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
* A CH-47 Chinook helicopter has crashed during a combat operation in Afghanistan, killing all 10 U.S. soldiers on board, a military spokeswoman said Saturday. "Additional aircraft and crews were also at the landing zone and confirmed that enemy forces did not cause the crash," a military statement said.
* In a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Iran threatened to withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) if they continued to be pressured to cease enriching uranium and/or if Security Council measures are taken against Iran. The United States is prepared to bring the issue before the Security Council, with or without support from Russia, who along with China is at odds with the west on handling the situation with Iran.
* The al-Qaida terrorist network is training Arab militants in southern and southeastern Afghanistan in the use of roadside explosives and in ambush tactics, a senior Afghan general said Thursday. Lt. Gen. Sher Karimi, chief of operations for the Afghan National Army, said in a videoteleconference with reporters at the Pentagon that elements of al-Qaida also are working with Taliban militants and aiding narcotics smugglers.
* Militants fighting the Pakistani army in the Waziristan tribal region on Saturday distributed leaflets in the name of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, calling for the assassination of President Pervez Musharraf. "I also pray to the one and the only Almighty Allah to teach a telling lesson to Bush, Musharraf and their forces, and give a chance to the lions of Islam to kill the slave of Bush in Pakistan," read the leaflet.
Other topics today include: Saudi religious reeducation program; Iran's neighbors say no nukes; al Qaeda opening Egyptian front; Hamas plot to assassinate Abbas; Palestinian terrorists killed in airstrike; Ahmadinejad still defiant; Iran tries to divide UNSC; CIA Chief resigns; FBI officials leaving at fast pace; U.S. mass transit remains on alert; Tamil Tiger support in Canada; Brazil to enrich uranium; Terror warning in North Caucasus; Uzbekistan identifies terrorist; Russia sends Palestinians financial aid; Violence in southern Afghanistan; Taliban warn British troops in Afghanistan; US wants access to A.Q. Khan; Taliban leader killed in Balochistan; Riots and fighting in Kashmir; Maoist rebels and Nepal to engage in talks; Pro-Hamas demonstrations in Indonesia; Bombings in Thailand; Communist rebels kill three Filipino troops; Malaysia's cyber terrorism center; ETA ends activity in Spain; al Qaeda politics in Europe; Somalian militants to kill Islamic extremists; Sudan at risk; and more.
Iran & the Middle East
* In an effort to combat al Qaeda's ideology, Saudi authorities are carrying out an intense religious reeducation program with the assistance of clerics across the board and thus far some 500 young Saudi males have gone through the program.
* Leaders from six of Iran’s Persian Gulf neighbors are calling on Teheran to be transparent with them about its nuclear program. The leaders met privately for nearly three hours in Riyadh on Saturday in what was described as a “consultative” summit.
* Dr. Ely Karmon, ICT Senior Researcher, cites a number of sources in writing about al Qaeda's opening of a new front in Egypt, and points towards Saudi jihadists as the likely culprit, and not Zarqawi's Iraqi based group.
* Israeli authorities uncovered a Hamas plot to assassinate Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, the latest in a series of clashes and fighting that have highlighted the deep divisions between the rival Palestinian factions.
* Egyptian security forces have identified a suicide bomber who targeted a bus carrying peacekeeping forces near their base in the Sinai on 26 April. The nineteen-year-old bomber, who was a theology student at Al Azhar university, was the brother of Salman Selim, one of the suspects of the Dahab bombings who was killed by security forces Sunday.
* Syria has issued warrants to Lebanon for two Lebanese MP's, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and telecoms minister Marwan Hamade have been, to appear before a military court in Syria. Both Jumblatt and Hamade have been outspoken critics of Syria.
* Eight Palestinians were killed over the weekend, including five Palestinian members of the Popular Resistance Committees in Gaza killed in an airstrike that targeted a training facility. The strike came on the heels of another Palestinian Qassam rocket attack from Gaza on Friday.
* Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a summit of regional leaders that adversaries of Iran must "begin respecting the people of Iran" and repeated his nation's assertion that its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes. President Bush spoke this weekend and said that when Ahmadinejad "says that he wants to destroy Israel, the world needs to take it seriously."
* Amir Taheri is highlighting Iran's attempts to turn the current crisis over their nuclear program into a U.S.-Iranian conflict. In some sense, Ahmadinejad is taking a page from the playbook of Saddam Hussein in trying to split the west over the issue.
* Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday that the international community would not tolerate the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
America Domestic Security & the Americas
* CIA Director Porter Goss resigned unexpectedly Friday. The decision was the latest in a series of moves by President Bush to shake up his team and reinvigorate his second term. A successor to Goss could come as early as Monday, a senior administration official said.
* U.S. Judge Leonie Brinkema sent Zacarias Moussaoui to prison for life Thursday, to "die with a whimper," for his role in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He declared: "God save Osama bin Laden, you will never get him." Zacarias Moussaoui will probably spend the rest of his life behind the walls of the federal Supermax prison in Colorado, home to several other convicted terrorists.
