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
* Afghan police hunted for Taleban insurgents on Friday after two of the country’s bloodiest days since the 2001 overthrow of the hardline Islamists. About 100 people were killed in violence that began on Wednesday. It included a large-scale attack on a town in the southern province of Helmand and two suicide blasts in different parts of the country. “We are hunting for them all over Mosa Qala district, to capture them or kill them,” said Helmand’s deputy governor, Amir Mohammad Akhundzada.
* One French and 16 Afghan soldiers were killed and about 40 other troops were wounded in two firefights in southern Afghanistan, coalition and Afghan officials said Sunday. In one battle in Helmand province, 13 Afghan soldiers were killed and 15 injured in an eight-hour firefight Saturday, said Gen. Zahir Azimi, the Defense Ministry spokesman. He said at least nine Taliban militants were killed in the battle in Sangin district. In a second firefight in the same district of Helmand on Saturday, one French and three Afghan soldiers were killed, the U.S.-led coalition said.
* Iran has apparently rejected a United Nations Security Council proposal prior to it even being formally offered. In exchange for Iran suspending enrichment of uranium, the UNSC would agree to move Iran's file back to the IAEA, but Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said that while Iran wants the council to end its involvement, "suspending nuclear activities goes against our legitimate rights and is not part of the NPT." The security council is set to meet in London on Wednesday to discuss the incentive package.
Other topics today include: New book on Ahmadinejad; Iran's nuclear pursuit; IJ leader killed in airstrike; IDF raids; Iran sets up fund to destroy Israel; assassination attempts in Gaza; Fatah-Hamas fighting; Qassam rockets fired on Israel; Kuwait frees former Gitmo detainees; Fatah burns al-Jazeera vehicles; Egyptian terrorist killed; Fight at Gitmo; bio-exercise at Pentagon; extremists in the U.S.; Chavez's delusions; bombing hits Columbian pipeline; Russian Navy in the Med; militants arrested in Nalchik; Tajik court sentences extremists; Senior ULFA leader arrested in west Bengal; Firefights in Kashmir; Tensions between Afghanistan-Pakistan; Fighting in southern Afghanistan; Pipelines bombed in Balochistan; Killings in Waziristan; and more.
Iran & the Middle East
* Iran continues to lobby for direct talks with the United States, with Kazem Jalali, spokesman for the Iranian national security and foreign affairs commission, saying that "some space must be opened so that we can talk to US public opinion, its thinkers and even lawmakers."
* A new book, “Ahmadinejad: the Third Millennium Miracle” by Fatemeh Rajabi, is set to hit the bookshelves in Iran and will express the author's view that the election victory of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a third millennium miracle on earth.
* According to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Iran is months not years away from being able to construct a nuclear weapon.
* Mohammed al-Dahdouh, a senior Islamic Jihad member involved in manufacturing weapons, was killed on Saturday along with his family when an Israeli UAV targeted their vehicle with an airstrike in the Gaza Strip.
* IDF soldiers launched raids in Judea and Samaria on Sunday night, arresting 4 suspected terrorists, including members of Hamas and Fatah Tanzim.
* A group of Iranian students spoke out at an event attended by a high-ranking member of the elite Revolutionary Guard and revealed that they were setting up a fund to destroy Israel. Despite the initiative's name ("The Student Fund for Demolishing Israel") organizers said their goal was to support the cash-strapped Palestinian government. Some 300 students attended the event hosted by a group calling itself the Movement of Justice-seeking Students at the University of Tehran.
* General Tareq Abu Rajab, Chief of the Palestinian intelligence services, was wounded in an assassination attempt on Saturday in Gaza, where politics come at the end of a gun.
* Palestinian terrorist fired two Qassam rockets from the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday, with one landing in the sea and the other landing in an open area south of Ashkelon. No injuries or damage was reported. The Israel Defense Forces responded with massive artillery fire into what it described as "launch areas" in Gaza. By Saturday night over 100 shells had been fired.
* A Kuwaiti court on Sunday cleared five Kuwaitis of charges of belonging to Al Qaeda and ordered the former inmates of the US’s Guantanamo Bay prison freed immediately, judicial sources said. They said the five, who returned to the Gulf Arab state in November, were also cleared of charges of fighting a friendly state, a reference to the United States.
* On Sunday, a large bomb was defused in Gaza city outside the home of Rashid Abu Shbak, the head of the Palestinian security services and an ally of Prime Minister Abbas. Fatah is pointing the finger at Hamas in response.
* Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is calling for an investigation into senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri, who was stopped by Palestinian border guards while trying to bring 600,000 Euros into Gaza.
* Reports indicate that Fatah members set fire to three vehicles belonging to al-Jazeera, in response to the Arabic media outlets failure to cover an anti-Hamas rally held a day earlier.
* Arafat Ali, an Egyptian wanted in connection with the bombing of tourist resorts on the Sina'i, killed himself on Friday when an explosive device he attempted to hurl at police exploded and killed him. It is reported he was second in command of Tawhid wal Jihad.
* Syria is being criticized by the European Union for a recent campaign against dissidents and human rights defenders, nine of which have been arrested in the past few days. According to reports, most of them had signed a petition calling for better relations with Lebanon.
* Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has pardoned Yehia Hussein al-Daylami, a Muslim preacher sentenced to death and also Mohamed Meftah, who was jailed for backing a rebel movement and spying for Iran. Recently Jamestown wrote about the large number of Islamic militants that have been released from prison and how that facilitates jihad.
* A Palestinian carrying a pipe bomb was arrested and detained west of Jenin on Saturday.
America Domestic Security & the Americas
* Prisoners wielding improvised weapons clashed with guards trying to stop a detainee from committing suicide at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the military said Friday. The fight occurred Thursday in a medium-security section of the camp as guards were responding to the fourth attempted suicide that day at the detention center on the U.S. Navy base, Cmdr. Robert Durand said.
* Little Green Footballs cites a Reuters story saying that an earlier report that Guantanamo guards were attacked by inmates while trying to stop a detainee from committing suicide was inaccurate. The guards were lured into a cell by a staged suicide attempt, then ambushed by the prisoners.
