US on a hiding to nothing

When the Taiwan crisis slows down as it inevitably will, I don't think Washington will be able to look back on the whole drama with any degree of satisfaction. Beijing won on points. Taiwan and Nancy Pelosi scored an own goal. One of the problems is that after China's staggeringly aggressive response to Pelosi's visit, any thought of future VIP trips to Taiwan from the US looks likely to be abandoned. So yet another victory for Beijing. The Pentagon advised against the Pelosi troop because of fears of what China might do, so if anyone else from Congress, let alone the US administration, wants to hop off to Taiwan, the Pentagon will surely demand, not just advise, against it. Beijing can't lose this one I'm afraid.

Pelosi visit gave China a golden opportunity to practice invasion

I doubt anyone in Nancy Pelosi's staff or indeed anyone in the Pentagon or State Department imagined that her trip to Taiwan would be a Godsend to Beijing. The Chinese communist party leadership must have been dying to rehearse a full-scale invasion of the breakaway republic but Xi Zinping, wily bird that he is, knew that the US would kick up a huge fuss and might even seek a UN Permanent Security Council emergency meeting to condemn China. So all previous military exercises aimed at Taiwan have been hostile and aggressive but relatively small-scale. But the arrival of Pelosi in Taipei gave Beijing a wonderful opportunity to dust off the simulated invasion exercise and launch it with all missiles firing and effectively get away with it because China had warned the US and the region that if Pelosi dared to go to Taiwan Beijing would react with appropriate military measures. In hindsight, Pelosi's trip was a gift to Beijing. It gave them due cause and justification, in their eyes, to try out the invasion plan which has been sitting on the shelf in some bunkered PLA HQ, ready to go. And they HAVE got away with it. The US cried foul, sure, but that was it. The White House even cancelled a planned test of an ICBM, not wishing to exacerbate an already tense time with China, and the Ronald Reagan carrier strike force which has been operating in the Indo-Pacific, was ordered to stay away from waters anywhere near Taiwan. On top of all that, when Lloyd Austin, US defence secretary, and General Mark Milley, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, tried to contact their counterparts in Beijing they got the brush-off. I am afraid to say that Pelosi's bravado visit to Taiwan showed up America's inherent weakness in the face of China's belligerence. President Xi will have been delighted. He won, the US lost. Very bad news.

Why China should think twice about invading Taiwan

A Chinese invasion of Taiwan would present Beijing with a multitude of challenges despite the awesome superiority in ground, air, naval and missile forces enjoyed by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Taiwan’s topography is the greatest challenge for an invading amphibious force, with sheer mountains rising from the beaches and a series of heavily fortified mini-island outposts that would pose a serious threat to PLA warships. The Taiwan Strait close to the island is also mined. In terms of firepower and combat capability, the PLA has everything at its disposal to overwhelm the Taiwanese forces, including thousands of short-range and medium-range ballistic missiles and a massed array of fighter aircraft and bombers. China’s fifth-generation Chengdu J-20 stealth fighter, also known as the Mighty Dragon, is an aircraft with capabilities that cannot be matched by Taiwan’s advanced F-16V Viper supplied by the US. Crucially, for Taiwan’s ability to survive a first onslaught of Chinese mainland forces, the PLA’s military doctrine calls for an initial overpowering cyber attack to decapitate Taiwan’s command and control systems and critical national security infrastructure. Such an attack could potentially wipe out communications between the Taiwanese military and the country’s political leadership. However, Taiwan has been planning for an invasion ever since it was clear that Beijing intended to reunify the breakaway island to China’s mainland governance whether by diplomacy or by military force. As a result, huge bunkered alternative government and military facilities have been constructed in the island’s granite mountains to safeguard communications from a PLA electromagnetic strike. The PLA would be expected to follow up a cyber attack with a combination of ballistic missile strikes, parachute drops of airborne and special forces and an amphibious landing. But an American analyst specialising in Taiwan told The Times in an interview last year: “Taiwan is God’s gift when it comes to defending. There are 14 beaches, all bordered by bluffs, most between 1,000ft and 2,000ft and some much higher, “ said Ian Easton, senior director at the Project 2049 institute in Arlington, Virginia and former China expert at a Pentagon-funded centre for naval analysis. “These topographical features favour the defenders and there are tunnels dug everywhere to provide cover for attacks on invading forces,” he said. However, even if Taiwan managed to survive the first and maybe even the second wave of air and ground force attacks by the PLA, it’s unlikely the Taiwanese armed forces could continue to defend the island without outside help. In effect, without American naval and air support. China has weapons and manpower superiority, not just overall in the military balance between Beijing and Taipei but also in the eastern and southern regions which the Pentagon refers to as the Taiwan Strait forces. For example, the PLA has six amphibious brigades, five Marine brigades, seven airborne brigades and and five artillery brigades based in the Taiwan Strait area. The amphibious brigade has 49 tank-landing and assault ships; and the PLA has a total of 35 diesel and nuclear attacksubmarines in the region, compared with Taiwan’s two diesel attack boats. China also has four strategic ballistic-missile submarines in the area. In the event of a war with Taiwan, the PLA’s eastern and southern theatre navies would be involved in direct action against the Taiwan navy. PLA air force support would be supplemented by civilian aircraft sequestered for troop-carrying, according to an analysis by the Pentagon. Key to any future conflict would be Taiwan’s ability to defend against ballistic-missile attack. Taiwan has the Patriot anti-missile weapon provided by the US and an arsenal of thousands of its own short-range and medium-range missiles coming from a domestic production line that has accelerated to 500 a year. However, Taiwan would face a potential barrage of China’s most deadly Dongfeng ballistic missiles with ranges far exceeding the Taiwanese own arsenal of missiles. They include the 240-kilometre range Wan Chien, the 150-kilometre Hsiung Feng III and the 120-kilometre Tien Chi. A 2,000-kilometre range Yun Feng missile is under development. To underline Taiwan’s determination to withstand a PLA invasion, the defence ministry in Taipei presented a budget of $17 billion for 2022 to purchase advanced air-defence systems for the navy’s frigates, more armed drones and multiple missiles for the F-16V fighter aircraft. The F-16V Vipers are kept safe from Chinese attack by being housed in the same granite-mountain bunkers where the Taipei government will relocate in time of conflict.

