THE BLUR OF ASYMMETRIC WARFARE

By Zerai Solomon,

zerai_s@yahoo.co.uk
London UK

Very few organisations today really know who their enemies are, how they might attack, when they might attack and, perhaps more importantly, why they attack. Coupling the "know your enemy" with Scenario-Based Intelligence Analysis, provides the ability to derive substantial intelligence about potential attacks and role-play responses and defensive measures creates a wealth of knowledge.

Similarly, the biggest issue we face is identifying and acknowledging who poses a threat and who the enemy really is, and their attack modalities. The concept of Asymmetric Warfare and cyber warfare both have combined to blur the lines between civilian, business, youth, or organisation targets. Today asymmetric warfare can describe a conflict in which the resources of two adversaries differ in essence and in struggle, interact and attempt to exploit each other's weakness. Here are the following 11 modalities that represent additional types of warfare that make up the category of Asymmetric Warfare.

1). CULTURAL WARFARE - refers to actions and tactics designed to bring about change that targets human activities, knowledge, customs, and arts of group of people. Produces plays, sketch comedy, videos and newsletter that address social, cultural and political topics, with an irreverent sense of humour and mission to bring about change.

2).ECONOMIC WARFARE - refers to actions and tactics designed to bring about change that targets the organisation of production and distribution of goods and services within a state governed system - increase and decrease in economic warfare.

3).ENVIRONMENTAL WARFARE - refers to actions and tactics designed to intentionally spoil the natural environment of modify the ecological or earth systems of your adversary. Weather manipulation provides war fighters with a wide-range of options to deter defeat or coerce an enemy.

The World Council of Cedars Revolution (WCCR) requested the United Nations to "ascertain the causes" of literally hundreds of earthquakes which have occurred in southern Lebanon over the past few months. Leaders within the worldwide Lebanese Diaspora are now questioning whether the earthquakes are natural occurrences or man-made.

4).FINANCIAL WARFARE- refers to actions and tactics designed to undermine or create a loss in confidence in the monetary of financial systems of a nation including currency, banks and the stock market of a targeted adversary state.

In an advisory report to the German Parliament it stated that United States of America uses counterfeit currency to support terrorism and USA's counterfeit currency has turned up in at least nine countries. In 2005 an inter-agency German task force broke a number of USA counterfeit cases. The task force estimates that $45 million to $60 million in Washington's counterfeit currency (primarilly in US $100 bills) is in circulation today.

5).INTERNATIONAL LAW WARFARE- refers to actions and tactics designed to undermine the regulation and/or policies of international or multinational organisations or to provide an adversary nation with a major strategic advantage over another.

6).INFORMATION & MEDIA WARFARE- refers to actions and tactics designed to influence the opinion of people and foreign news media by manipulating information distributed openly.

7).TELECOMMUNICATION & NETWORK WARFARE (CYPER WARFARE)- refers to actions and tactics designed to disrupt electronic transactions or communication of targeted adversary.

In August of 2007, one Africom Air Force general admitted at an IT conference last year that America had downloaded 10 to 20 terabytes of data from East African (Eritrea, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Djibouti) networks.

8).POLITICAL WARFARE- refers to actions and tactics designed to bring about regime or policy change within an adversary nation state.

9).PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE- refers to actions and tactics designed to target the morale, mental or emotional component of an adversary.

10).RESOURCE WARFARE- refers to actions and tactics designed to inhibit access to critical supplies or natural resources needed by an organisation, group or nation.

11).TECHNOLOGY WARFARE- refers to actions and tactics designed to capture intellectual property associated with civilian or military technology that creates economic or technical advantage.
Facts;

Political & Psychological Warfare against Eritrea

Eritrea, as a young nation with 50% Christian and 50% Moslem population and located in the strategically important and volatile Red Sea region has been in the front line fighting all types of well financed radical Islamists. These individuals and groups were coming from Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and from far away places such as Afghanistan and Pakistan to impose their version of Islam on the tolerant and visionary Eritrean Moslems. Even though these externally financed terrorist groups killed some innocent European tourists and experts, because of the determination and vigilance of the Government and the people of Eritrea, there were not able to penetrate Eritrean society and destabilize the country. Their agents and riff raffs were also uprooted from all parts of Eritrea.

