provide for the common defense

In observance of Memorial Day, what better way to honor the sacrifices of both the fallen and those who have not fallen than The Gettysburg Address::

On Nov. 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln delivered the following speech at the Dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg. We reprint it in observance of Memorial Day.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

The Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) seems to put out wide coverage of global reports, although I'm generally suspicious of any group with "Peace" in its name. Some of the organizations on its "Supporters" page likely justify that suspicion.

But it certainly has a very useful link of Web research tools.

From the above titled publication by Richard Heuer, links from Chapter 1 footnotes:

"Studies in Intelligence" by the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence (The Heuer piece is on the Center's publications website).

"Intelligence and National Security" (subscription only).

The Journal of Strategic Studies (subsription only).

Review of International Studies (formerly British Journal of International Studies).

World Politics.

As a result of the limitations of my local universities and community colleges, a simple Google search for programs related to homeland security produced an interesting online university: the Amerian Military University. Among various interesting Masters programs, including Homeland Security, National Security Studies and Security Management, is Strategic Intelligence.

Available Concentrations:

Competitive Intelligence
Intelligence Analysis
Intelligence Collection
Intelligence Operations
Middle Eastern Studies
No Concentration
Terrorism Studies

The program requirements for Intelligence Analysis:

Institutional Requirements
Must take the following in this section:

RC502 - Research Methods in Intelligence Studies

Elective hours in this program are to be taken from other 500-600 level courses not already taken to meet requirements.


Core Requirements
Must take the following in this section:

IN500 - Strategic Intelligence
IN520 - Analytic Methods



Major Requirements
Select 6 credit hours in this section:


IN502 - U.S. & British Signals Intelligence in World War II
IN503 - History of U.S. Military Intelligence
IN504 - Information Warfare
IN505 - Intelligence and the War on Drugs
IN508 - Deception in War
IN509 - Counterintelligence
IN510 - U.S. National Intelligence: Policy, Oversight, & Reform
IN511 - Intelligence in Ancient Warfare
IN512 - Middle East Intelligence Issues
IN513 - Imagery Intelligence
IN514 - History of the Central Intelligence Agency
IN516 - Propaganda and Disinformation
IN517 - Threat Analysis
IN519 - Collection
IN521 - Terrain and Weather Intelligence
IN523 - Indications and Warnings
IN525 - Counterterrorism
IN527 - Intelligence and National Security
IN528 - Intelligence Profiling
IN529 - Regional Threat Analysis
IN531 - Intelligence and Russian Military Strategy
IN532 - China Country Analysis
IN533 - Russia Country Analysis
IN534 - European Intelligence Issues
IN535 - Intelligence in Low Intensity Operations
IN537 - The U.S. Presidency and Intelligence
IN542 - Ethics in Intelligence
IN544 - Intelligence and Weapons of Mass Destruction
IN545 - Intelligence Issues in Latin America
IN546 - Korea Country Analysis
IN547 - Intelligence and Homeland Security
IN549 - Competitive Intelligence
IN575 - Intelligence Leadership, Management, & Coordination
IN576 - Electronic Warfare I
IN577 - Electronic Warfare II
IN585 - Assassination: History, Theory, and Practice
IN600 - Corporate Threat Definition and Vulnerability Analysis
IN604 - Readings in Business Intelligence
IN690 - Independent Study: Intelligence



You may not take the same courses to fulfill major and concentration requirements


Concentration Requirements
Select 12 credit hours in this section:


IN517 - Threat Analysis
IN523 - Indications and Warnings
IN528 - Intelligence Profiling
IN549 - Competitive Intelligence
LC537 - Forecasting Terrorism



Comp Exam / Thesis Seminar
Must take the following in this section:

IN700 - Separate Comprehensive Examination


Graduate Electives
Must take the following in this section:

Electives (9 Hours)

Drilling further down is a list of course descriptions. The second Core Requirement class, Analytic Methods:

IN520 Analytic Methods (3 hours)
This course is designed to teach students the theory and practice behind several methods of predictive intelligence analysis, with particular emphasis given to the Lockwood Analytical Method for Prediction (LAMP). While the course does compare the LAMP with other predictive analytical methodologies, the focus of the course will be on application of the LAMP technique against a "real world" situation. Students will be assigned a problem to analyze using the LAMP. In addition, students will be studying the former Soviet nuclear republics during the course as a base case for learning the LAMP technique, as well as for comparing it with other major predictive analytical techniques.