* A full-scale bio-exercise in the Pentagon parking lot tested how the Pentagon police, in partnership with local emergency services, would respond to a biological attack at the military headquarters. The Pentagon Force Protection Agency, Arlington County Fire Department, Red Cross, and other local and federal agencies participated in the exercise, dubbed "Gallant Fox 06," based on a scenario involving a suspected anthrax attack inside the Pentagon that triggered a sensor.
* Lawmakers railed against security gaps at the Homeland Security Department on Thursday, demanding to know why a man now charged with sex offenses had access to classified information and a convicted felon's limousine company was paid millions of dollars to chauffeur top officials.
* MEMRI reports Dr. Salah Sultan is president of the American Center for Islamic Research (ACIR), a non-profit organization registered in Ohio and located in Columbus, and says 9/11 planned by Americans, and praises the wanted Al-Qaeda-linked Yemenite Sheikh Al-Zindani.
* A Queens, N.Y. congressman won a legislative skirmish Thursday in his long-running battle with the government to reopen the top of the Statue of Liberty to the public. The statue, which sits on 12-acre Liberty Island in New York Harbor, was shut down in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks because of terrorism concerns.
* The Spirit of Man blog cites a notice on the International Trade Ministry of Canada web site saying "Effective immediately, we will limit our encounters with Iranian officials to the Kazemi case, Iran's human rights record and Iran's nuclear non-proliferation performance. No visits or exchanges by Iranian officials to Canada will be permitted, nor will Canadian officials engage with Iran, except relating to these issues. Canada will not block the initiatives of private Canadian companies to trade with their Iranian counterparts. However, we will continue to apply strict export controls on sensitive goods and we will continue to advise business people about the political environment to consider when doing business with Iran. Furthermore, any existing programs of cooperation between Canadian government agencies and their Iranian counterparts will be halted. This state of relations will persist until Iran has taken steps to launch a credible and independent investigation and judicial process into the Kazemi case. We have not decided to recall our Ambassador, nor to shut down Embassy services. We believe there continues to be a need for professional-level dialogue regarding the serious existing difficulties in our relationship."
* Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has for years predicted that a foreign army would attack the South American nation to snatch its vast oil reserves. A simulation conducted last week showed how it might happen. A naval landing craft made landfall on the shores of Western Falcon state carrying troops and over a dozen camouflaged tanks. The "invading" army then took over the massive Paraguana Refining Complex, a key asset of the world's No. 5 crude exporter.
* Left-wing guerrillas have bombed Colombia's Cano Limon-Covenas oil pipeline and halted its crude pumping operations in an attack just a days before presidential elections, the army said on Friday. The pipeline, the country's second most important, transports crude oil from Cano Limon fields operated by U.S. company Occidental Petroleum in Arauca province on the Venezuelan border to Covenas port on the Caribbean coast.
Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia
* Russian security forces raided a residence in the republic of Daghestan to seize Bulat Abdullayev, suspected of terror activity and of carrying out attacks against the local police.
* The Russian frigate Pitliviy began training with NATO forces in the Mediterranean on Friday, in preparation for Operation Active Endeavour, the alliance’s seaborne anti-terrorism mission.
* Three militants involved in an attack last October against the southern city of Nalchik have been arrested according to Russian officials.
* Russia wants major changes to agreements with the United States to boost sales of its nuclear materials, a source in the Russian nuclear industry said. Russian officials want changes to agreements that give U.S. uranium supplier USEC the right to buy uranium recovered from dismantled nuclear weapons and an end to U.S. anti-dumping duties on other uranium sales.
* The court of the city of Khudzhand, Tajikistan, has sentenced ten activists of the religious extremist party Khizb ut-Tahrir, to various prison sentences ranging from 9 to 16 years. All the ten defendants were heads of primary cells, each having from three to five members below them.
* Four men accused of staging a series of terrorist acts, including the assassination of Dagestani Nationalities and Foreign Relations Minister Zagir Arukhov in May 2005, were acquitted in a Russian courtroom, and set free.
* The bodies of 95 people killed in an attack in southern Russia last October will not be returned to their relatives because there was evidence that the dead people had committed crimes.
* Russia has finally decided to start production of the Su-34 fighter-bomber, but they're so strapped for cash that the first run will only be 24 aircraft. These are expected to enter service in 2010.
Afghanistan & Southern Asia
* Police in the Indian state of West Bengal say they have arrested a top separatist leader and three accomplices from the neighbouring state of Assam. West Bengal police said a special team arrested Mrinal Hazarika, a senior leader of the United Liberation Front of Assam (Ulfa), early on Thursday.
* Indian troops shot dead three suspected Islamic militants along the de facto border dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan, the army said. "The three were killed Thursday evening when they refused to surrender and opened fire after infiltrating into our territory," spokesman Colonel Vijay Kumar Batra told AFP on Friday.
* Islamic militants dressed as policemen hurled grenades and shot into a rally by the ruling Congress party in India's portion of
Kashmir on Sunday, killing five people and wounding at least 20 others, officials said. Two attackers were killed. The assault began as about 3,000 people assembled inside a park in Srinagar, the main city in Indian-controlled Kashmir, to observe the anniversary of the death of former Prime Minister Rajeev Gandhi, said local Congress party chief Pirzada Mohammed Sayeed.
* Bill Roggio comments here on the recent numerous attacks in Afghanistan. Roggio writes "It is important to understand how the fighting was initiated, as the current reporting is giving the impression of a coordinated Taliban uprising."
* The Taliban consider themselves in "a war" with British troops in Afghanistan, a spokesman for the deposed regime told The Times newspaper. Taliban militants vowed earlier this year to unleash a wave of suicide bombings across Afghanistan as part of a stepped-up campaign against the government and its foreign allies.
* Pakistan rejected Afghan president Hamid Karzai's allegations that it was training and infiltrating militants for violence in Afghanistan. Karzai blamed Pakistan on Thursday after two days of bloody clashes in his country left around 100 people dead, including scores of militants, 13 policemen and a female Canadian soldier.
