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
* President George W. Bush denied on Thursday the government was "trolling through" Americans' personal lives, despite a report that a domestic spy agency was collecting phone records of tens of millions of citizens. Defending his administration's espionage program, Bush said intelligence activities he had authorized were lawful and the government was not eavesdropping on domestic calls without court approval. But Democrats and Republicans alike demanded an explanation after USA Today reported the National Security Agency was secretly amassing phone records from phone companies to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist plots. In an article at NRO, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross examines the legal issues involved. The NY Times reported Sunday that Vice President Dick Cheney argued in the weeks after the September 11 attacks that the National Security Agency should intercept domestic telephone calls and e-mails without warrants as part of its war on terrorism.
* Two Saudi al Qaeda operatives were killed in Iraq according to an internet posting at the Mujaheddin Consultative Council website, a Sunni group with links to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The men have been identified as Manour Youssef Mohammed and Othman Mohammed Hassan, both Chad nationals who appear on the Saudi most wanted list issued on 28 June 2005.
* At least 50 rebels were killed and 17 Sri Lankan sailors missing after a sea battle Thursday instigated by the Tamil Tigers left the country on the brink of civil war. Tamil Tigers sank a navy patrol boat off the northern coast as it escorted a troop transport carrying 710 soldiers. In retaliation, the navy downed five rebel vessels and the air force launched airstrikes on guerrilla-held territory. In a Tamil rebel stronghold, hundreds of people stood in long lines over the weekend, stocking up on food and fuel and preparing for war.
* Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said they would not accept any offer from European countries, if it included a demand to halt nuclear work. Great Britain, France and Germany are drafting political, economic and security incentives for Iran in return for its consent to halt uranium enrichment work. "Any proposal that obliges us to stop peaceful (nuclear) activities would not have value and would not be valid," Ahmadinejad said.
Other topics today include: IAEA reports highly enriched uranium in Iran; Yemeni al Qaeda escapee captured; IDF raids in West Bank; Iran wants direct talks with US; Militants kill 12 in Iran; Turkish soldiers clash with Kurdish militants; Wanted Egyptian militants surrender; Saudi fires on US consulate guards; American killed in Israel; Hamas paramilitary force in Gaza; Iran's objectives; Jordan makes demands of Hamas; CIA reforms; Canada becoming terror haven; Counterterrorism in Russia; Attacks along Kyrgyz-Tajik border; US still pressures Uzbekistan; Russian withdrawal from Georgia; Raids in Pakistan; Killings continue in Waziristan; Hijack threat in India; Maoist attack in India; Fighting in Kashmir; Bangladesh fisherman held hostage; Bangladesh court sentences terrorists; Canada engages the Taliban; Violence in southern Afghanistan; Philippines a regional terror training ground; Terrorists confess to beheadings in Indonesia; MI5 under fire in UK; Germany a powder keg; Congo troops committing crimes; Fighting erupts in Mogadishu; Bombs explode in Ethiopia; CAIR worried about Flight 93; and more.
Iran & the Middle East
* According to reports that surfaced in Vienna, inspectors with the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) found traces of highly enriched uranium at the Iranian military Lavisan facility in February. According to reports, the IAEA "believes the uranium is dense enough to be close to, or beyond, weapons-grade quality." While trace elements of uranium have been discovered in the past on equipment Iran secretly purchased from Pakistan during the 1980s, it would not explain the presence of such material at the Lavisan facility, which is operated by Iran's military and had no prior disclosure of enrichment activities.
* Yemeni forces captured Abdullah Ahmad al-Raymi, an al Qaeda operative who escaped from a prison in Sanaa in February. Raymi is the ninth man to be taken back into custody out of a group of 23 who escaped from the prison.
* On Friday, Israeli Defense Forces shot and killed a man identified as a member of the al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade, during a raid in the West Bank city of Nablus.
* A Dubai engineering consultancy is at the center of an international criminal investigation into a scheme to smuggle banned weapons technology from the US to Iran. The scheme aimed to ship 103 Honeywell pressure sensors, which can be used to trigger explosive devices, from an electronics company in Minneapolis, US, to a firm in Isfahan, Iran.
* The US rejected an appeal by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to talk directly to Iran about its disputed nuclear programme. The US said the issue was not bilateral but between Iran and the world. Mr Annan had said the US needed to talk directly as Iran would not properly negotiate unless the US was involved.
* The Hamas-led Palestinian government is suffering serious financial woes, with Prime Minister Ismail Haniya appealing for a regional effort to help. In an interview with the BBC Arabic Service, he said the Arab League had been given the names of 160,000 unpaid government employees. International pressure on the Palestinian government may be forcing them to reconsider their opposition to a two-state solution.
* Iranian police report that Sunni militants executed 12 people in southern Iran on Sunday, and say that Jundollah (God's soldiers), headed by Abdolmalek Rigi, claimed responsibility. According to Iranian officials, Rigi is a cell leader for Osama bin Laden.
* Four soldiers and a Kurdish rebel were killed on Saturday in an operation by the Turkish army against guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in southeastern Turkey. Later on Saturday a bomb exploded in a coffee shop in the Erzincan state, killing two children.
* Five Palestinians were killed in the West Bank town of Qatabiyah on Sunday after firing on Israeli troops carrying out operations. Among the dead was Elias al-Ashkar, a senior Islamic Jihad member in the Jenin area.
* An Israeli court has charged four Palestinians with the killing of an Israeli minister five years ago. The suspects were snatched by the Israeli army from a jail in the West Bank town of Jericho in March. They are alleged to have shot Rehavam Zeevi, a hardliner who advocated deporting Palestinians from the occupied territories.
* On Saturday, Israeli Border police sappers safely detonated on a bomb packing 10 kg of explosives, discovered during an IDF raid on the West Bank city of Nablus. Police sources said the explosives device was intended for use in a suicide attack an Israeli target.
* The Israel Navy on Sunday intercepted a Palestinian boat carrying a large amount of explosives near the Gaza Strip in an attempted smuggling operation, the army said. The boat contained about 450 kilograms (992 pounds) of TNT and parts of mines, and additional bags of explosives had been thrown overboard as the naval boat approached, Col. Yoram Lachs told Channel 2 TV. The military said it was an attempt to smuggle weapons-grade explosives into the Gaza Strip, the second such attempt this month.
* Four men wanted in connection with bombings that killed 20 people in the Sinai resort of Dahab last month have turned themselves in according to Egyptian security sources.
* A summit of eight large Muslim countries largely skirted a diplomatic nuclear crisis engulfing its member Iran but agreed that members should cooperate to develop atomic energy.
* According to Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, Hezbollah must stop using land disputes surrounding the Shebaa Farms as a pretext to continue arming itself and should cease bringing Israeli-Palestinian issues into play in the Lebanese arena.
