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From Los Angeles Times

Top Al Qaeda-linked militant reportedly killed by drone attack in Pakistan

Ilyas Kashmiri, an Al Qaeda-linked operative blamed for high-profile attacks in Pakistan and India, was killed in South Waziristan, say news reports and a statement by his militant organization.

by Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times

June 5, 2011

Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan

An overnight attack by an unmanned aircraft killed Ilyas Kashmiri, an Al Qaeda-linked operative blamed for several high-profile attacks in Pakistan and India, local news reports and a statement by his banned militant organization said Saturday.

If borne out, this would be the second major U.S. anti-terrorism coup in quick succession, coming just a month after the killing of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden by Navy SEALs. Analysts had identified Kashmiri as a possible Bin Laden successor.

"This is very good news, especially on the heels of the Bin Laden" killing, said Talat Masood, a security analyst and former Pakistani lieutenant general. "He's a very important leader who played havoc with the region."

Shoaib Khan, an assistant political agent in South Waziristan, confirmed the killing at a compound in Ghwa Khwa village, adding that Kashmiri and eight other militants were buried in a local graveyard. A senior tribal area official said separately that multiple sources had confirmed Kashmiri was dead.

That said, it's notoriously difficult to corroborate deaths caused by drone attacks, reportedly one of the reasons President Obama decided to launch a manned assault on Bin Laden's compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad despite the added risk.

This is particularly true when the strikes occur in isolated border areas, including South Waziristan, site of the late Friday attack. Many senior militants have been "killed" repeatedly — including Kashmiri, whose death was reported in September 2009 — only to turn up alive a few weeks or months later.

"We confirm that our emir [leader] and commander in chief, Mohammed Ilyas Kashmiri, along with other companions, was martyred in an American drone strike on June 3, 2011, at 11:15 p.m.," Abu Hanzla Kashir, who identified himself as a spokesman for Kashmiri's Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami group, said in a statement faxed to a Pakistani television station.

"God willing … America will very soon see our full revenge," it added. "Our only target is America."

The statement's authenticity could not be immediately verified.

Separately, Pakistani security forces reported killing 26 Islamist militants Saturday after they crossed over from Afghanistan in the fourth day of fighting close to the border.

Kashmiri, who had a $5-million U.S. bounty on his head, was considered one of Pakistan's most dangerous, strategic and capable militants, suspected of helping organize last month's assault on the Mehran naval base in the southern port city of Karachi and the 2008 attack on the Indian city of Mumbai that killed 166 people.

Both operations involved small teams of well trained and committed attackers who held their targets for an extended period, sowing destruction and garnering widespread media attention.

According to Pakistani officials who asked not to be identified, the United States fired three missiles at the Ghwa Khwa compound located about 10 miles from South Waziristan's largest town of Wana, striking two rooms where the men were staying. The compound belongs to a tribesman identified as Mir Ajam Khan with links to local militant groups.

The BBC, which was first to report his death, said Kashmiri had recently returned from elsewhere in the tribal areas.

Analysts warned that Kashmiri's death, if confirmed, could spark reprisals. "This is great news," said Javed Hussain, a security analyst and a former brigadier and special forces commander. "But there are so many vulnerable military locations in Pakistan. I expect more attacks on military targets and American sites. He supposedly had a very long reach, and it's a ruthless organization."

Kashmiri reportedly has led a unit called Brigade 313 with nearly 3,000 members that was involved in attacks as far afield as Chechnya, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Afghanistan.

The U.S. as a policy doesn't acknowledge specific drone attacks or their intended targets. The drone program is highly controversial here because of civilians killed accidently in the attacks and the widely held view in Pakistan that the unmanned aircraft are a major violation of national sovereignty.

Nevertheless, Kashmiri's reported killing could help ease the tensions that have emerged between the U.S. and Pakistan since the Bin Laden killing, given that he's high on both countries' wanted lists.