* A senior member of an Islamic organisation linked to Al-Qaeda is funding his activities through the kidnapping of Christian children who are sold into slavery in Pakistan. The Sunday Times has established that Gul Khan, a wealthy militant who uses the base of Jamaat-ud Daawa (JUD) near Lahore, is behind a cruel trade in boys aged six to 12.
* It's not so much meeting the Taliban that worries M. Nawab Momand, a correspondent for Tolo TV, Afghanistan's top television channel. "For us, the problem from the Taliban side is not the major problem," he says. "It's a problem actually that we get pressure from the government." Tolo TV finds Afghanistan's hot buttons - and pushes them.
* A top Taleban leader, Mullah Dadullah, has been captured in Afghanistan. The senior military commander was said to have been detained by international troops in southern Kandahar province. The Taleban deny Mullah Dadullah has been captured. There has been no official confirmation of the arrest from the Afghan government or US military.
* An American counternarcotics official was killed and two other Americans were wounded in a suicide bombing on Thursday in western Afghanistan, while heavy fighting between forces suspected of being Taliban insurgents and the Afghan police continued in two southern provinces, officials said.
* One US soldier has been killed and six others wounded in a gun battle between US-led coalition forces and insurgents in southern Afghanistan. The fighting broke out during a joint operation between US and Afghan troops in Uruzgan province, the US military said in a statement. It said the six wounded soldiers were evacuated to a nearby medical facility.
* Two French soldiers were killed and a third was wounded in fighting with suspected Taliban militants in southern Afghanistan, the defence ministry said here. The deaths had occurred during an "engagement against the Taliban in the region of Kandahar," a communique said Saturday.
* Militants hiding in a vineyard and armed with machine guns ambushed an Afghan army convoy Saturday, shooting dead four soldiers but losing 15 of their own. It erupted again Friday with six militants, an Afghan soldier and a civilian killed in Helmand province. Hours later in the same area, insurgents crouching among fields of grapevines and wheat opened fire on a half-mile long convoy of Afghan army trucks as they snaked their way slowly along a dirt road with reinforcements, he said. The two sides exchanged fire with machine-guns and AK-47 assault rifles for six hours before the insurgents fled on foot and motorbikes, the general said.
* About 50 Afghan soldiers were isolated in Taleban-held territory Saturday after coming under attack in southern Afghanistan, a military commander said, fearing heavy casualties.
* A car bomb exploded on a busy road in the Afghan capital Sunday, killing the driver of the car and two civilians, officials said. The attack occurred on a road that links several bases belonging to the U.S.-led coalition and a separate NATO-led peacekeeping force, said local deputy police chief Maj. Pashtun Khan.
* Afghanistan is on the brink of becoming a narco-state with drug cartels now posing a greater threat to the country's future than Taliban insurgents, NATO's top military commander in Europe said on Saturday. Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium, the raw material for heroin. The narcotics trade accounts for about a third of its economy.
* Here are the daily updates from the South Asia Terrorism Portal for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
* Here is a roundup of events in Balochistan over the past couple of weeks.
* Suspected tribal militants blew up two state-owned gas Pipelines on Friday in insurgency-wracked southwestern Pakistan, disrupting supplies but causing no casualties, a company official said. No one claimed responsibility for the separate pre-dawn attacks in Sui, 350 kilometers (210 miles) east of Quetta, in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province.
* In Balochistan, a Frontier Corps soldier was killed when a mine exploded in Kohlu on Thursday. Ansar Ahmad was seriously injured by the blast and died at the hospital. Later, suspected tribal militants fired rockets on FC checkpoints in Chashma and Sangseela. No casualty was reported.
* Suspected insurgents killed a senior pro-government tribal elder and dumped his body on a road in Pakistan's restive tribal region near the Afghan border, officials said. Totti Gul, a leading supporter of Pakistan's anti-Al-Qaeda campaign in the tribal district of North Waziristan, was dragged out of his car by unknown men and later shot dead, a tribal security official said.
* A suspected militant has killed two Pakistani soldiers by hurling a grenade at a paramilitary post in a tribal region near the Afghan border, before being shot dead, officials said. The lone assailant tried to flee after lobbying the grenade at the checkpost in Mir Ali town in North Waziristan tribal district, but was shot and killed, a local security official said Saturday.
* Prosecutors have called for the death penalty for two militant leaders accused of waging a bloody campaign to impose Islamic law in Bangladesh, officials said. Shaikh Abdur Rahman, leader of the outlawed Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), and his second-in-command, Siddiqul Islam, are being tried for the murder of two judges last November.
* A visiting American official has urged the Bangladesh government to frame and enact an effective anti-money laundering law and take steps to curb financial crimes as part of the Bush administration's global drive against terrorism. Patrick M. O'Brien, assistant secretary for terrorist financing at the US Treasury Department, recommended the actions at a number of meetings with the central bank governor and high officials of the home and foreign ministries during his two-day official visit.
* Government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels traded artillery fire across a de facto front line in the island's north, military officials said. There were no immediate reports of casualties on either side after a 30-minute exchange of fire at Muhamalai in the Jaffna peninsula, but the main entry and exit points in the area were briefly shut, officials said on Saturday. In a similar clash elsewhere in the island's north Friday, two government soldiers were killed, the military said.
* Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels have warned that an imminent European ban on them could scuttle future peace negotiations as two soldiers were killed in mine attacks. London-based Anton Balasingham said his Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) would retreat from a peace process with the government if they are listed by the 25-member
European Union (EU) as a terrorist group.
Far East & Southeast Asia
* A Muslim man was shot dead by Islamic militants in Narathiwat province in southern Thailand, while villagers there took 11 teachers hostage to demand the release of suspected insurgents.
* According to the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan may begin withdrawing some of their non-combat troops from Iraq next month. There are currently 600 deployed to the southern Iraqi city of Samawa.
* On Friday, the Japanese media reported that North Korea may be preparing to test fire a long-range ballistic missile capable of striking parts of the United States.
* Malaysia pledged $16 million on Sunday in humanitarian aid and budget support to the Palestinian Authority to compensate for the loss of US and European assistance. But in practice the Malaysian pledge, like previous contributions from Arab states, will not reach the Palestinians until the United States lifts the threat of sanctions against banks which transfer the funds to the West Bank or Gaza.
