Monday Winds of War Briefing
Welcome! Our goal at Winds of Change.NET is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from the global War on Terror that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday. Monday's Winds of War briefings are given by Peace Like a River and Security Watchtower.
Top Topics
* The UK Telegraph reports on a defense meeting held in London on Sunday aimed at discussing possible military strikes against Iran. Meanwhile experts are warning that Iran is likely to respond to any military action with terrorism from Iranian intelligence agents and Hezbollah operatives abroad.
* A car exploded in Gaza on Friday, killing Palestinian terrorist Abu Youssef al-Quqa and touching off firefights that killed three others and left as many as 36 people wounded. In response, Hamas has vowed to end the public display of weapons in Gaza and laid out their new security plan. Fatah gunmen are defying the ban and paraded in Gaza city on Saturday.
* A bomb exploded at a bus stop in Istanbul on Friday, killing one person and wounding 13 others. A Kurdish separatist group known as TAK claimed responsibility for the blast in response to ongoing clashes between Turkish riot police and Kurdish protesters in the southeast regions of the country. On Sunday, a molotov cocktail attack on a bus in Istanbul killed three.
Other topics today include: Palestinian bomber kills Israelis; Tehran's Triad; Saudis to put terror suspects on trial; IDF stops pair bombers in West Bank; Yemen al Qaeda escapee surrenders; Tribunal of al Qaeda suspects in Beirut; Israeli airstrikes in Gaza; Iran test fires new missiles; update on terror trial in Lodi; Omar Ali sentenced to 30 years; Homeland security; al Qaeda linked arrest in Toronto; 22 Marxist rebels killed in Columbia; Bombing in Ingushetia; Raids in Kygyzstan; Taliban attacks in southern Afghanistan; Violence and unrest in Balochistan; Pakistan military base attacked; Clashes in Kashmir; Maoist violence continues in Nepal; and more.
Iran & the Middle East
* A Palestinian suicide bomber detonated himself inside of a car after hitching a ride disguised as an Orthodox Jew, killing four Israelis near the West Bank town of Kedumim.
* James A. Kitfield has an article in the April edition of Air Force Magazine titled "The Tehran Triad", that highlights (1) Ahmadinejad's calls to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, (2) Iran's continued pursuit of their nuclear program, and (3) their continued state sponsorship of terrorist organizations as threatening triad and evidence they are on "a dangerous collision course with the United States."
* Qatar has announced they will hold its first parliamentary elections in 2007, following the endorsement of the permanent constitution in 2004 by a majority of the Qatari people.
* Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef said the Kingdom will soon put detained terror suspects on trial and said they had "aborted about 90 percent of the planned terror attacks" inside of Saudi Arabia.
* Israeli security forces seized two terror suspects in the industrial section of Beit She'an on Saturday after receiving intelligence that a pair of Palestinian suicide bombers were on their way to the northern town. IDF authorities say Israel is under a new wave of terror.
* Hazam Saleh Majli, one of twenty three al Qaeda detainees that broke out of prison in Yemen in February, surrendered to authorities on Sunday. Authorities say six of the twenty three have surrendered.
* A Beirut military tribunal acquitted six Lebanese soldiers and a Syrian on charges the group belonged to al Qaeda. In 2004 the group was arrested in Iraq where they wanted to attack U.S. forces. Upon returning to Lebanon the group began to raise funds to aid insurgents fighting in Iraq.
* On Saturday, an Israeli airstrike destroyed a building in northern Gaza being used by Palestinian terrorists during rocket attacks, and additional airstrikes and naval fire targeted access roads to launch sites.
* Mohamed ElBaradei said that sanctions against Iran would be "a bad idea" because they are not an imminent threat, and called for a lowering "of the pitch" in dealing with the Shi'ite theocracy.
* On Friday the U.S. State Department announced they were cutting all contacts with Hamas, however they will maintain dialogue with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and those working under him.
* Iran claims to have fired two new missiles during their Great Prophet war games over the weekend. On Friday Iran fired an "invisible" missile and on Sunday they fired a high speed torpedo.
America Domestic Security & the Americas
* President Bush said Friday the United States believes it is important to enforce laws protecting borders and told the leaders of Mexico and Canada that was crucial to keeping prosperity alive. He also reiterated strong support for a "guest worker" program that would allow undocumented immigrants already in the United States to remain in the country to fill low-paying jobs that Americans won't take. Bush also defended a new U.S. requirement, to take effect Dec. 31, 2007, generally requiring passports of all who come into the United States across either the Canadian or Mexican borders, including returning Americans.
* The House Intelligence Committee voted Thursday to withhold funding from the nation's intelligence director over concerns that his office, which was created to streamline operations in the nation's spy community, is instead becoming bloated and bureaucratic. The move to withhold funding still must be approved by the full House as well as the Senate. But it reflects rising frustration among House lawmakers with an office that was created less than two years ago to solve communication breakdowns and other problems that plagued the intelligence community leading up to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq.
* Democrats on Wednesday proposed a wide-ranging strategy for protecting Americans at home and abroad, an election-year effort aimed at changing public perception that Republicans are stronger on national security.
* In a potential blow to their terrorism case against a father and son, federal prosecutors said there is no evidence to support statements by their key witness that a top aide to Osama bin Laden attended a Lodi mosque in the late 1990s.
