[CNN]

A civilian translator who worked with the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was arrested Tuesday after immigration officials at Boston's Logan Airport found what are alleged to be classified materials in his possession, U.S. officials confirm.

The FBI was called to make the arrest after U.S. immigration officials found a man identified as Ahmed Melhalba carrying CD-ROMs and paper documents allegedly related to the detainees.

Full story...

From The Australian :

A US soldier was killed and two others wounded in a clash with suspected Taliban rebels in southeastern Afghanistan, the American military said today.

The clash occurred yesterday near a coalition base at Shkin, in Paktika province, just a few miles from the Pakistan border, spokesman Col Rodney Davis said from Bagram Air Base, the US military headquarters in Afghanistan.

"One coalition service member died of wounds received in combat and two others were wounded as a result of fighting on Monday near Shkin," Col Davis said in a statement. "Coalition forces killed two enemy fighters with direct small arms fire."

Welcome! Our goal 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. In addition, we also have our in-depth Iraq Report.

TOP TOPICS

• The Valerie Plame Affair is disturbing - even if her husband is a bit of a nincompoop, there's no justification for blowing a CIA agent's cover like that. As expected, Instapundit has a fine roundup.

• Stefan Sharkansky, who translated & published Die Zeit's "Arafat Bombs, Europe Pays" expose, reveals an interesting anecdote from Abu Mazen that points to premeditated, deliberate support of the EU for Arafat's terrorism. If this is true, then the terror attacks on Israel are effectively E.U. policy.

• Fierce Highway: "Pape's work shows, convincingly to me... suicide terrorism is a successful tool. Groups are learning that it does work..." Our present approach of rewarding it is certainly doing a great deal to encourage that belief - and not just among Islamists.

Other Topics Today Include: Musharraf says he has info. that Bin Laden is alive; More on Iran's bomb project; How bloggers can make a difference in Iran; DARPA cuts I like; Guantanamo treason update; A Israeli's journey through The Gate of Tears; Why Ausralia stands with the USA; Malaria; Reports re: The Philippines, Algeria, Uzbekistan, Indonesia; More on the Saudi-ISI-Islamist triangle; Musharraf answers back; Support for terror about to bite France back; Happy Meal confessions at Camp X-Ray.

read the rest! »
 

Columbia professor and terror apologist Edward Said is dead of leukemia. He was 67. *Tap, tap, tap.* Nope. sympathy meter still seems to be busted.

As an aside, MuslimPundit's article "When Ibn Warraq Met Edward Said" remains one of my favourite articles over at Winds of Change.NET.

More here...

And some people have been without power now for 5 days... it's a Quagmire!

From The Australian :

Four incendiary devices were found inside a water-bottling plant's pumping station. A radical environmental group claimed responsibility.

Plastic bottles containing a flammable liquid were discovered on Monday by Ice Mountain Spring Water Co. workers.

No one was hurt removing the bottles, and water monitored at the plant showed no signs of tampering.

Company spokeswoman Deb Wudyka said Wednesday the liquid apparently was meant to start a fire rather than cause an explosion.

The Earth Liberation Front claimed responsibility, accusing Ice Mountain of stealing well water for profit.

[...]

ELF has claimed responsibility for many arson fires at housing construction sites in the West and Midwest.

"Clean water is one of the most fundamental necessities and no one can be allowed to privatise it, commodify it, and try and sell it back to us," the group said in a statement.

From The Australian :

Australia believes action should be taken against rogue states when multilateral diplomacy fails, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told the United Nations today.

In a speech to the UN in New York, Mr Downer said diplomacy and multilateral processes were only useful if they achieved an effective end.

[...]

Mr Downer said collectivity should not serve as a mantra that is an obstacle to effective action.

"Sometimes the most effective means of preserving security and indeed international law occur alongside the traditional mechanisms of multilateral diplomacy," Mr Downer said.

"Australia is a strong supporter of multilateral institutions and processes but only insofar as they are a means to an effective end.

"The major global disarmament and non-proliferation treaties remain critical to setting norms of international order, but ultimately those instruments must be enforced."

Mr Downer defended Australia's involvement in the war against Iraq and in exercises with the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI).

The PSI could lead to the interception of boats from North Korea suspected of smuggling weapons of mass destruction and other contraband.

"States are not merely entitled but obliged to take action to uphold those norms, especially when the transfer of WMD outside internationally agreed frameworks is involved," Mr Downer said.

"The conviction that states must uphold international norms, particularly in relation to WMD, led Australia to join the coalition to disarm Iraq in the same way we have recently joined with others in the Proliferation Security Initiative."

More home truths were later spoken by Australian PM John Howard, as detailed in my blog.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

A group of 27 pilots in the Israeli Air Force are refusing to take part in operations against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The pilots, including those on active reserve duty and several retired pilots, wrote to Air Force Chief Major-General Dan Halutz conveying their objections.

The letter, reported by several Israeli media outlets, said the pilots were opposed to carrying out illegal and immoral attack orders of the type carried out by Israel in the territories.

Referring to the policy of targeted killings of Palestinian militants, the letter went on to declare the pilots refusal to take part in attacks in civilian population centres.

