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. Today's briefings are brought to you by Dan Darling of Regnum Crucis.

Top Topics

* Most readers of my Winds of War by now are quite familiar with the antics of a certain Jordanian Palestinian named Ahmed al-Khalayeh, the real name of an al-Qaeda leader far better known as Abu Musab Zarqawi. Rewards for Justice has now placed a $25,000,000 reward, putting him in the same category as al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri, unemployed potenate former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and al-Qaeda military commander Saif al-Adel.

* As my colleague Andrew Olmstead noted in his own Winds of War on Monday, suicide bombers in Baghdad celebrated the beginning of Ramadan with four simultaneous attacks on three Iraqi police stations and the headquarters of the International Red Cross. The death toll from those bombings now stands at 40, with 200 wounded. See more on this in today's Iraq Briefing.

Other Topics Today Include: Iran Reports; USA Homeland Security Briefing; al-Qaeda bases in the Sahara; GSPC plot against the US Embassy in Mali; Jemaah Islamiyyah training camps in Indonesia; a fresh round of violence in Sulawesi; Willie Brigitte Virgile's resume and arrest; Australia on alert; Bimbo's arrest in General Santos; US/Afghan troops vs. the Taliban in Afghanistan; support for the Taliban in northern Pakistan; the Saudi airline threat; Hizb-ut-Tahrir's global sha'riah plans; Mugabe has a stroke; and a Turkish brothel on wheels!

read the rest...
 

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

TOP TOPIC

* Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad touched off a firestorm with a speech to the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Malaysia that made numerous disturbing comments about Jews ruling the world, etc. He also exhortated Islamic world to arm itself. We have a roundup of blogosphere reactions to Mahathir's comments inside...

* JK: Are Pakistan's actions making nuclear proliferation unstoppable? "Fibonacci's Nukes" offers a sobering analysis of the current situation.

Other Topics Today Include: More on Mahathir; Our problematic allies; Philippines reports; Indonesia; Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in a nukes deal; Pakistan's mixed record; G.W. Bush's success in Asia; is South Asia cyber terrorism central; and more.

read the rest...

From the AFP via the Sydney Morning Herald :

Israeli warplanes bombed Hizbollah positions after their forces came under fire from the Lebanese Shi'ite militia in the disputed Shebaa Farms border area.

"The IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) returned fire at Hizbollah targets and the sources of fire," an Israeli military source told AFP.

"Israeli aircraft were used in the operation," he added without giving details about the numbers of planes involved.

Another Israeli source described the ongoing exchanges between the two sides as "pretty intense", raising fears of a new spiral of violence in the region after a period of relative calm.

Lebanese police said that two Israeli jets fired six air-to-surface missiles at two suspected Hizbollah positions near the villages of Kfar Shuba and Meri on the Lebanese side of the border.

The Israeli action came after Hizbollah fired a barrage of rockets and shells at Israeli military positions in the area but without causing casualties.

The militia targeted positions with anti-aircraft fire in the Shebaa Farms area which is occupied by the Jewish state, another Israeli security source said.

"These attacks ... were aimed at two army positions in the Har Dov sector (within the Shebaa Farms district) and at the moment we have no reports of casualties or damage," he said.

Hizbollah confirmed in a statement that its armed wing, the Islamic Resistance, "bombarded positions of the Zionist enemy with rockets and shells."

The group said it fired 35 mortar rounds and 107-millimetre rockets at positions in Roueyssat al-Aaalam, Sammaqa and Ramta, on the flanks of Mount Hermon and facing the village of Shebaa in Lebanese territory.

Hizbollah later said that the militia's artillery gunners also targeted an Israeli post in the divided village of Abassiyeh on the border, in retaliation for the air strikes.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Two Indian soldiers were killed and 44 other people injured in two explosions in Indian Kashmir on Tuesday local time, marking a bloody start to the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, police said.

Two soldiers have been killed and eight others injured when an army vehicle, part of a convoy, ran over a landmine in the village of Khilani in southern Doda district, police said.

The explosion was followed by gunfire from suspected rebels.