* A man was arrested after shooting from his car on guards at the US consulate in the Saudi city of Jeddah this past weekend.
* Daniel Wultz, an American teenager visiting Israel from his home in Florida, died over the weekend from wounds received a month ago in a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv claimed by Islamic Jihad. According to the U.S. Embassy, more than 200 American citizens have been killed or wounded in terrorist attacks in Israel since 1992.
* Hamas is busy forming a paramilitary security force in the Gaza strip said to currently number 2,000 members, largely consisting of former militants, gang members and terrorists.
* Amir Taheri lays out Iran's three main objectives, and says the world should take Ahmadinejad seriously.
* Duraid Al Baik, Foreign Editor at Gulf News, Islamist MPs in Bahrain and Kuwait are stepping up their attacks against Muslim liberals as part of the continuous campaign by religious groups against a free press.
* Jordan is demanding that Hamas send a team to find weapons caches hidden by Hamas, after rejecting calls for discussions over the issue.
America Domestic Security & the Americas
* The Central Intelligence Agency will continue a shift toward developing networks of agents overseas while losing some of its role in analyzing intelligence, Bush administration officials said yesterday. Some CIA analytic units will be moved to other agencies, such as the new National Counterterrorism Center, as part of ongoing reforms and the appointment of Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden to succeed outgoing CIA Director Porter J. Goss.
* The fate of President Bush's CIA nominee could hinge on how he justifies domestic eavesdropping programs that some lawmakers contend are illegal and started without congressional approval. Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden should expect sharp questioning about programs he oversaw while directing the National Security Agency as the Senate Intelligence Committee begins hearings Thursday.
* Only one juror stood between the death penalty and Zacarias Moussaoui and that juror frustrated his colleagues because he never explained his vote, according to the foreman of the jury that sentenced the al-Qaeda operative to life in prison last week.
* The House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee on Thursday approved an fiscal 2007 spending bill for the Homeland Security Department that is $1.8 billion higher than current spending but withholds funds for several major department priorities and rejects for a second year in a row a proposed increase in airline passenger fees.
* The federal government has given more than $2.1 billion to states for interoperable communications since 2003, but many emergency responders still cannot communicate with each other, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff warned at a conference in Washington.
* The State Department is sending an icy blast to our northern neighbors, blaming Canada's liberal immigration and asylum policies for allowing terrorists to set up anti-U.S. operations north of the border. The State Department says in its annual report on global terrorism that Canada is becoming a haven for terrorists.
* Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has warned the US that any attack on Iran will have devastating consequences and send oil prices soaring. Mr Chavez, on a two-day trip to the UK, called for a socialist new world order and said nations were cowards for not standing up to the "American empire".
Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia
* Russian security forces have liquidated twelve terrorists during the May holidays in Russia according to local media reports. A total of eighty-six people involved in the terrorist activity have been identified, while seventy-four of them have been detained and twelve killed. Joint activities of the security agencies helped thwart terrorists’ conspiracy and prevent a series of terrorist acts during the May holidays.
* Kyrgyzstan's security forces said on Saturday Islamist international terrorists had launched a raid on its border that left 13 people dead. An interior ministry spokesman said the guerrillas, most of whom were killed after being surrounded by special forces on Friday, seemed to have been probing the defences of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
* The U.S. maintains that Uzbekistan still owes an explanation for the killing of civilians by soldiers in the city of Andijan on 13 May 2005. The State Department repeated calls for an international inquiry into what relatives said was the machine gunning of a crowd without warning. The Uzbek government says troops were eliminating a dangerous group of Islamic extremists.
* The annual address Russian President Vladimir Putin gave to the Federal Assembly on May 10 has already been billed by some as Russia's version of the New Deal. Igor Torbakov says that what is more remarkable "is that the long-term political course announced by the Russian leadership is markedly nationalist and non-liberal -- if not outright anti-liberal."
* Russia began to withdrawal heavy military equipment from a base in southern Georgia on May 13 when the first train was loaded with material. Under an agreement that Russia and Georgia signed on March 31, Russian troops are to leave Georgia's two Soviet-era military bases, Akhalkalaki and Batumi, by 2008.
* Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov says the threats Russia faces today makes the Cold War threats look like "child's play." Ivanov said Russia needs to do more to confront the threats of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.
* Police have found a bunker full of ammunition in the troubled republic of Chechnya, belonging to a militant killed on 27 January 2006 in the village of Karabulak in the neighboring province of Ingushetia.
Afghanistan & Southern Asia
* Nepal's reclusive Maoist leader Prachanda is likely to lead rebel peace talks with the government to end a deadly decade-long insurgency, a top guerrilla chief said. "There's a high possibility our chairman, Prachanda, will head our team," Matrika Yadhav, former rebel commander for the central Terai region, told AFP on Friday. But other senior rebels may hold preliminary talks before Prachanda becomes personally involved," said Yadhav, who was freed from jail Thursday after the government dropped murder charges against him.
* Pakistani police detained close to 30 suspects in overnight raids following a series of land mine blasts that killed six fellow officers in the country's troubled southwest, officials said on Friday. Five landmines exploded in quick succession on Thursday as commandoes of police Anti-Terrorist Force were training at a school on the outskirts of Quetta, capital of the restive Balochistan province.
* Suspected Islamist militants shot dead a government official after breaking into his house on Sunday, the latest such killing in the troubled South Waziristan tribal region, officials said. The killings of pro-government tribesmen and officials have become common in Waziristan region, near the Afghan border, where security forces are fighting al Qaeda and Taliban remnants and their local sympathisers.
* A “human bomb” could attempt to hijack a plane in India, intelligence agencies have warned, prompting security forces to seek state-of-the-art body scanners, an official said on Friday. “There is a real possibility of a terrorist inserting RDX or plastic explosives or even a knife into his skin,” a top official of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), which protects 54 of India’s main airports, told Reuters.
* Four policemen were killed and three injured when at least 300 heavily-armed Maoist rebels attacked a state-run relief camp in India’s central Chhattisgarh state early Saturday, news reports said.
* In India, Police on Saturday seized arms and explosives from a fort in Manmad area of Nashik district, four days after three suspected terrorists were arrested along with arms in Aurangabad. Police suspect that the explosives were part of a cache of weapons being transported by the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) suspects who escaped on Tuesday morning from Aurangabad.
* At least two people were killed and 18 wounded in an explosion near a bus station on Saturday in restive Indian Kashmir, police and witnesses said. No militant group claimed responsibility for the blast but police suspected it to be the handiwork of Islamic rebels fighting Indian rule in Kashmir.
* In Kashmir, Islamic militants have threatened to mount suicide attacks on cable television stations who ignore a ban on "obscene" broadcasts, a report said. The warning from hardline groups al Badr Mujahedin, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Harkat-ul-Mujahedin and a small rebel outfit, the al Madina Regiment, came a day after some operators pulled entertainment channels off the air, but others did not.