Scores of Palestinians have been killed in such attacks.

Somehow I don't see any members of Hammas signing a letter objecting to suicide bombings of toddlers... I may think the Israelis concerned are wrong, but I admire the moral courage they're showing in standing up for their principles, however woolly-headed. I hope their superiors show the same moral fortitude and deal with them gently.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Two Palestinians, one a member of the military wing of Hamas, were killed when an Israeli column stormed into the al-Bureij refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip overnight.

Palestinian security sources have also reported that Israeli troops killed two members of the militant group Islamic Jihad in an attack on a house in the West Bank town of Hebron.

Radio reports stated that both raids attempted to arrest suspects, but were fired upon, and gunbattles ensued. In addition to the <sarcasm>"martyrs"</sarcasm>, one Islamic Jihadi was wounded and captured, but the main quarry eluded the Israelis.

Welcome! Our goal 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. Today's "Winds of War" and Iraq Report are brought to you by Dan Darling of Regnum Crucis.

TOP TOPICS

• Two interesting anecdotes to the Guantanamo espionage case. The first is that at least two al-Qaeda leaders, Abderrazak and Mullah Fuad, were in Damascus sometime in March, so Yee could have met with them. Another point is that the story on al-Halabi mentions that a possible destination for the material he gathered was Qatar. The Qatari Interior Minister, Abdullah bin Khalid al-Thani, is known ally of al-Qaeda and has been for nearly half a decade.

• El-Al 2, al-Qaeda 0. Thai authorities have thwarted a plot to either shoot down or blow up an Israeli airliner in Bangkok. This can be seen as a potential follow-up to the Mombasa bombing in November 2002 and fits with al-Qaeda's modus operandi of recycling failed plots to be used later.

• The brother of al-Qaeda leader Hanbali has been arrested in Pakistan with 16 associates. They are all suspected of membership in Jemaah Islamiyyah, al-Qaeda's Southeast Asian arm.

Other Topics Today Include: Iran Reports; more intrigue at Guantanamo Bay; al-Qaeda in desperation in the US; the terror network's spinal problems; Hanbali's successor; an arrest warrant for the Sahara kidnapper; more fighting in Algeria; Taliban bases in Pakistan; MMA ranting in Baluchistan; Saudi foot-dragging on terror financiers, Mullah Omar's latest war council; Afghan women learning to defend themselves; the Venezuelan recall; Chechens targeting schoolchildren; US bases in Africa; and a smuggler with snakes in his pants!

Read the rest of Dan's Winds of War Briefing... »

Read Dan's Iraq Report »

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

Saudi security forces killed three suspected militants, including an al-Qaeda-linked man wanted by US officials for possible terror threats against the United States, in an apartment-building shootout, the Interior Ministry said.

One security official was also killed in the hours long gunfight at the three-storey residential building in Jizan, 960 kilometres south of the Saudi capital, Riyadh, the ministry said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.

Two suspected militants also were arrested.

The agency said one of the Saudi men killed was Sultan Jubran Sultan al-Qahtani, also known as Zubayr al-Rimi, 29. FBI officials in Washington have linked the Saudi native to possible terror threats against the United States, and he also appears on a Saudi list of militants connected to May 12 suicide bombings in Riyadh that killed 25 people and nine attackers, according to a Saudi Interior Ministry official.

A US official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, described al-Rimi as the chief deputy of the former top al-Qaeda man in Saudi Arabia. That man, Abu Bakr al-Azdi, surrendered to Saudi authorities on June 26.

The early-morning raid was intended to capture militants planning a terror attack, according to an official statement on Saudi state television.

Winds of Change.NET Regional Briefings run on Tuesdays & Wednesdays, and sometimes Fridays too. This Regional Briefing focuses on Central Asia's "-stan" countries, including Afghanistan, courtesy of Nathan Hamm of The Argus.

TOP TOPIC

* India's former ambassador to Uzbekistan presents a clear picture of the shadowy great power competition in Central Asia. These competing influences has led to little multilateral policy coordination, leaving none of the three powers dominant in the area. As a result, Central Asia's governments have been able to pick and choose benefits without firmly committing themselves to a particular camp.

Other Topics Today Include: Al-Qaeda's 2,000 men & plans for Central Asia; Confessions of a terrorist; China and Russia's Great Game moves; The Taliban's changing tactics; America's "new" plan for Afghanistan is more of the same, literally; Attacks on human rights activists rise in Uzbekistan; India-Israel cooperation leaves Pakistan in the cold; Azeri election; Missionaries are buying converts and drawing ire; and a look at the state of education in the region.

read the rest! »

[CNN]

-- An Air Force enlisted man who was a translator at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been charged with espionage and aiding the enemy, Pentagon officials told CNN on Tuesday.

Officials said Senior Airman Ahmad al Halabi was arrested July 23 because he allegedly had classified information about suspected al Qaeda detainees and facilities at the Guantanamo Bay base on his laptop computer.

He is being held at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Al Halabi was charged with 11 counts of failing to obey a lawful general order or regulation, three counts of aiding the enemy, four counts of espionage, nine counts of making a false statement and five counts that include violations of the Federal Espionage Act.

