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本帖{zh1}由 光一 于 2010-1-7 17:56 编辑
America, al-Qaeda and home-made bombs
美国，基地组织和xxxx
From shoes to soft drinks to underpants
从鞋，软饮料到内裤
Dec 30th 2009 | LONDON AND WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition
The attempted bombing of an airliner highlights gaps in intelligence-sharing and airport security
航班爆炸未遂事件突出了在信息共享和机场安保方面的缺陷。
THE charred underpants of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tell the story of a terrorist attack averted only by luck. The 23-year-old son of a prominent Nigerian banker had hidden a fistful of high explosive in a package sewed into the crotch of his underwear. As Northwest Airlines flight 253 from Amsterdam prepared to land in Detroit on Christmas Day, with 290 people on board, he covered himself with a blanket and injected a chemical to detonate the explosive. Mr Abdulmutallab succeeded only in starting a fire, which was put out by passengers and the cabin crew as they wrestled him down.
奥马尔•法鲁克•阿卜杜勒穆塔拉布（Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab）烧焦的内裤告诉着人们，这起恐怖袭击事件被阻止仅仅是侥幸罢了。这位23岁的尼日利亚xx银行家之子将一把烈性xx藏在包中，然后缝进内裤裆部。圣诞节当日，载有290名乘客的西北航空公司253航班自阿姆斯特丹飞抵底特律机场准备着陆时，机上的奥马尔把毛毯盖在自己身上，并注射一种化学品试图引爆xx。他仅仅点着了火，而火随即被乘客和机舱服务员熄灭，奥马尔也被他们制服。
Al-Qaeda’s latest attempt to blow up an America-bound airliner—after Richard Reid’s failed shoe-bomb in 2001, and the arrest in 2006 of Britons planning to destroy several aircraft with liquid explosives in soft-drink bottles—will bring yet more misery for travellers. Security queues immediately lengthened. Despite worries about privacy, there were calls for the introduction of full-body scanners to identify items under clothing that cannot be found with metal-detectors. Some passengers were even being told to stay in their seats, without blankets or even books on their laps, for the last hour of their flight.
2001年，理查德•里德（Richard Reid）试图在飞行中引爆藏匿在鞋子中的xx未遂，2006年，几名英国人因企图用藏在软饮料瓶中的xxxx摧毁数架飞机而被捕。而此次“内裤xx”事件是基地组织{zx1}一次针对赴美客机的爆炸行动，这将会给旅客们带来更多不幸。安检队列随即延长。尽管有侵犯个人隐私的担忧，但引入全身扫描仪的呼声渐起，这种扫描仪可以识别藏于衣物内的物体，而金属探测器对此则无法识别。在航程的{zh1}一小时内，某些乘客甚至被告知只能坐在座位，不能用毛毯盖住膝盖，即使用书也不行。
Al-Qaeda’s branch in Yemen quickly took the credit, hailing Mr Abdulmutallab as a “brother hero” for evading security screening and intelligence monitoring. More attacks were in the works: “With Allah’s permission, we will come to you from where you do not expect.”
基地组织在也门的分支很快便承认是该起事件的策划者，他们称赞奥马尔是“英勇弟兄”，他逃过了安检和情报部门的监控。他们称更多的袭击正在酝酿中：“以安拉的名义,我们会从你们无法料想的地方发动袭击。”
Yet the attack should not have been unexpected. Al-Qaeda’s Yemeni branch has been resurgent since it merged a year ago with the remnants of the decimated Saudi franchise to relaunch “al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula”, boosted by the influx of several veterans of Guantánamo Bay. It has moved from attacks against targets in Yemen to a regional agenda, and now to global jihad. A Yemeni preacher, Anwar al-Awlaki, exchanged e-mails with Major Nidal Hasan, the American army psychiatrist who killed 13 people in November at a base in Fort Hood, Texas.
然而，这起袭击事件并不是不可预知的。基地组织也门分支在一年前死灰复燃，在几名曾被囚禁于关塔那摩集中营的老手的支持下，他们与被剿灭的沙特恐怖分子余孽同流合污，重建了“阿拉伯半岛基地组织”。从一开始对也门目标发动袭击，到发动区域性袭击，如今他们已成为国际性圣战组织。11月在美国胡德堡军营开枪射杀13人的美军心理医生哈桑少校（Major Nidal Hasan）就曾与一名也门教士奥拉基（Anwar al-Awlaki）保持着邮件往来。
The Yemeni branch seems to have pioneered the underpants-bomb in August, when it nearly killed Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, Saudi Arabia’s deputy interior minister. Mr Abdulmutallab is said to have obtained the same explosive, known as PETN, in Yemen and carried it undetected as he travelled through Ethiopia, Ghana and Nigeria to Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, where he boarded flight 253.
基地组织也门分支似乎在八月就采用了“内裤xx”，欲暗杀沙特王子纳伊夫（Prince Muhammad bin Nayef），纳伊夫同时也是该国内政部次大臣，该起行动差点成功。而据说此次奥马尔在也门得到的也是相同的xx，即太恩xxPETN。他携带该xx，一路未被察觉，从也门取道埃塞俄比亚、加纳和尼日利亚前往阿姆斯特丹史基浦机场（Schiphol airport），并登上了253航班。
Other chances to foil the attack were missed. Nigerian authorities, and the American embassy in Abuja, were told in November by Mr Abdulmutallab’s father that his son had become an extremist and had disappeared, maybe to Yemen. The younger Mr Abdulmutallab was placed on the least important of America’s four terrorism watch-lists, and he kept his multiple-entry visa to the United States.