* In Kashmir, two terrorists belonging to Lashkar-e-Toiba were killed in an encounter in Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir today, a defence spokesman said. The terrorists have been identified as Abu Saqib and Bilal, he said. Troops of 62 Rashtria Rifles raided Narwan-Imam Sahib in Shopian area, 60 kms from here, in the wee hours and the terrorists hiding there opened fire on the troops.
* Bangladesh Prime Minister Khaleda Zia reaffirmed her government's determination to crack down on Islamic militants who have killed at least 28 people in the past year. "We have mobilised all our forces and succeeded in arresting most of those who committed crime and violence in the name of religion," Zia told a meeting of South Asian home (interior) ministers in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka on Thursday.
* Some 70 Bangladeshi fishermen are being held hostage in the Bay of Bengal by pirates demanding thousands of dollars in ransom money, police said. The pirates hijacked eight trawlers at gunpoint on Wednesday. They then allowed a couple of fishermen to return to port in one of the boats with a ransom demand.
* A court has sentenced 10 Islamic militants to life imprisonment and three others to 20 years in jail for their roles in deadly blasts across Bangladesh last year. The militants were sentenced for involvement in attacks on August 17, when the banned Islamic group Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) set off 434 bombs nationwide, prosecutor Alhaj Ketabuddin told AFP Sunday.
* Here are the daily updates from the South Asia Terrorism Portal for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
* Canadian forces have arrested 10 suspected Taliban during a raid in southern Afghanistan and handed them over to Afghan authorities, the Canadian military said. The men were arrested in southern Kandahar province on May 8 in an area where four Canadian soldiers were killed in a bomb blast last month.
* Suspected Taliban militants fired two rockets at Canada's main base in Kandahar Saturday, military officials said. There were no casualties. It was the fifth such attack since Canadian troops began their latest tour of duty in Afghanistan earlier this year.
* A local driver and a doctor with a German-based group were killed in Afghanistan when suspected Taliban attacked their UNICEF vehicle with rockets, officials said. A project manager for the UN children's agency was also seriously wounded in the attack Friday just 40 kilometres (25 miles) outside Herat, the main city in western Afghanistan, UNICEF said.
* Taliban strength in Afghanistan is on the rise and even with a growing NATO security force, the country's defenses against explosive devices and suicide bombings are severely strained, the Afghan ambassador said Friday. Taliban, which controlled the South Asian country for five years until it was toppled in a U.S.-led invasion in 2001, is acquiring more sophisticated weapons and motorcycles from abroad and continues to receive training in neighboring Pakistan, Ambassador Said Tayeb Jawad said in an interview.
* Four Afghan policemen and at least 11 suspected Taliban were killed in fierce fighting in volatile southern Afghanistan, a provincial government spokesman said. The battle in southern Kandahar province's Panjwayi district erupted at midday and continued into the evening, officials said Sunday.
* Taliban fighters shot dead a provincial intelligence officer in southern Afghanistan while a roadside bomb blast in the northern region injured four civilians and three policemen, officials said on Sunday. This is the second officer of the provincial intelligence department falling victim to Taliban attack in Afghanistan's troubled Helmand province in a month.
* Newsweek has a story saying death threats from the Taliban aren't Mohammad Gulab's only worry. As reported in NEWSWEEK's April 17 issue, the Afghan villager has been pursued by Al Qaeda's local partners ever since June 2005, when he rescued a wounded U.S. Navy SEAL in the mountains of Kunar province, east of Kabul. Vengeful jihadists burned down his village lumber business and forced him and his family to flee for their lives, abandoning their home and possessions.
* Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels warned international truce monitors not to travel aboard navy ships as tensions on the island remained high on Friday after the worst clash since a 2002 truce. The government retaliated with air strikes on the rebels' northern heartland, but the island was quiet on Friday, the military said.
Far East & Southeast Asia
* Filipino authorities have announced the arrest of Asdzam Abidin, a suspected member of Jemaah Islamiyah who was captured last week at a checkpoint in Maguindanao.
* A top Chinese official on Friday accused the U.S. of hindering the global anti-terror struggle by refusing to hand over five Chinese Muslims released from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay. Parliament Vice Chairman Ismail Amat said China suspects the five men, who were captured during the U.S. assault on Afghanistan in 2001-2002, are members of a terror group. "I think America is implementing a double standard in fighting terrorism. This is unacceptable to us," said Amat, who is also a member of the Communist Party's Central Committee.
* The Times of India looks at the role sanctuaries of terror play in insurgency's, and notes that the weak state of the Philippines has become the central training grounds of southeast Asian terrorists and militants.
* United Nations Under Secretary-General for Political Affairs Ibrahim Gambari is finalizing plans to visit Myanmar, during which he will press the government to return to democratic rule and respect for human rights.
* Nine men suspected of preparing for a terrorist attack communicated by covert text message and referred to each other by women's names, an Australian court was told on Friday.
* Seven suspected Islamic terrorists have confessed to beheading three Christian schoolgirls on Indonesia's Sulawesi Island, police said on Wednesday.
* Australian police have filed a terror charge against a high school teacher who allegedly stockpiled bombs at his home in the east coast city of Brisbane. John Howard Amundsen is charged with preparing for a terrorist act and two counts of making a threat and making a hoax threat.
* Police suspect that two men who left an improvised explosive in front of the entrance of a mall last Thursday night might have been members of the Rajah Solaiman Revolutionary Movement, an Islamist group with links to Abu Sayyaf and the Indonesian-based Jemaah Islamiyah. Filipino authorities killed the two men responsible for placing the explosive in a firefight.
Europe
* For four decades until 1972, when Britain abolished the parliament at the height of the province's sectarian conflict, Stormont was home to governments led by Protestants committed to keeping Northern Ireland part of Britain. Monday, the Northern Ireland Assembly will convene for the first time since October 2002, when power-sharing between Protestants and Catholics broke down, to try to agree on a new executive representative of the two communities.
* British newspapers have renewed calls for a public inquiry into last year's deadly suicide bomb attacks in London, strongly condemning two official reports for exonerating security service failings. The domestic spy agency MI5 was largely cleared in the reports, despite revelations that three of the four Islamic extremist bombers appeared on the intelligence radar before the July 7 attacks but were not pursued.
* MI5 is being accused of a cover-up for failing to disclose to a parliamentary watchdog that it bugged the leader of the July 7 suicide bombers discussing the building of a bomb months before the London attacks. MI5 had secret tape recordings of Mohammad Sidique Khan, the gang leader, talking about how to build the device and then leave the country because there would be a lot of police activity.