Raining Dongfeng missiles

Crises once they start just get bigger and bigger. After more than five months of war in Ukraine the world has sort of got used to it and hopes it will end soon. Then Nancy Pelosi flies into Taiwan and all hell is et loose. Whether it was a mistake or a much-needed poke in the eye of the Chinese we will have to wait and see. But the elegant Speaker of the House in her pink trouser suit was hailed as a heroine when she landed and Beijing went ballistic. In the true sense of the word. The PLA fired 11 Dongfeng ballistic missiles towards Taiwan in the angriest and most blatantly aggressive military action against the breakaway island and held military exercises that effectively involved a blockade. I'm sure Putin was pleased, it would have given him a lot of satisfaction that his friend Xi Zinping had seized the headlines from him. But it is seriously worrying. Both China and Russia at loggerheads with the US and determined to spell out in no uncertain terms what their military can do. Pelosi went to Taiwan without the blessing of either President Biden or the Pentagon so she is not the favourite person right now in Washington, having stirred up a hornet's nest of Chinese bad temper. But I have a feeling her action might secretly please Biden's national security team. China had to be told that Taiwan was off limits to the PLA, and Pelosi's brief trip sent a message to Beijing that the Washington administration was not going to be pushed around. Nevertheless the outburst of military aggression was alarming, especially for the Taiwanese although they have become used to PLA brinkmanhsip for decades.

How Ayman al-Zawahiri was found after 21 years

The secret operation to target Ayman al-Zawahiri took 21 years after 9/11 before credible intelligence revealed a startling piece of information: the 71-year-old deputy and then successor to Osama bin Laden was standing on a balcony of a house in the heart of Afghanistan’s capital city. Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri were key architects of the worst terrorist attack in the US, responsible for killing nearly 3,000 people. After the body of bin Laden, shrouded in a white sheet and placed in a weighted bag, was slipped into the waters of the Arabian Sea from the aircraft carrier, USS Carl Vinson, in May, 2011, the CIA team dedicated to hunting down terrorists had focused much of their attention on finding al-Zawahiri. It took another 11 years and was one of the longest manhunts in the history of America’s prime intelligence agency. The breakthrough came in early February. The CIA terrorist hunters received a tip-off that members of al-Zawahiri’s family had arrived in Kabul and were staying in a house in the exclusive Sherpur district of the capital where western diplomatic embassies were once located. The wife, daughter and grandchildren had clearly been schooled in the art of counter-intelligence tradecraft because they used evasive methods to try and avoid being followed. Proof that al-Zawahiri himself had finally joined his family came several weeks later when the familiar figure with his thick gray beard and scowling face appeared on the balcony of the house. But no move was made to target him on his first or subsequent appearances on the balcony. When it was first suspected that bin Laden was hiding in a compound in Abbottabad in Pakistan, the CIA, backed by the signals intelligence capabilities of the National Security Agency, spent months attempting to shorten the odds that the tall man walking each day within the compound walls was the founder of al-Qaeda. He never looked upwards to give US satellites the convincing dentification the CIA was seeking. In the end, President Obama gave the go ahead to launch a Navy Seal commando operation against the Abbottabad compound in May, 2011, even though the identification process had only reached a 60 per cent certainty. The intelligence about al-Zawahiri was more firmly based. After minute examination of surveillance images of the man who regularly stood on the balcony of the house in Kabul, the CIA trackers knew for certain the bearded individual was bin Laden’s 71-year-old successor with a $25 million bounty on his head. The decision by President Biden to target al-Zawahiri was made easier by the CIA’s positive identification. The operational method to carry out the kill was left to the CIA. The US Air Force Reaper drone sent to kill al-Zawahiri took off from a Gulf state, probably Qatar. It was armed with two R9X Hellfire missiles fitted with long slicing blades to kill the al-Qaeda leader without requiring explosives which would have destroyed the house. Both Hellfire missiles with the ninja-style whirring cutting blades were fired from the Reaper drone at 6.18am on Sunday, Kabul time – 9.48pm on Saturday in Washington. Until the intelligence breakthrough, the CIA hunters had focused their efforts in the remote border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan where al-Zawahiri was thought to be living among fiercely loyal tribal families. His bodyguards even married into local tribes to help cement the protection around him. At least four attempts were made to target him but he proved elusive. Some officials believed al-Zawahiri might even have lived at one point in Karachi, one of Pakistan’s most populated cities. Whenever al-Zawahiri sent out video messages to al-Qaeda members he used so-called “chroma keying”, a visual effects process which involved digitally placing a green backdrop to obscure the location. The CIA was given no clues as to his whereabouts. The arrival in Kabul of al-Zawahiri’s wife, daughter and grandchildren more than yfive months ago convinced the CIA hunters that he would eventually join them. Bin Laden had his family with him in the Abbottabad compound. The CIA had built up a network of agents during the 20 years of America’s military involvement in Afghanistan, but the agency had limited assets in the Afghan capital. It was not long, however, before reliable sources tipped off the CIA that al-Zawahiri was also present in the house. It was early April. Once there he never left the building but, fatally for him, he liked to sit or stand on the balcony during the day. Al-Zawahiri’s pattern of daily life was monitored for weeks via satellite images watched by the CIA back in Langley, Virginia. It gave the CIA time to construct a mock-up of the house which was subsequently shown to Biden to help make his decision whether it was safe to target al-Zawahiri on the balcony without killing any members of his family. The same process was used in the planned targeting of bin Laden in 2011. A mock-up of the compound in Abbottabad was built and US Navy Seal Team Six commandos rehearsed the assault over a period of months. The decision to go ahead with the assassination took weeks of secret briefings at the White House. Initially the intelligence of al-Zawahiri’s whereabouts was kept to a restricted number of officials. Biden was briefed on the proposed drone strike in the White House situation room on July 1. Three key officials present were William Burns, CIA director, Avril Haines, director of national intelligence, and Jake Sullivan, national security adviser. Biden gave authorisation for the kill on July 25.