Europe
* A terrorist plot to blow up an El Al jet at Geneva airport with an RPG (rocket propelled grenade) in December was uncovered by the Swiss and French intelligence agencies, details released for publication on Friday revealed. The Yedioth Aharonot newspaper reported that a secret agent working undercover amongst an Islamic terror cell in the city discovered the plan after three immigrants of Arabic origin boasted of their attempts to smuggle weapons from Russia with the ultimate goal of shooting down an Israeli plane at the airport.
* Al-Qaeda's hierarchy in western Europe has vanished and the terrorist network's leadership has largely ceased direct management of attacks, a senior German police intelligence officer told a trial court this week. She said the al-Qaeda leadership now mainly relied on video and internet proclamations to inspire Islamists in the western world to act on their own. In a comment at Security Watchtower, C.S. Scott says "I think the central problem for Europe is home-grown radicals, that for too long were allowed to preach their intolerance and hatred towards the west, from the comforting sanctuary of western freedoms."
* Italy's new prime minister declared Thursday that the war in Iraq was a "grave error" that risked igniting conflict in the entire Middle East region. He said Italy would stick with plans to bring home its 2,700 troops stationed there but gave no timetable for their return. Making his first policy address as head of government, Romano Prodi formally abandoned the unequivocal support that his predecessor, Silvio Berlusconi, gave to U.S. policy in Iraq.
* Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has said he would announce in June the beginning of direct talks with the armed Basque group ETA to end more than three decades of separatist violence. Zapatero told a meeting of the governing Socialist party in Barakaldo, in the northern Basque region, that he would inform national political parties of the start of negotiations, but did not give any dates.
* More than 230 foreigners identified by MI5 and Scotland Yard as suspected terrorists have been allowed to stay in Britain as asylum seekers. Home Office records show that nearly a quarter of the 963 people arrested in counter-terrorism operations in England and Wales since September 2001 have claimed refugee status, saying their human rights would be violated if they returned to countries such as Algeria, Iraq and Somalia.
* The government of Romania passed a draft law for the ratification of a Council of Europe convention to strengthen cooperation between European states for the fight against terrorism. The convention also covers some gaps in international law on terrorism. It includes three other offences among acts of terrorism: the distribution of public messages instigating to acts of terror, recruiting people for acts of terror, and providing instructions or material for terrorism offences.
* Britain's Secret Intelligence Service is bracing itself for a fresh series of security leaks about its operations on an internet blog launched by a former top-ranking MI6 officer. Richard Tomlinson who was jailed in 1998 for breaching the Official Secrets Act, has been quiet since fleeing to Russia in 2001 to publish a book about covert MI6 activities. He is back now and seems intent on taking revenge on the secret service which sacked him in 1995. Tomlinson, who claims he now lives in the South of France and works as a yacht broker, began the blog last month with a warning: "Let the game begin."
Africa
* J. Peter Pham has two columns worth reading at World Defense Review. The first is entitled Facing Reality in Somalia, and the second is entitled Militant Islamism's Shadow Rises Over Sub-Saharan Africa.
* Rival militias massed on the northern edge of Somalia's lawless capital Saturday, prompting hundreds to flee their homes amid fears that another surge of violence was imminent in this Horn of Africa country, witnesses said. Islamic militias and a rival alliance of secular warlords signed a cease-fire last week after more than 140 people were killed in just eight days, but tensions remained high. Somalian MP's want warlords involved in the fighting to be charged with war crimes, a list that includes Security Minister Mohamed Qanyare Afrah, Commerce Minister Muse Sudi Yalahow, Religious Affairs Minister Omar Mohamed Mohamud and Militia Disarmament Minister Bootan Isse Alim.
* The Algerian army is surrounding a group of 60 terrorists in Mdeyyeh state, 90 kilometers west of the capital, Algiers, a security source said Saturday. The source said in press remarks the army has been launching a military operation since late last week by tightening control on movement and supply of the terrorists.
* Howard LaFranchi explains why the U.S. restored ties with Libya, saying it "should be a lesson to Iran and North Korea. Give up your nuclear weapons programs just as Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi did, administration officials argue, and you too can reap the benefits of political and economic ties with the United States."
* U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is sending retired diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi to Khartoum this week to press Sudan’s government to allow U.N. military planners into Darfur.
* An independent western security expert for terrorists’ activities said the recent confrontations in Somali capital Mogadishu were organized by Al-Qaeda operatives to have settlement the in lawless and war-torn country (Somalia) on Saturday. In an interview with the London based Arabic news paper Alqudus Alarabiya, the official who asked not to be identified, said Al-Qaeda network conducts bigger operations in the horn of African nation and attempts to create new insurgents in Somalia.
* Eastern Chad is now home for over 250,000 refugees, most of them in camps run by the UN and associated NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations). About 20 percent of the refugees are Chadians, fleeing the increasing violence between Chadian security forces and various rebel factions.
The Global War
* Combined Endeavor 2006, a two-week operation to test and document the interoperability of vital communication systems for multinational forces, began last week in Lager Aulenbach, Germany. The U.S. European Command, in cooperation with the German Ministry of Defense, is sponsoring the communications and information systems interoperability exercise. Forty-one countries, including members of NATO and Partnership for Peace, are participating.
* The U.N. International Maritime Organisation (IMO) announced that major shipping nations had agreed to new rules to track ships by satellite to fight terrorism and prevent the transport of materials used in weapons of mass destruction.
* Classified military spending has reached its highest level since 1988, near the end of the Cold War, a new independent analysis has found. Classified, or 'black,' programs now appear to account for about $30.1 billion, or 19 percent, of the acquisition money the Defense Department is requesting for fiscal year 2007.
* Until recently, Ammar al-Baluchi was considered a peripheral player in Al Qaeda, a functionary who made travel arrangements and wired money for terrorists. But new government disclosures place Baluchi in a larger role in the Sept. 11 preparations and rank him No. 4 among the conspirators captured by U.S. forces after the 2001 terrorist attacks. Indeed, investigators say he was instrumental in acquiring a Boeing 747 flight simulator and a Boeing 767 flight-deck video for the hijackers to practice on before heading to the United States.