The course schedule leads to professor bio and required books.

From the "View Books" link for Analytic Methods IN520:

Book# Author Book Title Publication Info ISBN
IN520-0 Steury, D Sherman Kent and the Board of National Estimates: Collected Essays Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 1994 (Reprinted by MBS for AMU) AMU Reprint S1

IN520-1 Heuer, Richard Psychology of Intelligence Analysis(This book is only available online at http://www.cia.gov/csi/books/19104/index.html) CIA, 1999-Available online at http://www.cia.gov/csi/books/19104/index.html 1929667000

IN520-2 Pace, S. N Assessing Options for Anti-Satellite Arms Control: The Analytic Hierarchy Process RAND Corporation, 1986 (P-7190) 0004314239

IN520-3 Lockwood, Jonathan S. Nuclear CIS Republics and Nuclear Weapons: Chess Game or Armageddon? Joint Military Intelligence College, DIA, July 1993 (unpublished MSSI thesis) (Reprinted by MBS for AMU) AMU Reprint L3

IN520-4 Tanner, George L Problem of World Order When the World is Your Village Versus Your Globe UMI Dissertation Services, 1996 0004310713

IN520-5 Lockwood, Jonathan S. Lockwood Analytical Method for Prediction (LAMP) Joint Military Intelligence College, 1994 AMU Reprint L1

IN520-6 Lockwood, Jonathan S. and Kathleen O. Lockwood Russian View of U.S. Strategy New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1999 0765806363

IN520-7 Lockwood, J Lockwood Analytical Method for Prediction (LAMP) Book of Readings, Vol. 1 Joint Military Intelligence College, June 1996 (Reprinted by MBS for AMU) AMU Reprint L2

The most interesting readings on the LAMP by Jonathan Lockwood are not easily available online, at least not from Amazon or Overstock.com. It seems the Joint Military Intelligence College is a bit greedy with its publications. Even the JMIC website is very basic--well it was, I can't even Google it up now.

(UPDATE 5/28: Dr. Lockwood returned my email and gave me an email that might prove helpful. Developing...)

(UPDATE 6/6: Where else to buy their books but at the APU Bookstore. This info from the email may come in handy:

Andrea Dunn
Course Materials Manager

adunn@apus.edu
10648 Wakeman Ct.
Manassas, VA 20110
877 468 6268 x 6878
www.apus.edu

So the lowest hanging fruit was the online book by Richard Heuer: Psychology of Intelligence Analysis:

Table of Contents
Author's Preface
Foreword by Douglas MacEachin
Introduction by Jack Davis

PART I--OUR MENTAL MACHINERY
Chapter 1: Thinking About Thinking
Chapter 2: Perception: Why Can't We See What Is There to Be Seen?
Chapter 3: Memory: How Do We Remember What We Know?

PART II--TOOLS FOR THINKING
Chapter 4: Strategies for Analytical Judgment: Transcending the Limits of Incomplete Information
Chapter 5: Do You Really Need More Information?
Chapter 6: Keeping an Open Mind
Chapter 7: Structuring Analytical Problems
Chapter 8: Analysis of Competing Hypotheses

PART III--COGNITIVE BIASES
Chapter 9: What Are Cognitive Biases?
Chapter 10: Biases in Evaluation of Evidence
Chapter 11: Biases in Perception of Cause and Effect
Chapter 12: Biases in Estimating Probabilities
Chapter 13: Hindsight Biases in Evaluation of Intelligence Reporting

PART IV--CONCLUSIONS
Chapter 14: Improving Intelligence Analysis

Right now I'm reading through the first few chapters. How cool is that? Perusing graduate-level course material on intelligence analysis free of charge. And if I decide to begin taking the first classes in a Masters in Strategic Intelligence, I'll at least have some background preparation.