* Even with Zacarias Moussaoui's trial in federal court complete, legal experts don't expect to see top captured al-Qaida operatives brought into civilian courts soon, or perhaps ever.
* Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has approved the military's most ambitious plan yet to fight terrorism and to retaliate more rapidly and decisively in 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, according to officials familiar with the three documents.
* Gary Bald was praised by his FBI bosses as an outstanding choice when he was named the bureau's top counterterrorism executive in 2005. Bald's replacement when he departs in June will be the sixth person to occupy the top post since Sept. 11, 2001, gave terrorism new meaning. His exit is part of a growing trend at the FBI, where top officials have been leaving at a pace that alarms members of Congress.
* U.S. mass transit systems should remain alert against possible terror attacks, the Homeland Security Department said in a new warning that highlighted suspicious activity at unnamed European subway stations last fall.
* As Sri Lanka teeters on the brink of civil war half a world away, Canada is cracking down on a rebel group that has long relied on expatriate funding to fuel its fight for an independent homeland there. With the largest concentration of Sri Lankan Tamils living abroad, Canada has been a key revenue source for the separatist Tamil Tigers. One of the first major acts of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's new Conservative government this spring was to declare the Tigers a terrorist organization, a move the previous Liberal government had resisted.
* Brazil has joined the select group of countries with the capability of enriching uranium as a means of generating energy. A new centrifuge facility was formally opened on Friday at the Resende nuclear plant in the state of Rio de Janeiro.
* In Trinidad, incarcerated Jamaat-al-Muslimeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr is expected to go on trial for a conspiracy to murder charge on October 2. The Muslimeen leader's request that he first be put on trial for other terrorism and sedition charges apparently failed, as no date was fixed up to yesterday for those cases.
Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia
* Sergei Markedonov, the head of the interethnic relations department at Moscow's Institute of Political and Military Analysis, is warning of the rise of radical Islam in the North Caucasus.
* Uzbek authorities have identified a man captured in March as Huseyn Jalil, an ethnic Uyghur and Canadian citizen wanted by both China and Kyrgyzstan for terrorist activity.
* Russian President Vladimir Putin has stepped into an increasingly bitter power struggle between the two most powerful officials installed by Moscow in the war-torn province of Chechnya.
* Russia sent €7.9m in financial aid to the Palestinian Authority on Friday, in support of their view that the Hamas-led Palestinian government should not be isolated. (H/T Threatswatch)
Afghanistan & Southern Asia
* A roadside bomb killed two Italian soldiers and wounded four while they were on patrol Friday south of Kabul, a military spokesman said, in a rare attack close to the capital. Two Italian military vehicles were patrolling together when one of them was hit around 5 p.m., said Maj. Luke Knittig, a Kabul-based spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force.
* The new British commander, Lieutenant General David Richards – who took over command of the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force from an Italian general – said Nato would focus on providing security for the fledgling Afghan government to boost reconstruction and economic growth in the south. He said Nato forces would not shy away from "the robust use of force" to defeat Taliban insurgents where it was called for.
* The Taliban has warned British troops newly arrived in Afghanistan that the militant group will turn the country "into a river of blood", in comments published in The Times. Mohammad Hanif Sherzad, spokesman for Taliban leader Mullah Omar, spoke to the newspaper as Britain took command Thursday of NATO-led forces in Afghanistan, which from July will assume control of international military operations in the restive south of the violence-wracked nation.
* A roadside bomb killed two members of a prominent provincial political family and a bodyguard in southern Afghanistan on Friday. Two police personnel also died in a separate attack. Lala, a tribal elder and the uncle of a former provincial governor, died in the roadside blast, as did his son and bodyguard in Helmand province, about 600 kms southwest of Kabul.
* Here is the CDI's Afghan update for the month of April. It is a roundup of events in Afghanistan throughout the month.
* Here are the daily updates from the South Asia Terrorism Portal for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
* Pakistani police have arrested two Islamist militants suspected of planning a suicide bomb attack that killed a US diplomat and three others outside the US consulate in Karachi in March, an official said on Thursday.
* Two Pakistani Islamist groups declared terrorist organisations by the US recently are gaining popularity in earthquake-devastated parts of northern Pakistan for their continuing relief activities, a news report said Saturday. Hundreds of residents of the Garhi Habibullah and Balakot districts, located in the North-Western Frontier Province (NWFP), held demonstrations Friday to protest Washington's designation of Jammat-ud-Dawa (JD) and its affiliate Idara Khidmat-e-Khalq as terrorist outfits.
* A leaflet urging Pakistanis to rise against military ruler Pervez Musharraf was distributed in the volatile tribal district near the Afghan bordery, residents said. It came a day after another leaflet, containing statements purportedly from Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, was distributed in the same region -- North Waziristan tribal district -- calling for Musharraf's assassination.