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Top Topics
* Afghan police hunted for Taleban insurgents on Friday after two of the country’s bloodiest days since the 2001 overthrow of the hardline Islamists. About 100 people were killed in violence that began on Wednesday. It included a large-scale attack on a town in the southern province of Helmand and two suicide blasts in different parts of the country. “We are hunting for them all over Mosa Qala district, to capture them or kill them,” said Helmand’s deputy governor, Amir Mohammad Akhundzada.
* One French and 16 Afghan soldiers were killed and about 40 other troops were wounded in two firefights in southern Afghanistan, coalition and Afghan officials said Sunday. In one battle in Helmand province, 13 Afghan soldiers were killed and 15 injured in an eight-hour firefight Saturday, said Gen. Zahir Azimi, the Defense Ministry spokesman. He said at least nine Taliban militants were killed in the battle in Sangin district. In a second firefight in the same district of Helmand on Saturday, one French and three Afghan soldiers were killed, the U.S.-led coalition said.
* Iran has apparently rejected a United Nations Security Council proposal prior to it even being formally offered. In exchange for Iran suspending enrichment of uranium, the UNSC would agree to move Iran's file back to the IAEA, but Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said that while Iran wants the council to end its involvement, "suspending nuclear activities goes against our legitimate rights and is not part of the NPT." The security council is set to meet in London on Wednesday to discuss the incentive package.
Other topics today include: New book on Ahmadinejad; Iran's nuclear pursuit; IJ leader killed in airstrike; IDF raids; Iran sets up fund to destroy Israel; assassination attempts in Gaza; Fatah-Hamas fighting; Qassam rockets fired on Israel; Kuwait frees former Gitmo detainees; Fatah burns al-Jazeera vehicles; Egyptian terrorist killed; Fight at Gitmo; bio-exercise at Pentagon; extremists in the U.S.; Chavez's delusions; bombing hits Columbian pipeline; Russian Navy in the Med; militants arrested in Nalchik; Tajik court sentences extremists; Senior ULFA leader arrested in west Bengal; Firefights in Kashmir; Tensions between Afghanistan-Pakistan; Fighting in southern Afghanistan; Pipelines bombed in Balochistan; Killings in Waziristan; and more.
Iran & the Middle East
* Iran continues to lobby for direct talks with the United States, with Kazem Jalali, spokesman for the Iranian national security and foreign affairs commission, saying that "some space must be opened so that we can talk to US public opinion, its thinkers and even lawmakers."
* A new book, “Ahmadinejad: the Third Millennium Miracle” by Fatemeh Rajabi, is set to hit the bookshelves in Iran and will express the author's view that the election victory of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a third millennium miracle on earth.
* According to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Iran is months not years away from being able to construct a nuclear weapon.
* Mohammed al-Dahdouh, a senior Islamic Jihad member involved in manufacturing weapons, was killed on Saturday along with his family when an Israeli UAV targeted their vehicle with an airstrike in the Gaza Strip.
* IDF soldiers launched raids in Judea and Samaria on Sunday night, arresting 4 suspected terrorists, including members of Hamas and Fatah Tanzim.
* A group of Iranian students spoke out at an event attended by a high-ranking member of the elite Revolutionary Guard and revealed that they were setting up a fund to destroy Israel. Despite the initiative's name ("The Student Fund for Demolishing Israel") organizers said their goal was to support the cash-strapped Palestinian government. Some 300 students attended the event hosted by a group calling itself the Movement of Justice-seeking Students at the University of Tehran.
* General Tareq Abu Rajab, Chief of the Palestinian intelligence services, was wounded in an assassination attempt on Saturday in Gaza, where politics come at the end of a gun.
* Palestinian terrorist fired two Qassam rockets from the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday, with one landing in the sea and the other landing in an open area south of Ashkelon. No injuries or damage was reported. The Israel Defense Forces responded with massive artillery fire into what it described as "launch areas" in Gaza. By Saturday night over 100 shells had been fired.
* A Kuwaiti court on Sunday cleared five Kuwaitis of charges of belonging to Al Qaeda and ordered the former inmates of the US’s Guantanamo Bay prison freed immediately, judicial sources said. They said the five, who returned to the Gulf Arab state in November, were also cleared of charges of fighting a friendly state, a reference to the United States.
* On Sunday, a large bomb was defused in Gaza city outside the home of Rashid Abu Shbak, the head of the Palestinian security services and an ally of Prime Minister Abbas. Fatah is pointing the finger at Hamas in response.
* Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is calling for an investigation into senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri, who was stopped by Palestinian border guards while trying to bring 600,000 Euros into Gaza.
* Reports indicate that Fatah members set fire to three vehicles belonging to al-Jazeera, in response to the Arabic media outlets failure to cover an anti-Hamas rally held a day earlier.
* Arafat Ali, an Egyptian wanted in connection with the bombing of tourist resorts on the Sina'i, killed himself on Friday when an explosive device he attempted to hurl at police exploded and killed him. It is reported he was second in command of Tawhid wal Jihad.
* Syria is being criticized by the European Union for a recent campaign against dissidents and human rights defenders, nine of which have been arrested in the past few days. According to reports, most of them had signed a petition calling for better relations with Lebanon.
* Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has pardoned Yehia Hussein al-Daylami, a Muslim preacher sentenced to death and also Mohamed Meftah, who was jailed for backing a rebel movement and spying for Iran. Recently Jamestown wrote about the large number of Islamic militants that have been released from prison and how that facilitates jihad.
* A Palestinian carrying a pipe bomb was arrested and detained west of Jenin on Saturday.
America Domestic Security & the Americas
* Prisoners wielding improvised weapons clashed with guards trying to stop a detainee from committing suicide at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the military said Friday. The fight occurred Thursday in a medium-security section of the camp as guards were responding to the fourth attempted suicide that day at the detention center on the U.S. Navy base, Cmdr. Robert Durand said.
* Little Green Footballs cites a Reuters story saying that an earlier report that Guantanamo guards were attacked by inmates while trying to stop a detainee from committing suicide was inaccurate. The guards were lured into a cell by a staged suicide attempt, then ambushed by the prisoners.