Full story...

...even as the hunt for escaped JI terrorist Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi continues. From Channel News Asia:

The Philippines government remains optimistic that a peace settlement with the secessionist Moro Islamic Liberation Front will be signed in the coming weeks.

President Gloria Arroyo is also set to hold one-on-one talks in New York with Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, particularly on Malaysia's offer to host the resumption of peace negotiations.

Welcome! Our goal 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. Today's "Winds of War" is brought to you by Andrew Olmsted, and is split into an Iraq Report and this briefing on the Wider War.

TOP TOPICS

• Winning the war against the Islamofascists is still a long-term project; The Braden Files reposts a Stratfor article by Dr. George Friedman that examines al Qaeda's goals and strategy 2 years later, and notes what the United States needs to do next to keep the pressure on.

• A Muslim Chaplain assigned to Guantanamo has been charged with: sedition, aiding the enemy & espionage. Further details here.

• Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has apparently told U.S. interrogators that the scope of the 9/11 plot was originally far larger, involving ten planes taking off from both coasts. While the first instinct on hearing this is to thank our lucky stars they scaled the attack back, one wonders how much of this is true and how much is bravado.

Other Topics Today Include: The EU, Russia & Iran's bomb; Too late to stop a nuclear Iran?; China's NK dilemma; Japan backing away from no-nukes tradition; The Taliban on the rise again in Afghanistan; Afghan battle reports; Syrian WMD; Is Israel preparing to ramp up the war; Israelis happy, despite all; No, Geitner - I AM your father....

read the rest! »

From The Australian :

A Muslim chaplain for the US Army who worked with suspected al-Qaeda militants in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been arrested in the United States on suspicion of espionage, US government officials said.

Southern Command spokesman Captain Thomas Crosson identified the man as Captain James Yee, a West Point graduate, who has been in military custody since September 10.

"There is an ongoing investigation, and no charges have been filed against Captain Yee," he pointed out.

Crosson declined to comment on the reasons behind Yee's arrest, which had occurred as the chaplain stepped off a plane that had arrived from Guantanamo at Jacksonville Naval Air Station in Florida.

But another US government official, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity, said the main suspicion was espionage.

Radio reports (sorry no link) stated that Captain Yee had been caught with material he should not have had access to: A map of Guantanamo bay, lists of prisoners and their locations, and their interrogators.

From USA Today :

The New York Times reported Yee had sketches or diagrams of the prison facilities. CNN said he was also carrying lists of the detainees and their interrogators.

Given the fact that he was the prisoners' Chaplain, if this is true his possession of this material does not seem unreasonable on the face of it. There is the possibility that this may be a reasonable misunderstanding.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

"Customs officials became suspicious when he went through the customs process. He was stopped and then the customs officers called in the military authorities to hold Yee."

Wait for more details: he may be a traitor, or he may be just a Chaplain doing what an Army Chaplain is supposed to do. Expect much uninformed speculation on what may be a major counter-espionage coup, or just a common-or-garden SNAFU.

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

US warplanes working in support of Afghan ground forces pummeled Taliban positions in southern Afghanistan, killing at least 11 rebels in three days of fighting, the military said in a statement.

The fighting in the mountains of Kandahar and Zabul provinces has been going on since the end of August, and more than 100 suspected Taliban have been killed, according to US and Afghan officials. Four American soldiers have died during fighting in Afghanistan in recent weeks.

The fighting in Zabul and Kandahar is part of an operation dubbed "Mountain Viper" that has been going on for more than two weeks.

"Operation Mountain Viper continues to destroy the Taliban's ability to operate in the southern region of Afghanistan," the military said from Bagram Air Base, north of the capital Kabul.

The US military says it is inflicting heavy casualties on the rebels, but the ability of the militia to mount such stiff resistance over a sustained period has led to fears of a mounting security threat in Afghanistan, two years after the Taliban were ousted in a US-led bombing campaign.

Over the weekend, Taliban militants in eastern Paktia province began threatening residents that they would cut the nose of any Afghan caught listening to music, and any man who shaves his beard.

[...]

Last week, four Afghans working for a Danish charity were tied up and shot to death along the side of a road by suspected Taliban after having been warned several times to stop working with foreigners.

From The Australian :

Indonesian police arrested three terror plot suspects today and seized boxes of ammunition and explosives, a police spokesman said.

National police spokesman Zainuri Lubis told reporters police seized three boxes of bullets, two boxes of TNT and one kilogram of sulphur from the trio arrested in the town of Solo, Central Java.

They were identified as Fadli, Wagino and Sumarno.

Lubis said Fadli was tasked with preparing explosive materials and acted as a courier, but he did not elaborate on the target of the alleged plotters.

The latest bust follows the arrest of 15 people suspected in possible terror plots against national and Jakarta metro police headquarters.

They are also accused of giving refuge to suspects in last October's Bali bombings and the JW Marriott hotel blast in Jakarta on August 5.