* The United States wants direct access to Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan and President Bush, in his recent visit to Pakistan, told President Pervez Musharraf that US experts want to question the detained scientist, said BBC security correspondent. Speaking at a television programme on Wednesday, BBC security correspondent Gordon Correra was commenting on a Pakistan Foreign Office statement, which said that the Dr AQ Khan case had been closed and that there would be no further investigation into the matter. He said that such a statement by the Pakistani Foreign Office was an attempt to sweep things under the rug.
* Unidentified gunmen today shot dead a former Taliban leader in Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, relatives of the deceased said. Mulla Samad Barakzai, former head of Taliban's department for promotion of virtue and prevention of vice in the southern Helmand province, was gunned down in Pushtoon Abad area of Quetta, the provincial capital, they said.
* Three people were killed and seven wounded in three landmine blasts in Pakistan’s restive southwestern Baluchistan province on Sunday, officials said. Two people were killed and three wounded when a passenger van hit a landmine in the town of Dera Bugti, a stronghold of renegade tribal elder Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti. Three policemen were injured in a similar explosion in the same town, Abdul Samad Lasi, a senior government official in Dera Bugti said.
* Demonstrators ran riot for a second day in revolt-hit Indian
Kashmir to demand punishment for people involved in an alleged prostitution ring. Police used batons and teargas to disperse hundreds of students who poured out of Kashmir's main university and engineering college in Srinagar shouting "Punish the culprits, expose them." Authorities last month unearthed the alleged racket involving over 40 women whose clients were reported to include politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen in the conservative Muslim-majority state.
* A top Kashmir separatist rebel was shot dead in a gunbattle with Indian troops, the army said. "Mushtaq Ahmed Bhat was killed during a gunbattle after the army had laid multiple ambushes for him near the southern Kashmir town of Tral," army spokesman Vijay Batra told AFP on Sunday.
* Despite attacks on its nationals by Taliban in Afghanistan, India today maintained that it will not send its troops to the war-torn country. "There is no such proposal," External Affairs Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna told reporters here when asked about a media report that Britain had asked India to send its troops to Afghanistan to be part of International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
* A Japanese peace envoy was to arrive in Sri Lanka for talks as Scandinavian monitors said violence between government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels was out of control. Tokyo's special peace envoy Yasushi Akashi was to hold talks with President Mahinda Rajapakse and would also try to meet leaders of the Tamil Tigers during his four-day visit, the Japanese embassy said Saturday.
* Nepal's new government took a tentative step towards peace with the Maoist rebels after the militants agreed to take part in talks to end their decade-old insurgency. The rebels said they had given the new cabinet a "code of conduct" outlining the rules they want to see followed in the wake of ceasefires declared by the Maoists and the government in the Himalayan kingdom.
* Nepal's new government have scrapped all appointments made by King Gyanendra since October 2002, recalling hand-picked ambassadors to key countries such as Britain, India and the United States. "The cabinet meeting Sunday decided to revoke all the appointments made by the king since October 2002," Finance Minister Ram Sharan Mahat told AFP Sunday.
Far East & Southeast Asia
* Thousands of Indonesian supporters of the Justice and Welfare Party held large protests in Jakarta on Sunday in a show of support for the Hamas-led Palestinian government.
* Two internet cafes in the Chinese city of Hefei were bombed on Friday, with the explosions killing two people and wounding four others.
* On Saturday a bomb exploded in the southern Thai province of Narathiwat, wounding 7 soldiers and sparking a ten minute firefight with militants hiding nearby. Two other bombs were also detonated in the restive Muslim dominated province.
* Three Filipino security forces were killed this weekend in two seperate attacks launched by Communist rebels in the eastern Philippines.
* Malaysia has announced the setting up an international center to fight cyber-terrorism and provide an emergency response to such attacks on the economy or trading system of any country.
* According to the International Crisis Group, wanted Jemaah Islamiyah operative Noordin Mohammed Top has formed his own splinter group called al-Qa'ida for the Malay archipelago.
* Australia will send an additional 240 troops to Afghanistan in July, to work on reconstruction projects in the southern regions of the nation. The deployment will double Australia's military presence in the country.
Europe
* Serbian police on Friday arrested two more people on suspicion of helping war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic, whose capture is a key precondition for Serbia boosting ties with the European Union. This brings to 10 the number of people arrested this year in the hunt for the genocide suspect. Speaking after a meeting in Vienna, Interior Minister Dragan Jocic said "the question of Mladic will be solved very soon."
* In the third report since the announcement of the March 24 ceasefire released by the Spanish Police, it was said that the separatist organization ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna - Basque for "Basque Homeland and Freedom") has ended all its activities in the country.
* Twelve terrorists are headed to Denmark to assassinate the artists behind the controversial caricatures of the prophet Mohammed published in newspaper Jyllands-Posten. According to Danish terrorism expert Lars Erslev Andersen, it is highly unlikely that the terrorists, if they are en route, will ever arrive in Denmark, though he conceded that the threat is certainly unpleasant for those concerned.