* The suicide bombers who killed 52 passengers on London’s transit system had a string of contacts with someone in Pakistan just before striking, Britain’s top law enforcement official said Thursday. Meanwhile, Home Secretary John Reid told the House of Commons on Thursday that police and intelligence agencies had thwarted three attacks since the July 7 bombings, but did not say who was behind them or where and when they were to take place.
* There are now so many terror suspects in Britain that the police and security services are unable to monitor them all, counter-terrorist officials have warned. The Scotsman has learned that anti-terrorism police and MI5 have identified as many as 900 people in Britain whom they suspect could be linked to potential terrorist plots.
* One of the 29 people arrested in connection with Spain's worst-ever terrorist attack was released because the judge heading the injury did not extend his custody limit. Moroccan Saed El Harrak was arrested in May 2004 after his phone number was found among the papers of the Islamic radicals behind the train bombings that killed 191 people in Madrid. Judicial sources said the National Court judge directing the probe, Juan del Olmo, did not extend El Harrak's detention after two years in custody.
* The armed Basque group ETA has stated publicly for the first time since a ceasefire declaration in March that it still demands self-determination for the Basque Country. "The final agreement ... must be negotiated in terms of self-determination and territoriality, for these are the keys to overcoming the conflict," two leading ETA members told the Basque daily newspaper Gara in a rare interview, published Sunday.
* Germany is sitting on a "powder keg" as radicalised Islamic migrants, who might be plotting an attack, become harder to detect or apprehend, the country's chief prosecutor was quoted as saying on Saturday. Germany has stepped up security ahead of the World Cup soccer tournament in June, its biggest sporting event in three decades, and received strong international support for its plans to neutralise the risks of terrorism and hooligan violence. German authorities have been at pains to stress the country has no intelligence of any specific threats to the soccer tournament, which will feature teams from 32 countries.
Africa
* Militants threatened on Friday to destroy a $13 billion natural gas export plant in Nigeria. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said in an email to Reuters they were conscious of the potential for an attack on the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas plant to hurt nearby communities, and would launch a warning raid on an oil facility beforehand.
* Six people have been killed after protesters in Darfur opposed to the recent peace deal between rebels and the Sudanese government clashed with police.
* The United Nations reported an upsurge of rapes, killings and torture by Congo's security forces and warned that U.N. peacekeepers overseeing the postwar transition in the country could end their cooperation with the police and army. Congolese troops and police committed some 1,200 of the 1,866 rapes investigated by the United Nations between April and December, the U.N. said in a report released Wednesday. Some 800 rapes were blamed on security forces during the same period in 2004, while the overall number of investigated cases was about the same.
* Hundreds of terrified people fled a barrage of rockets and mortars in Mogadishu on Friday as Islamic fighters and warlord militias fought pitched battles for control of the Somali capital. As the battle went into its sixth day, residents said at least 12 more people had died overnight and into Friday, pushing the death toll to at least 133. Close-quarter street battles spread beyond Mogadishu's battered northern shanty town of Siisii into the neighboring district of Yaqshid, in the worst violence in the lawless capital for more than a decade.
* A series of bombs exploded in Ethiopia's capital Friday, killing three people and wounding at least 26, a police spokesman and witnesses said. Federal police spokesman Commander Demsash Hailu said the blasts were the work of an organization trying to discredit the government but did not offer specifics.
The Global War
* A quarter century into the modern age of suicide terrorism, specialists say the grim tactic is being used more frequently than ever before. The State Department, in its latest annual report on global terrorism, said a surge in suicide attacks -- at sites ranging from the London subway to the Middle East to Afghanistan -- pushed the number of attacks to record heights last year.
* A man believed to be a top al Qaeda militant who escaped from a U.S. airbase in Afghanistan urged Muslims in an Internet video to launch attacks in Europe as revenge for cartoons that lampooned the Prophet Mohammad. A Web site often used by militants posted a video from a man identified as Abu Yahya al-Libi in which he called for Muslims to "send rivers of blood" down the streets of Denmark, Norway and France for publishing the cartoons that caused a global furor earlier this year.
* British and Pakistani investigators are focusing on nearly 200 phone calls made from Pakistan to one of the London bombers in a bid to uncover his links to Al-Qaeda, security officials here said. One of the bombers may have also travelled to Waziristan, a troubled Pakistani tribal region bordering Afghanistan where Pakistani forces are battling militants linked to the terror organsiation, they said on Thursday.
* The Council on American-Islamic Relations is reporting that several Muslims were verbally attacked by a couple who had just seen the movie Flight 93. CAIR, which has a pattern of trying to intimidate others through lawsuits, is expressing concerns that the movie is getting Americans worked up.
* Speculation of ties between insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq has resurfaced in the face of continuing attacks on military and other targets in Afghanistan. The fears are stoked by a growing number of suicide missions, videotaped testimonials, greater use of improvised weapons, and the neo-Taliban insurgency's claim of responsibility for the recent beheading of a hostage. Could the apparent shift in tactics in Afghanistan reflect what might be best described as "Iraqization"?
* Sgt. Joseph Lindsey has the story of Gary Sinise's recent trip to Jalalabad Airfield in eastern Afghanistan where he paid a visit to the troops who were deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Not surprisingly he was frequently called "Lieutenant Dan" after his character in the 1994 movie Forrest Gump.
* The U.N.’s supreme maritime body said it was reviewing new proposals to track suspect ships by satellite to fight terrorism and prevent the movement by sea of illicit material such as weapons of mass destruction. The U.N.’s International Maritime Organisation (IMO) said the draft proposal, drawn up to enhance marine security, would be one of the items discussed at a 10-day meeting that began this week at its headquarters in London.
* Britain's secret intelligence service, MI6, has established the first proof al-Qaida is playing a major role in the new Cold War between North and South America – with Osama bin Laden's terror network seeing itself in league with Mexican subversives in infiltrating the U.S. border. The evidence emerged as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez swash-buckled into London after scoring a win in yet another venomous battle with Washington for influence and economic advantage across the Latin American continent.
* Pakistan's former army chief says Iranian officials came to him for advice on heading off an attack on their nuclear facilities, and he in effect advised them to take a hostage — Israel. He also claimed: Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto once told him the Iranians offered more than $4 billion for the technology.
* According to former CIA operative Mike Schuer, author of Imperial Hubris, the United States and Arab allies must be prepared for increased attacks against oil infrastructure as al Qaeda directs their next phase of the war against the U.S. economy.
* Attacks on U.S. computer networks could escalate from mere inconveniences to disasters that ruin companies or even kill people, according to the head of a cyber-security unit working with the U.S. government. Scott Borg, director of the Cyber Consequences Unit, or CCU, a Department of Homeland Security advisory group, said increasing intelligence "chatter" was pointing to possible criminal or terrorist schemes to destroy physical infrastructure such as power grids.
