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 CIA fired a top intelligence analyst who admitted leaking classified information that led to a Pulitzer Prize-winning story about a network of secret CIA prisons, government officials say. The officer was a senior analyst nearing retirement, Mary McCarthy, The Associated Press learned. Reached Friday evening at home, her husband would not confirm her firing. Strata-Sphere has a good roundup of developments.
* An Arab Al-Qaeda terrorist was killed in a gunbattle with Pakistani soldiers in a restive tribal area bordering Afghanistan, a minister confirmed. "It is a big achievement because he was an explosive expert of Al-Qaeda," Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao told AFP. A security official earlier said the man, known as Abu Marwan al-Suri, was a possible Saudi national. Sherpao said he was killed on Thursday in Bajaur. Intelligence officials say the man was closely linked to Ayman al Zawahri.
* Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas blocked Hamas' plan to create their own security force led by wanted terrorist Jamal Abu Samhadana, with a Presidential decree issued Friday. In response, Hamas leader Khaled Meshal lashed out at the decision, saying "the military-security coup supported by Zionists and Americans will not happen." Fatah has accused Meshal of "inciting a Palestinian civil war."
Other topics today include: Clashes between Hamas and Fatah; Iran plot with Hezbollah; al Qaeda captures in Turkey; Iran remains defiant on enrichment; Yemen al Qaeda escapee surrenders; Olmert blames Iran for Tel Aviv bombing; Turkish troops deployed to southeast region; Iranian students protest; Israel warns Gaza; Iran claims nuclear deal with Russia; CAIR vs Anti-CAIR; Lodi trial drags on; Georgia student arrested in terror sting; Minister in Guyana assassinated; al Qaeda threatens Argentina; Rebel ambush in Columbia kills 16 troops; al Qaeda tied to 2004 bombing in Ingushetia; Russian counterterror exercise; Russian-Belarus missile dealings; Tajikistan hosts counterterrorism exercise; Clashes continue in Nepal; Violence grips southern Afghanistan; al Qaeda operative killed in Pakistan; Pakistani offensive in Waziristan; Suicide bombing in Kashmir; Bangladesh kill top terrorist; More violence in Sri Lanka; Indonesia captures wanted terrorist; Jemaah Islamiyah plot to raid Filipino jail; International counterterrorism conference in Cebu; Muslim brotherhood infiltrating Australia; Huge bomb uncovered in Northern Ireland; Spain extradites al Qaeda fundraiser; Relief effort in Sudan danger of collapsing; terror attacks jumped in 2005; Mousaoui trial slides; al Sakka says Bigley buried in Fallujah and more.
Iran & the Middle East
* On Saturday, rival groups of students supporting Hamas and Fatah clashed in Gaza, throwing stones, homemade bombs and firing weapons. There were several reported injuries. On Sunday in Gaza, Fatah and Hamas exchanged gunfire at the Health Ministry.
* The Khaleej Times has some insight and perspective on the hardliners backing President Ahmadinejad, who see him as the man delivering the true Islamic regime to Iran. There's been no confirmation of the rumor that he's glowing again and has them in a trance.
* The Sunday UK Times is reporting that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad met Imad Mugniyeh, the Lebanese commander of Hezbollah’s overseas operations, earlier this year in Syria to plot Iran's retaliation of possible U.S. airstrikes.
* Turkish authorities have arrested six al Qaeda operatives suspected of planning attacks in Turkey according to a report from the Anatolia News Agency on Sunday. The raid in the southeast city of Gaziantep resulted in the captured of the men, five of whom are Turkish nationals. One of the men, Fahad Abdurrahman El Cakmak, was identified as having travelled to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
* In the face of continued Iranian defiance towards the international community over their nuclear program, the United States is urging Russia and China to reconsider arms sales to Iran. For their part, Iran is maintaining that their nuclear program is irreversible.
* Another al Qaeda prison escapee in Yemen has turned himself in to authorities. Khaled Mohammed Abdullah al-Batati, one of twenty three inmates that escaped last year, was the eighth man to turn himself in.
* Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert accused Syria and Iran of involvement in the recent bombing in Tel Aviv that killed nine people. Talking to a group of visiting U.S. Senators, Olmert said the order for the bombing "came from Damascus and when the operation was complete the report went back to Damascus."
* Two people were killed and 18 others wounded on Sunday, when a hand grenade was tossed into a crowded market in the Yemeni capital of Sana'a. While not connected to terrorism, authorities say it is symbolic of the flow of illegal weapons in Yemen.
* Turkey has deployed additional troops to the southeast Kurdish region of the country to assist in security and prevent incursions by Kurdish militants from neighboring Syria, Iraq and Iran.
* Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar came out last week and said prospects of U.S. military action to halt Teheran's nuclear ambitions were just empty talk.
* Muhammed Jafar Jamal al-Kahtani, a Saudi al Qaeda operative who escaped from a U.S. prison in Afghanistan in July 2005, appeared in a video broadcast posted on the internet and threatened to move the fight to Saudi Arabia while vowing to "defeat the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq."
* Regime Change Iran has a recent symposium held by the Claremont Institute that brought together seven people for a discussion on how to eliminate Iran's nuclear capability. It's an interesting read.
* Tahkim Vahdat's central committee is Iran's largest and oldest student organization and they are calling upon the Iranian government to suspect uranium enrichment and cooperate with the international community.
* Israeli military officials continue to warn the Palestinians about a potential Israeli occupation of Gaza if the rocket and missile attacks escalate any worse.
* On Saturday, Iran announced that they had struck a deal to enrich uranium with Russia. Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said a basic deal was made but added there was still some technical, legal and financial issues to resolve. Which is almost precisely what they said back in February.
* Saudi Interior ministry spokesman General Mansour Al Torki said that security forces have discovered a car loaded with weapons and maps in the eastern Saudi province of Damam on Sunday and are investigating whether it's linked to al Qaeda operatives.