* At the Counterterrorism Blog, Lorenzo Vidino asks "Is al Qaeda playing politics in Europe again?" The posts says "attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan have been coordinated in order to put 'pressure on the new Italian government to withdraw its military contingents.'"
* Two suspected members of the renegade Northern Ireland paramilitary group Real IRA have been arrested in the southern Spanish town of Malaga, police in Spain said. The pair, identified only as 32-year-old Thomas Philip C. born in Dublin and Aaron William J, aged 42 and born in Lisburn, were raising funds for their organisation by running contraband cigarettes, a statement from the interior ministry said Sunday.
Africa
* Militia loyal to US-backed Somali warlords have launched a campaign to capture or kill Islamic extremists in lawless Somalia, according to officials and diplomats familiar with the covert operation. Washington is bankrolling the hunt as part of its war on terrorism to prevent new attacks in east Africa, halt training of foreign fighters in Somalia and curb "creeping Talibanisation" in the anarchic nation, they said.
* Sudan risks becoming a war zone once again if a peace treaty proposed by the African Union to end the three year conflict in Darfur is not fully implemented by Khartoum, analysts say. Regional observers argue that a lack of political will to implement the treaty by Khartoum, already accused of reneging on promises from a previous agreement between North and South, could prove "disastrous" for the country.
* Khartoum has indicated it may be ready to accept UN peacekeepers taking over from African Union troops in Darfur following a peace deal between the government and the main rebel movement. The announcement on Sunday coincided with a visit to Darfur by UN envoy Jan Egeland, who is the first high-ranking UN official to visit the war-torn region since a peace deal was signed Friday in Abuja. "The government will assess whether or not it will need the assistance of foreign troops and it may decide to ask for a UN deployment," foreign ministry spokesman Jamal Ibrahim said. "But such a decision is the prerogative of the government... What is sure is that no foreign forces will come to Sudan without the consent of the government.
* Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, may be thrown into chaos and instability if plans to extend the tenure of President Olusegun Obasanjo beyond 2007 succeed, politicians and analysts said. The Nigerian parliament, the National Assembly, this week began debating a package of constitutional reforms which would allow Obasanjo to run for a third term in office.
* A United Nations aid worker has been shot and wounded in eastern Chad. A man in military fatigues shot the 37-year-old Spanish woman, a Unicef employee, in the town of Abeche and made off with her jeep, witnesses said.
* Uganda's army has said it had killed at least 14 rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebel group in fresh clashes this week after a two-month lull. It said the fatalities, including three rebel commanders, came as the military stepped up operations against the LRA in northern Uganda, where the rebels have waged a nearly 20-year war against the government in Kampala.
The Global War
* The top legal adviser to Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, has urged European Union governments to help Washington refute claims that hundreds of CIA flights used European airspace and airports to transport detainees to countries in which they may face torture. John Bellinger was reacting to claims by a European parliament investigation that hundreds of CIA flights have crossed the Continent – a process it linked to the practice of “rendition” or extra-legal abduction.
* A Pentagon research team monitors more than 5,000 jihadist Web sites, focusing daily on the 25 to 100 most hostile and active, defense officials say. The team includes 25 linguists, who cover multiple dialects of the Arabic language and provide reports on events sparking anger on extremist Web sites, Dan Devlin, a Pentagon public diplomacy specialist, said Thursday.
* The makers of combat video games have unwittingly become part of a global propaganda campaign by Islamic militants against the United States, US Defence officals say. Tech-savvy militants from al Qaeda and other groups have modified video war games so that US troops play the role of bad guys in running gunfights against heavily armed Islamic radical heroes, US Defence Department official and contractors told the US Congress.
* In an interview with FrontPageMag.com, Dr. Walid Phares talks about his book Future Jihad.
* US Central Command chief General John Abizaid held talks with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf about the "war on terror" and also met senior military officials. Pakistani military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan said Abizaid was on a routine visit to Pakistan, a major US ally in the global fight against terrorism.
* A top U.S. counterterrorism official said Saturday that parts of Pakistan are a "safe haven" for militants and Osama bin Laden was more likely to be hiding there than in Afghanistan. Henry Crumpton, the U.S. ambassador in charge of counterterrorism, lauded Pakistan for arresting "hundreds and hundreds" of al Qaeda figures but said it needed to do more.
* Unrest in Africa. Mideast insurgency and terrorism. Iran's nuclear brinkmanship. Russian pressure politics. South American resource nationalism. Piece by piece, the global energy puzzle reveals a bleak horizon for a world frantically searching for secure oil and gas supplies. Concerns over Iran — the world's fourth-largest oil producer — have been the prime factor recently in driving crude prices to record levels and, combined with tight global refining capacity, for pushing U.S. gasoline pump prices above $3 a gallon in many places.
* Islamic scholars will meet in Qatar next week to draw up a fatwa, obliging the Muslim faithful to help the internationally isolated Palestinian government headed by Hamas.