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Top Topics
* President George W. Bush denied on Thursday the government was "trolling through" Americans' personal lives, despite a report that a domestic spy agency was collecting phone records of tens of millions of citizens. Defending his administration's espionage program, Bush said intelligence activities he had authorized were lawful and the government was not eavesdropping on domestic calls without court approval. But Democrats and Republicans alike demanded an explanation after USA Today reported the National Security Agency was secretly amassing phone records from phone companies to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist plots. In an article at NRO, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross examines the legal issues involved. The NY Times reported Sunday that Vice President Dick Cheney argued in the weeks after the September 11 attacks that the National Security Agency should intercept domestic telephone calls and e-mails without warrants as part of its war on terrorism.
* Two Saudi al Qaeda operatives were killed in Iraq according to an internet posting at the Mujaheddin Consultative Council website, a Sunni group with links to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The men have been identified as Manour Youssef Mohammed and Othman Mohammed Hassan, both Chad nationals who appear on the Saudi most wanted list issued on 28 June 2005.
* At least 50 rebels were killed and 17 Sri Lankan sailors missing after a sea battle Thursday instigated by the Tamil Tigers left the country on the brink of civil war. Tamil Tigers sank a navy patrol boat off the northern coast as it escorted a troop transport carrying 710 soldiers. In retaliation, the navy downed five rebel vessels and the air force launched airstrikes on guerrilla-held territory. In a Tamil rebel stronghold, hundreds of people stood in long lines over the weekend, stocking up on food and fuel and preparing for war.
* Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said they would not accept any offer from European countries, if it included a demand to halt nuclear work. Great Britain, France and Germany are drafting political, economic and security incentives for Iran in return for its consent to halt uranium enrichment work. "Any proposal that obliges us to stop peaceful (nuclear) activities would not have value and would not be valid," Ahmadinejad said.
Other topics today include: IAEA reports highly enriched uranium in Iran; Yemeni al Qaeda escapee captured; IDF raids in West Bank; Iran wants direct talks with US; Militants kill 12 in Iran; Turkish soldiers clash with Kurdish militants; Wanted Egyptian militants surrender; Saudi fires on US consulate guards; American killed in Israel; Hamas paramilitary force in Gaza; Iran's objectives; Jordan makes demands of Hamas; CIA reforms; Canada becoming terror haven; Counterterrorism in Russia; Attacks along Kyrgyz-Tajik border; US still pressures Uzbekistan; Russian withdrawal from Georgia; Raids in Pakistan; Killings continue in Waziristan; Hijack threat in India; Maoist attack in India; Fighting in Kashmir; Bangladesh fisherman held hostage; Bangladesh court sentences terrorists; Canada engages the Taliban; Violence in southern Afghanistan; Philippines a regional terror training ground; Terrorists confess to beheadings in Indonesia; MI5 under fire in UK; Germany a powder keg; Congo troops committing crimes; Fighting erupts in Mogadishu; Bombs explode in Ethiopia; CAIR worried about Flight 93; and more.
Iran & the Middle East
* According to reports that surfaced in Vienna, inspectors with the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) found traces of highly enriched uranium at the Iranian military Lavisan facility in February. According to reports, the IAEA "believes the uranium is dense enough to be close to, or beyond, weapons-grade quality." While trace elements of uranium have been discovered in the past on equipment Iran secretly purchased from Pakistan during the 1980s, it would not explain the presence of such material at the Lavisan facility, which is operated by Iran's military and had no prior disclosure of enrichment activities.
* Yemeni forces captured Abdullah Ahmad al-Raymi, an al Qaeda operative who escaped from a prison in Sanaa in February. Raymi is the ninth man to be taken back into custody out of a group of 23 who escaped from the prison.
* On Friday, Israeli Defense Forces shot and killed a man identified as a member of the al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade, during a raid in the West Bank city of Nablus.
* A Dubai engineering consultancy is at the center of an international criminal investigation into a scheme to smuggle banned weapons technology from the US to Iran. The scheme aimed to ship 103 Honeywell pressure sensors, which can be used to trigger explosive devices, from an electronics company in Minneapolis, US, to a firm in Isfahan, Iran.
* The US rejected an appeal by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to talk directly to Iran about its disputed nuclear programme. The US said the issue was not bilateral but between Iran and the world. Mr Annan had said the US needed to talk directly as Iran would not properly negotiate unless the US was involved.
* The Hamas-led Palestinian government is suffering serious financial woes, with Prime Minister Ismail Haniya appealing for a regional effort to help. In an interview with the BBC Arabic Service, he said the Arab League had been given the names of 160,000 unpaid government employees. International pressure on the Palestinian government may be forcing them to reconsider their opposition to a two-state solution.
* Iranian police report that Sunni militants executed 12 people in southern Iran on Sunday, and say that Jundollah (God's soldiers), headed by Abdolmalek Rigi, claimed responsibility. According to Iranian officials, Rigi is a cell leader for Osama bin Laden.
* Four soldiers and a Kurdish rebel were killed on Saturday in an operation by the Turkish army against guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in southeastern Turkey. Later on Saturday a bomb exploded in a coffee shop in the Erzincan state, killing two children.
* Five Palestinians were killed in the West Bank town of Qatabiyah on Sunday after firing on Israeli troops carrying out operations. Among the dead was Elias al-Ashkar, a senior Islamic Jihad member in the Jenin area.
* An Israeli court has charged four Palestinians with the killing of an Israeli minister five years ago. The suspects were snatched by the Israeli army from a jail in the West Bank town of Jericho in March. They are alleged to have shot Rehavam Zeevi, a hardliner who advocated deporting Palestinians from the occupied territories.
* On Saturday, Israeli Border police sappers safely detonated on a bomb packing 10 kg of explosives, discovered during an IDF raid on the West Bank city of Nablus. Police sources said the explosives device was intended for use in a suicide attack an Israeli target.
* The Israel Navy on Sunday intercepted a Palestinian boat carrying a large amount of explosives near the Gaza Strip in an attempted smuggling operation, the army said. The boat contained about 450 kilograms (992 pounds) of TNT and parts of mines, and additional bags of explosives had been thrown overboard as the naval boat approached, Col. Yoram Lachs told Channel 2 TV. The military said it was an attempt to smuggle weapons-grade explosives into the Gaza Strip, the second such attempt this month.
* Four men wanted in connection with bombings that killed 20 people in the Sinai resort of Dahab last month have turned themselves in according to Egyptian security sources.
* A summit of eight large Muslim countries largely skirted a diplomatic nuclear crisis engulfing its member Iran but agreed that members should cooperate to develop atomic energy.
* According to Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, Hezbollah must stop using land disputes surrounding the Shebaa Farms as a pretext to continue arming itself and should cease bringing Israeli-Palestinian issues into play in the Lebanese arena.