* A full-scale bio-exercise in the Pentagon parking lot tested how the Pentagon police, in partnership with local emergency services, would respond to a biological attack at the military headquarters. The Pentagon Force Protection Agency, Arlington County Fire Department, Red Cross, and other local and federal agencies participated in the exercise, dubbed "Gallant Fox 06," based on a scenario involving a suspected anthrax attack inside the Pentagon that triggered a sensor.
* Lawmakers railed against security gaps at the Homeland Security Department on Thursday, demanding to know why a man now charged with sex offenses had access to classified information and a convicted felon's limousine company was paid millions of dollars to chauffeur top officials.
* MEMRI reports Dr. Salah Sultan is president of the American Center for Islamic Research (ACIR), a non-profit organization registered in Ohio and located in Columbus, and says 9/11 planned by Americans, and praises the wanted Al-Qaeda-linked Yemenite Sheikh Al-Zindani.
* A Queens, N.Y. congressman won a legislative skirmish Thursday in his long-running battle with the government to reopen the top of the Statue of Liberty to the public. The statue, which sits on 12-acre Liberty Island in New York Harbor, was shut down in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks because of terrorism concerns.
* The Spirit of Man blog cites a notice on the International Trade Ministry of Canada web site saying "Effective immediately, we will limit our encounters with Iranian officials to the Kazemi case, Iran's human rights record and Iran's nuclear non-proliferation performance. No visits or exchanges by Iranian officials to Canada will be permitted, nor will Canadian officials engage with Iran, except relating to these issues. Canada will not block the initiatives of private Canadian companies to trade with their Iranian counterparts. However, we will continue to apply strict export controls on sensitive goods and we will continue to advise business people about the political environment to consider when doing business with Iran. Furthermore, any existing programs of cooperation between Canadian government agencies and their Iranian counterparts will be halted. This state of relations will persist until Iran has taken steps to launch a credible and independent investigation and judicial process into the Kazemi case. We have not decided to recall our Ambassador, nor to shut down Embassy services. We believe there continues to be a need for professional-level dialogue regarding the serious existing difficulties in our relationship."
* Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has for years predicted that a foreign army would attack the South American nation to snatch its vast oil reserves. A simulation conducted last week showed how it might happen. A naval landing craft made landfall on the shores of Western Falcon state carrying troops and over a dozen camouflaged tanks. The "invading" army then took over the massive Paraguana Refining Complex, a key asset of the world's No. 5 crude exporter.
* Left-wing guerrillas have bombed Colombia's Cano Limon-Covenas oil pipeline and halted its crude pumping operations in an attack just a days before presidential elections, the army said on Friday. The pipeline, the country's second most important, transports crude oil from Cano Limon fields operated by U.S. company Occidental Petroleum in Arauca province on the Venezuelan border to Covenas port on the Caribbean coast.
Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia
* Russian security forces raided a residence in the republic of Daghestan to seize Bulat Abdullayev, suspected of terror activity and of carrying out attacks against the local police.
* The Russian frigate Pitliviy began training with NATO forces in the Mediterranean on Friday, in preparation for Operation Active Endeavour, the alliance’s seaborne anti-terrorism mission.
* Three militants involved in an attack last October against the southern city of Nalchik have been arrested according to Russian officials.
* Russia wants major changes to agreements with the United States to boost sales of its nuclear materials, a source in the Russian nuclear industry said. Russian officials want changes to agreements that give U.S. uranium supplier USEC the right to buy uranium recovered from dismantled nuclear weapons and an end to U.S. anti-dumping duties on other uranium sales.
* The court of the city of Khudzhand, Tajikistan, has sentenced ten activists of the religious extremist party Khizb ut-Tahrir, to various prison sentences ranging from 9 to 16 years. All the ten defendants were heads of primary cells, each having from three to five members below them.
* Four men accused of staging a series of terrorist acts, including the assassination of Dagestani Nationalities and Foreign Relations Minister Zagir Arukhov in May 2005, were acquitted in a Russian courtroom, and set free.
* The bodies of 95 people killed in an attack in southern Russia last October will not be returned to their relatives because there was evidence that the dead people had committed crimes.
* Russia has finally decided to start production of the Su-34 fighter-bomber, but they're so strapped for cash that the first run will only be 24 aircraft. These are expected to enter service in 2010.
Afghanistan & Southern Asia
* Police in the Indian state of West Bengal say they have arrested a top separatist leader and three accomplices from the neighbouring state of Assam. West Bengal police said a special team arrested Mrinal Hazarika, a senior leader of the United Liberation Front of Assam (Ulfa), early on Thursday.
* Indian troops shot dead three suspected Islamic militants along the de facto border dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan, the army said. "The three were killed Thursday evening when they refused to surrender and opened fire after infiltrating into our territory," spokesman Colonel Vijay Kumar Batra told AFP on Friday.
* Islamic militants dressed as policemen hurled grenades and shot into a rally by the ruling Congress party in India's portion of
Kashmir on Sunday, killing five people and wounding at least 20 others, officials said. Two attackers were killed. The assault began as about 3,000 people assembled inside a park in Srinagar, the main city in Indian-controlled Kashmir, to observe the anniversary of the death of former Prime Minister Rajeev Gandhi, said local Congress party chief Pirzada Mohammed Sayeed.
* Bill Roggio comments here on the recent numerous attacks in Afghanistan. Roggio writes "It is important to understand how the fighting was initiated, as the current reporting is giving the impression of a coordinated Taliban uprising."
* The Taliban consider themselves in "a war" with British troops in Afghanistan, a spokesman for the deposed regime told The Times newspaper. Taliban militants vowed earlier this year to unleash a wave of suicide bombings across Afghanistan as part of a stepped-up campaign against the government and its foreign allies.
* Pakistan rejected Afghan president Hamid Karzai's allegations that it was training and infiltrating militants for violence in Afghanistan. Karzai blamed Pakistan on Thursday after two days of bloody clashes in his country left around 100 people dead, including scores of militants, 13 policemen and a female Canadian soldier.