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Top Topics
* A CH-47 Chinook helicopter has crashed during a combat operation in Afghanistan, killing all 10 U.S. soldiers on board, a military spokeswoman said Saturday. "Additional aircraft and crews were also at the landing zone and confirmed that enemy forces did not cause the crash," a military statement said.
* In a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Iran threatened to withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) if they continued to be pressured to cease enriching uranium and/or if Security Council measures are taken against Iran. The United States is prepared to bring the issue before the Security Council, with or without support from Russia, who along with China is at odds with the west on handling the situation with Iran.
* The al-Qaida terrorist network is training Arab militants in southern and southeastern Afghanistan in the use of roadside explosives and in ambush tactics, a senior Afghan general said Thursday. Lt. Gen. Sher Karimi, chief of operations for the Afghan National Army, said in a videoteleconference with reporters at the Pentagon that elements of al-Qaida also are working with Taliban militants and aiding narcotics smugglers.
* Militants fighting the Pakistani army in the Waziristan tribal region on Saturday distributed leaflets in the name of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, calling for the assassination of President Pervez Musharraf. "I also pray to the one and the only Almighty Allah to teach a telling lesson to Bush, Musharraf and their forces, and give a chance to the lions of Islam to kill the slave of Bush in Pakistan," read the leaflet.
Other topics today include: Saudi religious reeducation program; Iran's neighbors say no nukes; al Qaeda opening Egyptian front; Hamas plot to assassinate Abbas; Palestinian terrorists killed in airstrike; Ahmadinejad still defiant; Iran tries to divide UNSC; CIA Chief resigns; FBI officials leaving at fast pace; U.S. mass transit remains on alert; Tamil Tiger support in Canada; Brazil to enrich uranium; Terror warning in North Caucasus; Uzbekistan identifies terrorist; Russia sends Palestinians financial aid; Violence in southern Afghanistan; Taliban warn British troops in Afghanistan; US wants access to A.Q. Khan; Taliban leader killed in Balochistan; Riots and fighting in Kashmir; Maoist rebels and Nepal to engage in talks; Pro-Hamas demonstrations in Indonesia; Bombings in Thailand; Communist rebels kill three Filipino troops; Malaysia's cyber terrorism center; ETA ends activity in Spain; al Qaeda politics in Europe; Somalian militants to kill Islamic extremists; Sudan at risk; and more.
Iran & the Middle East
* In an effort to combat al Qaeda's ideology, Saudi authorities are carrying out an intense religious reeducation program with the assistance of clerics across the board and thus far some 500 young Saudi males have gone through the program.
* Leaders from six of Iran’s Persian Gulf neighbors are calling on Teheran to be transparent with them about its nuclear program. The leaders met privately for nearly three hours in Riyadh on Saturday in what was described as a “consultative” summit.
* Dr. Ely Karmon, ICT Senior Researcher, cites a number of sources in writing about al Qaeda's opening of a new front in Egypt, and points towards Saudi jihadists as the likely culprit, and not Zarqawi's Iraqi based group.
* Israeli authorities uncovered a Hamas plot to assassinate Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, the latest in a series of clashes and fighting that have highlighted the deep divisions between the rival Palestinian factions.
* Egyptian security forces have identified a suicide bomber who targeted a bus carrying peacekeeping forces near their base in the Sinai on 26 April. The nineteen-year-old bomber, who was a theology student at Al Azhar university, was the brother of Salman Selim, one of the suspects of the Dahab bombings who was killed by security forces Sunday.
* Syria has issued warrants to Lebanon for two Lebanese MP's, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and telecoms minister Marwan Hamade have been, to appear before a military court in Syria. Both Jumblatt and Hamade have been outspoken critics of Syria.
* Eight Palestinians were killed over the weekend, including five Palestinian members of the Popular Resistance Committees in Gaza killed in an airstrike that targeted a training facility. The strike came on the heels of another Palestinian Qassam rocket attack from Gaza on Friday.
* Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a summit of regional leaders that adversaries of Iran must "begin respecting the people of Iran" and repeated his nation's assertion that its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes. President Bush spoke this weekend and said that when Ahmadinejad "says that he wants to destroy Israel, the world needs to take it seriously."
* Amir Taheri is highlighting Iran's attempts to turn the current crisis over their nuclear program into a U.S.-Iranian conflict. In some sense, Ahmadinejad is taking a page from the playbook of Saddam Hussein in trying to split the west over the issue.
* Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday that the international community would not tolerate the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
America Domestic Security & the Americas
* CIA Director Porter Goss resigned unexpectedly Friday. The decision was the latest in a series of moves by President Bush to shake up his team and reinvigorate his second term. A successor to Goss could come as early as Monday, a senior administration official said.
* U.S. Judge Leonie Brinkema sent Zacarias Moussaoui to prison for life Thursday, to "die with a whimper," for his role in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He declared: "God save Osama bin Laden, you will never get him." Zacarias Moussaoui will probably spend the rest of his life behind the walls of the federal Supermax prison in Colorado, home to several other convicted terrorists.