America Domestic Security & the Americas
* The Canadian military is trying to plan for a range of security threats to offshore oil platforms to avoid what one senior official describes as a potential Maritime version of 9-11. Rear Admiral Dan McNeil says various government agencies are working together to come up with defence strategies for possible scenarios that could make the rigs vulnerable. McNeil says government has made preparing for such threats its top priority, despite the fact there are no perceived threats facing the rigs now.
* In Ontario, efforts to deport a 50-year-old Mississauga man for alleged ties to a terrorist group intensified Thursday when the federal government ordered him to turn in his travel documents and landed immigrant papers. Support continues to grow for Issam Al Yamani, a married father of two and executive director of Mississauga's Palestine House, a cultural and educational centre for the city's Palestinian community.
* Daniel Pipes writes at FrontPageMagazine.com that the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ defamation suit against Andrew Whitehead of Anti-CAIR has been dismissed with prejudice. The Anti-CAIR website, www.anti-cair-net.org, reports a "mutually agreeable settlement," the terms of which are confidential. However, Whitehead notes that he issued no public apology to CAIR, made no retractions or corrections, and left the Anti-CAIR website unchanged, so that it continues to post the statements that triggered CAIR’s suit. (HT: Lake Minnetonka Liberty)
* National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, brushing aside claims that his office has become just another layer of government bureaucracy, said Thursday he has made significant progress in coordinating the work of the nation's 15 intelligence agencies. Marking his first year in an office created to calm turf battles among the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and other agencies, Negroponte said the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has focused primarily on improving intelligence analysis, particularly with regard to terrorists and weapons of mass destruction.
* Jurors deciding the fate of two Lodi men facing terrorism-related charges are struggling to reach verdicts. The Hamid Hayat jury met for the sixth full day Thursday without deciding if the 23-year-old man is guilty or innocent of providing material support to terrorism by allegedly attending a terrorist training camp in Pakistan in 2003 and 2004, and for lying to federal agents.
* A 21-year-old Georgia Tech student and a 19-year-old Roswell man traveled together to Canada last year to meet with "like-minded Islamic extremists" and plot locations for possible terror attacks, according to a federal arrest warrant released Friday. The affidavit for the arrest of Ehsanul Islam Sadequee accuses him of making false statements to law enforcement officers and details the alleged trip to Canada with Syed Haris Ahmed, a Tech student who has been charged with giving "material support" to a terrorist organization. Atlas Shrugs comments here. Ehsanul Islam Sadequee sat silently in a courtroom Saturday during a brief hearing that followed his extradition from Bangladesh. Sadequee, a U.S. citizen who grew up near Atlanta, is accused of making materially false statements linked to an ongoing federal terrorism investigation.
* The government conceded Thursday it had no evidence that would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid was to have conducted a terrorist hijacking with Zacarias Moussaoui, as Moussaoui has claimed. The defense introduced a statement, agreed to by government prosecutors, that was presented to the jury considering whether Moussaoui should be executed or imprisoned for life.
* Cargo industry officials are worried that a federal ID system aimed at boosting security could cost many port workers their jobs, something that would bottle up the flow of goods destined for virtually every U.S. community. Details of the program -- more than three years in the making -- are still being worked out.
* Gunmen burst into the home of Guyana's agriculture minister early Saturday and fatally shot him along with two relatives and a security guard, authorities said. A government spokesman said it appeared to be a political assassination.
* El Ojo Digital has become the only media with access to an Al Qaeda letter, digitized from its original version, where the Argentine Government is warned on new bombings that will be carried out in national soil against Jewish and American targets.
* Leftist rebels ambushed a military convoy in remote northeastern Colombia, killing 16 soldiers and secret police officers in the deadliest attack on security forces this year, the army said Friday. The attack took place Thursday in Norte de Santander province, 260 miles northeast of the capital, Bogota. Ten of those killed were DAS secret police officers, Colombia's hybrid equivalent of the CIA and FBI. The other six were soldiers.
Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia
* Russian prosecutors say they have found evidence that links al Qaeda to an April 2004 car bombing aimed at assassinating Murat Zyazikov, president of Ingushetia. According to the report "investigators discovered a videotape of the attack in the home of the father-in-law of Abu Dzeit, who has been described as an Al-Qaeda emissary to southern Russia. Abu Dzeit was killed in February 2005."
* On Monday, more than 10,000 officers from the Russian Federal Security Service, the Interior and Defense ministries and other security bodies will take part in security exercises in southern Russia. The exercise will include repelling a mock attack and carrying out search and destroy operations against a small group of targets.
* Russia has started deliveries to Belarus of the latest and most advanced version of the S-300SP surface-to-air missile system. A recent Jane's Intelligence Digest report suggested that Belarus had reached an agreement with Iran to transfer the missiles on, but both Belarus and Iran are denying the claim.
* Threatswatch is highlighting the current crisis between Russia and Georgia.
* Counter-terrorist forces from the Russian, Belarusian, Tajik and Armenian Interior Ministries held joint exercises in the mountains of Tajikistan, focusing on joint operations to locate and destroy terrorist groups in mountainous conditions.
* On Saturday, Russia test fired a K65M-R missile from a testing ground at Kapustin Yar in the southern Astrakhan region. Col.-Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov, commander of Russia's strategic rocket forces expressed concerns over U.S. missile defense plans that "is so considerable that the fear that it could have a negative effect on the parameters of Russia's nuclear deterrence potential is quite justified."
* According to General Yury Baluevsky, Chief of Russian General Staff, in the event of war between the United States and Iran, Russia would not intervene to assist either side. Instead they'll be too busy studying and documenting the performance of a host of weapons systems they've already sold Iran.
Afghanistan & Southern Asia
* Nepal's king vowed Friday to return multiparty democracy to his Himalayan nation after weeks of bloody protests and increasing international pressure. But King Gyanendra fell short of a key opposition demand — the creation of a special assembly to write a new constitution — and one of the main opposition parties rejected the pledge as "incomplete."
* Dozens of Nepalese pro-democracy protesters were injured when police fired on thousands who defied a curfew to march on the centre of the capital, witnesses and doctors said. Demonstrations were reported in several spots in and around Kathmandu as protesters headed towards King Gyanendra's palace, defying his offer to end 16 days of protests by announcing a return to multi-party democracy.