* A federal judge in Alexandria, Va., on Wednesday sentenced Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, the Falls Church, Va., man convicted of conspiring to kill President Bush and of joining an al-Qaida cell in Saudi Arabia, to 30 years in prison. U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee denied government prosecutors' request to impose a life sentence, citing the fact that the U.S.-born Abu Ali, 25, "never planted any bombs, shot any gun or injured any person."
* Borders and Waldenbooks stores will not stock the April-May issue of Free Inquiry magazine because it contains cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that provoked deadly protests among Muslims in several countries. Gates of Vienna responds.
* A Montreal resident was picked by al-Qaeda plotters to be a pilot in a second wave of suicide hijackings to follow the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks because he was a Canadian citizen, a deposition filed at the U.S. trial of terror suspect Zacarias Moussaoui alleges. Abderraouf Jdey, a Montrealer of Tunisian origin who is now a fugitive, obtained his Canadian citizenship in 1995. He was selected along with Mr. Moussaoui, a French citizen, because they had passports from Western countries, since al-Qaeda planners expected tighter security after Sept. 11, the court document says.
* Middle Eastern terrorist groups rely on criminal organizations in Latin America to acquire false passports and raise funds, although there is no evidence they operate directly in the region, a U.S. State Department anti-terrorism official said Thursday. "We are not aware of any operational cells in this hemisphere by al Qaeda, Hezbollah or Hamas," said Harry Crumpton, antiterrorism coordinator at the U.S. State Department. "But we do have information that these organizations raise money in the hemisphere and are tied in to transnational criminal networks."
* The number of high-risk cargo containers inspected before entering the United States is "staggeringly low," and government efforts to keep terrorists from exploiting the system are riddled with blind spots, congressional investigators say in a report that will be released today. The study, by a Senate Homeland Security subcommittee, is the latest to raise questions about whether the Bush administration and Congress have done enough to improve security at seaports, border crossings and other transportation hubs since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
* The U.S. missed an opportunity to make its shores safer when it drove away a Dubai-based company poised to operate cargo terminals at several American seaports, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday. In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Chertoff said the international shipping firm DP World could have helped implement stronger security at many ports where the U.S. now has limited influence.
* An alleged terrorist --- with links to al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden -- has been arrested in the Toronto area trying to flee the country, say Sun immigration sources. In one of the most significant terrorism arrests in Canada since Sept. 11, 2001, a man believed to be a captain of the Pakistani extremist organization Mujahadeen-E-Lashkar-E-Tayyba or LET, which is funded by Osama bin Laden and has direct ties to al-Qaida, was arrested March 16, by Canadian border service officers in Newmarket.
* Colombian troops killed 22 Marxist rebels on Saturday in an offensive aimed at preventing guerrilla attacks during campaigning for the May presidential election, the army said. The army killed 14 members of the country's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which is known by its Spanish initials FARC, and 8 members of the National Liberation Army, or ELN, army spokesmen said.
Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia
* A bomb exploded in Nazran, the capital of Ingushetia on Saturday, killing one and wounding two others including a border guard. Authorities are investigating the incident.
* On Friday, Lt. Gen. Aitech Bizhev, deputy commander of the CIS Integrated Air Defense System, said the air defense networks have been "effectively revived" in Armenia, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan over the last decade.
* Kyrgyz special forces conducted simultaneous raids in Osh and Urzgen on Sunday, targeting terrorist gangs with ties to Islamists in Turkestan. During the raid in Osh, gunfire was exchanged though there are no reports of casualties. An unknown number of terror suspects were detained.
* As Russia prepares for the spring military draft that will add 125,000 new conscripts, protesters in Pushkin Square gathered to call for an end to mandatory military service. The Russian Defense Ministry announced that conscripted troops will not be sent to conflict zones and that the length of conscription will be lowered to one year by 2008.
* According to Vyacheslav Kasymov, Executive Committee Director of the SCO's Regional Anti-Terror Agency, more than 250 terror attacks were preempted in the six SCO countries in 2005.
Afghanistan & Southern Asia
* Taliban insurgents raided several police posts in Afghanistan on Friday and six of the attackers were killed, a provincial official said. The Taliban say they have launched a spring offensive in their campaign to oust foreign troops and defeat the Western-backed government and violence has surged in recent days. The insurgents attacked the police posts in the southern province of Helmand, where U.S. and Canadian forces were involved in a big battle this week, said the province's deputy governor, Amir Akhundzada.
* A militant killed himself in a botched suicide attack on the Afghan army while security forces shot dead seven insurgents and the Taliban seized three villages, officials said. Two Romanian and two French soldiers were meanwhile lightly wounded in mine blasts in two incidents elsewhere in the country, military officials said.
* A Taliban insurgent shot dead four Afghan policemen as they slept after pretending to be a traveler looking for a place to spend the night, police said on Sunday. The police let the man stay at their checkpoint and fed him dinner but at night he grabbed a policeman's rifle and shot the four dead.
* Sayed Sadeq, the speaker of northern Tahhar province's governing assembly, died in hospital after receiving multiple gunshots to his body after an assailant broke into his home Saturday, said Ghulam Hazarat, the deputy local police chief. He said it was not clear who was behind the killing and that an investigation had been launched. Sadeq was well respected in the mountainous region and was a supporter of the country's U.S.-backed central government.