Eritrean Jihadis based in Ethiopia

1.Eritrean Islamic Jihad Movement:

Sheikh Mohamed Arafa and Khalil Mohamed Amir
2.Eritrean Peoples’ Conference Jihat ;

Abu Suheil. Representative in London UK - (Showkie)
3.Eritrean Revolutionary Democratic Front;

Abdellah Mahmoud died 3 Month ago!
4. Eritrean Liberation Front ;

Abdella Idris / Hussien Kheliffa. Representative in London UK - (Idris Hemud)

Harakat Al Jihad Al Islami Al Eretri, (The Eritrean Islamic Jihad Movement -EIJM) is a well-known terrorist organization and is a member of the Ethiopia based Eritrean Alliance. Though it had tried to change its name to Harakat al Khalas al Islami Al Eretri
(Eritrean Islamic Salvation Movement), replacing the “Jihad” by “Salvation”, it is only a cover. It still claims, “The Eritrean Islamic Salvation Movement is a Jihadist organization”. It even has its website with its old name (EIJM).

The stated goal of EIJM is “setting up Islamic Sharia in Eritrea”, and to launch an “Islamic Jihad and Da'wa tides in the African Horn.” In short, it wants to undermine the secular and inclusive government of Eritrea and replace it with a Fundamentalist Islamic government of its own. To this end it had sought and found a sponsor in none other than Al-Qaeda organization. Al Qaeda trained members of the Eritrean Islamic Jihad were featured on CNN.

Many militants are part of global, borderless terrorist organizations like al Qaeda, which spreads propaganda, and provides financing and technical assistance to local extremists, and conducts dramatic and brutal operations like the September 11 attacks in New york City. Other militants are found in regional groups, often associated with Al Qaeda, paramilitary insurgencies and separatist movements in places like Ethiopia and the Philippines, and Pakistan, and Chechnya, and Kashmir, and Algeria. Still others spring up in local cells, inspired by Islamic radicalism, but not centrally directed. Islamic radicalism is more like a loose network with many branches than an army under a single command. Yet these operatives, fighting on scattered battlefields, share a similar ideology and vision for our world."

If we look at the radical Christian aggression and coordinated defamation media campaign against the tolerant people of the peaceful and stable nation Eritrea over the last 10 years, we can easily pick out the enablers, helpers, the targets, and for lack of a better word, the "political vision" and destabilization agenda, of those advancing and financing these illicit activities.

We are all aware of the contributions made by sites financed by Ethiopia who have engaged in disseminating lies and disinformation against Eritrea. But there are other militant and radical religious cyber groups and organizations:

1.Kevin Turner of Strategic World Impact
2.Todd Nettleton and Glenn Penner of the Voice of the Martyrs and persecution.net
3. Carl Moeller of Open Doors,
4. Christian Solidarity Worldwide

There are also small entities that are active as front organizations for the big guys. One such entity is the UK- based outfit called Release Eritrea, which has consistently misrepresented the State of Eritrea, its people and religion in Eritrea. Berhane Asmelash & his assistant Selam Kidane have deliberately and maliciously distorted the truth about Eritrea and its leaders and ought to be held criminally liable for their unsolicited and deliberate disinformation campaign against Eritrea.