* Nepali police fired rubber bullets at thousands of protesters Sunday, struggling to enforce a curfew imposed to keep persistent pro-democracy demonstrators off the streets in the Himalayan country's deepening crisis. The protesters were trying to enter the city limits of Katmandu, the capital, when police first fired tear gas, then rubber bullets, independent Kantipur television reported. Doctors at a hospital said they treated three people injured by rubber bullets.
* A roadside bomb killed four Canadian soldiers Saturday in southern Afghanistan, the deadliest attack against Canadian forces since they deployed here in 2002. Canadian military officials blamed remnants of the toppled Taliban government for the blast in the village of Gomboth, about 25 miles north of Kandahar city.
* Taliban insurgents attacked a police post on Friday killing six policemen as gunmen opened fire on a patrol in a separate incident, killing a U.S. soldier, officials said.
* Afghan troops have arrested 19 militants, including five suspected Taliban members, in multiple raids across the country's south, the Defense Ministry said Friday.
* Six policemen have been killed by suspected Taleban insurgents in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar. The gunmen attacked the police post in the Maiwand district in the early hours of Friday, a police official said.
* Afghan security forces surrounded Taliban fighters hiding in a village in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, launching a gunbattle that killed at least three militants and a police officer.
* Taliban militants attacked a construction company working for coalition forces Sunday, killing a security guard and wounding two others, the company's director said. The attack occurred on the Uruzgan-Kandahar highway near a southern Kandahar provincial village where four Canadian soldiers were killed in a suspected Taliban roadside bombing a day earlier.
* U.S. and Afghan soldiers have arrested 16 Taliban members in the southern Zabul province, an Afghan military official said Sunday. Twelve Taliban fighters were detained Saturday following a brief gun battle with troops in Argandab district, about 160 kilometres northeast of Kandahar city, said local Afghan army commander Gen. Rahmattalluh Roufi.
* A Taliban campaign to intimidate moderate Islamic leaders in Afghanistan appears to be working. A week ago, suspected Taliban insurgents gunned down a pro-government mullah on the steps of his mosque in a village 20 kilometres west of Kandahar City. It was only the latest in a series of assassinations of moderate religious leaders.
* One of Osama bin Laden's most trusted aides was a Palestinian from the West Bank who was recently killed in a US military operation in Afghanistan, Palestinian Authority security sources revealed on Thursday. The sources identified the man as Husam Abu Baker, 32. They said his family, which lives in the village of Ya'bad near Jenin, was notified about his death only this week.
* Militants ambushed a convoy of Pakistani troops in a northwestern tribal region near the Afghan border Thursday, killing seven soldiers and wounding 22, an army spokesman said. Hundreds of soldiers backed by helicopter gunships hunted for the attackers, believed to have fled to a village near the site of the ambush on the outskirts of Miran Shah, the main town in North Waziristan.
* A paramilitary trooper and three tribesmen were killed on Sunday in a shoot-out in a restive Pakistani tribal region, as authorities tried to enforce a ban on carrying arms, officials said.
* Tribal militants fighting for greater autonomy in Pakistan's restive southwestern Baluchistan province blew up a pipeline supplying a major gas distribution plant on Sunday, a senior official said.
* Here are the daily updates from the South Asia Terrorism Portal for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
* An Islamic militant blew himself up in a suicide bomb attack against a military convoy in revolt-hit Indian Kashmir, but there were no other casualties, an army spokesman said. The attack came two days ahead of state by-elections opposed by rebels in the restive Himalayan state.
* In Bangladesh, a top terrorist was killed in an encounter between his cohorts and police at Shampur char island on the river Padma in Bagha upazila on Saturday, reports UNB.
* At least three security personnel and a civilian have been killed in the port town of Trincomalee in north-eastern Sri Lanka, officials say. The civilian died in violence after two mine blasts killed the security men.
* Renewed international attempts to persuade Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels to attend peace talks in Geneva in Switzerland have failed. The rebel leadership refused to even meet the head of the Scandinavian-led truce monitors. The talks are now in deadlock and violence is escalating in the north and east of the island.
Far East & Southeast Asia
* On Friday, Indonesia announced the capture of a wanted foreign terror suspect on Sumbawa island in West Nusa Tenggara. A local police spokesman identified the capture Singapore national as Abdul Rasyid (aka Hamdan), and said he was suspected of having ties to Mohammed Noordin Top, a key Jemaah Islamiyah operative. The raid that led to the capture took place on Monday and was carried out by Detachment 88, Indonesia's elite counterterrorism force.
* According to statistics released by the Japanese Defense Agency, Russian military aircraft violated Japanese airspace 116 times between March 2005 and March 2006, while China has recorded 107 intrusions. The Russian total represents the third straight year of decline, but the Chinese figure is a notable increase from previous years. The two nations accounted for 223 of the 229 times that Japanese fighter jets had to be scrambled.
* According to Nilo Sintin, chief of the South Cotabato Provincial Jail, Filipino intelligence uncovered a Jemaah Islamiyah plot to storm the jail to free suspected Indonesian terrorist Taufek Refke. In response, security has been heightened and an additional perimeter fence is being constructed.
* Right-wing rebel soldiers in the Philippines are renewing threats to depose President Gloria Arroyo in the "coming days".
* Speaking at an international counterterrorism conference in Cebu City, Rohan Gunaratna warned that southern Thailand was becoming a breeding ground for terrorists, as militants shift from a nationalistic to a jihadist orientation. Gunaratna also warned of alienating moderate Muslims and pushing them towards extremism with aggressive anti-terror efforts taking place in Asia. Gunaratna also said that all major attacks from Jemaah Islamiyah are funded by al Qaeda.
* The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting on a new wave of Islamic fundamentalists who have come to Australia and are trying to influence more moderate Muslims already living in Sydney. Steve Emerson is warning of infiltration by the Muslim brotherhood in Australia after five members of the group were granted asylum.
* Filipino authorities have tied Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani into the 27 March bombing that killed nine and wounded more than twenty. (H/T: Counterterrorism Blog)
* One of Australia's most wanted terrorists, Aminah Jamal, may soon be released from a Beirut prison where he has spent two years for involvement in the April 2003 bombing of a McDonald's restaurant in Beirut.