Police and army reinforcements have rushed to the area.

That's military action, not neccessarily Terrorism. This on the other hand...

Earlier, at least 36 civilians were injured in a grenade attack by suspected Islamic rebels on police manning Indian Kashmir's main telegraph office, a police spokesman said.

He said suspected militants lobbed a grenade at federal police at the central telegraph office in the summer capital Srinagar.

The grenade missed its target and exploded near a billing counter.

"Some 36 civilians who had come to pay their telephone bills have been injured," the spokesman said.

The grenade exploded inside the telegraph office, which is adjacent to Kashmir valley's main telephone exchange, smashing window panes and sending people running for cover.

A little-known rebel group, the Kashmir Freedom Forum, claimed responsibility for the attack, local news agency Current News Service said.

Kashmir usually sees a rise in violence during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which began on Tuesday.

Hardline Islamic militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba has warned it will increase attacks during the holy month.

The 13-year insurgency has claimed more than 39,500 lives, Indian security forces said.

Separatists and Pakistan put the death toll between 80,000 and 100,000.

Posted by Alan Brain at 07:43 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Suspected Taliban guerrillas bombed a school in the south-eastern Afghan province of Khost, the second such attack in less than a week in the area, officials said.

Two classrooms of the school were completely razed by the explosion on Saturday night, Kheyal Baaz Khan, a military commander of Khost, told Reuters.

No one was injured in the explosion, which took place at night.

About 1,300 boys and girls attend the school but classes came to a halt on Sunday as security officials searched the compound of the single-storey building for more explosive devices. Teachers said that they would resume lessons only after getting an assurance that the compound was safe.

The incident was the second attack on a school in Khost in less than a week. Earlier, a girls school was torched.

Since the overthrow of the Taliban regime by US-led forces in 2001, about three dozens schools, mainly for girls, have been either destroyed or burned down in several parts of Afghanistan.

Authorities blame the Taliban religious militia for the incidents. The Taliban had banned girls from education and barred women from most outdoor jobs during its about five years of rule.

From The Australian :

The Irish Republican Army (IRA), Northern Ireland's most powerful Catholic paramilitary group, destroyed more than 100 tonnes of weapons in the act of disarmament it announced last week, the Observer reported today.

The weekly newspaper quoted Irish police sources as saying that the weapons put out of use accounted for almost a third of the IRA's arsenal.

"Our intelligence reports indicate that well over 100 tonnes of guns, explosives, heavy mortars, heavy machine-guns and even surface-to-air missiles were decommissioned," an unnamed senior officer told the paper.

"That figure may even be an underestimation of the weapons disarmed."

The officer added that the majority of the weapons involved were smuggled in from Libya in the mid-1980s.

Only 200 tonnes to go then.

From The Australian :

A Man who French authorities feared may have been preparing a terrorist attack was arrested in Sydney for breaching his tourist visa.

Willie Virgile Brigitte, a French national, was arrested on October 9, 18 days after French police first warned Australian authorities of his presence in the country.

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said today Brigitte, who has now been taken back to France for questioning over terrorist-related offences there, had entered the country posing as a tourist in May this year.

He said France warned authorities on September 22 that Brigitte had trained with terrorists in both Pakistan and Afghanistan and was somewhere in Australia.

On October 7, it increased its warning, with French authorities fearful that Brigitte was in Australia in connection with terrorist-related activity.

He was found in Sydney on October 9, and promptly arrested for breaching his tourist visa.

He was alleged to be working.

Mr Ruddock said no evidence had yet been found to implicate Brigitte in a terrorist plot.

UPDATE : From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and the Australian Federal Police today conducted searches in Sydney, connected to the deportation of a French man earlier this month, who authorities believe may have been in Australia for terrorist-related activity.

The Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, has just issued a statement saying search warrants executed today were approved under the ASIO Act and related to Australia's national security.

ASIO is similar to the UK "Special Branch". They have no power of arrest, they gather Security Intelligence within Australia. (The equivalent outside Australia is ASIS, similar to the CIA). The AFP is the equivalent of the FBI.