About 100 hardline Muslims protested the recent arrests outside national police headquarters today, the Detikcom online news service reported, waving signs that read "Stop kidnapping" and "Mosque activists are not terrorists."

Pakistan, like every nation on the planet except Iraq, formally condemned the September 11 attacks. Nevertheless, as the people of America soon learned, the military junta led by General Musharraf was not the only face of Pakistani politics. In this follow up to our initial post covering Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Bin Laden, Dan Darling takes us back to the early months of the War on Terror, and the roles played by various Pakistani factions.

Evaluating an Ally: Pakistan and the War on Terror, Part 1

On September 15 of 2001 we first stared that other face of Pakistan in the eye when the "moderate" Maulawi (Islamic scholar) Gul Rahman called for holy war if the US retaliated against Osama bin Laden. Shortly thereafter, we learned that the maulawi's views were hardly fringe. They were shared by many members of the nation's feared and powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which might be better referred to by its Urdu nickname that roughly translates as "the invisible government."

read the rest! »
 
 

The blogosphere has been on the Saudis' case for a long time now over their role in al-Qaeda and beyond. Now doubts about the Saudis are going mainstream, and similar doubts are growing about Pakistan and the role of its ISI intelligence service. They too have been on the blogosphere's hit list for quite some time now, but a combination of recent events and the work of a French anti-Idiotarian intellectual are beginning to bring their role into mainstream consciousness as well.

Dan Darling & I are currently engaged in a research project into "The Saudi-Pakistani-Bin Laden Triangle," and we'll be drawing together sources and analysis to paint a more complete picture for our readers. In the meantime, we thought it might be a useful service to hand our readers some advance sources and reading materials...

read the rest! »
 
 

A truck bomb outside a government building ... read the details at ABC (US).

Welcome! Our goal 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. The briefing is being split today. One feature will deal with Iraq, while this feature handles The Wider War.

TOP TOPICS

• Fouad Ajami's Foreign Policy Magazine article on Anti-Americanism as a global phenomenon is also much-discussed these days. One of his more interesting points: the USA did not 'squander the world's sympathy' post-9/11 - in many places, it's clear they never had it. For my money, British writer Ian Buruma did an even better job in in "Wielding the Moral Club."

• * Mark Helprin, via OTB: "America has approached the war on terrorism as if from two dreamworlds.... And in between these dreamworlds of paralysis and incompetence lies the seam, in French military terminology la soudure, through which al-Qaeda, uninterested in our parochialisms, will make its next attack." Thought-provoking.

• The full Den Beste on the U.S. State Department, including Gingrich's "Rogue State Department" article and what could/should be done to reform it. SDB's central criticism, and a valid one: "overall the basic culture and values in State don't seem to match those of the voters of this nation. State seems to be trying to "do the right thing" in spite of us, rather than taking their cue on what the right thing is from us." This story snaps that tendency into clear focus as well as anything I've ever seen.

Other Topics Today Include: Russia backs IAEA resolution; Covering up Iranian terror in Europe; Iran prepares for U.S. invasion; CIA & FBI's cultures of caution; Civil rights; The Falling Man; Canadian border still a threat; 150,000 Chinese troops to Korean border; Al-Jazeera & al-Qaeda; One human tragedy; Exiling Arafat; Creeping islamization in Bangladesh, Malaysia; Wahhabism in the public eye; Charles Taylor's Saddam strategy in Liberia?; Dennis Miller.

read the rest! »
 
 

Let’s see … how does that go? The friend of my enemy … or the enemy of my friend … whatever. The point is that US intelligence has released a report suggesting that Pakistan helped Al Qaeda members launch their operations in Afghanistan in the 1990s.

There are several stories on the report, but of additional interest is the variety in it’s reporting. Compare these two headlines and leads …

From the Hindustan Times:

US report brings out Pak complicity in propping up Al-Qaeda: It’s more or less official now. Declassified portions of US intelligence documents bring out what has always been known: Pakistan’s complicity in propping up not only the Taliban, but also Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Islamabad, it is now revealed, had directed the Taliban to facilitate Al-Qaeda’s expansion.

From ABC News (Australia):

Pakistan rejects report it assisted Al Qaeda in Afghanistan: Pakistan has dismissed as baseless a United States intelligence report claiming it helped Al Qaeda members launch their operations in Afghanistan in the 1990s.

At least we’ve established there’s no media bias (to the Left or Right) …

A videotape showing one of the Sept. 11 hijackers encouraging Arabs to fight against Americans was released by the satellite television channel Al-Jazeera Friday.

Saeed Alghamdi, one of the four hijackers onboard United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pa., killing 40 people, is shown reading his will and making threats against America on the videotape, which was recorded at some point before Sept.11, 2001.

“The Mujahideen will carry out more attacks against the United States,” Alghamdi, a Saudi Arabian citizen, said on the tape.

Alghamdi is shown in the desert firing a machine gun and operating a rocket launcher. “The safety of the American is by leaving the Muslim countries,” he said on the tape.

U.S. intelligence officials told Fox News the tape's release is "underwhelming" because they say these type of last will and testament videos have been aired before.

More from Fox News...