* Even with Zacarias Moussaoui's trial in federal court complete, legal experts don't expect to see top captured al-Qaida operatives brought into civilian courts soon, or perhaps ever.
* Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has approved the military's most ambitious plan yet to fight terrorism and to retaliate more rapidly and decisively in 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, according to officials familiar with the three documents.
* Gary Bald was praised by his FBI bosses as an outstanding choice when he was named the bureau's top counterterrorism executive in 2005. Bald's replacement when he departs in June will be the sixth person to occupy the top post since Sept. 11, 2001, gave terrorism new meaning. His exit is part of a growing trend at the FBI, where top officials have been leaving at a pace that alarms members of Congress.
* U.S. mass transit systems should remain alert against possible terror attacks, the Homeland Security Department said in a new warning that highlighted suspicious activity at unnamed European subway stations last fall.
* As Sri Lanka teeters on the brink of civil war half a world away, Canada is cracking down on a rebel group that has long relied on expatriate funding to fuel its fight for an independent homeland there. With the largest concentration of Sri Lankan Tamils living abroad, Canada has been a key revenue source for the separatist Tamil Tigers. One of the first major acts of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's new Conservative government this spring was to declare the Tigers a terrorist organization, a move the previous Liberal government had resisted.
* Brazil has joined the select group of countries with the capability of enriching uranium as a means of generating energy. A new centrifuge facility was formally opened on Friday at the Resende nuclear plant in the state of Rio de Janeiro.
* In Trinidad, incarcerated Jamaat-al-Muslimeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr is expected to go on trial for a conspiracy to murder charge on October 2. The Muslimeen leader's request that he first be put on trial for other terrorism and sedition charges apparently failed, as no date was fixed up to yesterday for those cases.
Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia
* Sergei Markedonov, the head of the interethnic relations department at Moscow's Institute of Political and Military Analysis, is warning of the rise of radical Islam in the North Caucasus.
* Uzbek authorities have identified a man captured in March as Huseyn Jalil, an ethnic Uyghur and Canadian citizen wanted by both China and Kyrgyzstan for terrorist activity.
* Russian President Vladimir Putin has stepped into an increasingly bitter power struggle between the two most powerful officials installed by Moscow in the war-torn province of Chechnya.
* Russia sent €7.9m in financial aid to the Palestinian Authority on Friday, in support of their view that the Hamas-led Palestinian government should not be isolated. (H/T Threatswatch)
Afghanistan & Southern Asia
* A roadside bomb killed two Italian soldiers and wounded four while they were on patrol Friday south of Kabul, a military spokesman said, in a rare attack close to the capital. Two Italian military vehicles were patrolling together when one of them was hit around 5 p.m., said Maj. Luke Knittig, a Kabul-based spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force.
* The new British commander, Lieutenant General David Richards – who took over command of the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force from an Italian general – said Nato would focus on providing security for the fledgling Afghan government to boost reconstruction and economic growth in the south. He said Nato forces would not shy away from "the robust use of force" to defeat Taliban insurgents where it was called for.
* The Taliban has warned British troops newly arrived in Afghanistan that the militant group will turn the country "into a river of blood", in comments published in The Times. Mohammad Hanif Sherzad, spokesman for Taliban leader Mullah Omar, spoke to the newspaper as Britain took command Thursday of NATO-led forces in Afghanistan, which from July will assume control of international military operations in the restive south of the violence-wracked nation.
* A roadside bomb killed two members of a prominent provincial political family and a bodyguard in southern Afghanistan on Friday. Two police personnel also died in a separate attack. Lala, a tribal elder and the uncle of a former provincial governor, died in the roadside blast, as did his son and bodyguard in Helmand province, about 600 kms southwest of Kabul.
* Here is the CDI's Afghan update for the month of April. It is a roundup of events in Afghanistan throughout the month.
* Here are the daily updates from the South Asia Terrorism Portal for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
* Pakistani police have arrested two Islamist militants suspected of planning a suicide bomb attack that killed a US diplomat and three others outside the US consulate in Karachi in March, an official said on Thursday.
* Two Pakistani Islamist groups declared terrorist organisations by the US recently are gaining popularity in earthquake-devastated parts of northern Pakistan for their continuing relief activities, a news report said Saturday. Hundreds of residents of the Garhi Habibullah and Balakot districts, located in the North-Western Frontier Province (NWFP), held demonstrations Friday to protest Washington's designation of Jammat-ud-Dawa (JD) and its affiliate Idara Khidmat-e-Khalq as terrorist outfits.
* A leaflet urging Pakistanis to rise against military ruler Pervez Musharraf was distributed in the volatile tribal district near the Afghan bordery, residents said. It came a day after another leaflet, containing statements purportedly from Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, was distributed in the same region -- North Waziristan tribal district -- calling for Musharraf's assassination.