Europe
* Dissident republicans had been preparing a major attack, police warned yesterday after finding a partially assembled 250lb fertiliser bomb in a breakers' yard in Northern Ireland. The discovery of such a large device comes after a warning from the Independent Monitoring Commission that small breakaway groups such as the Real IRA and Continuity IRA continue to pose a threat to the security forces.
* Northern Ireland politicians cannot continue to cite fears over IRA terrorism as a reason for not joining a power-sharing government, Peter Hain has said. The secretary of state was speaking ahead of a report by the commission set up to monitor paramilitary activity.
* Tariq Ramadan, who is barred from the U.S., is invited to speak at a conference on May 4-5, 2006, sponsored by the American Embassy in Rome, on "Immigration and Integration: Islam in Europe and Islam in the U.S." Ramadan, a Swiss citizen and grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hasan al-Banna, had his visa revoked by the Department of Homeland Security on July 28, 2004.
* A suspected al-Qaeda fundraiser has been extradited to Spain from the UK. Hedi Ben Youssef Boudhiba, alleged to have links to the planning of the 11 September attacks, was held in August 2004 at Liverpool John Lennon Airport. Scotland Yard's Extradition Unit handed the Tunisian citizen over to the Spanish authorities at RAF Northolt. The High Court rejected lawyers' attempts to block the extradition on the grounds that it would be unjust or oppressive if he was sent back.
* It's the third time a Kurdish satellite station has tried to beam news into Turkey, whose laws restrict Kurdish programming within the country. The first two were shut down. Now the Turkish government is lobbying Denmark to rein in Roj, accusing the two-year-old station of being nothing more than a mouthpiece for Kurdish terrorists.
* A fire bomb attack on an Ironmongers shop in Barańaain in Navarra on Saturday morning is thought to have been the work of ‘kale borroka’ the youth vandals inspired by ETA.
* France announced Friday it would not issue a visa to Palestinian Authority Planning Minister Samir Abu Eisha to attend a conference in Paris later this week, a senior Foreign Ministry official said Saturday night. This is the second times in as many weeks that France has denied a visa to a Hamas representative to attend a conference on its soil, and the third time that Hamas representatives haven't been allowed into Europe in less than a month. Belgium denied a visa to a Hamas representative at the end of March.
* Two people arrested in southern France on suspicion of financing Islamist extremism were notified they face forgery charges, court sources said Saturday. The two were among eight people detained Wednesday in the port city of Marseille as part of a Franco-Italian anti-terrorism operation.
Africa
* The relief effort in Sudan's Darfur region could collapse within weeks unless foreign donors contribute more money and the government eases restrictions that have slowed aid workers, the top U.N. humanitarian official said Thursday. Jan Egeland told the U.N. Security Council that just 20 percent of relief work in Darfur has been funded this year. The international community has stopped pressuring Sudan's government or Darfur's rebels to cooperate with aid groups.
* Following substantial and sustained progress in implementing anti-money laundering and terrorist financing laws, Nigeria may soon be removed from the anti-money laundering list.
* An article at Jamestown Foundation by Andrew Black looks at the importance of the Western Sahara to Maghrebi security. The article describes how African nations are fighting against terrorist groups like the GSPC, sometimes with the help of Americans.
The Global War
* The number of terrorist attacks documented by U.S. intelligence agencies jumped sharply in 2005, crossing the 10,000 mark for the first time, according to U.S. counterterrorism officials and documents obtained by Knight Ridder. More than half the fatalities from terrorism worldwide last year occurred in Iraq, said a counterterrorism official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the data haven't been made public. Roughly 85 percent of the U.S. citizens who died from terrorism during the year died in Iraq.
* The Site Institute is noting the section of Fouad Hussein’s book, Al-Zarqawi: al Qaeda's Second Generation, that is reported to be written by an al Qaeda leader (possibly Seif al-Adl), is among the most popular files among jihadi forums.
* U.S. and Indian anti-terror officials have agreed to share information on a real time basis and schedule joint exercises at a meeting held this week in the U.S. capital. Without disclosing the specific date of the talks, the U.S. State Department said in a statement on Friday that the two-day meeting yielded a deal on sharing information in real time, as well as "responding to counter-terrorism assistance requests expeditiously and collaborating to upgrade preparedness and capability to deal with acts of terrorism."
* The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press have assembled a collection of slides and documents used by the U.S. government during the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui. A warning that some of the slides taken from the attack at the Pentagon are a graphic reminder of the evil we face.
* Lawyers in Turkey for al Qaeda operative Louai Al Sakka, said their client has revealed the location of where British hostage Kenneth Bigley was buried. According to al Sakka, Bigley was buried in a ditch near Fallujah.
* Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria from April 24-28, where she will meet with leaders from all three countries as well as attend an informal meeting of NATO ministers. Rice is also expected to sign a defense cooperation agreement with Bulgarian authorities, allowing the use of shared military facilities in Bulgaria similar to an agreement signed with Romania in December 2005.
* Osama bin Laden issued new threats in an audiotape broadcast on Arab television Sunday and accused the United States and Europe of supporting a "Zionist" war on Islam by cutting off funds to the Hamas-led Palestinian government. He also urged followers to go to Sudan, his former base, to fight a proposed U.N. peacekeeping force. Walid Phares outlines ten points made on the tape.
* Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has approved the military's most ambitious plan yet to fight terrorism around the world and retaliate more rapidly and decisively in the case of another major terrorist attack on the United States, according to defense officials. The long-awaited campaign plan for the global war on terrorism, as well as two subordinate plans also approved within the past month by Rumsfeld, are considered the Pentagon's highest priority.
Thanks for reading! If you found something here you want to blog about yourself (and we hope you do), all we ask is that you do as we do and offer a Hat Tip hyperlink to today's "Winds of War". If you think we missed something important, use the Comments section to let us know. For ongoing tips, email "MondayWindsOfWar", over here @windsofchange.net.