Therefore, there are no differences between the Islamist radicals and the Christian radicals who equally exploit Christianity "for political ends" and defiling "a noble faith". Just like the Islamic radicals, these Christian fundamentalist and extremists are also elitists "led by a self-appointed vanguard that presumes to speak for the [Christian] masses"

Eritrean National Alliance (ENA)-.umbrella of 17 terrorist organizations based in Addis-Abeba Ethiopia and Co-ordinated by a certain Hebour Gebrekidan at the Prime Minster office. Ever since war broke out the minority regime in Ethiopia had tried everything to bring Eritrea and its people to their knees. They couldn’t. The Ethiopian Woyane regime in Addis-Abeba changed its strategy and began to invest on Eritreans who were ready to betray their country and people for a few crumbs. These are the main personalities behind the ENA:

Eritrean Liberation Front ; Hussien Khliffa / Abdella Idris. In London UK - Idris Humud
Eritrean Peoples’ Conference - Jihad -Mohammed Taher Shengeb "Abu Shaker" /Abu Suheil. In London UK - Showqie
Eritrean Islamic Jihad Movement ; Hamid Turki / Sheikh Mohammed Ismail Abdu / Sheikh Mohamed Arafa / Khalil Mohamed Amir
Eritrean Liberation Front-National Council ; Hassan Ali Assad
Eritrean Peoples’ Democratic Liberation Front; Tewelde Ghebresellasie
Eritrean Revolutionary Democratic Front ; Abdellah Mahmoud Democratic Movement for the Liberation of Kunama/Eritrea; DMLEK - Osman Qernelious,
Eritrean Democratic Resistance Movement Gash-Setit; Ismail Nada
Eritrean Initiative Group; Yassin Mohamed Abdellah Ali Mohamed Said Berahtu
Afar Liberation Democratic Movement in Eritrea (ALDME)- Mohammed Maar,
Eritrean National Salvation Front; Abdella Adem. In London; Saleh Ali Ahmed, Ibrahim Mohammed Nur, Abdu Abdella,
EDP / EPP. In London; Mohammed Berhan Abdelkadir, Dawit Mesfun, Tedros Feshaye, Kemal Mohamed Omer, Hassen Ibrahim
Eritrean People Movment: Adhanom Ghebremariam. In London Issais Asfaha
Federalist: Beshir Ishaq / F. Nair. In London UK

The ELF-RC organization was instrumental in the deportation of more than 70,000 people of Eritrean origin from Ethiopia during the Eritrea-Ethiopia 1998-2000 conflict. The organization tried to benefit from the plight of innocent people. It was taking extortion money from those who thought they could be spared of deportation by Ethiopian authorities.

For example in London ELF-RC / EDP / EPM / and “human right organization” run by people like Elsa Chirum / Asefaw G. Kidan / Issais Asfaha and the other groups are exchanging their membership ID cards for £300-£600 from would be economic refugees in Europe and the United States.

SUMMARY

Awareness of this multi-modal threat is growing. Much more attention is being given to threat analysis and the subsequent development of new strategies and technologies as well as intelligence sources needed to address each of these threats. Countries around the world are adopting a new national defense and security strategy that is based on the unique attributes of Asymmetric Warfare. Failure to do so could be devastating!

Modern warfare has created a blur between aggressive competition and countries who are now vying for top spots in the global business and economic marketplace. While asymmetric warfare strategies encompasses a wide scope of tactics, the implicit premise is that Asymmetric Warfare deals with using all means possible to gain an advantage over an adversary with surprise in terms of ways and means. Dealing with the unexpected requires agility and the ability to adapt to new and unexpected situations. The military strategist practicing asymmetric warfare is as much economist, business professional, political leader as they are a foot soldier, tank commander fighter pilot & weapons designer.

The diversity of the 11 modalities of attack all combine to create a huge challenge for the intelligence community. The span and scope of intelligence collection, analysis and interpretation require as many economists and MBAs as experts in weaponry and political science.

Clearly Eritrean Youth & YPFDJ members in diaspora need to update their knowledge and skills with respect to the integration of Asymmetric Warfare.


Zerai Solomon,

zerai_s@yahoo.co.uk
London UK