* Five U.S. soldiers were wounded in a roadside bomb blast in
Afghanistan on Saturday while, in a separate incident, a suicide bomber blew himself up in an attack on Canadian troops, military officials said.
* Afghan officials have told the BBC that 16 Pakistanis killed in Afghanistan last week were shot dead on the orders of a local commander. The Afghan foreign ministry has been maintaining they were Taleban fighters, a charge dismissed by Pakistan. But unnamed Afghan officials in the capital, Kabul, say the men were abducted there before being taken near to the Pakistan border and killed. They say the motive was a tribal feud dating back several years.
* Suspected tribal militants in Pakistan's Balochistan province have blown up four electricity transmission towers, cutting power to a wide area. A technician sent to repair the damage was then killed in an attack. It came only hours after the provincial assembly voted to form a bipartisan panel to try to make peace between the authorities and warring tribal leaders.
* This is the other front of Pakistan's widening civil unrest, not the tribal areas along the Afghan border where the United States would like the government to press a campaign against Islamic militants, but the restive province of Baluchistan, home to an intensifying insurgency. It is here, say local leaders and opposition politicians, that Pakistan, an important ally in the United States' campaign against terrorism, has diverted troops from the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban to settle old scores as it seeks to develop the region's valuable oil and gas reserves.
* Suspected Islamic militants attacked a military base in a tribal region in northwestern Pakistan, killing one soldier and injuring four others, an intelligence official said Sunday. Troops retaliated with artillery fire after the rocket attack Saturday night on their base in Dattakhel, a village in North Waziristan tribal region.
* Ten people including five tribal police have been killed and 13 injured in separate bomb blasts in the restive southwestern Pakistani province of Baluchistan. Three civilians -- a man, a woman and a young girl -- were killed and seven injured in two back-to-back bomb explosions at a state-run farm in the town of Kohlu.
* Gunmen on Wednesday attacked and critically injured a longtime ally of Osama bin Laden whom U.S. authorities have linked to an alleged terrorist sleeper cell in California. Fazlur Rehman Khalil, a signatory to the 1998 bin Laden declaration of war on the United States and its allies that launched al-Qaida, was severely beaten by eight armed men, supporters said.
* Three Islamic rebels and a policeman were among five people killed in separate attacks which also left 11 others injured in Indian Kashmir, security officials said. Six policemen were injured when their vehicle hit a landmine in the Soura area of the region's summer capital Srinagar, police said. One of them later died in hospital.
* Two persons, including a Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist, were killed, and five were arrested on Thursday, official sources said. Bashir Ahmad Malla was killed in an encounter during search operations at village Kallipora in Pulwama district in the wee hours.
* Here are the daily updates from the South Asia Terrorism Portal for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
* At least 11 school children and a teacher were wounded on Friday when Maoist rebels set off an explosion at a school in west Nepal, the army said. The blast took place in Dailekh district, 550 km west of the capital Kathmandu while children were appearing for a school-leaving examination, an army officer said.
* Maoist rebels shot dead two policemen and injured three other people in an attack at a busy market in southern Nepal, police say. The incident happened at the Gaur market in Rautahat, 170 kilometers (44 miles) south of Kathmandu, on Saturday afternoon.
* The United States offered to impart training to high-level security personnel of Bangladesh to fight terrorism, as both sides agree that there is no room yet for complacency although many militants have been arrested. Foreign Minister M Morshed Khan apprised journalists of the offer after his meeting with the visiting US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, John Gastright. Morshed Khan said the US official thanked Bangladesh for its efforts in controlling terrorism, including the capture of two kingpins of the banned militant outfit JMB.
* In a renewed attempt to locate terror financing, the nation’s central bank, Bangladesh Bank (BB), has sent a list of 68 militants to all commercial banks to locate any suspect accounts. The central bank asked for a report by April 6. BB officials said yesterday, the list, which was sent early this week, bears the addresses of some arrested and suspected militants. The central bank gathered the names and addresses from newspaper reports.
* In Bangladesh, a charge sheet in one of the two cases filed in Sylhet against the outlawed Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) chief Abdur Rahman and his accomplices is likely to be submitted in the court, officials said. Charges under the explosives act will be brought against 11 people including Abdur Rahman, his family men and accomplices, who were arrested on March 2 at an East Shaplabag house in Sylhet city suburb.
Far East & Southeast Asia
* Filipino police and army forces captured Abu Sayyaf leader Kahal Asmad (aka Abu Asmad) on Sunday in Isabela city on the southern island of Basilan. Asmad's arrest comes as authorities step up security around ferry terminals after intelligence revealed an Abu Sayyaf plot to hijack ships and hold passengers hostage.
* Australian authorities arrested three suspected terrorists in Melbourne on Friday as part of an operation that resulted in 19 terror-related arrests back in November. According to Victoria state Police Commissioner Christine Nixon, the latest arrests "have seriously disrupted the activities of a group allegedly making arrangements to carry out a terrorist attack in Australia."
* Two bombs exploded at polling stations in Thailand on Sunday just hours after the elections closed, wounding four Thai policemen. According to reports, the bombs were detonated by mobile cell phones.
* Muslim convert Joseph Thomas was sentenced to five years in prison under Australia's new anti-terrorism laws, for receiving funds and a plane ticket from al Qaeda. Thomas, who had visited al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan prior to 9/11 and lived in Pakistan, was arrested in November 2004 when he returned to Australia.