The operation also could blunt criticism in intelligence and military circles here that the U.S. selfishly follows its own agenda without much regard for Pakistan's national interest or local political fallout. This would be particularly true if it turns out that Pakistan provided intelligence on his whereabouts, as seems likely.

"I think it's a very good sign," said Masood, the former lieutenant general. "It shows how much can be achieved. It's also good for India-Pakistan relations since he was a sworn enemy of both countries."

However, if Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami militants respond by stepping up attacks in the disputed region of Kashmir, claimed by both India and Pakistan, relations between the two South Asia nations could deteriorate further, other analysts pointed out.

Kashmiri started his militant career working for the Pakistani army training Afghan mujahedin fighters, then fought against the Russians in Afghanistan during the 1980s, losing an eye.

"Once the war was over, he became jobless," said Hussain, the analyst. "He only knew one thing, how to fight."

Turning his attentions elsewhere, Kashmiri became something of a local hero after escaping from an Indian jail for helping Kashmir-based militants attack India.

Kashmiri broke with the Pakistani government, however, after Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami was banned by then-President Pervez Musharraf after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In 2005, he was arrested on suspicion of involvement in a 2003 assassination attempt against Musharraf but was subsequently released for lack of evidence.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pakistan-qaeda-leader-20110605,0,1122182,print.story

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Crime Victims United of California: A powerful voice in state politics

The victims group is aligned with the prison guards union.

by Joshua Page

June 3, 2011

Soon after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its recent decision that California would have to reduce its prison population to relieve overcrowding, a representative of Crime Victims United of California took to the airwaves with harrowing predictions. "It's a disaster," Nina Salarno Ashford, a board member of the group, told an interviewer. "They're going to be letting sex offenders out. They're going to be letting kidnappers out. They're going to be letting a whole host of really bad people back into California without the resources to protect the good citizens of California."

It was not surprising that Crime Victims United was given airtime in the wake of the opinion. For more than two decades, journalists and politicians have treated the group as the primary voice of California's crime victims. Representatives such as Salarno Ashford routinely speak as if they are representative of all victims. But Crime Victims United has a particular, and particularly punitive, perspective on criminal justice, one that has been shaped over the years by its most powerful ally: the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., the union that represents the state's prison guards.

The alliance between the victims group and the guards dates to 1990, when former union President Don Novey met Harriet Salarno (Nina Salarno Ashford's mother) at a parole hearing for the man who murdered Salarno's other daughter, Catina, in 1979. At the time, Salarno led support groups for victims and their families and lobbied state legislators (with little success) to pass victim-friendly legislation.

Soon after the parole hearing, Novey's union decided to bankroll the formation of Crime Victims United of California, with Salarno at the helm. The union provided the group, which consists of both a legislative advocacy arm and political action committees that endorse and provide financial backing to candidates, with seed money, office space, lobbying staff and attorneys. And Novey personally taught its leaders how to play political hardball. As Salarno once put it, Novey "steered us in the right direction, opened the door and taught us what to do. He educated us."

The union had a strong personal interest in developing the victims group, which it realized could be an effective ally in achieving the guards' policy objectives: enhancing members' pay and benefits, keeping private prisons out of California and promoting "tough on crime" sentencing laws. Crime Victims United shares the union's commitment to lengthy, harsh mandatory sentencing laws such as "three strikes." The alliance has been good for both partners.

For example, in 2005 the guards and Salarno's group strongly opposed then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's efforts to reform the parole system. The union financed a frightening television ad featuring Salarno and Salarno Ashford accusing the governor of compromising public safety and defying crime victims. The spot concluded with the elder Salarno scolding, "You promised to stand with victims, governor. You let us down."

As Schwarzenegger quickly learned, the union and the victims group it has mentored were a formidable political force. The union has the financial resources, political acumen and connections, and the victims' group has a nearly untouchable moral authority. Together, they're hard to beat.