* A man was arrested after shooting from his car on guards at the US consulate in the Saudi city of Jeddah this past weekend.
* Daniel Wultz, an American teenager visiting Israel from his home in Florida, died over the weekend from wounds received a month ago in a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv claimed by Islamic Jihad. According to the U.S. Embassy, more than 200 American citizens have been killed or wounded in terrorist attacks in Israel since 1992.
* Hamas is busy forming a paramilitary security force in the Gaza strip said to currently number 2,000 members, largely consisting of former militants, gang members and terrorists.
* Amir Taheri lays out Iran's three main objectives, and says the world should take Ahmadinejad seriously.
* Duraid Al Baik, Foreign Editor at Gulf News, Islamist MPs in Bahrain and Kuwait are stepping up their attacks against Muslim liberals as part of the continuous campaign by religious groups against a free press.
* Jordan is demanding that Hamas send a team to find weapons caches hidden by Hamas, after rejecting calls for discussions over the issue.
America Domestic Security & the Americas
* The Central Intelligence Agency will continue a shift toward developing networks of agents overseas while losing some of its role in analyzing intelligence, Bush administration officials said yesterday. Some CIA analytic units will be moved to other agencies, such as the new National Counterterrorism Center, as part of ongoing reforms and the appointment of Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden to succeed outgoing CIA Director Porter J. Goss.
* The fate of President Bush's CIA nominee could hinge on how he justifies domestic eavesdropping programs that some lawmakers contend are illegal and started without congressional approval. Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden should expect sharp questioning about programs he oversaw while directing the National Security Agency as the Senate Intelligence Committee begins hearings Thursday.
* Only one juror stood between the death penalty and Zacarias Moussaoui and that juror frustrated his colleagues because he never explained his vote, according to the foreman of the jury that sentenced the al-Qaeda operative to life in prison last week.
* The House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee on Thursday approved an fiscal 2007 spending bill for the Homeland Security Department that is $1.8 billion higher than current spending but withholds funds for several major department priorities and rejects for a second year in a row a proposed increase in airline passenger fees.
* The federal government has given more than $2.1 billion to states for interoperable communications since 2003, but many emergency responders still cannot communicate with each other, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff warned at a conference in Washington.
* The State Department is sending an icy blast to our northern neighbors, blaming Canada's liberal immigration and asylum policies for allowing terrorists to set up anti-U.S. operations north of the border. The State Department says in its annual report on global terrorism that Canada is becoming a haven for terrorists.
* Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has warned the US that any attack on Iran will have devastating consequences and send oil prices soaring. Mr Chavez, on a two-day trip to the UK, called for a socialist new world order and said nations were cowards for not standing up to the "American empire".
Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia
* Russian security forces have liquidated twelve terrorists during the May holidays in Russia according to local media reports. A total of eighty-six people involved in the terrorist activity have been identified, while seventy-four of them have been detained and twelve killed. Joint activities of the security agencies helped thwart terrorists’ conspiracy and prevent a series of terrorist acts during the May holidays.
* Kyrgyzstan's security forces said on Saturday Islamist international terrorists had launched a raid on its border that left 13 people dead. An interior ministry spokesman said the guerrillas, most of whom were killed after being surrounded by special forces on Friday, seemed to have been probing the defences of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
* The U.S. maintains that Uzbekistan still owes an explanation for the killing of civilians by soldiers in the city of Andijan on 13 May 2005. The State Department repeated calls for an international inquiry into what relatives said was the machine gunning of a crowd without warning. The Uzbek government says troops were eliminating a dangerous group of Islamic extremists.
* The annual address Russian President Vladimir Putin gave to the Federal Assembly on May 10 has already been billed by some as Russia's version of the New Deal. Igor Torbakov says that what is more remarkable "is that the long-term political course announced by the Russian leadership is markedly nationalist and non-liberal -- if not outright anti-liberal."
* Russia began to withdrawal heavy military equipment from a base in southern Georgia on May 13 when the first train was loaded with material. Under an agreement that Russia and Georgia signed on March 31, Russian troops are to leave Georgia's two Soviet-era military bases, Akhalkalaki and Batumi, by 2008.
* Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov says the threats Russia faces today makes the Cold War threats look like "child's play." Ivanov said Russia needs to do more to confront the threats of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.
* Police have found a bunker full of ammunition in the troubled republic of Chechnya, belonging to a militant killed on 27 January 2006 in the village of Karabulak in the neighboring province of Ingushetia.
Afghanistan & Southern Asia
* Nepal's reclusive Maoist leader Prachanda is likely to lead rebel peace talks with the government to end a deadly decade-long insurgency, a top guerrilla chief said. "There's a high possibility our chairman, Prachanda, will head our team," Matrika Yadhav, former rebel commander for the central Terai region, told AFP on Friday. But other senior rebels may hold preliminary talks before Prachanda becomes personally involved," said Yadhav, who was freed from jail Thursday after the government dropped murder charges against him.
* Pakistani police detained close to 30 suspects in overnight raids following a series of land mine blasts that killed six fellow officers in the country's troubled southwest, officials said on Friday. Five landmines exploded in quick succession on Thursday as commandoes of police Anti-Terrorist Force were training at a school on the outskirts of Quetta, capital of the restive Balochistan province.
* Suspected Islamist militants shot dead a government official after breaking into his house on Sunday, the latest such killing in the troubled South Waziristan tribal region, officials said. The killings of pro-government tribesmen and officials have become common in Waziristan region, near the Afghan border, where security forces are fighting al Qaeda and Taliban remnants and their local sympathisers.
* A “human bomb” could attempt to hijack a plane in India, intelligence agencies have warned, prompting security forces to seek state-of-the-art body scanners, an official said on Friday. “There is a real possibility of a terrorist inserting RDX or plastic explosives or even a knife into his skin,” a top official of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), which protects 54 of India’s main airports, told Reuters.
* Four policemen were killed and three injured when at least 300 heavily-armed Maoist rebels attacked a state-run relief camp in India’s central Chhattisgarh state early Saturday, news reports said.
* In India, Police on Saturday seized arms and explosives from a fort in Manmad area of Nashik district, four days after three suspected terrorists were arrested along with arms in Aurangabad. Police suspect that the explosives were part of a cache of weapons being transported by the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) suspects who escaped on Tuesday morning from Aurangabad.
* At least two people were killed and 18 wounded in an explosion near a bus station on Saturday in restive Indian Kashmir, police and witnesses said. No militant group claimed responsibility for the blast but police suspected it to be the handiwork of Islamic rebels fighting Indian rule in Kashmir.
* In Kashmir, Islamic militants have threatened to mount suicide attacks on cable television stations who ignore a ban on "obscene" broadcasts, a report said. The warning from hardline groups al Badr Mujahedin, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Harkat-ul-Mujahedin and a small rebel outfit, the al Madina Regiment, came a day after some operators pulled entertainment channels off the air, but others did not.