A summary about the progress of GWOT since 9/11 on the South East Asian front from the Straits Times:

...while terrorism in South-east Asia has suffered certain setbacks over the past two years, it remains a threat. Terrorists are unlikely to be able to overthrow or endanger the survival of any government, but they have the capacity to inflict serious economic harm by damaging investor sentiment and the tourism industry.

In general, socio-economic and institutional weaknesses in many parts of this region remain causes for concern, but their impact should not be exaggerated. Socio-economic distress and institutional shortcomings are often not causes of terrorism, but provide terrorists and radicals with exploitable issues.

Radical Islam in South-east Asia is an import from abroad. It still has little influence in the mainstream of South-east Asian societies. Without the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan and the essentially Arab-based Al-Qaeda, there would be no JI of the kind we know in South-east Asia.

What happens to Al-Qaeda on the global stage and what happens to Islam in countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran will have an important bearing. Needless to say, so will the eventual outcome of the struggle now shaping up in Iraq, which is drawing radical groups from neighbouring countries, and its impact on US global policies and posture.

The 19 hijackers of the September 11 attacks are dead, along with the 3,000 innocent people they murdered on that fateful day. While the FBI believes that the hijackers did not act with the support of a vast conspiracy inside the United States (thereby providing support to Joe Katzman's contention that al-Qaeda is weak in the continental USA), we know that they did not act alone.

After 9/11, President Bush vowed that whether we bring our enemies to justice or justice to our enemies that justice would be done. In this analysis, I take a look at the key enablers and co-conspirators for September 11. Where are they now, after 2 years of the War on Terror?

Dan Darling does some excellent research, and answers those questions....

read the rest! »
 

So ... is it him? From the New York Times:

Osama bin Laden and his chief lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri, appeared in a videotape broadcast today by an Arab satellite television channel, and in an accompanying audiotape Dr. Zawahiri exhorted Iraqi resistance fighters to "bury" American troops in Iraq.

The tapes were broadcast by Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based channel, which said the video images were recorded in late April or early May. There was no information about how the tapes had been made, who had made them or how the channel had obtained them. The videotape showed Mr. bin Laden and Dr. Zawahiri, dressed in Afghan clothing, leisurely walking along steep and rocky trails. At one point, Mr. bin Laden was shown carrying an AK-47 assault rifle.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States refused to let five foreign pilots fly into U.S. airspace after security checks showed they could pose a risk to the country, a senior Homeland Security official said on Tuesday.

Asa Hutchinson, undersecretary for border and transportation security, said the department had recently expanded the scope of its checks on 6,000 foreign pilots who are required to pass security clearances before being allowed to fly into the country.

"We have directed additional checks through the FBI's Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force and other agencies. As a result...we did have five foreign pilots that were denied permission to enter U.S. airspace because of security concerns," Hutchinson told reporters.

He did not identify the nationalities of the five pilots or whether they worked for commercial airlines or were flying private planes.

More from Reuters...

In a first official comment since the story was first published a week ago, Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya'alon expressed concern regarding the deployment of F-15 fighter-bombers in the Tabuq airfield in northern Saudi Arabia.

"We have found out from an al-Qaida detainee interrogated - not by Israelis - that al-Qaida sought to recruit a Saudi pilot, either a Saudi air force pilot or a civilian pilot, for a 9/11-type attack against Israel from Tabuq," Ya'alon said. "So we are concerned about it and demand it [the F-15 deployment] be changed."

A week ago, Israel quietly asked the US to pressure Saudi Arabia to remove its F-15 S fighter-bombers from the Tabuq and put them out of quick strike range.

More from Jerusalem Post... (reg. req'd.)

NEW YORK (AP) -- Lawsuits blaming airlines, the Port Authority and the Boeing Co. for injuries and deaths in the September 11 terrorist attacks can proceed, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

The defendants had argued that the suits should be dismissed because they had no duty to anticipate and guard against deliberate and suicidal aircraft crashes and because any alleged negligence on their part was not the cause of the deaths and injuries.

In his 49-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein said the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the World Trade Center property, "has not shown that it will prove its defense of governmental immunity as to negligence allegations made by WTC occupants."

The judge also said the evidence he had seen does not support Boeing's argument that the invasion and takeover of the cockpit by the terrorists frees it from liability.

More from CNN...

Cross-posted to Electric Venom.

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Two bombs exploded Tuesday in Israel killing at least nine people and wounding dozens, Israeli police said.

At least three people were killed and 32 injured in a bombing at an outdoor terrace of a cafe in West Jerusalem, police and medical sources said, hours after a suicide bomber killed six people in Tel Aviv.

One of the injured was in critical condition, ambulance services officials said, and four were in serious condition. Police said the blast at Cafe Hillel -- in a suburb about five miles outside Jerusalem's center -- was probably the work of a suicide bomber.

Earlier, a suicide bomber set off a powerful explosion at a bus stop near an Israeli army base east of Tel Aviv, killing six Israelis and seriously wounding 15, Israeli police said.

More from CNN...

CNN:

Security guards thwarted an attempt by two Libyan youths to assault Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal Monday at his hotel in Cairo, where he was attending an Arab League meeting, a League official said.