能挫败此次袭击的其他机会也被错失了。奥马尔的父亲曾在11月告知尼日利亚政府及美国驻该国首都阿布贾的使馆，称其子已成为了极端主义者并已失踪，也许去了也门。而在美国4张“恐怖分子监控名单”上，奥马尔的名字被列在最不重要者之类，他还能用多次入境签证前往美国。
In Britain, though, officials said Mr Abdulmutallab had “crossed the radar screen” of MI5, the domestic intelligence service, for radical links during his time as a mechanical-engineering student (and at one point president of the Islamic Society) at University College London between 2005 and 2008. He was placed on an immigration watch-list in May 2009, after he was denied another student visa for applying to a bogus college.
而英国官员称奥马尔成了该国国内情报部门军情五处的漏网之鱼，2005年到2008年间，奥马尔曾是伦敦大学学院机械工程专业学生（一度亦是伊斯兰协会的会长）， 在此期间他表现激进。他因申请野鸡大学而被拒签另一学生签证，之后他于2009年5月被列入英国移民监控名单。
Why nobody linked all these danger signals is the subject of urgent investigation, and the cause of growing embarrassment for the Obama administration. Janet Napolitano, the homeland-security secretary, declared initially on December 27th that “the system has worked really very, very smoothly”, only to accept the next day that the system had in fact “failed miserably”. Then Barack Obama twice broke away from his holiday in Hawaii to speak in increasingly blunt terms about the “mix of human and systemic failures that contributed to this potential catastrophic breach of security”. Mr Abdulmutallab was a “known extremist”. The warning from his father had not been effectively distributed in the intelligence system; even without it there were other “bits of information” that should have raised red flags and kept him off planes flying to America. Officials say these “bits” included reports that an unnamed Nigerian was being prepared for an attack, and that al-Qaeda wanted to strike over Christmas. Mr Obama promised “accountability at every level”, and ordered that a preliminary review be completed by December 31st.
目前紧急调查的主题是为何没有人将这些危险信号联系起来，而这也让奥巴马政府愈发的尴尬。国土安全部长珍妮特•纳波利塔诺（Janet Napolitano）起初于12月27日宣称“安全系统运行地非常非常顺利”，而事实上次日该系统就“严重失误”。奥巴马总统随后两次中断在夏威夷的度假行程，他的发言愈发不留情，他表示：“人员及系统失误造成了这次安保方面潜在的灾难性破坏”。 奥马尔是个“已知的极端主义者”。奥马尔父亲的警告并没有被及时的发布到情报系统中，即使没有这番警告，其余“小量信息”也未得到关注，这些信息本应可以引起红色警戒，使得奥马尔不能登上赴美航班。官方称这些“小量信息”包括一名不知名尼日利亚人将发动袭击，基地组织策划在圣诞节期间发动袭击等报告。奥巴马总统保证将进行“逐层问责”。并命令在12月31日前完成初步检查。
The blame game
责难游戏
Many Republicans already argue that Mr Obama is soft on terrorism; he prefers to denounce “violent extremists” than to refer to George Bush’s “war on terror”. Ms Napolitano has been mocked for talking of “man-caused” disasters—in order, she says, to avoid the politics of fear. The loudest complaints have been prompted by Mr Obama’s promise to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay (where nearly half the remaining detainees are Yemeni) and the decision to try five suspected terrorists (including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged September 11th mastermind) in civilian courts.
很多共和党议员认为奥巴马对恐怖主义不够强势，他宁可谴责“暴力极端分子”，也不愿意参照布什总统的反恐战争。国土安全部长纳波利塔诺因有关“人为”灾难的言论而被嘲笑，而她表示这番表态是为了避免出现政治恐慌。自奥巴马承诺关闭关塔那摩监狱（其中几乎半数在押囚犯来自也门），并决定试图将五名恐怖分子嫌犯（包括哈立德•谢赫•穆罕默德，他被认为是911事件的策划者）移交民事法庭审理以来，抱怨声愈演愈烈。
It is difficult, though, for Mr Obama’s opponents to make a persuasive case so soon after he decided to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. On his watch American drones and special forces have been busier than ever, not only in Afghanistan and Pakistan but also, it is reported, in Somalia and Yemen. Mr Obama restated that every element of America’s power would be used “to disrupt, to dismantle, and defeat the violent extremists who threaten us—whether they are from Afghanistan or Pakistan, Yemen or Somalia, or anywhere where they are plotting attacks against the US homeland.”
而奥巴马的对手们要找到一个令人信服的理由来指责他倒是件难事。因为就在不久前，奥巴马决定增派三万名士兵前往阿富汗；又因为在他的任期内，美军的无人侦察机和特种xx比以前更为繁忙，不仅仅是在阿富汗和巴基斯坦，据报道在索马里和也门也有他们的踪影。奥巴马总统重申美国将竭尽其所能“瓦解、xx及击败威胁我们的暴力极端主义者——不管他们来自阿富汗或是巴基斯坦，也门或是索马里，又抑或是身处任何地方，图谋攻击美国本土。”
Intelligence analysts reckon that strikes have weakened al-Qaeda’s “core” leadership in Pakistan’s lawless border region. Perhaps so. But al-Qaeda is adaptable, inventive and is seeking new bases. Joe Lieberman, the hawkish independent senator, says he was warned by an American official in Yemen: “Iraq was yesterday’s war. Afghanistan is today’s war. If we don’t act pre-emptively, Yemen will be tomorrow’s war.”
情报分析人士认为美军的多次空袭削弱了基地组织在巴基斯坦不受政府管辖边境地区的“核心”领导层。可能如此。但是基地组织适应力很强，又善于思变，他们正在寻找新的基地。鹰派独立参议员乔•利伯曼（Joe Lieberman）表示，一位在也门的美国官员曾向其警告称“伊拉克是昨日之战，阿富汗是今日之战，而要是我们不先发制人，也门将是明日的战场。” |
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