* The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade issued a travel warning for Indonesia and specifically Bali this past weekend after a stream of reports indicate terrorists may be in their final stages of planning attacks against westerners. The U.S. embassy in Jakarta followed with a similar warning about potential imminent terror attacks in Indonesia.
* A controversy has Indonesia and Australia at odds over cartoons published in each nation that depicted the others' leaders in a tasteless manner.
* Gunmen on Basilan island in the southern Philippines killed a police officer and wounded his son in a drive by shooting on Sunday.
* Touring the Asia-Pacific last week, British Prime Minister Tony Blair met with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in Jakarta, and vowed close cooperation in fighting terrorism. Blair also met with several Islamist leaders.
* Andrea Reimer, a senior researcher for the Austrian Defense Academy, writes about how the 9/11 attacks "energized America's Asian alliances" and marked a watershed moment for India and China.
Europe
* MPs have concluded that the intelligence and security services could not be blamed for failing to prevent the July 7 attacks, it was reported today. But the cross-party intelligence and security committee has questioned why the lead bomber, Mohammad Sidique Khan, was not fully investigated despite being known to security officials, the BBC said.
* Spy chiefs have warned Tony Blair that the war in Iraq has made Britain the target of a terror campaign by Al-Qaeda that will last "for many years to come." A leaked top-secret memo from the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) says the war in Iraq has “exacerbated” the threat by radicalising British Muslims and attracting new recruits to anti-western terror attacks.
* Despite the arrests - and, in some cases, the convictions - of members of the well-known group codenamed 'Hofstad', there's little ground for optimism about the terrorist threat in the Netherlands. That's according to a new report from the Dutch AIVD intelligence service report entitled "Violent Jihad in the Netherlands."
* The European Union has extended the deadline by a month for Serbia and Montenegro to hand over war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic. The capture of the Bosnian Serb wartime commander has been a major stumbling block for Serbia to start negotiations with the EU about possible entry into the union.
* Italy is on a state of high alert for possible terrorist attacks during the final phase of the elections campaign. Voting is scheduled to take place on April 9 and 10, and it is feared that Islamic militants may strike immediately before voting to maximize its political impact. To compound the sense of anxiety, the Bush administration has just warned that Italy should expect terrorist attacks (similar to the ones that devastated Madrid two years ago) near the elections (La Repubblica, March 23).
Africa
* Talks between militias who unleashed the worst clashes in years in Mogadishu collapsed on Wednesday, fuelling fears last week's fighting could resume and spread to the seat of government. Islamist militia seized a seaport and airstrip formerly controlled by warlord Bashir Raghe in four days of clashes with the town's most powerful warlords. Between 70 and 90 people were killed.
* Somali fighters backed by powerful warlords attacked an Islamic court on Saturday, killing two civilians and fuelling fears of worse to come, witnesses said. Residents in northern Mogadishu, where the attack took place, say they may arm themselves out of fear it would ignite the kind of battles that killed scores of people last week.
* Speaking in Johannesburg on Saturday, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas said that South Africa could play an important role in the Middle East peace process.
* UN humanitarian affairs chief Jan Egeland says the atrocities being committed by rebels in northern Uganda are "terrorism of the worst kind anywhere in the world."
* Marian Tupy has Part II of "Shaming Vampire States" at Tech Central Station, that focuses on African corruption and foreign aid.
* Following the capture of former Liberian leader Charles Taylor in Nigeria near the Cameroon border, it appears that the brutal dictator will be tried in the Hague. U.S. authorities arrested Taylor's son on Thursday night at Miami International airport after he arrived on a flight from Trinidad.
* The Algerian Salafist Group for Prayer and Combat (GSPC) has released two new communications on Muslim prisoners recently released by the Algerian government as part of an amnesty program and the Danish cartoons.
The Global War
* General James Jones, NATO Supreme Allied Commander, called for a proactive approach in preventing conflicts and preempting attacks against member nations "rather than sit back and wait for something bad to happen and spend 10 years digging ourselves out."
* The United States does not wish to become the world's jailers but must make absolutely sure that detainees at Guantanamo Bay pose no risk to the public before releasing them, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday. Speaking during a tour of the north-west of England which saw her heckled by a small but vocal contingent of anti-war protesters, Rice insisted the United States respected the rule of law, but warned that innocent lives would be lost if action was not taken against terrorists.
* The Pentagon last month sent experts to study Libya’s chemical weapons and determined it would cost $100 million to destroy them, but the United States still must decide whether or how much to help, a senior Pentagon official said on Thursday. James Tegnelia, director of the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency, said a team from his agency arrived in Libya in February and spent about a month assessing the north African country’s "tens of tons of mustard gas" and supplies of "precursor chemicals" that could be used in making chemical weapons.
* From Vital Perspective, here is their World in Brief (PDF). Also, here is their Reading Room (PDF) for this week, a roundup of articles on terrorism, national and international matters.
* The Flight 93 memorial near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, will receive a percentage of the box office revenue taken in from Paul Greengrass' new film "United 93", that opens on April 28th. Universal Pictures will give 10 percent of the first three days gross receipts to the memorial.
* An article (available here) in the March 2006 issue of Arms Control Today looks at current spending on missile defense. Here is the CDI's page on missile defense.