The books for the very first class required, RC502: Research Methods in Intelligence Studies, were just as hard to locate. They are:

Book# Author Book Title Publication Info ISBN

RC502-0 Brei, William S. CAPT, USAF Getting Intelligence Right: The Power of Logical Procedure Joint Military Intelligence College, 1996 (Reprinted by MBS for AMU) AMU Reprint B1

RC502-1 White, Louise G. Political Analysis: Technique and Practice, 4th Ed NY: Harcourt Brace, 1999 0155055224

RC502-2 Folker, Robert D., MSgt, USAF Intelligence Analysis in Theater Joint Intelligence Centers: An Experiment in Applying Structured Methods Occasional paper Number Seven: D.C.: Joint Military Intelligence College, 2000 AMU Reprint

RC502-3 Grose, Dwight D. Victory and Defeat: A Comparative Analysis of Intelligence and the Second Manassas Campaign Joint Military Intelligence College, July 1995 (Reprinted by MBS for AMU) AMU Reprint G4

RC502-4 Swenson, Russell G. JMIC Research Handbook Design & Methods Joint Military Intelligence College, 2000 (Reprinted by MBS for AMU) AMU Reprint S2

RC502-5 Berg, Bruce Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences, 5th Ed Pearson 0020537905

Again the inaccessibility of the JMIC seems to be a bit too much secrecy even for an intelligence organization. I did, however, manage to get "Political Analysis: Technique and Practice." It seems less "political" and more about research methods, but it is the only required book I have been able to locate for the first required class. It's currently on deck.

My summer reading list seems to be shaping up quite nicely. And my self-imposed homework, of course, would involve practicing posting items of relevance to the field of intelligence. Whether plan becomes action and it proves effective--or not-- it all is possible at a fraction of the cost of enrolling in the AMU class. $750 per class, not including books, is not something to be taken up on a whim.

During her Latin trip, Miss Rice tried to rally other democracies against Venezuela. At a joint press conference in Brazil on April 26, she was told repeatedly by Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim that Venezuela's sovereignty must be respected -- meaning no outside intervention.

Though the Organization of American States (OAS) has tried to mediate political disputes in Venezuela to avoid violence, any thought Washington might have of mobilizing a stronger OAS response, such as a condemnation of the Chavez regime or sanctions, is unrealistic. A wedge cannot be driven between Venezuela and Brazil as long as Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva -- another disciple of Mr. Castro's, is president.

With the election of Chilean Interior Minister Jose Miguel Insulza as new OAS secretary-general of the OAS (he was initially opposed by the U.S. but backed by Brazil and Venezuela), there is little hope of diplomatically isolating Venezuela.

With the US lacking the cooperation of many individual Latin American countries as well as the OAS, Venezuela's destabilizing influence seems set to continue. The nexus of oil money, radical anti-Americanism and support for narcoterrorists continues unabated.

In addition, Brazil's coziness with China lately casts suspicions on Brazil's aspirations for a solely peaceful nuclear program. Past experience with China's dealings with the Khan nuclear ring to curry favor with the oil-rich countries points to possible similar arrangements with Venezuela and Brazil.

At the very least, the US is being challenged for economic and political influence of Latin America. More likely the US will face uncertain supplies of oil, the further growth of narcoterrorism (including in Columbia), a foothold for transnational terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Al Qaeda, and the possibility of nuclear technology proliferation.

Speaking of which:

Mr. Chavez, who is given to needling the United States and making other provocative comments during a weekly TV program, said after a meeting with Iranian company officials on Sunday that he was interested in pursuing a partnership for atomic and solar energy projects.
"We are interested and should begin working in the nuclear field with Brazil, Argentina and other countries," said Mr. Chavez, who asserted that Iran has no nuclear weapons ambitions.

...

Brazilian Vice President Jose Alencar responded Monday, saying his country had agreements with Argentina, France and the United States to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, but "there is no agreement with Iran or Venezuela."

Well certainly not a public one, anyway.

Uruguay may be the next member of the Latin Axis.

The contributions of open source intelligence are being undervalued by the Intelligence Community, according to Robert D. Steele, President of OSS Inc.:

OSINT, like all other intelligence sources, is more than information. It represents a careful sifting, selecting, analyzing and presenting of open source material on a timely basis. OSINT should be a valuable contributor to "all source" intelligence, although it continually gets short shrift throughout the intelligence and policy communities.

...

Bureaucratic misperceptions notwithstanding, OSINT is not free to current users and is not being supplied by the Intelligence Community to DoD in any significant way. However, a modest investment by DoD elements in OSINT can significantly multiply the effectiveness of current classified intelligence capabilities while simultaneously improving general intelligence support to DoD policy makers, acquisition managers, and warfighters.