* In Kashmir, two terrorists belonging to Lashkar-e-Toiba were killed in an encounter in Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir today, a defence spokesman said. The terrorists have been identified as Abu Saqib and Bilal, he said. Troops of 62 Rashtria Rifles raided Narwan-Imam Sahib in Shopian area, 60 kms from here, in the wee hours and the terrorists hiding there opened fire on the troops.
* Bangladesh Prime Minister Khaleda Zia reaffirmed her government's determination to crack down on Islamic militants who have killed at least 28 people in the past year. "We have mobilised all our forces and succeeded in arresting most of those who committed crime and violence in the name of religion," Zia told a meeting of South Asian home (interior) ministers in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka on Thursday.
* Some 70 Bangladeshi fishermen are being held hostage in the Bay of Bengal by pirates demanding thousands of dollars in ransom money, police said. The pirates hijacked eight trawlers at gunpoint on Wednesday. They then allowed a couple of fishermen to return to port in one of the boats with a ransom demand.
* A court has sentenced 10 Islamic militants to life imprisonment and three others to 20 years in jail for their roles in deadly blasts across Bangladesh last year. The militants were sentenced for involvement in attacks on August 17, when the banned Islamic group Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) set off 434 bombs nationwide, prosecutor Alhaj Ketabuddin told AFP Sunday.
* Here are the daily updates from the South Asia Terrorism Portal for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
* Canadian forces have arrested 10 suspected Taliban during a raid in southern Afghanistan and handed them over to Afghan authorities, the Canadian military said. The men were arrested in southern Kandahar province on May 8 in an area where four Canadian soldiers were killed in a bomb blast last month.
* Suspected Taliban militants fired two rockets at Canada's main base in Kandahar Saturday, military officials said. There were no casualties. It was the fifth such attack since Canadian troops began their latest tour of duty in Afghanistan earlier this year.
* A local driver and a doctor with a German-based group were killed in Afghanistan when suspected Taliban attacked their UNICEF vehicle with rockets, officials said. A project manager for the UN children's agency was also seriously wounded in the attack Friday just 40 kilometres (25 miles) outside Herat, the main city in western Afghanistan, UNICEF said.
* Taliban strength in Afghanistan is on the rise and even with a growing NATO security force, the country's defenses against explosive devices and suicide bombings are severely strained, the Afghan ambassador said Friday. Taliban, which controlled the South Asian country for five years until it was toppled in a U.S.-led invasion in 2001, is acquiring more sophisticated weapons and motorcycles from abroad and continues to receive training in neighboring Pakistan, Ambassador Said Tayeb Jawad said in an interview.
* Four Afghan policemen and at least 11 suspected Taliban were killed in fierce fighting in volatile southern Afghanistan, a provincial government spokesman said. The battle in southern Kandahar province's Panjwayi district erupted at midday and continued into the evening, officials said Sunday.
* Taliban fighters shot dead a provincial intelligence officer in southern Afghanistan while a roadside bomb blast in the northern region injured four civilians and three policemen, officials said on Sunday. This is the second officer of the provincial intelligence department falling victim to Taliban attack in Afghanistan's troubled Helmand province in a month.
* Newsweek has a story saying death threats from the Taliban aren't Mohammad Gulab's only worry. As reported in NEWSWEEK's April 17 issue, the Afghan villager has been pursued by Al Qaeda's local partners ever since June 2005, when he rescued a wounded U.S. Navy SEAL in the mountains of Kunar province, east of Kabul. Vengeful jihadists burned down his village lumber business and forced him and his family to flee for their lives, abandoning their home and possessions.
* Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels warned international truce monitors not to travel aboard navy ships as tensions on the island remained high on Friday after the worst clash since a 2002 truce. The government retaliated with air strikes on the rebels' northern heartland, but the island was quiet on Friday, the military said.
Far East & Southeast Asia
* Filipino authorities have announced the arrest of Asdzam Abidin, a suspected member of Jemaah Islamiyah who was captured last week at a checkpoint in Maguindanao.
* A top Chinese official on Friday accused the U.S. of hindering the global anti-terror struggle by refusing to hand over five Chinese Muslims released from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay. Parliament Vice Chairman Ismail Amat said China suspects the five men, who were captured during the U.S. assault on Afghanistan in 2001-2002, are members of a terror group. "I think America is implementing a double standard in fighting terrorism. This is unacceptable to us," said Amat, who is also a member of the Communist Party's Central Committee.
* The Times of India looks at the role sanctuaries of terror play in insurgency's, and notes that the weak state of the Philippines has become the central training grounds of southeast Asian terrorists and militants.
* United Nations Under Secretary-General for Political Affairs Ibrahim Gambari is finalizing plans to visit Myanmar, during which he will press the government to return to democratic rule and respect for human rights.
* Nine men suspected of preparing for a terrorist attack communicated by covert text message and referred to each other by women's names, an Australian court was told on Friday.
* Seven suspected Islamic terrorists have confessed to beheading three Christian schoolgirls on Indonesia's Sulawesi Island, police said on Wednesday.
* Australian police have filed a terror charge against a high school teacher who allegedly stockpiled bombs at his home in the east coast city of Brisbane. John Howard Amundsen is charged with preparing for a terrorist act and two counts of making a threat and making a hoax threat.
* Police suspect that two men who left an improvised explosive in front of the entrance of a mall last Thursday night might have been members of the Rajah Solaiman Revolutionary Movement, an Islamist group with links to Abu Sayyaf and the Indonesian-based Jemaah Islamiyah. Filipino authorities killed the two men responsible for placing the explosive in a firefight.
Europe
* For four decades until 1972, when Britain abolished the parliament at the height of the province's sectarian conflict, Stormont was home to governments led by Protestants committed to keeping Northern Ireland part of Britain. Monday, the Northern Ireland Assembly will convene for the first time since October 2002, when power-sharing between Protestants and Catholics broke down, to try to agree on a new executive representative of the two communities.
* British newspapers have renewed calls for a public inquiry into last year's deadly suicide bomb attacks in London, strongly condemning two official reports for exonerating security service failings. The domestic spy agency MI5 was largely cleared in the reports, despite revelations that three of the four Islamic extremist bombers appeared on the intelligence radar before the July 7 attacks but were not pursued.
* MI5 is being accused of a cover-up for failing to disclose to a parliamentary watchdog that it bugged the leader of the July 7 suicide bombers discussing the building of a bomb months before the London attacks. MI5 had secret tape recordings of Mohammad Sidique Khan, the gang leader, talking about how to build the device and then leave the country because there would be a lot of police activity.