Top Topics
* The CIA fired a top intelligence analyst who admitted leaking classified information that led to a Pulitzer Prize-winning story about a network of secret CIA prisons, government officials say. The officer was a senior analyst nearing retirement, Mary McCarthy, The Associated Press learned. Reached Friday evening at home, her husband would not confirm her firing. Strata-Sphere has a good roundup of developments.
* An Arab Al-Qaeda terrorist was killed in a gunbattle with Pakistani soldiers in a restive tribal area bordering Afghanistan, a minister confirmed. "It is a big achievement because he was an explosive expert of Al-Qaeda," Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao told AFP. A security official earlier said the man, known as Abu Marwan al-Suri, was a possible Saudi national. Sherpao said he was killed on Thursday in Bajaur. Intelligence officials say the man was closely linked to Ayman al Zawahri.
* Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas blocked Hamas' plan to create their own security force led by wanted terrorist Jamal Abu Samhadana, with a Presidential decree issued Friday. In response, Hamas leader Khaled Meshal lashed out at the decision, saying "the military-security coup supported by Zionists and Americans will not happen." Fatah has accused Meshal of "inciting a Palestinian civil war."
Other topics today include: Clashes between Hamas and Fatah; Iran plot with Hezbollah; al Qaeda captures in Turkey; Iran remains defiant on enrichment; Yemen al Qaeda escapee surrenders; Olmert blames Iran for Tel Aviv bombing; Turkish troops deployed to southeast region; Iranian students protest; Israel warns Gaza; Iran claims nuclear deal with Russia; CAIR vs Anti-CAIR; Lodi trial drags on; Georgia student arrested in terror sting; Minister in Guyana assassinated; al Qaeda threatens Argentina; Rebel ambush in Columbia kills 16 troops; al Qaeda tied to 2004 bombing in Ingushetia; Russian counterterror exercise; Russian-Belarus missile dealings; Tajikistan hosts counterterrorism exercise; Clashes continue in Nepal; Violence grips southern Afghanistan; al Qaeda operative killed in Pakistan; Pakistani offensive in Waziristan; Suicide bombing in Kashmir; Bangladesh kill top terrorist; More violence in Sri Lanka; Indonesia captures wanted terrorist; Jemaah Islamiyah plot to raid Filipino jail; International counterterrorism conference in Cebu; Muslim brotherhood infiltrating Australia; Huge bomb uncovered in Northern Ireland; Spain extradites al Qaeda fundraiser; Relief effort in Sudan danger of collapsing; terror attacks jumped in 2005; Mousaoui trial slides; al Sakka says Bigley buried in Fallujah and more.
Iran & the Middle East
* On Saturday, rival groups of students supporting Hamas and Fatah clashed in Gaza, throwing stones, homemade bombs and firing weapons. There were several reported injuries. On Sunday in Gaza, Fatah and Hamas exchanged gunfire at the Health Ministry.
* The Khaleej Times has some insight and perspective on the hardliners backing President Ahmadinejad, who see him as the man delivering the true Islamic regime to Iran. There's been no confirmation of the rumor that he's glowing again and has them in a trance.
* The Sunday UK Times is reporting that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad met Imad Mugniyeh, the Lebanese commander of Hezbollah’s overseas operations, earlier this year in Syria to plot Iran's retaliation of possible U.S. airstrikes.
* Turkish authorities have arrested six al Qaeda operatives suspected of planning attacks in Turkey according to a report from the Anatolia News Agency on Sunday. The raid in the southeast city of Gaziantep resulted in the captured of the men, five of whom are Turkish nationals. One of the men, Fahad Abdurrahman El Cakmak, was identified as having travelled to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
* In the face of continued Iranian defiance towards the international community over their nuclear program, the United States is urging Russia and China to reconsider arms sales to Iran. For their part, Iran is maintaining that their nuclear program is irreversible.
* Another al Qaeda prison escapee in Yemen has turned himself in to authorities. Khaled Mohammed Abdullah al-Batati, one of twenty three inmates that escaped last year, was the eighth man to turn himself in.
* Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert accused Syria and Iran of involvement in the recent bombing in Tel Aviv that killed nine people. Talking to a group of visiting U.S. Senators, Olmert said the order for the bombing "came from Damascus and when the operation was complete the report went back to Damascus."
* Two people were killed and 18 others wounded on Sunday, when a hand grenade was tossed into a crowded market in the Yemeni capital of Sana'a. While not connected to terrorism, authorities say it is symbolic of the flow of illegal weapons in Yemen.
* Turkey has deployed additional troops to the southeast Kurdish region of the country to assist in security and prevent incursions by Kurdish militants from neighboring Syria, Iraq and Iran.
* Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar came out last week and said prospects of U.S. military action to halt Teheran's nuclear ambitions were just empty talk.
* Muhammed Jafar Jamal al-Kahtani, a Saudi al Qaeda operative who escaped from a U.S. prison in Afghanistan in July 2005, appeared in a video broadcast posted on the internet and threatened to move the fight to Saudi Arabia while vowing to "defeat the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq."
* Regime Change Iran has a recent symposium held by the Claremont Institute that brought together seven people for a discussion on how to eliminate Iran's nuclear capability. It's an interesting read.
* Tahkim Vahdat's central committee is Iran's largest and oldest student organization and they are calling upon the Iranian government to suspect uranium enrichment and cooperate with the international community.
* Israeli military officials continue to warn the Palestinians about a potential Israeli occupation of Gaza if the rocket and missile attacks escalate any worse.
* On Saturday, Iran announced that they had struck a deal to enrich uranium with Russia. Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said a basic deal was made but added there was still some technical, legal and financial issues to resolve. Which is almost precisely what they said back in February.
* Saudi Interior ministry spokesman General Mansour Al Torki said that security forces have discovered a car loaded with weapons and maps in the eastern Saudi province of Damam on Sunday and are investigating whether it's linked to al Qaeda operatives.