"They tried to punch him, but the Saudi guards prevented them from doing so," the official told Reuters. The two men were arrested.

Egyptian security sources said the men had also hurled insults at the minister, calling Saudi Arabia an agent of the United States.

Saudi Arabia, a long-time U.S. ally, has angered some Arabs by letting U.S. forces use bases in the desert kingdom, home to Islam's two holiest shrines.

A purported audio tape by a member of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network has promised more attacks against Americans everywhere.

The tape also denies any links to the killing of a Shi'ite Muslim cleric in Iraq.

An al-Qaeda spokesman, identified as Abdel-Rahman al-Najdi, said: "We announce there will be new attacks inside and outside which would make America forget September 11."

The tape, dated September 3, came a few days before the second anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on US cities.

More from iTV...

At the Command Post, we all do our best to ensure accuracy of stories. But sometimes we can get misled. And I must hereby publish a retraction and issue a personal apology to our readers.

The story Saudi SAM seizure Revealed turns out to have been "sexed up" by the BBC. At least, that's what the BBC Arabic site is now saying.

From Arab News :

JEDDAH, 5 September 2003 — A high-ranking official at the Ministry of the Interior yesterday denied a report on the BBC English language news website claiming that a consignment of surface-to-air missiles was intercepted last month on a desert road near Jeddah.

Remarkably, the denial was reported by BBC Arabic, the BBC’s Arabic language news site.

The official said the Interior Ministry had announced the seizure of a repair truck containing weapons including rocket-propelled grenades two weeks ago but that it had originated from Qunfudha in Jizan, near the Saudi-Yemeni border, and was intercepted outside Makkah, not on a desert road near Jeddah.

BBC security analyst Frank Garner, when asked whether he was aware that the story had been reported two weeks ago, told Arab News: “I was not aware that the statement was previously reported outside of Saudi Arabia.”

But a spokesman for the British Embassy concurred that the story had previously been reported.

“This is nothing new. We think that the article is based on a report in the Saudi press on Aug. 26, which dealt with an arms cache that had been recently discovered,” he told Arab News

It now appears that BBC's rival, ITV (Independant TeleVision), may have copied their story without attribution, rather than being the truly independant source I insist on whenever the BBC reports anything. I hope there is another explanation.

As for the origin of the BBC story, again, from a different article in the Arab News :

Again, the BBC based its story on only a single source...

The BBC website credited the information to “Saudi police”. But anyone who has covered Saudi Arabia as a journalist for more than half an hour knows that “Saudi police” never reveal such information, especially to Western news organizations.
...
It was the “flagship” Today program on Radio 4 through which Al-Faqih’s false report — that a truck full of missiles smuggled in from Yemen had been found outside Jeddah — was apparently spread.

Had I been aware of this... I still would probably have been mislead by the ITV article.

Readers will remember that it was on the “flagship” Today program that BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan gave his now infamous report about how the Blair government “sexed up” a report justifying the war on Iraq.

...

The transcript issued by the Foreign Office, which in briefings yesterday backed the BBC’s claims, highlighted in red typeface what they said was the justification for the BBC story.

In fact, nowhere in the transcript was it mentioned that “missiles” were found on Aug. 26 outside Jeddah. It referred only to “RPGs” — rocket-propelled grenades — and they originated from Jizan.

Now, our dear journalistic colleagues on the Today program, please read the following sentences carefully: Jizan is near the Yemeni border. The Yemeni border is hundreds — repeat, hundreds — of kilometers south of Jeddah. Both cities start with the letter “J”. That’s about the only thing that links the two cities in this story.

Moreover, RPGs have been found on an almost weekly basis in the Kingdom as a result of an ongoing government crackdown on Islamists following the May 12 bombings in Riyadh.

If all that were not enough, while the BBC English-language website was reporting this “news” of a massive missile seizure, the BBC’s Arabic language service was reporting an official denial of the story by a “senior Saudi source”.

My apologies to all. I'd expected better from ITV.

Oh yes, the BBC English Website is still showing the original story, without correction.

Part of the Publishing Policy of TCP is as follows:

2. All items must have a professional news source and, when possible, a link.

3. Do not post information from other blogs unless you link that blog and they cited a credible media source. Cite and link both: "Instapundit reports that CNN is saying..."

Although no-one would ever mistake the Beeb for a "professional news source" let alone a "credible media source", I did consider ITV to be both. My mistake, and I take full responsibility. Any comments requesting me to resign as the result will be complied with.

A shootout in Nablus : from The Australian :

An Israeli soldier was killed and four others wounded in a gunbattle early today with a Palestinian militant, who was also killed, in the northern West Bank town of Nablus, the army announced.

Sergeant Raanan Kumeimi, 23, a member of an elite marine unit, died during an operation seeking to arrest the Palestinian, who had been involved in anti-Israeli attacks, a spokesman said.

The Palestinian had opened fire on troops who cornered him on the fourth floor of a seven-storey building, which was later dynamited after residents were evacuated.

Meanwhile in Afghanistan, also from The Australian :

US troops are hunting down Taliban remnants in the mountains of southeast Afghanistan after a bloody offensive left around 100 militants dead, a US military spokesman said.

