahdi is the rightly guided caliph who will appear during the last days of human history. His coming is foretold by the Haddith, the sacred teachings that supplement the Quran. In such writings, the Mahdi is depicted as the figure who will bring forth the "Day of Islam," when all people throughout the world – believers and unbelievers alike – will fall in submission before the throne of Allah.

[....] According to the report, some ETIM militants were trained by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan , crossed back into Xinjiang, and set up terrorist cells there.

Search: "among the Uighurs in China." , annual Soldier of Fortune convention , shabnamas or "night letters" , Peshawar , Pakistan, with its arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons



Nigeria awards oil exploration licences to energy-hungry China -- "China National Petroleum Corp. won an auction in Lagos for four of 17 blocks on offer, two in the northeastern Lake Chad Basin and two in the restive southern Niger Delta, the country's main oil-producing region." -- will invest in Kaduna refinery AFP, May 20, 06