* Osama bin Laden's former bodyguard, Abu Jandal, gave an interview to Sixty Minutes and offered some dire predictions.
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Top Topics
* The UK Telegraph reports on a defense meeting held in London on Sunday aimed at discussing possible military strikes against Iran. Meanwhile experts are warning that Iran is likely to respond to any military action with terrorism from Iranian intelligence agents and Hezbollah operatives abroad.
* A car exploded in Gaza on Friday, killing Palestinian terrorist Abu Youssef al-Quqa and touching off firefights that killed three others and left as many as 36 people wounded. In response, Hamas has vowed to end the public display of weapons in Gaza and laid out their new security plan. Fatah gunmen are defying the ban and paraded in Gaza city on Saturday.
* A bomb exploded at a bus stop in Istanbul on Friday, killing one person and wounding 13 others. A Kurdish separatist group known as TAK claimed responsibility for the blast in response to ongoing clashes between Turkish riot police and Kurdish protesters in the southeast regions of the country. On Sunday, a molotov cocktail attack on a bus in Istanbul killed three.
Other topics today include: Palestinian bomber kills Israelis; Tehran's Triad; Saudis to put terror suspects on trial; IDF stops pair bombers in West Bank; Yemen al Qaeda escapee surrenders; Tribunal of al Qaeda suspects in Beirut; Israeli airstrikes in Gaza; Iran test fires new missiles; update on terror trial in Lodi; Omar Ali sentenced to 30 years; Homeland security; al Qaeda linked arrest in Toronto; 22 Marxist rebels killed in Columbia; Bombing in Ingushetia; Raids in Kygyzstan; Taliban attacks in southern Afghanistan; Violence and unrest in Balochistan; Pakistan military base attacked; Clashes in Kashmir; Maoist violence continues in Nepal; and more.
Iran & the Middle East
* A Palestinian suicide bomber detonated himself inside of a car after hitching a ride disguised as an Orthodox Jew, killing four Israelis near the West Bank town of Kedumim.
* James A. Kitfield has an article in the April edition of Air Force Magazine titled "The Tehran Triad", that highlights (1) Ahmadinejad's calls to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, (2) Iran's continued pursuit of their nuclear program, and (3) their continued state sponsorship of terrorist organizations as threatening triad and evidence they are on "a dangerous collision course with the United States."
* Qatar has announced they will hold its first parliamentary elections in 2007, following the endorsement of the permanent constitution in 2004 by a majority of the Qatari people.
* Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef said the Kingdom will soon put detained terror suspects on trial and said they had "aborted about 90 percent of the planned terror attacks" inside of Saudi Arabia.
* Israeli security forces seized two terror suspects in the industrial section of Beit She'an on Saturday after receiving intelligence that a pair of Palestinian suicide bombers were on their way to the northern town. IDF authorities say Israel is under a new wave of terror.
* Hazam Saleh Majli, one of twenty three al Qaeda detainees that broke out of prison in Yemen in February, surrendered to authorities on Sunday. Authorities say six of the twenty three have surrendered.
* A Beirut military tribunal acquitted six Lebanese soldiers and a Syrian on charges the group belonged to al Qaeda. In 2004 the group was arrested in Iraq where they wanted to attack U.S. forces. Upon returning to Lebanon the group began to raise funds to aid insurgents fighting in Iraq.
* On Saturday, an Israeli airstrike destroyed a building in northern Gaza being used by Palestinian terrorists during rocket attacks, and additional airstrikes and naval fire targeted access roads to launch sites.
* Mohamed ElBaradei said that sanctions against Iran would be "a bad idea" because they are not an imminent threat, and called for a lowering "of the pitch" in dealing with the Shi'ite theocracy.
* On Friday the U.S. State Department announced they were cutting all contacts with Hamas, however they will maintain dialogue with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and those working under him.
* Iran claims to have fired two new missiles during their Great Prophet war games over the weekend. On Friday Iran fired an "invisible" missile and on Sunday they fired a high speed torpedo.
America Domestic Security & the Americas
* President Bush said Friday the United States believes it is important to enforce laws protecting borders and told the leaders of Mexico and Canada that was crucial to keeping prosperity alive. He also reiterated strong support for a "guest worker" program that would allow undocumented immigrants already in the United States to remain in the country to fill low-paying jobs that Americans won't take. Bush also defended a new U.S. requirement, to take effect Dec. 31, 2007, generally requiring passports of all who come into the United States across either the Canadian or Mexican borders, including returning Americans.
* The House Intelligence Committee voted Thursday to withhold funding from the nation's intelligence director over concerns that his office, which was created to streamline operations in the nation's spy community, is instead becoming bloated and bureaucratic. The move to withhold funding still must be approved by the full House as well as the Senate. But it reflects rising frustration among House lawmakers with an office that was created less than two years ago to solve communication breakdowns and other problems that plagued the intelligence community leading up to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq.
* Democrats on Wednesday proposed a wide-ranging strategy for protecting Americans at home and abroad, an election-year effort aimed at changing public perception that Republicans are stronger on national security.
* In a potential blow to their terrorism case against a father and son, federal prosecutors said there is no evidence to support statements by their key witness that a top aide to Osama bin Laden attended a Lodi mosque in the late 1990s.