Up to 1000 Afghan soldiers supported by US troops and aircraft have been engaged for more than a week in the major operation against suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda bases in the mountains of Daychopan district of Zabul province, 300km southwest of Kabul.

US-led coalition Special Operation Forces and 10th Mountain Division troops backed by aircraft Saturday launched a fresh offensive in the Daychopan area, dubbed Operation Mountain Viper.

"Coalition forces continue to pursue anti-coalition forces. Operation Mountain Viper continues at the vicinity of Daychopan in Zabul province," Colonel Rodney Davis said.

"Enemy resistance in the last 24 hours has been relatively light.

"Coalition and Afghan militia forces have killed at least somewhere in the range of between 70 to 100 enemy personnel since the initiation of the operation."

Afghan military and intelligence officials said up to 124 bodies had been recovered after the fighting in the remote and mountainous area.

"In the 12 days of fighting around 124 Taliban have been killed whose bodies have been found on the ground and maybe they have taken some other bodies and injured with them," Zabul intelligence director Khalil Hotak said yesterday, after the main offensive ended.

He said five government soldiers were also killed and seven injured. One US soldier died in an accidental fall.

From Australia's SBS (Special Broadcasting Service) :

Indonesia's Vice-President, Hamzah Haz, has rebuked Australia for criticising the four year jail term given to radical Muslim cleric, Abu Bakar Bashir.

Mr Haz says foreign critics who regard the sentence as too lenient are over-reacting, and should respect Indonesian law.

He also singled out Australian Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, saying he had gone "too far" in expressing disappointment at the sentence.

Mr Haz has previously described Bashir as his friend and mentor.

And from Reuters, via Common Dreams News Centre :

Indonesian Vice President Hamzah Haz branded America the "terrorist king" Wednesday in remarks at odds with Jakarta's support for the war on terror.

"Actually, who is the terrorist, who is against human rights? The answer is the United States because they attacked Iraq. Moreover, it is the terrorist king, waging war," the official Antara news agency quoted Haz as saying.
...
The vice president said Indonesia was still being accused of being a terrorist's nest.

"Moreover, I am always perceived as protecting terrorists," he told the Islamic school leaders.

<sarcasm>Gee, I wonder why?</sarcasm>

CNN:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Department of Homeland Security advisory issued Thursday warns that al Qaeda is working on plans to hijack airliners flying between international points that pass near or over the continental United States.

A Department of Homeland Security official said most of the flights fitting this description originate in Canada, and that U.S. officials have been working with Canada over the past month to ensure it is improving screening and other security measures.

One government official noted, however, the United States has no authority to require security measures of non-U.S. carriers whose flights originate outside the United States.

More...

Fox:

The FBI has warned law enforcement agencies that terrorists may use nicotine and solanine as "mass poisoning agents."

Nicotine can be obtained from tobacco. Solanine can be obtained from potatoes.

"References to nicotine and solanine appear in numerous terrorist training manuals and documents seized in Afghanistan," the FBI said in its weekly bulletin to law enforcement agencies, which was sent out late Wednesday. "The most likely technique for nicotine or solanine poisoning would be food, beverage or water contamination; however, nicotine can also be absorbed through the skin and mouth and the digestive and respiratory tracts."

The FBI said terrorist manuals "detail simple instructions" on how to produce both poisons. The FBI also said it "possesses no specific information indicating terrorists plan to use nicotine or solanine in a future attack."

More...

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

One of the most senior Jemaah Islamiah operatives charged over the Bali bombing has told a Denpasar court he is only a small terrorist, while the big fish causing terror is the United States.

But a lot of folks at Indimedia would agree there, Bush=Hitler etc etc...

Mukhlas also accused Rotary and the Lions Club of being part of a conspiracy to Christianise Indonesia.

He's obviously been reading the Hamas Covenant. No mention yet of the Masons and Jews, but give him time.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Australia's airlines are considering using decoy devices to protect them from the threat of surface-to-air missiles.

Terrorism expert Clive Williams has said shoulder-launched missiles pose a greater threat to Australia's civil aviation than hijackings, and he says Bangkok airport is a particular risk.

Prime Minister John Howard says authorities are aware of the threat, but it must be seen in perspective.

"I'm told this morning that there are 880 movements a day in and out of Bangkok airport, of which four are Qantas flights," Mr Howard said.

"I'm also told that our airlines are investigating the deployment of these decoy devices which are employed in a very limited way around the world, I'm not saying we're going to employ them, but that is being investigated."

Andrew Tongue from the aviation security section of the Federal Transport Department told a parliamentary inquiry on aviation security this morning that the threat is being closely monitored.

"The...question is, does Al Qaeda, Jemaah Islamiah, their associates, have the intent to get these weapons?" he said.

HINT : see below .

From the BBC :

Saudi authorities say they have seized a lorry[truck]-load of surface-to-air missiles destined for an unnamed terrorist group.

The consignment was intercepted last month on a desert road near the port city of Jeddah.

Police say the weapons - capable of being used to bring down aircraft - had been smuggled from Yemen.