America's ninja bomb extinguishes al-Qeda leader

Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed by two ninja-style Hellfire missiles fitted with long blades that would have sliced through his body as he sat on the balcony of his “safe” house in Kabul. The RX9 Hellfire missile, favoured by the terrorist hunters of the CIA and America’s special forces, was selected for the targeting mission because of the low risk of collateral damage. The RX9 carries no explosives but is fitted with reinforced metal in its tip with six extendable blades. The ninja missiles were believed to have been fired from a Reaper drone that could have taken off from a Gulf state, such as Qatar or United Arab Emirates, or even from the US. The strike on the al-Qaeda leader was at least the 12th time the US has used the ninja missile to target terrorists. It has also been called the “flying Ginsu”. Abu al-Khayr al-Masiri, an al-Qaeda deputy leader, was killed with the same weapon in a drone strike in Idlib province, Syria in February, 2017. He was travelling in a vehiclewhen the roof was sliced open by an RX9. It was believed to have been the first time this type of weapon was used in a precision attack on an individual. Two years later the RX9 version of the Hellfire missile was used to kill Jamel Ahmed Mohammed Ali al-Badawi, an FBI most-wanted terrorist who was accused of orchestrating the suicide bombing of the US Navy destroyer, USS Cole, in October, 200, when it was moored in Aden. Seventeen sailors were killed. The targeted terrorist was travelling in a vehicle alone in Yemen when the ninja bomb shredded the vehicle and killed him. The six pop-up blades are deployed seconds before impact. US officials have said the design of the weapon was aimed at minimising civilian casualties. The full name of the deadly weapon is AGM-114R9X. Although few details of the weapon have been publicly revealed, it is known that both the CIA and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) have used the RX9 to target terrorists in recent years. It is believed to have been fired in Libya and Somalia, as well as Yemen and Afghanistan.

How much more dangerous is the world?

There is too much talk of nuclear weapons and miscalculations. Antonio Guterres, UN secretary-general, has warned that the world is just one misunderstanding or miscalculation from nuclear annihilation, and Iran's atomic chief has claimed his country is now able to make nuclear weapons. As for Putin, he has already threatened the West with a nuclear strike if they were to dare to intervene in Ukraine. When the word nuclear becomes such an easy one to say that's what worries me and should worry everyone. I don't think Putin has made any decision about going nuclear but nor do I think he has totally rejected the possibility. As each day goes by Putin seems to get more and more aggressive and predatory, despite suffering military blows in Ukraine, and in that sort of mood, there have to be concerns that he will think about nuclear weapons as usable rather than as a never-to-be-used deterrent. As for Iran, the chief atomic scientist insists that his country doesn't want to make a nuclear bomb. But we have heard this argument many times before over the last 15 years. I believe like most people who have followed this story for so long, Iran has every intention of developing a nuclear bomb because they know it will give them power. And power in this dangerous world is key to everything. Putin knows that, Xi Zinping knows that and the Supreme Ayatollah in Iran knows that. Guterres, I fear, is right.