* A senior member of an Islamic organisation linked to Al-Qaeda is funding his activities through the kidnapping of Christian children who are sold into slavery in Pakistan. The Sunday Times has established that Gul Khan, a wealthy militant who uses the base of Jamaat-ud Daawa (JUD) near Lahore, is behind a cruel trade in boys aged six to 12.
* It's not so much meeting the Taliban that worries M. Nawab Momand, a correspondent for Tolo TV, Afghanistan's top television channel. "For us, the problem from the Taliban side is not the major problem," he says. "It's a problem actually that we get pressure from the government." Tolo TV finds Afghanistan's hot buttons - and pushes them.
* A top Taleban leader, Mullah Dadullah, has been captured in Afghanistan. The senior military commander was said to have been detained by international troops in southern Kandahar province. The Taleban deny Mullah Dadullah has been captured. There has been no official confirmation of the arrest from the Afghan government or US military.
* An American counternarcotics official was killed and two other Americans were wounded in a suicide bombing on Thursday in western Afghanistan, while heavy fighting between forces suspected of being Taliban insurgents and the Afghan police continued in two southern provinces, officials said.
* One US soldier has been killed and six others wounded in a gun battle between US-led coalition forces and insurgents in southern Afghanistan. The fighting broke out during a joint operation between US and Afghan troops in Uruzgan province, the US military said in a statement. It said the six wounded soldiers were evacuated to a nearby medical facility.
* Two French soldiers were killed and a third was wounded in fighting with suspected Taliban militants in southern Afghanistan, the defence ministry said here. The deaths had occurred during an "engagement against the Taliban in the region of Kandahar," a communique said Saturday.
* Militants hiding in a vineyard and armed with machine guns ambushed an Afghan army convoy Saturday, shooting dead four soldiers but losing 15 of their own. It erupted again Friday with six militants, an Afghan soldier and a civilian killed in Helmand province. Hours later in the same area, insurgents crouching among fields of grapevines and wheat opened fire on a half-mile long convoy of Afghan army trucks as they snaked their way slowly along a dirt road with reinforcements, he said. The two sides exchanged fire with machine-guns and AK-47 assault rifles for six hours before the insurgents fled on foot and motorbikes, the general said.
* About 50 Afghan soldiers were isolated in Taleban-held territory Saturday after coming under attack in southern Afghanistan, a military commander said, fearing heavy casualties.
* A car bomb exploded on a busy road in the Afghan capital Sunday, killing the driver of the car and two civilians, officials said. The attack occurred on a road that links several bases belonging to the U.S.-led coalition and a separate NATO-led peacekeeping force, said local deputy police chief Maj. Pashtun Khan.
* Afghanistan is on the brink of becoming a narco-state with drug cartels now posing a greater threat to the country's future than Taliban insurgents, NATO's top military commander in Europe said on Saturday. Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium, the raw material for heroin. The narcotics trade accounts for about a third of its economy.
* Here are the daily updates from the South Asia Terrorism Portal for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
* Here is a roundup of events in Balochistan over the past couple of weeks.
* Suspected tribal militants blew up two state-owned gas Pipelines on Friday in insurgency-wracked southwestern Pakistan, disrupting supplies but causing no casualties, a company official said. No one claimed responsibility for the separate pre-dawn attacks in Sui, 350 kilometers (210 miles) east of Quetta, in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province.
* In Balochistan, a Frontier Corps soldier was killed when a mine exploded in Kohlu on Thursday. Ansar Ahmad was seriously injured by the blast and died at the hospital. Later, suspected tribal militants fired rockets on FC checkpoints in Chashma and Sangseela. No casualty was reported.
* Suspected insurgents killed a senior pro-government tribal elder and dumped his body on a road in Pakistan's restive tribal region near the Afghan border, officials said. Totti Gul, a leading supporter of Pakistan's anti-Al-Qaeda campaign in the tribal district of North Waziristan, was dragged out of his car by unknown men and later shot dead, a tribal security official said.
* A suspected militant has killed two Pakistani soldiers by hurling a grenade at a paramilitary post in a tribal region near the Afghan border, before being shot dead, officials said. The lone assailant tried to flee after lobbying the grenade at the checkpost in Mir Ali town in North Waziristan tribal district, but was shot and killed, a local security official said Saturday.
* Prosecutors have called for the death penalty for two militant leaders accused of waging a bloody campaign to impose Islamic law in Bangladesh, officials said. Shaikh Abdur Rahman, leader of the outlawed Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), and his second-in-command, Siddiqul Islam, are being tried for the murder of two judges last November.
* A visiting American official has urged the Bangladesh government to frame and enact an effective anti-money laundering law and take steps to curb financial crimes as part of the Bush administration's global drive against terrorism. Patrick M. O'Brien, assistant secretary for terrorist financing at the US Treasury Department, recommended the actions at a number of meetings with the central bank governor and high officials of the home and foreign ministries during his two-day official visit.
* Government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels traded artillery fire across a de facto front line in the island's north, military officials said. There were no immediate reports of casualties on either side after a 30-minute exchange of fire at Muhamalai in the Jaffna peninsula, but the main entry and exit points in the area were briefly shut, officials said on Saturday. In a similar clash elsewhere in the island's north Friday, two government soldiers were killed, the military said.
* Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels have warned that an imminent European ban on them could scuttle future peace negotiations as two soldiers were killed in mine attacks. London-based Anton Balasingham said his Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) would retreat from a peace process with the government if they are listed by the 25-member
European Union (EU) as a terrorist group.
Far East & Southeast Asia
* A Muslim man was shot dead by Islamic militants in Narathiwat province in southern Thailand, while villagers there took 11 teachers hostage to demand the release of suspected insurgents.
* According to the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan may begin withdrawing some of their non-combat troops from Iraq next month. There are currently 600 deployed to the southern Iraqi city of Samawa.
* On Friday, the Japanese media reported that North Korea may be preparing to test fire a long-range ballistic missile capable of striking parts of the United States.
* Malaysia pledged $16 million on Sunday in humanitarian aid and budget support to the Palestinian Authority to compensate for the loss of US and European assistance. But in practice the Malaysian pledge, like previous contributions from Arab states, will not reach the Palestinians until the United States lifts the threat of sanctions against banks which transfer the funds to the West Bank or Gaza.