America Domestic Security & the Americas
* The Canadian military is trying to plan for a range of security threats to offshore oil platforms to avoid what one senior official describes as a potential Maritime version of 9-11. Rear Admiral Dan McNeil says various government agencies are working together to come up with defence strategies for possible scenarios that could make the rigs vulnerable. McNeil says government has made preparing for such threats its top priority, despite the fact there are no perceived threats facing the rigs now.
* In Ontario, efforts to deport a 50-year-old Mississauga man for alleged ties to a terrorist group intensified Thursday when the federal government ordered him to turn in his travel documents and landed immigrant papers. Support continues to grow for Issam Al Yamani, a married father of two and executive director of Mississauga's Palestine House, a cultural and educational centre for the city's Palestinian community.
* Daniel Pipes writes at FrontPageMagazine.com that the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ defamation suit against Andrew Whitehead of Anti-CAIR has been dismissed with prejudice. The Anti-CAIR website, www.anti-cair-net.org, reports a "mutually agreeable settlement," the terms of which are confidential. However, Whitehead notes that he issued no public apology to CAIR, made no retractions or corrections, and left the Anti-CAIR website unchanged, so that it continues to post the statements that triggered CAIR’s suit. (HT: Lake Minnetonka Liberty)
* National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, brushing aside claims that his office has become just another layer of government bureaucracy, said Thursday he has made significant progress in coordinating the work of the nation's 15 intelligence agencies. Marking his first year in an office created to calm turf battles among the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and other agencies, Negroponte said the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has focused primarily on improving intelligence analysis, particularly with regard to terrorists and weapons of mass destruction.
* Jurors deciding the fate of two Lodi men facing terrorism-related charges are struggling to reach verdicts. The Hamid Hayat jury met for the sixth full day Thursday without deciding if the 23-year-old man is guilty or innocent of providing material support to terrorism by allegedly attending a terrorist training camp in Pakistan in 2003 and 2004, and for lying to federal agents.
* A 21-year-old Georgia Tech student and a 19-year-old Roswell man traveled together to Canada last year to meet with "like-minded Islamic extremists" and plot locations for possible terror attacks, according to a federal arrest warrant released Friday. The affidavit for the arrest of Ehsanul Islam Sadequee accuses him of making false statements to law enforcement officers and details the alleged trip to Canada with Syed Haris Ahmed, a Tech student who has been charged with giving "material support" to a terrorist organization. Atlas Shrugs comments here. Ehsanul Islam Sadequee sat silently in a courtroom Saturday during a brief hearing that followed his extradition from Bangladesh. Sadequee, a U.S. citizen who grew up near Atlanta, is accused of making materially false statements linked to an ongoing federal terrorism investigation.
* The government conceded Thursday it had no evidence that would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid was to have conducted a terrorist hijacking with Zacarias Moussaoui, as Moussaoui has claimed. The defense introduced a statement, agreed to by government prosecutors, that was presented to the jury considering whether Moussaoui should be executed or imprisoned for life.
* Cargo industry officials are worried that a federal ID system aimed at boosting security could cost many port workers their jobs, something that would bottle up the flow of goods destined for virtually every U.S. community. Details of the program -- more than three years in the making -- are still being worked out.
* Gunmen burst into the home of Guyana's agriculture minister early Saturday and fatally shot him along with two relatives and a security guard, authorities said. A government spokesman said it appeared to be a political assassination.
* El Ojo Digital has become the only media with access to an Al Qaeda letter, digitized from its original version, where the Argentine Government is warned on new bombings that will be carried out in national soil against Jewish and American targets.
* Leftist rebels ambushed a military convoy in remote northeastern Colombia, killing 16 soldiers and secret police officers in the deadliest attack on security forces this year, the army said Friday. The attack took place Thursday in Norte de Santander province, 260 miles northeast of the capital, Bogota. Ten of those killed were DAS secret police officers, Colombia's hybrid equivalent of the CIA and FBI. The other six were soldiers.
Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia
* Russian prosecutors say they have found evidence that links al Qaeda to an April 2004 car bombing aimed at assassinating Murat Zyazikov, president of Ingushetia. According to the report "investigators discovered a videotape of the attack in the home of the father-in-law of Abu Dzeit, who has been described as an Al-Qaeda emissary to southern Russia. Abu Dzeit was killed in February 2005."
* On Monday, more than 10,000 officers from the Russian Federal Security Service, the Interior and Defense ministries and other security bodies will take part in security exercises in southern Russia. The exercise will include repelling a mock attack and carrying out search and destroy operations against a small group of targets.
* Russia has started deliveries to Belarus of the latest and most advanced version of the S-300SP surface-to-air missile system. A recent Jane's Intelligence Digest report suggested that Belarus had reached an agreement with Iran to transfer the missiles on, but both Belarus and Iran are denying the claim.
* Threatswatch is highlighting the current crisis between Russia and Georgia.
* Counter-terrorist forces from the Russian, Belarusian, Tajik and Armenian Interior Ministries held joint exercises in the mountains of Tajikistan, focusing on joint operations to locate and destroy terrorist groups in mountainous conditions.
* On Saturday, Russia test fired a K65M-R missile from a testing ground at Kapustin Yar in the southern Astrakhan region. Col.-Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov, commander of Russia's strategic rocket forces expressed concerns over U.S. missile defense plans that "is so considerable that the fear that it could have a negative effect on the parameters of Russia's nuclear deterrence potential is quite justified."
* According to General Yury Baluevsky, Chief of Russian General Staff, in the event of war between the United States and Iran, Russia would not intervene to assist either side. Instead they'll be too busy studying and documenting the performance of a host of weapons systems they've already sold Iran.
Afghanistan & Southern Asia
* Nepal's king vowed Friday to return multiparty democracy to his Himalayan nation after weeks of bloody protests and increasing international pressure. But King Gyanendra fell short of a key opposition demand — the creation of a special assembly to write a new constitution — and one of the main opposition parties rejected the pledge as "incomplete."
* Dozens of Nepalese pro-democracy protesters were injured when police fired on thousands who defied a curfew to march on the centre of the capital, witnesses and doctors said. Demonstrations were reported in several spots in and around Kathmandu as protesters headed towards King Gyanendra's palace, defying his offer to end 16 days of protests by announcing a return to multi-party democracy.