* The suicide bombers who killed 52 passengers on London’s transit system had a string of contacts with someone in Pakistan just before striking, Britain’s top law enforcement official said Thursday. Meanwhile, Home Secretary John Reid told the House of Commons on Thursday that police and intelligence agencies had thwarted three attacks since the July 7 bombings, but did not say who was behind them or where and when they were to take place.
* There are now so many terror suspects in Britain that the police and security services are unable to monitor them all, counter-terrorist officials have warned. The Scotsman has learned that anti-terrorism police and MI5 have identified as many as 900 people in Britain whom they suspect could be linked to potential terrorist plots.
* One of the 29 people arrested in connection with Spain's worst-ever terrorist attack was released because the judge heading the injury did not extend his custody limit. Moroccan Saed El Harrak was arrested in May 2004 after his phone number was found among the papers of the Islamic radicals behind the train bombings that killed 191 people in Madrid. Judicial sources said the National Court judge directing the probe, Juan del Olmo, did not extend El Harrak's detention after two years in custody.
* The armed Basque group ETA has stated publicly for the first time since a ceasefire declaration in March that it still demands self-determination for the Basque Country. "The final agreement ... must be negotiated in terms of self-determination and territoriality, for these are the keys to overcoming the conflict," two leading ETA members told the Basque daily newspaper Gara in a rare interview, published Sunday.
* Germany is sitting on a "powder keg" as radicalised Islamic migrants, who might be plotting an attack, become harder to detect or apprehend, the country's chief prosecutor was quoted as saying on Saturday. Germany has stepped up security ahead of the World Cup soccer tournament in June, its biggest sporting event in three decades, and received strong international support for its plans to neutralise the risks of terrorism and hooligan violence. German authorities have been at pains to stress the country has no intelligence of any specific threats to the soccer tournament, which will feature teams from 32 countries.
Africa
* Militants threatened on Friday to destroy a $13 billion natural gas export plant in Nigeria. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said in an email to Reuters they were conscious of the potential for an attack on the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas plant to hurt nearby communities, and would launch a warning raid on an oil facility beforehand.
* Six people have been killed after protesters in Darfur opposed to the recent peace deal between rebels and the Sudanese government clashed with police.
* The United Nations reported an upsurge of rapes, killings and torture by Congo's security forces and warned that U.N. peacekeepers overseeing the postwar transition in the country could end their cooperation with the police and army. Congolese troops and police committed some 1,200 of the 1,866 rapes investigated by the United Nations between April and December, the U.N. said in a report released Wednesday. Some 800 rapes were blamed on security forces during the same period in 2004, while the overall number of investigated cases was about the same.
* Hundreds of terrified people fled a barrage of rockets and mortars in Mogadishu on Friday as Islamic fighters and warlord militias fought pitched battles for control of the Somali capital. As the battle went into its sixth day, residents said at least 12 more people had died overnight and into Friday, pushing the death toll to at least 133. Close-quarter street battles spread beyond Mogadishu's battered northern shanty town of Siisii into the neighboring district of Yaqshid, in the worst violence in the lawless capital for more than a decade.
* A series of bombs exploded in Ethiopia's capital Friday, killing three people and wounding at least 26, a police spokesman and witnesses said. Federal police spokesman Commander Demsash Hailu said the blasts were the work of an organization trying to discredit the government but did not offer specifics.
The Global War
* A quarter century into the modern age of suicide terrorism, specialists say the grim tactic is being used more frequently than ever before. The State Department, in its latest annual report on global terrorism, said a surge in suicide attacks -- at sites ranging from the London subway to the Middle East to Afghanistan -- pushed the number of attacks to record heights last year.
* A man believed to be a top al Qaeda militant who escaped from a U.S. airbase in Afghanistan urged Muslims in an Internet video to launch attacks in Europe as revenge for cartoons that lampooned the Prophet Mohammad. A Web site often used by militants posted a video from a man identified as Abu Yahya al-Libi in which he called for Muslims to "send rivers of blood" down the streets of Denmark, Norway and France for publishing the cartoons that caused a global furor earlier this year.
* British and Pakistani investigators are focusing on nearly 200 phone calls made from Pakistan to one of the London bombers in a bid to uncover his links to Al-Qaeda, security officials here said. One of the bombers may have also travelled to Waziristan, a troubled Pakistani tribal region bordering Afghanistan where Pakistani forces are battling militants linked to the terror organsiation, they said on Thursday.
* The Council on American-Islamic Relations is reporting that several Muslims were verbally attacked by a couple who had just seen the movie Flight 93. CAIR, which has a pattern of trying to intimidate others through lawsuits, is expressing concerns that the movie is getting Americans worked up.
* Speculation of ties between insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq has resurfaced in the face of continuing attacks on military and other targets in Afghanistan. The fears are stoked by a growing number of suicide missions, videotaped testimonials, greater use of improvised weapons, and the neo-Taliban insurgency's claim of responsibility for the recent beheading of a hostage. Could the apparent shift in tactics in Afghanistan reflect what might be best described as "Iraqization"?
* Sgt. Joseph Lindsey has the story of Gary Sinise's recent trip to Jalalabad Airfield in eastern Afghanistan where he paid a visit to the troops who were deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Not surprisingly he was frequently called "Lieutenant Dan" after his character in the 1994 movie Forrest Gump.
* The U.N.’s supreme maritime body said it was reviewing new proposals to track suspect ships by satellite to fight terrorism and prevent the movement by sea of illicit material such as weapons of mass destruction. The U.N.’s International Maritime Organisation (IMO) said the draft proposal, drawn up to enhance marine security, would be one of the items discussed at a 10-day meeting that began this week at its headquarters in London.
* Britain's secret intelligence service, MI6, has established the first proof al-Qaida is playing a major role in the new Cold War between North and South America – with Osama bin Laden's terror network seeing itself in league with Mexican subversives in infiltrating the U.S. border. The evidence emerged as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez swash-buckled into London after scoring a win in yet another venomous battle with Washington for influence and economic advantage across the Latin American continent.
* Pakistan's former army chief says Iranian officials came to him for advice on heading off an attack on their nuclear facilities, and he in effect advised them to take a hostage — Israel. He also claimed: Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto once told him the Iranians offered more than $4 billion for the technology.
* According to former CIA operative Mike Schuer, author of Imperial Hubris, the United States and Arab allies must be prepared for increased attacks against oil infrastructure as al Qaeda directs their next phase of the war against the U.S. economy.
* Attacks on U.S. computer networks could escalate from mere inconveniences to disasters that ruin companies or even kill people, according to the head of a cyber-security unit working with the U.S. government. Scott Borg, director of the Cyber Consequences Unit, or CCU, a Department of Homeland Security advisory group, said increasing intelligence "chatter" was pointing to possible criminal or terrorist schemes to destroy physical infrastructure such as power grids.
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