Europe
* A terrorist plot to blow up an El Al jet at Geneva airport with an RPG (rocket propelled grenade) in December was uncovered by the Swiss and French intelligence agencies, details released for publication on Friday revealed. The Yedioth Aharonot newspaper reported that a secret agent working undercover amongst an Islamic terror cell in the city discovered the plan after three immigrants of Arabic origin boasted of their attempts to smuggle weapons from Russia with the ultimate goal of shooting down an Israeli plane at the airport.
* Al-Qaeda's hierarchy in western Europe has vanished and the terrorist network's leadership has largely ceased direct management of attacks, a senior German police intelligence officer told a trial court this week. She said the al-Qaeda leadership now mainly relied on video and internet proclamations to inspire Islamists in the western world to act on their own. In a comment at Security Watchtower, C.S. Scott says "I think the central problem for Europe is home-grown radicals, that for too long were allowed to preach their intolerance and hatred towards the west, from the comforting sanctuary of western freedoms."
* Italy's new prime minister declared Thursday that the war in Iraq was a "grave error" that risked igniting conflict in the entire Middle East region. He said Italy would stick with plans to bring home its 2,700 troops stationed there but gave no timetable for their return. Making his first policy address as head of government, Romano Prodi formally abandoned the unequivocal support that his predecessor, Silvio Berlusconi, gave to U.S. policy in Iraq.
* Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has said he would announce in June the beginning of direct talks with the armed Basque group ETA to end more than three decades of separatist violence. Zapatero told a meeting of the governing Socialist party in Barakaldo, in the northern Basque region, that he would inform national political parties of the start of negotiations, but did not give any dates.
* More than 230 foreigners identified by MI5 and Scotland Yard as suspected terrorists have been allowed to stay in Britain as asylum seekers. Home Office records show that nearly a quarter of the 963 people arrested in counter-terrorism operations in England and Wales since September 2001 have claimed refugee status, saying their human rights would be violated if they returned to countries such as Algeria, Iraq and Somalia.
* The government of Romania passed a draft law for the ratification of a Council of Europe convention to strengthen cooperation between European states for the fight against terrorism. The convention also covers some gaps in international law on terrorism. It includes three other offences among acts of terrorism: the distribution of public messages instigating to acts of terror, recruiting people for acts of terror, and providing instructions or material for terrorism offences.
* Britain's Secret Intelligence Service is bracing itself for a fresh series of security leaks about its operations on an internet blog launched by a former top-ranking MI6 officer. Richard Tomlinson who was jailed in 1998 for breaching the Official Secrets Act, has been quiet since fleeing to Russia in 2001 to publish a book about covert MI6 activities. He is back now and seems intent on taking revenge on the secret service which sacked him in 1995. Tomlinson, who claims he now lives in the South of France and works as a yacht broker, began the blog last month with a warning: "Let the game begin."
Africa
* J. Peter Pham has two columns worth reading at World Defense Review. The first is entitled Facing Reality in Somalia, and the second is entitled Militant Islamism's Shadow Rises Over Sub-Saharan Africa.
* Rival militias massed on the northern edge of Somalia's lawless capital Saturday, prompting hundreds to flee their homes amid fears that another surge of violence was imminent in this Horn of Africa country, witnesses said. Islamic militias and a rival alliance of secular warlords signed a cease-fire last week after more than 140 people were killed in just eight days, but tensions remained high. Somalian MP's want warlords involved in the fighting to be charged with war crimes, a list that includes Security Minister Mohamed Qanyare Afrah, Commerce Minister Muse Sudi Yalahow, Religious Affairs Minister Omar Mohamed Mohamud and Militia Disarmament Minister Bootan Isse Alim.
* The Algerian army is surrounding a group of 60 terrorists in Mdeyyeh state, 90 kilometers west of the capital, Algiers, a security source said Saturday. The source said in press remarks the army has been launching a military operation since late last week by tightening control on movement and supply of the terrorists.
* Howard LaFranchi explains why the U.S. restored ties with Libya, saying it "should be a lesson to Iran and North Korea. Give up your nuclear weapons programs just as Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi did, administration officials argue, and you too can reap the benefits of political and economic ties with the United States."
* U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is sending retired diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi to Khartoum this week to press Sudan’s government to allow U.N. military planners into Darfur.
* An independent western security expert for terrorists’ activities said the recent confrontations in Somali capital Mogadishu were organized by Al-Qaeda operatives to have settlement the in lawless and war-torn country (Somalia) on Saturday. In an interview with the London based Arabic news paper Alqudus Alarabiya, the official who asked not to be identified, said Al-Qaeda network conducts bigger operations in the horn of African nation and attempts to create new insurgents in Somalia.
* Eastern Chad is now home for over 250,000 refugees, most of them in camps run by the UN and associated NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations). About 20 percent of the refugees are Chadians, fleeing the increasing violence between Chadian security forces and various rebel factions.
The Global War
* Combined Endeavor 2006, a two-week operation to test and document the interoperability of vital communication systems for multinational forces, began last week in Lager Aulenbach, Germany. The U.S. European Command, in cooperation with the German Ministry of Defense, is sponsoring the communications and information systems interoperability exercise. Forty-one countries, including members of NATO and Partnership for Peace, are participating.
* The U.N. International Maritime Organisation (IMO) announced that major shipping nations had agreed to new rules to track ships by satellite to fight terrorism and prevent the transport of materials used in weapons of mass destruction.
* Classified military spending has reached its highest level since 1988, near the end of the Cold War, a new independent analysis has found. Classified, or 'black,' programs now appear to account for about $30.1 billion, or 19 percent, of the acquisition money the Defense Department is requesting for fiscal year 2007.
* Until recently, Ammar al-Baluchi was considered a peripheral player in Al Qaeda, a functionary who made travel arrangements and wired money for terrorists. But new government disclosures place Baluchi in a larger role in the Sept. 11 preparations and rank him No. 4 among the conspirators captured by U.S. forces after the 2001 terrorist attacks. Indeed, investigators say he was instrumental in acquiring a Boeing 747 flight simulator and a Boeing 767 flight-deck video for the hijackers to practice on before heading to the United States.
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