* Nepali police fired rubber bullets at thousands of protesters Sunday, struggling to enforce a curfew imposed to keep persistent pro-democracy demonstrators off the streets in the Himalayan country's deepening crisis. The protesters were trying to enter the city limits of Katmandu, the capital, when police first fired tear gas, then rubber bullets, independent Kantipur television reported. Doctors at a hospital said they treated three people injured by rubber bullets.
* A roadside bomb killed four Canadian soldiers Saturday in southern Afghanistan, the deadliest attack against Canadian forces since they deployed here in 2002. Canadian military officials blamed remnants of the toppled Taliban government for the blast in the village of Gomboth, about 25 miles north of Kandahar city.
* Taliban insurgents attacked a police post on Friday killing six policemen as gunmen opened fire on a patrol in a separate incident, killing a U.S. soldier, officials said.
* Afghan troops have arrested 19 militants, including five suspected Taliban members, in multiple raids across the country's south, the Defense Ministry said Friday.
* Six policemen have been killed by suspected Taleban insurgents in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar. The gunmen attacked the police post in the Maiwand district in the early hours of Friday, a police official said.
* Afghan security forces surrounded Taliban fighters hiding in a village in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, launching a gunbattle that killed at least three militants and a police officer.
* Taliban militants attacked a construction company working for coalition forces Sunday, killing a security guard and wounding two others, the company's director said. The attack occurred on the Uruzgan-Kandahar highway near a southern Kandahar provincial village where four Canadian soldiers were killed in a suspected Taliban roadside bombing a day earlier.
* U.S. and Afghan soldiers have arrested 16 Taliban members in the southern Zabul province, an Afghan military official said Sunday. Twelve Taliban fighters were detained Saturday following a brief gun battle with troops in Argandab district, about 160 kilometres northeast of Kandahar city, said local Afghan army commander Gen. Rahmattalluh Roufi.
* A Taliban campaign to intimidate moderate Islamic leaders in Afghanistan appears to be working. A week ago, suspected Taliban insurgents gunned down a pro-government mullah on the steps of his mosque in a village 20 kilometres west of Kandahar City. It was only the latest in a series of assassinations of moderate religious leaders.
* One of Osama bin Laden's most trusted aides was a Palestinian from the West Bank who was recently killed in a US military operation in Afghanistan, Palestinian Authority security sources revealed on Thursday. The sources identified the man as Husam Abu Baker, 32. They said his family, which lives in the village of Ya'bad near Jenin, was notified about his death only this week.
* Militants ambushed a convoy of Pakistani troops in a northwestern tribal region near the Afghan border Thursday, killing seven soldiers and wounding 22, an army spokesman said. Hundreds of soldiers backed by helicopter gunships hunted for the attackers, believed to have fled to a village near the site of the ambush on the outskirts of Miran Shah, the main town in North Waziristan.
* A paramilitary trooper and three tribesmen were killed on Sunday in a shoot-out in a restive Pakistani tribal region, as authorities tried to enforce a ban on carrying arms, officials said.
* Tribal militants fighting for greater autonomy in Pakistan's restive southwestern Baluchistan province blew up a pipeline supplying a major gas distribution plant on Sunday, a senior official said.
* Here are the daily updates from the South Asia Terrorism Portal for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
* An Islamic militant blew himself up in a suicide bomb attack against a military convoy in revolt-hit Indian Kashmir, but there were no other casualties, an army spokesman said. The attack came two days ahead of state by-elections opposed by rebels in the restive Himalayan state.
* In Bangladesh, a top terrorist was killed in an encounter between his cohorts and police at Shampur char island on the river Padma in Bagha upazila on Saturday, reports UNB.
* At least three security personnel and a civilian have been killed in the port town of Trincomalee in north-eastern Sri Lanka, officials say. The civilian died in violence after two mine blasts killed the security men.
* Renewed international attempts to persuade Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels to attend peace talks in Geneva in Switzerland have failed. The rebel leadership refused to even meet the head of the Scandinavian-led truce monitors. The talks are now in deadlock and violence is escalating in the north and east of the island.
Far East & Southeast Asia
* On Friday, Indonesia announced the capture of a wanted foreign terror suspect on Sumbawa island in West Nusa Tenggara. A local police spokesman identified the capture Singapore national as Abdul Rasyid (aka Hamdan), and said he was suspected of having ties to Mohammed Noordin Top, a key Jemaah Islamiyah operative. The raid that led to the capture took place on Monday and was carried out by Detachment 88, Indonesia's elite counterterrorism force.
* According to statistics released by the Japanese Defense Agency, Russian military aircraft violated Japanese airspace 116 times between March 2005 and March 2006, while China has recorded 107 intrusions. The Russian total represents the third straight year of decline, but the Chinese figure is a notable increase from previous years. The two nations accounted for 223 of the 229 times that Japanese fighter jets had to be scrambled.
* According to Nilo Sintin, chief of the South Cotabato Provincial Jail, Filipino intelligence uncovered a Jemaah Islamiyah plot to storm the jail to free suspected Indonesian terrorist Taufek Refke. In response, security has been heightened and an additional perimeter fence is being constructed.
* Right-wing rebel soldiers in the Philippines are renewing threats to depose President Gloria Arroyo in the "coming days".
* Speaking at an international counterterrorism conference in Cebu City, Rohan Gunaratna warned that southern Thailand was becoming a breeding ground for terrorists, as militants shift from a nationalistic to a jihadist orientation. Gunaratna also warned of alienating moderate Muslims and pushing them towards extremism with aggressive anti-terror efforts taking place in Asia. Gunaratna also said that all major attacks from Jemaah Islamiyah are funded by al Qaeda.
* The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting on a new wave of Islamic fundamentalists who have come to Australia and are trying to influence more moderate Muslims already living in Sydney. Steve Emerson is warning of infiltration by the Muslim brotherhood in Australia after five members of the group were granted asylum.