* A federal judge in Alexandria, Va., on Wednesday sentenced Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, the Falls Church, Va., man convicted of conspiring to kill President Bush and of joining an al-Qaida cell in Saudi Arabia, to 30 years in prison. U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee denied government prosecutors' request to impose a life sentence, citing the fact that the U.S.-born Abu Ali, 25, "never planted any bombs, shot any gun or injured any person."
* Borders and Waldenbooks stores will not stock the April-May issue of Free Inquiry magazine because it contains cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that provoked deadly protests among Muslims in several countries. Gates of Vienna responds.
* A Montreal resident was picked by al-Qaeda plotters to be a pilot in a second wave of suicide hijackings to follow the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks because he was a Canadian citizen, a deposition filed at the U.S. trial of terror suspect Zacarias Moussaoui alleges. Abderraouf Jdey, a Montrealer of Tunisian origin who is now a fugitive, obtained his Canadian citizenship in 1995. He was selected along with Mr. Moussaoui, a French citizen, because they had passports from Western countries, since al-Qaeda planners expected tighter security after Sept. 11, the court document says.
* Middle Eastern terrorist groups rely on criminal organizations in Latin America to acquire false passports and raise funds, although there is no evidence they operate directly in the region, a U.S. State Department anti-terrorism official said Thursday. "We are not aware of any operational cells in this hemisphere by al Qaeda, Hezbollah or Hamas," said Harry Crumpton, antiterrorism coordinator at the U.S. State Department. "But we do have information that these organizations raise money in the hemisphere and are tied in to transnational criminal networks."
* The number of high-risk cargo containers inspected before entering the United States is "staggeringly low," and government efforts to keep terrorists from exploiting the system are riddled with blind spots, congressional investigators say in a report that will be released today. The study, by a Senate Homeland Security subcommittee, is the latest to raise questions about whether the Bush administration and Congress have done enough to improve security at seaports, border crossings and other transportation hubs since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
* The U.S. missed an opportunity to make its shores safer when it drove away a Dubai-based company poised to operate cargo terminals at several American seaports, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday. In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Chertoff said the international shipping firm DP World could have helped implement stronger security at many ports where the U.S. now has limited influence.
* An alleged terrorist --- with links to al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden -- has been arrested in the Toronto area trying to flee the country, say Sun immigration sources. In one of the most significant terrorism arrests in Canada since Sept. 11, 2001, a man believed to be a captain of the Pakistani extremist organization Mujahadeen-E-Lashkar-E-Tayyba or LET, which is funded by Osama bin Laden and has direct ties to al-Qaida, was arrested March 16, by Canadian border service officers in Newmarket.
* Colombian troops killed 22 Marxist rebels on Saturday in an offensive aimed at preventing guerrilla attacks during campaigning for the May presidential election, the army said. The army killed 14 members of the country's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which is known by its Spanish initials FARC, and 8 members of the National Liberation Army, or ELN, army spokesmen said.
Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia
* A bomb exploded in Nazran, the capital of Ingushetia on Saturday, killing one and wounding two others including a border guard. Authorities are investigating the incident.
* On Friday, Lt. Gen. Aitech Bizhev, deputy commander of the CIS Integrated Air Defense System, said the air defense networks have been "effectively revived" in Armenia, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan over the last decade.
* Kyrgyz special forces conducted simultaneous raids in Osh and Urzgen on Sunday, targeting terrorist gangs with ties to Islamists in Turkestan. During the raid in Osh, gunfire was exchanged though there are no reports of casualties. An unknown number of terror suspects were detained.
* As Russia prepares for the spring military draft that will add 125,000 new conscripts, protesters in Pushkin Square gathered to call for an end to mandatory military service. The Russian Defense Ministry announced that conscripted troops will not be sent to conflict zones and that the length of conscription will be lowered to one year by 2008.
* According to Vyacheslav Kasymov, Executive Committee Director of the SCO's Regional Anti-Terror Agency, more than 250 terror attacks were preempted in the six SCO countries in 2005.
Afghanistan & Southern Asia
* Taliban insurgents raided several police posts in Afghanistan on Friday and six of the attackers were killed, a provincial official said. The Taliban say they have launched a spring offensive in their campaign to oust foreign troops and defeat the Western-backed government and violence has surged in recent days. The insurgents attacked the police posts in the southern province of Helmand, where U.S. and Canadian forces were involved in a big battle this week, said the province's deputy governor, Amir Akhundzada.
* A militant killed himself in a botched suicide attack on the Afghan army while security forces shot dead seven insurgents and the Taliban seized three villages, officials said. Two Romanian and two French soldiers were meanwhile lightly wounded in mine blasts in two incidents elsewhere in the country, military officials said.
* A Taliban insurgent shot dead four Afghan policemen as they slept after pretending to be a traveler looking for a place to spend the night, police said on Sunday. The police let the man stay at their checkpoint and fed him dinner but at night he grabbed a policeman's rifle and shot the four dead.
* Sayed Sadeq, the speaker of northern Tahhar province's governing assembly, died in hospital after receiving multiple gunshots to his body after an assailant broke into his home Saturday, said Ghulam Hazarat, the deputy local police chief. He said it was not clear who was behind the killing and that an investigation had been launched. Sadeq was well respected in the mountainous region and was a supporter of the country's U.S.-backed central government.
* Five U.S. soldiers were wounded in a roadside bomb blast in
Afghanistan on Saturday while, in a separate incident, a suicide bomber blew himself up in an attack on Canadian troops, military officials said.