The story has been confirmed by ITV.

Hat Tip : Reader Max

UPDATE : This story has since been Retracted. My apologies.

The Winds of War feature over at Winds of Change.NET is designed 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.

Today we ended up with 2 briefings - so Kate's Winds of War is at Winds of Change.NET, and the other is here. Dan Darling of Regnum Crucis captains our Command Post War Roundup; also Dan's Iran Reports, and Dan's Iraq Briefing.

TOP TOPICS

• Dan Darling also offers a Special Analysis feature today: The Imminent Threat.

• Captured al-Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah has apparently divulged the organization's backers in the Pakistani and Saudi governments, according to a recent article in Time Magazine.

• Osama bin Laden is said to be alive and convened a terrorist summit in April 2003 according to Newsweek. The timing of the alleged summit and the presence of both Chechen and Uzbek al-Qaeda add to the story's credibility; the same time the bombings in Riyadh, Casablanca, and Iraq were carried out there were a number of mass casualty suicide bombings in Russia.

U.S.A HOMELAND SECURITY BRIEFING

• FrontPage Magazine has an interesting article up on why Westerners join al-Qaeda.

• Ridge says that interrogating al-Qaeda isn't as easy as some people seem to think, but I doubt it'll appease the usual suspects.

THE WIDER WAR

• In a similar vein, the UK Telegraph has an outstanding piece on Mohammed Sifaoui, the Algerian who infiltrated al-Qaeda and provides some insight into the organization's mindset.

• The Taliban appear to be replenishing their numbers in Pakistan with the help of the Pakistani al-Qaeda affiliates. It doesn't look like they're having too much luck in Afghanistan though.

• There are now 21 suspects in the alleged al-Qaeda sleeper cell that was disrupted in Toronto.

• Strategy Page has a chilling chronology of how the Riyadh bombings occurred.

• Four years for treason? Such appears to be the case for Abu Bakar Bashir in Indonesia.

• PKK terrorists attacked a Turkish police station in Diyarbakir province, killing one.

• Interfax reports that the IMU is stepping up its efforts in Kygryzstan.

• Russian security forces have captured a suicide bombing recruiter in Chechnya. Meanwhile, a bombing of a southern Russian train killed four.

• We try to close on a lighter note if possible. Ever wondered what Kim Jong Il was thinking? Well, maybe not, but now you can! Juche, anyone?

For more, see Kate's Winds of War at winds of Change.NET.

USA TODAY

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Suspected Taliban set fire to an elementary school south of Kabul, scattering leaflets saying girls should not be allowed in the classroom, an official said Wednesday.

The blaze late Tuesday destroyed two rooms and two tents at the coed Moghul Khil school, said Amir Jhan, military spokesman for the region.

No one was arrested but Amir blamed supporters of the hardline Islamic militia, which ruled Afghanistan until it was ousted by U.S.-led troops in 2001.

Before the attackers fled, they scattered leaflets saying girls should not go to school, and threatening a "reaction" against teachers who teach them, he said.

More...

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Palestinian prime minister Abu Mazen, also known as Mahmoud Abbas, is preparing to defend his record at a crucial meeting of parliament after his one-time mentor Yasser Arafat pronounced the death of the roadmap for peace.

"The roadmap is dead, but only because of Israeli military aggression in recent weeks," veteran Palestinian leader Arafat told CNN.

Arafat was talking from his Ramallah headquarters where he has been confined by Israel while Abu Mazen leads the Palestinians in foundering peace talks with Israel.

However, a senior advisor to Arafat later insisted that the Palestinians remained committed to the project and urged its co-sponsors to work harder towards its implementation.

"The Palestinians continue to respect the roadmap, and it still exists," Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP.

The advisor refused to comment directly on Arafat's comments.

"We appeal to the quartet (the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia) to work towards its application and appeal to the world to support the Palestinian people in the face of Israel which is trying hard to destroy the roadmap," he added.

The roadmap envisages the creation of an independent Palestinian state by 2005.

Progress has stalled since Israel froze all contacts with the Palestinians in the aftermath of a bus bomb in Jerusalem on August 19 which shattered a truce called by militant groups. Israel has since declared all-out war on the hardliners, killing a number of Hamas activists in a series of air strikes in Gaza.

Given the large number of attempted suicide bombings during the ceasefire, plus the carnage of the ones that succeeded, the Israelis obviously decided they couldn't afford a "peace" that was more dangerous than "war".

Winds of Change.NET Regional Briefings run on Tuesdays & Wednesdays, and sometimes Fridays too. This Regional Briefing focuses on South/South East Asia, courtesy of Robi Sen.

TOP TOPIC

• Unfortunately our biggest story for the month is the horrific bombings that happened in India this month. The largest was in Bombay. Just about every India blogger has some comments on the news, from Suman to Varnam. But it's useful to look at why Bombay was such a tempting target.

Other Topics Today Include: Israeli-India-US alliance; India's continued resistance to support the US in Iraq; Explaining Pakistan's behaviour; Philippines update; A fantastic South Asia resource; and more.

read the rest! »