Sounds like a good opening for the online community. And while some websites do charge for access, the voluntary contribution aspect of blogs make them next to free. But the scope of content may pose some problems: "80% of the information needed to create OSINT useful to DoD is not online, not in English, and not available within the US." Since the article was posted on Defense Daily Network on May 5, 1998, that figure may be largely inaccurate seven years later.


A sample of OSINT sources, software and services:

The Substance of OSINT: A Complex Range of Open Sources, Software, and Services. The greatest obstacle to improved use of open sources is not that of access, which is freely or inexpensively available to all, but rather that of acknowledgement. The two most erroneous perceptions among experienced national security professionals who should know better are that open sources are "merely a collection of newspaper clippings" (in the words of a senior Intelligence Community official) or "the Internet" (in the words of a general officer). On the one hand, neither DoD nor the U.S., Intelligence Community have properly inventoried the full range of private sector offerings, and neither has a credible foundation for identifying, evaluating, and exploiting a complex mix of "just right" open sources, softwares, and services. At the same time, both within the intelligence producer and the intelligence consumer communities, there is a reluctance to accept the fact that the U.S. Intelligence Community is no longer the sole source of critical information, nor the best source for open source information.

· Sources. Representative sources include those associated with Current Awareness (e.g. Individual Inc.); Current Contents (e.g. ISI CC Online); Directories of Experts (e.g. Gale Research, TELTECH); Conference Proceedings (e.g. British Library, CISTI); Commercial Online Intermediaries (e.g. DIALOG, STN); Risk Assessment Reports (e.g. Forecast International, Political Risk); Maps & Charts (e.g. Russian military maps at the 1:100,000 level with contour lines, from East View Publications); and Commercial Imagery (e.g. SPOT Image, Radarsat, Autometric).

· Software. Representative software which is commercially available and which an OSINT provider can integrate off-site, not requiring the client to buy new technology, include Internet Tools (e.g. NetOwl, WebCompass); Data Entry Tools (e.g. Vista, BBN); Data Retrieval Tools (e.g. RetrievalWare, Calspan); Automated Abstracting (e.g. NetOwl, DR-LINK); Automated Translation (e.g. SYSTRAN, SRA NTIS-JV); Data Mining & Visualization (e.g i2, MEMEX, TASC Textor); Desktop Publishing & Communications Tools (many options); and Electronic Security Tools (e.g. SSI, IBM Cryptolopes, many emerging offerings).

· Services. Representative services from the private sector include Online Search & Retrieval (e.g. NERAC, subject-matter and foreign language experts listed in Burwell Worldwide Directory of Information Brokers); Media Monitoring (e.g. BBC, FBIS via NTIS); Document Retrievel (e.g. ISI Genuine Document); Human Abstracting (e.g. NFAIS members); Telephone Surveys (e.g. Risa Sacks Associates); Private Investigations (e.g. Parvus, Pinkerton, INTELYNX); Market Research (e.g. SIS, Fuld, Kirk Tyson); and Strategic Forecasting (e.g. Oxford Analytica).

Specific OSINT support for DOD includes both crisis support and on-going operations. Crisis support examples:

· Strategic Orientation. Oxford Analytica provided a series of two-page assessments created over a two-year period for the World Bank and Prime Ministers around the world.

· Academic Experts. The Institute of Scientific Information and citation analysis were used to identify the top experts available for immediate debriefing. Such individuals have a global network of life-long contacts, including top government and business officials in-country.

· Journalists on the Ground. LEXIS-NEXIS was used to identify journalists of varying nationality who had been on the ground recently and were intimately familiar with personalities and the situation. Such individuals publish less than 10% of what they know, and have current appreciations for personalities, logistics, corruption, and other key factors of high interest to the Country Team.

· Conflict Orientation. Jane's Information Group provided a very authoritative and easy to use map of tribal areas of influence, one page orders of battle for each tribe, and one paragraph summaries of all articles about the Burundi situation published by Jane's in the preceding two years.

· Military Maps. East View Publications provided a listing of all immediately available military maps created by the former Soviet Union, at the 1:100,000 level and with contour lines. This is especially important because 90% of the Tier III and Tier IV countries have not been mapped by the United States below the 1:250,000 level.