* The United States wants direct access to Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan and President Bush, in his recent visit to Pakistan, told President Pervez Musharraf that US experts want to question the detained scientist, said BBC security correspondent. Speaking at a television programme on Wednesday, BBC security correspondent Gordon Correra was commenting on a Pakistan Foreign Office statement, which said that the Dr AQ Khan case had been closed and that there would be no further investigation into the matter. He said that such a statement by the Pakistani Foreign Office was an attempt to sweep things under the rug.
* Unidentified gunmen today shot dead a former Taliban leader in Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, relatives of the deceased said. Mulla Samad Barakzai, former head of Taliban's department for promotion of virtue and prevention of vice in the southern Helmand province, was gunned down in Pushtoon Abad area of Quetta, the provincial capital, they said.
* Three people were killed and seven wounded in three landmine blasts in Pakistan’s restive southwestern Baluchistan province on Sunday, officials said. Two people were killed and three wounded when a passenger van hit a landmine in the town of Dera Bugti, a stronghold of renegade tribal elder Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti. Three policemen were injured in a similar explosion in the same town, Abdul Samad Lasi, a senior government official in Dera Bugti said.
* Demonstrators ran riot for a second day in revolt-hit Indian
Kashmir to demand punishment for people involved in an alleged prostitution ring. Police used batons and teargas to disperse hundreds of students who poured out of Kashmir's main university and engineering college in Srinagar shouting "Punish the culprits, expose them." Authorities last month unearthed the alleged racket involving over 40 women whose clients were reported to include politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen in the conservative Muslim-majority state.
* A top Kashmir separatist rebel was shot dead in a gunbattle with Indian troops, the army said. "Mushtaq Ahmed Bhat was killed during a gunbattle after the army had laid multiple ambushes for him near the southern Kashmir town of Tral," army spokesman Vijay Batra told AFP on Sunday.
* Despite attacks on its nationals by Taliban in Afghanistan, India today maintained that it will not send its troops to the war-torn country. "There is no such proposal," External Affairs Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna told reporters here when asked about a media report that Britain had asked India to send its troops to Afghanistan to be part of International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
* A Japanese peace envoy was to arrive in Sri Lanka for talks as Scandinavian monitors said violence between government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels was out of control. Tokyo's special peace envoy Yasushi Akashi was to hold talks with President Mahinda Rajapakse and would also try to meet leaders of the Tamil Tigers during his four-day visit, the Japanese embassy said Saturday.
* Nepal's new government took a tentative step towards peace with the Maoist rebels after the militants agreed to take part in talks to end their decade-old insurgency. The rebels said they had given the new cabinet a "code of conduct" outlining the rules they want to see followed in the wake of ceasefires declared by the Maoists and the government in the Himalayan kingdom.
* Nepal's new government have scrapped all appointments made by King Gyanendra since October 2002, recalling hand-picked ambassadors to key countries such as Britain, India and the United States. "The cabinet meeting Sunday decided to revoke all the appointments made by the king since October 2002," Finance Minister Ram Sharan Mahat told AFP Sunday.
Far East & Southeast Asia
* Thousands of Indonesian supporters of the Justice and Welfare Party held large protests in Jakarta on Sunday in a show of support for the Hamas-led Palestinian government.
* Two internet cafes in the Chinese city of Hefei were bombed on Friday, with the explosions killing two people and wounding four others.
* On Saturday a bomb exploded in the southern Thai province of Narathiwat, wounding 7 soldiers and sparking a ten minute firefight with militants hiding nearby. Two other bombs were also detonated in the restive Muslim dominated province.
* Three Filipino security forces were killed this weekend in two seperate attacks launched by Communist rebels in the eastern Philippines.
* Malaysia has announced the setting up an international center to fight cyber-terrorism and provide an emergency response to such attacks on the economy or trading system of any country.
* According to the International Crisis Group, wanted Jemaah Islamiyah operative Noordin Mohammed Top has formed his own splinter group called al-Qa'ida for the Malay archipelago.
* Australia will send an additional 240 troops to Afghanistan in July, to work on reconstruction projects in the southern regions of the nation. The deployment will double Australia's military presence in the country.
Europe
* Serbian police on Friday arrested two more people on suspicion of helping war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic, whose capture is a key precondition for Serbia boosting ties with the European Union. This brings to 10 the number of people arrested this year in the hunt for the genocide suspect. Speaking after a meeting in Vienna, Interior Minister Dragan Jocic said "the question of Mladic will be solved very soon."
* In the third report since the announcement of the March 24 ceasefire released by the Spanish Police, it was said that the separatist organization ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna - Basque for "Basque Homeland and Freedom") has ended all its activities in the country.
* Twelve terrorists are headed to Denmark to assassinate the artists behind the controversial caricatures of the prophet Mohammed published in newspaper Jyllands-Posten. According to Danish terrorism expert Lars Erslev Andersen, it is highly unlikely that the terrorists, if they are en route, will ever arrive in Denmark, though he conceded that the threat is certainly unpleasant for those concerned.