* Filipino authorities have tied Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani into the 27 March bombing that killed nine and wounded more than twenty. (H/T: Counterterrorism Blog)
* One of Australia's most wanted terrorists, Aminah Jamal, may soon be released from a Beirut prison where he has spent two years for involvement in the April 2003 bombing of a McDonald's restaurant in Beirut.
Europe
* Dissident republicans had been preparing a major attack, police warned yesterday after finding a partially assembled 250lb fertiliser bomb in a breakers' yard in Northern Ireland. The discovery of such a large device comes after a warning from the Independent Monitoring Commission that small breakaway groups such as the Real IRA and Continuity IRA continue to pose a threat to the security forces.
* Northern Ireland politicians cannot continue to cite fears over IRA terrorism as a reason for not joining a power-sharing government, Peter Hain has said. The secretary of state was speaking ahead of a report by the commission set up to monitor paramilitary activity.
* Tariq Ramadan, who is barred from the U.S., is invited to speak at a conference on May 4-5, 2006, sponsored by the American Embassy in Rome, on "Immigration and Integration: Islam in Europe and Islam in the U.S." Ramadan, a Swiss citizen and grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hasan al-Banna, had his visa revoked by the Department of Homeland Security on July 28, 2004.
* A suspected al-Qaeda fundraiser has been extradited to Spain from the UK. Hedi Ben Youssef Boudhiba, alleged to have links to the planning of the 11 September attacks, was held in August 2004 at Liverpool John Lennon Airport. Scotland Yard's Extradition Unit handed the Tunisian citizen over to the Spanish authorities at RAF Northolt. The High Court rejected lawyers' attempts to block the extradition on the grounds that it would be unjust or oppressive if he was sent back.
* It's the third time a Kurdish satellite station has tried to beam news into Turkey, whose laws restrict Kurdish programming within the country. The first two were shut down. Now the Turkish government is lobbying Denmark to rein in Roj, accusing the two-year-old station of being nothing more than a mouthpiece for Kurdish terrorists.
* A fire bomb attack on an Ironmongers shop in Barańaain in Navarra on Saturday morning is thought to have been the work of ‘kale borroka’ the youth vandals inspired by ETA.
* France announced Friday it would not issue a visa to Palestinian Authority Planning Minister Samir Abu Eisha to attend a conference in Paris later this week, a senior Foreign Ministry official said Saturday night. This is the second times in as many weeks that France has denied a visa to a Hamas representative to attend a conference on its soil, and the third time that Hamas representatives haven't been allowed into Europe in less than a month. Belgium denied a visa to a Hamas representative at the end of March.
* Two people arrested in southern France on suspicion of financing Islamist extremism were notified they face forgery charges, court sources said Saturday. The two were among eight people detained Wednesday in the port city of Marseille as part of a Franco-Italian anti-terrorism operation.
Africa
* The relief effort in Sudan's Darfur region could collapse within weeks unless foreign donors contribute more money and the government eases restrictions that have slowed aid workers, the top U.N. humanitarian official said Thursday. Jan Egeland told the U.N. Security Council that just 20 percent of relief work in Darfur has been funded this year. The international community has stopped pressuring Sudan's government or Darfur's rebels to cooperate with aid groups.
* Following substantial and sustained progress in implementing anti-money laundering and terrorist financing laws, Nigeria may soon be removed from the anti-money laundering list.
* An article at Jamestown Foundation by Andrew Black looks at the importance of the Western Sahara to Maghrebi security. The article describes how African nations are fighting against terrorist groups like the GSPC, sometimes with the help of Americans.
The Global War
* The number of terrorist attacks documented by U.S. intelligence agencies jumped sharply in 2005, crossing the 10,000 mark for the first time, according to U.S. counterterrorism officials and documents obtained by Knight Ridder. More than half the fatalities from terrorism worldwide last year occurred in Iraq, said a counterterrorism official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the data haven't been made public. Roughly 85 percent of the U.S. citizens who died from terrorism during the year died in Iraq.
* The Site Institute is noting the section of Fouad Hussein’s book, Al-Zarqawi: al Qaeda's Second Generation, that is reported to be written by an al Qaeda leader (possibly Seif al-Adl), is among the most popular files among jihadi forums.
* U.S. and Indian anti-terror officials have agreed to share information on a real time basis and schedule joint exercises at a meeting held this week in the U.S. capital. Without disclosing the specific date of the talks, the U.S. State Department said in a statement on Friday that the two-day meeting yielded a deal on sharing information in real time, as well as "responding to counter-terrorism assistance requests expeditiously and collaborating to upgrade preparedness and capability to deal with acts of terrorism."
* The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press have assembled a collection of slides and documents used by the U.S. government during the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui. A warning that some of the slides taken from the attack at the Pentagon are a graphic reminder of the evil we face.
* Lawyers in Turkey for al Qaeda operative Louai Al Sakka, said their client has revealed the location of where British hostage Kenneth Bigley was buried. According to al Sakka, Bigley was buried in a ditch near Fallujah.
* Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria from April 24-28, where she will meet with leaders from all three countries as well as attend an informal meeting of NATO ministers. Rice is also expected to sign a defense cooperation agreement with Bulgarian authorities, allowing the use of shared military facilities in Bulgaria similar to an agreement signed with Romania in December 2005.
* Osama bin Laden issued new threats in an audiotape broadcast on Arab television Sunday and accused the United States and Europe of supporting a "Zionist" war on Islam by cutting off funds to the Hamas-led Palestinian government. He also urged followers to go to Sudan, his former base, to fight a proposed U.N. peacekeeping force. Walid Phares outlines ten points made on the tape.
* Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has approved the military's most ambitious plan yet to fight terrorism around the world and retaliate more rapidly and decisively in the case of another major terrorist attack on the United States, according to defense officials. The long-awaited campaign plan for the global war on terrorism, as well as two subordinate plans also approved within the past month by Rumsfeld, are considered the Pentagon's highest priority.
Thanks for reading! If you found something here you want to blog about yourself (and we hope you do), all we ask is that you do as we do and offer a Hat Tip hyperlink to today's "Winds of War". If you think we missed something important, use the Comments section to let us know. For ongoing tips, email "MondayWindsOfWar", over here @windsofchange.net.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home