* Afghan officials have told the BBC that 16 Pakistanis killed in Afghanistan last week were shot dead on the orders of a local commander. The Afghan foreign ministry has been maintaining they were Taleban fighters, a charge dismissed by Pakistan. But unnamed Afghan officials in the capital, Kabul, say the men were abducted there before being taken near to the Pakistan border and killed. They say the motive was a tribal feud dating back several years.
* Suspected tribal militants in Pakistan's Balochistan province have blown up four electricity transmission towers, cutting power to a wide area. A technician sent to repair the damage was then killed in an attack. It came only hours after the provincial assembly voted to form a bipartisan panel to try to make peace between the authorities and warring tribal leaders.
* This is the other front of Pakistan's widening civil unrest, not the tribal areas along the Afghan border where the United States would like the government to press a campaign against Islamic militants, but the restive province of Baluchistan, home to an intensifying insurgency. It is here, say local leaders and opposition politicians, that Pakistan, an important ally in the United States' campaign against terrorism, has diverted troops from the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban to settle old scores as it seeks to develop the region's valuable oil and gas reserves.
* Suspected Islamic militants attacked a military base in a tribal region in northwestern Pakistan, killing one soldier and injuring four others, an intelligence official said Sunday. Troops retaliated with artillery fire after the rocket attack Saturday night on their base in Dattakhel, a village in North Waziristan tribal region.
* Ten people including five tribal police have been killed and 13 injured in separate bomb blasts in the restive southwestern Pakistani province of Baluchistan. Three civilians -- a man, a woman and a young girl -- were killed and seven injured in two back-to-back bomb explosions at a state-run farm in the town of Kohlu.
* Gunmen on Wednesday attacked and critically injured a longtime ally of Osama bin Laden whom U.S. authorities have linked to an alleged terrorist sleeper cell in California. Fazlur Rehman Khalil, a signatory to the 1998 bin Laden declaration of war on the United States and its allies that launched al-Qaida, was severely beaten by eight armed men, supporters said.
* Three Islamic rebels and a policeman were among five people killed in separate attacks which also left 11 others injured in Indian Kashmir, security officials said. Six policemen were injured when their vehicle hit a landmine in the Soura area of the region's summer capital Srinagar, police said. One of them later died in hospital.
* Two persons, including a Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist, were killed, and five were arrested on Thursday, official sources said. Bashir Ahmad Malla was killed in an encounter during search operations at village Kallipora in Pulwama district in the wee hours.
* Here are the daily updates from the South Asia Terrorism Portal for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
* At least 11 school children and a teacher were wounded on Friday when Maoist rebels set off an explosion at a school in west Nepal, the army said. The blast took place in Dailekh district, 550 km west of the capital Kathmandu while children were appearing for a school-leaving examination, an army officer said.
* Maoist rebels shot dead two policemen and injured three other people in an attack at a busy market in southern Nepal, police say. The incident happened at the Gaur market in Rautahat, 170 kilometers (44 miles) south of Kathmandu, on Saturday afternoon.
* The United States offered to impart training to high-level security personnel of Bangladesh to fight terrorism, as both sides agree that there is no room yet for complacency although many militants have been arrested. Foreign Minister M Morshed Khan apprised journalists of the offer after his meeting with the visiting US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, John Gastright. Morshed Khan said the US official thanked Bangladesh for its efforts in controlling terrorism, including the capture of two kingpins of the banned militant outfit JMB.
* In a renewed attempt to locate terror financing, the nation’s central bank, Bangladesh Bank (BB), has sent a list of 68 militants to all commercial banks to locate any suspect accounts. The central bank asked for a report by April 6. BB officials said yesterday, the list, which was sent early this week, bears the addresses of some arrested and suspected militants. The central bank gathered the names and addresses from newspaper reports.
* In Bangladesh, a charge sheet in one of the two cases filed in Sylhet against the outlawed Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) chief Abdur Rahman and his accomplices is likely to be submitted in the court, officials said. Charges under the explosives act will be brought against 11 people including Abdur Rahman, his family men and accomplices, who were arrested on March 2 at an East Shaplabag house in Sylhet city suburb.
Far East & Southeast Asia
* Filipino police and army forces captured Abu Sayyaf leader Kahal Asmad (aka Abu Asmad) on Sunday in Isabela city on the southern island of Basilan. Asmad's arrest comes as authorities step up security around ferry terminals after intelligence revealed an Abu Sayyaf plot to hijack ships and hold passengers hostage.
* Australian authorities arrested three suspected terrorists in Melbourne on Friday as part of an operation that resulted in 19 terror-related arrests back in November. According to Victoria state Police Commissioner Christine Nixon, the latest arrests "have seriously disrupted the activities of a group allegedly making arrangements to carry out a terrorist attack in Australia."
* Two bombs exploded at polling stations in Thailand on Sunday just hours after the elections closed, wounding four Thai policemen. According to reports, the bombs were detonated by mobile cell phones.
* Muslim convert Joseph Thomas was sentenced to five years in prison under Australia's new anti-terrorism laws, for receiving funds and a plane ticket from al Qaeda. Thomas, who had visited al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan prior to 9/11 and lived in Pakistan, was arrested in November 2004 when he returned to Australia.