* At the Counterterrorism Blog, Lorenzo Vidino asks "Is al Qaeda playing politics in Europe again?" The posts says "attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan have been coordinated in order to put 'pressure on the new Italian government to withdraw its military contingents.'"
* Two suspected members of the renegade Northern Ireland paramilitary group Real IRA have been arrested in the southern Spanish town of Malaga, police in Spain said. The pair, identified only as 32-year-old Thomas Philip C. born in Dublin and Aaron William J, aged 42 and born in Lisburn, were raising funds for their organisation by running contraband cigarettes, a statement from the interior ministry said Sunday.
Africa
* Militia loyal to US-backed Somali warlords have launched a campaign to capture or kill Islamic extremists in lawless Somalia, according to officials and diplomats familiar with the covert operation. Washington is bankrolling the hunt as part of its war on terrorism to prevent new attacks in east Africa, halt training of foreign fighters in Somalia and curb "creeping Talibanisation" in the anarchic nation, they said.
* Sudan risks becoming a war zone once again if a peace treaty proposed by the African Union to end the three year conflict in Darfur is not fully implemented by Khartoum, analysts say. Regional observers argue that a lack of political will to implement the treaty by Khartoum, already accused of reneging on promises from a previous agreement between North and South, could prove "disastrous" for the country.
* Khartoum has indicated it may be ready to accept UN peacekeepers taking over from African Union troops in Darfur following a peace deal between the government and the main rebel movement. The announcement on Sunday coincided with a visit to Darfur by UN envoy Jan Egeland, who is the first high-ranking UN official to visit the war-torn region since a peace deal was signed Friday in Abuja. "The government will assess whether or not it will need the assistance of foreign troops and it may decide to ask for a UN deployment," foreign ministry spokesman Jamal Ibrahim said. "But such a decision is the prerogative of the government... What is sure is that no foreign forces will come to Sudan without the consent of the government.
* Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, may be thrown into chaos and instability if plans to extend the tenure of President Olusegun Obasanjo beyond 2007 succeed, politicians and analysts said. The Nigerian parliament, the National Assembly, this week began debating a package of constitutional reforms which would allow Obasanjo to run for a third term in office.
* A United Nations aid worker has been shot and wounded in eastern Chad. A man in military fatigues shot the 37-year-old Spanish woman, a Unicef employee, in the town of Abeche and made off with her jeep, witnesses said.
* Uganda's army has said it had killed at least 14 rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebel group in fresh clashes this week after a two-month lull. It said the fatalities, including three rebel commanders, came as the military stepped up operations against the LRA in northern Uganda, where the rebels have waged a nearly 20-year war against the government in Kampala.
The Global War
* The top legal adviser to Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, has urged European Union governments to help Washington refute claims that hundreds of CIA flights used European airspace and airports to transport detainees to countries in which they may face torture. John Bellinger was reacting to claims by a European parliament investigation that hundreds of CIA flights have crossed the Continent – a process it linked to the practice of “rendition” or extra-legal abduction.
* A Pentagon research team monitors more than 5,000 jihadist Web sites, focusing daily on the 25 to 100 most hostile and active, defense officials say. The team includes 25 linguists, who cover multiple dialects of the Arabic language and provide reports on events sparking anger on extremist Web sites, Dan Devlin, a Pentagon public diplomacy specialist, said Thursday.
* The makers of combat video games have unwittingly become part of a global propaganda campaign by Islamic militants against the United States, US Defence officals say. Tech-savvy militants from al Qaeda and other groups have modified video war games so that US troops play the role of bad guys in running gunfights against heavily armed Islamic radical heroes, US Defence Department official and contractors told the US Congress.
* In an interview with FrontPageMag.com, Dr. Walid Phares talks about his book Future Jihad.
* US Central Command chief General John Abizaid held talks with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf about the "war on terror" and also met senior military officials. Pakistani military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan said Abizaid was on a routine visit to Pakistan, a major US ally in the global fight against terrorism.
* A top U.S. counterterrorism official said Saturday that parts of Pakistan are a "safe haven" for militants and Osama bin Laden was more likely to be hiding there than in Afghanistan. Henry Crumpton, the U.S. ambassador in charge of counterterrorism, lauded Pakistan for arresting "hundreds and hundreds" of al Qaeda figures but said it needed to do more.
* Unrest in Africa. Mideast insurgency and terrorism. Iran's nuclear brinkmanship. Russian pressure politics. South American resource nationalism. Piece by piece, the global energy puzzle reveals a bleak horizon for a world frantically searching for secure oil and gas supplies. Concerns over Iran — the world's fourth-largest oil producer — have been the prime factor recently in driving crude prices to record levels and, combined with tight global refining capacity, for pushing U.S. gasoline pump prices above $3 a gallon in many places.
* Islamic scholars will meet in Qatar next week to draw up a fatwa, obliging the Muslim faithful to help the internationally isolated Palestinian government headed by Hamas.
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