· Commercial Imagery. Belatedly but no less importantly, SPOT Image Corporation confirmed that it had available in its archives 100% of Burundi, cloud-free, and immediately available for the creation of military maps, precision munitions targeting packages, and aviation mission rehearsal systems.

On-going support examples:

· Current Awareness. There are several private sector options for obtaining daily one page listings of key news stories matching specific profiles. These can be combined with Internet monitoring services (e.g., watching the discussion groups on Angola and Zaire) as well as the monitoring of academic and industry journals for "current contents." The consumer can then select full-text access or file full-text elements for later access--and this is all delivered in HTML format with technology embedded (de-duplication, clustering, weighting) and subordinate to a subject-matter expert's summary analysis and selective judgement. Foreign language and off-line sources of particularly high value can also be programmed for coverage.

· QuickSearch Help Desk. With this service, the consumer has the option of calling, faxing, or sending electronic mail to obtain additional information, while also specifying a not-to-exceed price within an existing basic ordering agreement. This, like all aspects of good OSINT support, can be tasked and delivered via existing SI/TK channels which do not require any further investment in alternative unclassified architectures, or costly A-B multi-level switch augmentation. The Help Desk is able to access the full range of commercial online services (adding the value of both knowing which international services to use, and also the skilled searching knowledge which reduces costs from unproductive search strategies), and is also able to access the full range of international gray literature sources. It is important to emphasize that this concept does not rely on a single information broker or document acquisition source, but is optimized instead to identify and utilize those intermediaries who specialize in particular geographic or functional areas of inquiry and thus have decades of knowledge about both sources and search strategies, which cannot be replicated inside the U.S. government.

· Experts on Demand. The full-service OSINT provider must offer a highly efficient process for identifying and utilizing world-class experts in any area of interest. This process should combine the use of selected intermediaries such as Oxford Analytica (strongest in the political-economic arena) with independent citation analysis and exploitation of its own (or a superior provider's) international network of open source intelligence experts. The bottom line: within a day or two a top expert can be identified who can be relied upon to produce an extremely informed analysis, benefiting from direct access to in-country indigenous sources as well as unpublished materials, which answers the question.

· Strategic Forecasting. The proper approach to strategic forecasting combines automated citation analysis, automated content analysis, and selective exploitation of expert judgements. This combination allows very high-value products to be delivered for a tenth of the cost of the standard "beltway bandit" approach, and within a week to ten days instead of months or a full year. (7)

A telling statistic:

The Community Open Source Program is on record as stating that the National Foreign Intelligence Program (NFIP) spends 1% of its budget on open sources, and that this returns 40% of the all-source product. A DoD initiative to increase the investment in open sources from 1% to 6% (of the NFIP) will have a significant positive impact on defense intelligence production as well as defense policy, acquisition, and warfighting.

Dick Morris looks at the hypocrisy of the Left on trade agreements, this one with Latin America. While true, CAFTA also ought to be framed as a national security issue. Given that the driving force behind much of the drug and people trafficking, social instability and the growing roots of terrorists in Latin America is often the allure of quick money, improving the economics of the region would likely combat those forces in the long run.

Whether politicians can see past the expediency of anti-trade lobbyists is another issue.

Update 5/29: National security and anti-trade lobbying are indeed major issues in the CAFTA debate and the pro-traders may be in trouble, according to Power and Interest News Report.

The prospects for C.A.F.T.A. are bolstered by the support for it from the right and right-center governments of the Central American states and the Dominican Republic -- El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras have already ratified the agreement and the other three Latin American partners are expected to do so.

Under pressure from publics threatened by economic competition from China, particularly in the textile sector, the administrations of the Central American states are counting on C.A.F.T.A. to stem job loss and bring in fresh investment, averting a recession that might bring them down and usher in left-populist governments. Strong left oppositions are waiting in the wings in El Salvador and Nicaragua, which has recently seen unruly street protests over economic concerns and which has been politically deadlocked by a confrontation between a left-right alliance of convenience in its parliament and President Enrique Bolanos.

Washington's greatest hemispheric threat is that Central America will follow the pattern of much of South America and join a leftward turn that might take Mexico along with it. Yet C.A.F.T.A. is in trouble in the U.S. due to opposition to it by a varied coalition of interests, notably sugar growers, some segments of the textile sector, labor unions, environmentalists and human rights organizations.