* The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade issued a travel warning for Indonesia and specifically Bali this past weekend after a stream of reports indicate terrorists may be in their final stages of planning attacks against westerners. The U.S. embassy in Jakarta followed with a similar warning about potential imminent terror attacks in Indonesia.
* A controversy has Indonesia and Australia at odds over cartoons published in each nation that depicted the others' leaders in a tasteless manner.
* Gunmen on Basilan island in the southern Philippines killed a police officer and wounded his son in a drive by shooting on Sunday.
* Touring the Asia-Pacific last week, British Prime Minister Tony Blair met with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in Jakarta, and vowed close cooperation in fighting terrorism. Blair also met with several Islamist leaders.
* Andrea Reimer, a senior researcher for the Austrian Defense Academy, writes about how the 9/11 attacks "energized America's Asian alliances" and marked a watershed moment for India and China.
Europe
* MPs have concluded that the intelligence and security services could not be blamed for failing to prevent the July 7 attacks, it was reported today. But the cross-party intelligence and security committee has questioned why the lead bomber, Mohammad Sidique Khan, was not fully investigated despite being known to security officials, the BBC said.
* Spy chiefs have warned Tony Blair that the war in Iraq has made Britain the target of a terror campaign by Al-Qaeda that will last "for many years to come." A leaked top-secret memo from the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) says the war in Iraq has “exacerbated” the threat by radicalising British Muslims and attracting new recruits to anti-western terror attacks.
* Despite the arrests - and, in some cases, the convictions - of members of the well-known group codenamed 'Hofstad', there's little ground for optimism about the terrorist threat in the Netherlands. That's according to a new report from the Dutch AIVD intelligence service report entitled "Violent Jihad in the Netherlands."
* The European Union has extended the deadline by a month for Serbia and Montenegro to hand over war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic. The capture of the Bosnian Serb wartime commander has been a major stumbling block for Serbia to start negotiations with the EU about possible entry into the union.
* Italy is on a state of high alert for possible terrorist attacks during the final phase of the elections campaign. Voting is scheduled to take place on April 9 and 10, and it is feared that Islamic militants may strike immediately before voting to maximize its political impact. To compound the sense of anxiety, the Bush administration has just warned that Italy should expect terrorist attacks (similar to the ones that devastated Madrid two years ago) near the elections (La Repubblica, March 23).
Africa
* Talks between militias who unleashed the worst clashes in years in Mogadishu collapsed on Wednesday, fuelling fears last week's fighting could resume and spread to the seat of government. Islamist militia seized a seaport and airstrip formerly controlled by warlord Bashir Raghe in four days of clashes with the town's most powerful warlords. Between 70 and 90 people were killed.
* Somali fighters backed by powerful warlords attacked an Islamic court on Saturday, killing two civilians and fuelling fears of worse to come, witnesses said. Residents in northern Mogadishu, where the attack took place, say they may arm themselves out of fear it would ignite the kind of battles that killed scores of people last week.
* Speaking in Johannesburg on Saturday, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas said that South Africa could play an important role in the Middle East peace process.
* UN humanitarian affairs chief Jan Egeland says the atrocities being committed by rebels in northern Uganda are "terrorism of the worst kind anywhere in the world."
* Marian Tupy has Part II of "Shaming Vampire States" at Tech Central Station, that focuses on African corruption and foreign aid.
* Following the capture of former Liberian leader Charles Taylor in Nigeria near the Cameroon border, it appears that the brutal dictator will be tried in the Hague. U.S. authorities arrested Taylor's son on Thursday night at Miami International airport after he arrived on a flight from Trinidad.
* The Algerian Salafist Group for Prayer and Combat (GSPC) has released two new communications on Muslim prisoners recently released by the Algerian government as part of an amnesty program and the Danish cartoons.
The Global War
* General James Jones, NATO Supreme Allied Commander, called for a proactive approach in preventing conflicts and preempting attacks against member nations "rather than sit back and wait for something bad to happen and spend 10 years digging ourselves out."
* The United States does not wish to become the world's jailers but must make absolutely sure that detainees at Guantanamo Bay pose no risk to the public before releasing them, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday. Speaking during a tour of the north-west of England which saw her heckled by a small but vocal contingent of anti-war protesters, Rice insisted the United States respected the rule of law, but warned that innocent lives would be lost if action was not taken against terrorists.
* The Pentagon last month sent experts to study Libya’s chemical weapons and determined it would cost $100 million to destroy them, but the United States still must decide whether or how much to help, a senior Pentagon official said on Thursday. James Tegnelia, director of the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency, said a team from his agency arrived in Libya in February and spent about a month assessing the north African country’s "tens of tons of mustard gas" and supplies of "precursor chemicals" that could be used in making chemical weapons.
* From Vital Perspective, here is their World in Brief (PDF). Also, here is their Reading Room (PDF) for this week, a roundup of articles on terrorism, national and international matters.
* The Flight 93 memorial near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, will receive a percentage of the box office revenue taken in from Paul Greengrass' new film "United 93", that opens on April 28th. Universal Pictures will give 10 percent of the first three days gross receipts to the memorial.
* An article (available here) in the March 2006 issue of Arms Control Today looks at current spending on missile defense. Here is the CDI's page on missile defense.
* Osama bin Laden's former bodyguard, Abu Jandal, gave an interview to Sixty Minutes and offered some dire predictions.
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