But their success has had a downside. When Crime Victims United turns complicated criminal justice matters into simple choices between helping and hurting victims, reasoned debate and thoughtful policymaking are necessarily constricted. Lawmakers are reluctant to oppose advocates like Salarno for fear that they will be tarred in the media and targeted in future elections. No politician wants to stand against a woman whose daughter was murdered and be deemed soft on crime. With financing from the guards, the victims group has the resources to seriously help or damage a politician's image and career.

Like other victims' groups, Crime Victims United provides support to people who suffer crime and helps them navigate confusing and often frustrating legal proceedings. What distinguishes the group from others that serve victims, though, is the extent and effectiveness of its political operation. Through its lobbying arm and political action committees, largely funded by the union, the group efficaciously pushes for laws to lengthen prison sentences, stiffen parole conditions and make penal facilities ever more austere.

By claiming pride of place as "the voice of victims," though, the group marginalizes alternative victims' voices. Some victims' rights groups in the state maintain that vengeful, ultra-tough penal policies do not help victims of crime but simply create more suffering and resentment. These groups say that challenging offenders to take responsibility for the harm their crimes cause through restorative justice practices and helping prisoners develop the tools necessary to live crime-free lives help prevent future victims. These alternative voices reject zero-sum logic; they do not reflexively pit offenders against victims — or, in Nina Salarno Ashford's words, the "bad people" against the "good citizens."

As lawmakers debate how to reduce prison overcrowding, Crime Victims United will surely keep making its voice heard in the Capitol and in the media. Its leaders will probably argue that the state should build more prisons and absolutely avoid shortening prison terms. If policymakers continue to follow the voices of expressly punitive victims rights advocates and ignore the opinions of those who promote alternative, less punitive conceptions of justice, California will not shrink its $9-billion prison system or alleviate its correctional crisis. The status quo will prevail. Let's hope this harrowing prediction doesn't come true.

Joshua Page is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota. He's the author of "The Toughest Beat: Punishment, Politics, and the Prison Officers Union in California."

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-page-prison-guards-20110603,0,3345872,print.story

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From Google News

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Yahoo Mail, Hotmail become new targets for hackers

by IB Times Staff Reporter

Microsoft's Hotmail and Yahoo's mail service have also been targeted by hackers and other phishing attacks, an online security firm reported.

Trend Micro said, its research team in Taiwan has exposed a phishing attack which got its way over Hotmail and attempted to steal users' cookies in Yahoo Mail. The attacks were similar to that of Gmail.

“Trend Micro recently uncovered a malware that also uses the res:// protocol to enumerate the software installed in targets' computers, setting the stage for future, more precise attacks. Once the attackers know what softwares are installed on a target's computer, including antivirus products, they can craft a precise attack targeting any vulnerable software. Such an attack will then have a high probability of success,” wrote Nart Villeneuve, Senior Threat Researcher, in the company's official blog.

The company said in case of Yahoo Mail, the hackers were not completely successful but it did signify that hackers are looking for a way to compromise Yahoo mail accounts.

These attacks were first revealed in February by Mila Parkour, a researcher. She found that apart from monitoring the compromised users' email account, the attackers also utilized a script that exploits the the res:// protocol to itemize the type of antivirus software the victim has installed on his/her system.

“These events demonstrate that in addition to targeted attacks that encourage users to open malicious attachments, usually .PDF and .DOC files, attackers are also attempting to exploit vulnerabilities in popular Webmail services in order to compromise Webmail accounts, to monitor communications, and to gain information in order to stage future attacks,” added Villeneuve. “We recently alerted Yahoo! of an attempt to exploit Yahoo! Mail by stealing users' cookies in order to gain access to their email accounts.”

The company said it is difficult to defend against such threats as these often appear to come from identifiable sources. However, there are some clues which can be helpful to find out about these attacks which generally come in the form of spelling and grammatical errors, the company website reported.

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/157401/20110604/microsoft-yahoo-hotmail-protocol-trencd-micro-pdf-doc-phishing.htm

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