One wonders how Bill Clinton ever managed to strong-arm his fellow Democrats and some Republicans into voting for the Reagan/Bush I brainchild, NAFTA. Despite the increase of trade on the parts of all three participants--Mexico, Canada and the US--the media talking heads still repeat the line that the US has lost ex many jobs under NAFTA. What they conveniently omit is the number of jobs gained, which according to some studies has even been a net gain.

Statistics, like computers, is governed by the same truism--garbage in, garbage out.

Putin, Stalin and the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe have been sharply criticized in the runup to the 60th anniversary of VE Day hosted by Putin himself in Moscow. Much of the criticism is deserved, and yet:

Russians suffered in their tens of millions from Lenin's depredations and Stalin's slaughters. That their own leaders perpetrated these atrocities does nothing to allay or ameliorate their grief.

Above all, they remember a Second World War known to them as "the Great Patriotic War." The fact that it was Stalin's connivance with Hitler in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that gave the Nazis the green light to launch war in Eastern Europe does not diminish the fact that the Russian people bore the overwhelming brunt of the war's destruction.

The numbers are appalling. In comparison to the approximately 400,000 U.S. servicemen killed in World War II's European and Pacific theaters, the Soviets' combined military and civilian deaths were 27 million — the total current population of Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa, North and South Dakota, and Nebraska. The USSR lost more citizens than all other combatant nations combined. Moreover, of the four million military deaths suffered collectively by Axis forces in Europe, 80 percent were inflicted by the Red Army. (emphasis added)

That's a figure I wouldn't have guessed. Quite a contribution, despite the Cold War that immediately ensued.

Update: One of many articles, this one by Victor Davis Hanson, that acknowledge the Soviet contribution but put it in proper perspective--the largely detrimental Soviet policies from the Soviet/Nazi pact through WWII and mostly thereafter. The Soviets themselves were in part to blame for their own huge losses. Post WWII revisionism also bears blame.

Another critique of the Soviet "contribution." The Stalinist legacy can be seen not mainly as anti-Nazi, but anti-capitalist and anti-freedom from the tsars of the 18th century, through the Stalin-Hitler pact and up to the current pro-Stalin statements and policies of Putin.

Musharraf's enemy within:

The investigations into the two unsuccessful attempts to assassinate Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf in December 2003 brought to light the penetration of jihadi terrorist organizations into the Pakistan army and air force at the junior and middle levels. Four officers of the army and six of the air force were found to have joined hands with an assortment of jihadi terrorist organizations, such as the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), the Jaish-e-Mohammad, the Jundullah, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ) and al-Qaeda in hatching the conspiracy to have Musharraf killed as a reprisal for his cooperation with the US in the "war against terror".

Also, the recent thawing of Musharraf's relations with India over issues such as Kashmir, bus service and others have angered Pakistani extremists. Musharraf faces the same problems that Abu Mazen may be facing between Israel on the one hand and Palestinian extremist groups on the other.

And as if that weren't bad enough, now it appears Musharraf has reportedly ended a secret truce with Al Qaeda:

KARACHI - A more than six-month truce between the military government of Pakistan and al-Qaeda - negotiated by militant groups - has been shattered with the arrest of Abu Faraj al-Libbi of al-Qaeda and country-wide crackdowns on militant groups...
Asia Times Online has learned that Musharraf's administration secretly secured a deal with al-Qaeda after a series of attacks from the tribal belt of North West Frontier Province to the southern port city of Karachi rattled the country last year...
The deal worked: the militants halted their actions and focused their attention on Afghanistan, where the Taliban had revived their activities in all zeal. Now the deal is in tatters.

As the title of the article so aptly put it: the gloves are off in Pakistan.

Update: Debka reports that while Abu Faraj al-Libbi's arrest also netted 18 members of his network, the leadership is evolving. Smaller cells, younger, unknown and fierce--dangerous qualities to be sure.

Update: In the same vein as Debka, AP reports ethnic rifts in Al Qaeda between Arab members and their Central Asian allies such as Captured Uzbeks, Chechens and Tajiks. Sounds like our intelligence folks are exploiting the enemy in a big way.