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

Malaysian police will contact US authorities about an Australian television report alleging that an organisation jailed former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim worked for has terrorist links.

Supporters of Anwar, jailed since 1998 for corruption and sodomy, denied he had any terrorist ties and said the report was part of a campaign to kill his chances of a political comeback.

The report by the news program Dateline, aired on the Australian government-funded Special Broadcasting Service, said the Washington-based International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), of which Anwar was one of three directors, was being investigated for possibly funding the pro-Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad.

The report said one of Anwar's co-directors was Taha al-Alwani, an Iraqi who founded the Muslim World League, an alleged terrorist organisation whose assets were frozen by the US government.

The program also reported that Rahim Ghouse, a member of the International Free Anwar Campaign lobby group in Australia, had business dealings with Sheikh Yassin al-Qadi, an alleged al-Qaeda financier.
[...]
Azizah Ismail, Anwar's wife who leads an opposition party that has him as its figurehead, said the report was "malicious and seditious", and denied Anwar had any links to terrorists or al-Qaeda.

"The American authorities conducted investigations on IIIT just as they have been doing on other Islamic organisations after the 9/11 tragedy and have not made any charges against it," Azizah said in a statement.

"We deny that IIIT has any link with terrorism or al-Qaeda," she said.
[...]
Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who is due to take over from Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad when he retires at the end of October, refused to comment when asked about the report.

Abdullah became deputy leader after Mahathir fired Anwar in 1998 amid a nascent leadership challenge.

Soon afterward, Anwar was charged and tried for corruption and sodomy and sentenced to prison terms totaling 15 years. He claims to be the victim of a conspiracy to prevent him challenging Mahathir, who denies it.

Raja Petra Kamaruddin, an official of the National Justice Party led by Azizah, alleged the original source of the report on Anwar was among Abdullah's circle of advisers and that the report was part of a bid to smear Anwar.

If I was a betting man, I'd say 10 to 1 on "Smear". But it needs investigating anyway.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

The United States and Britain are warning their citizens they may be targets for Islamic militants operating in Saudi Arabia.

The two governments say they have received information that an attack may be planned to coincide with the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, which starts this week.

The British Government has issued a travel advisory against travelling to Saudi Arabia, saying only those with an essential reason should go there.

The US Embassy has warned Americans in the kingdom to be vigilant.

Officials say the warning is similar to one issued in May a few days before a series of car bombs on western housing compounds in Riyadh killed almost 40 people.

The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade had issued an identical warning the day before.

You may have noticed that The Command Post -as well as many popular weblogs - was down at some points last week. Our hosting company underwent a Denial of Service attack. The attack was aimed at one particular site and there are inklings that this may have been a small form of internet terrorism. You can read the whole story here and today's Newsday article on the situation here. Here is the claim of responsibility for the attacks, to give you an idea of why this is being branded terrorism.

From the AFP via ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Islamic militants have murdered two Palestinian men in front of a West Bank crowd for allegedly collaborating with Israel.

The killings have been carried out as a warning to others.

The two men in their twenties were kidnapped by masked gunmen in the Tulkarem refugee camp several days ago.

A short time after, videotapes of the two confessing to collaborating with Israel were distributed throughout the camp.

The men were then dragged out in front of a crowd and shot in the head by gunmen from the militant al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

Scores of Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel have been murdered by militants during the three-year conflict.

Others have been executed by the Palestinian Authority after short trials.

From The Australian :

Three Israelis were shot dead and two others wounded by Palestinian gunman who infiltrated a Jewish settlement in the northern Gaza Strip early today, Israeli medical and military sources said.

"Three Israelis, two women and a man, were killed early Friday when two terrorists penetrated the community of Netzarim," a military source told AFP, saying at least one of the gunmen had been killed by Israeli soldiers in the area.

Medical sources said a woman was also severely wounded in the attack, and another man was in moderate condition.

From The Australian :

Top terrorism suspect Hambali, whom the United States has agreed to hand over to Indonesia, is suspected of involvement in 39 bombings throughout the country, press reports say today.

The attacks between 2000 and 2002 include last year's Bali bombings that killed 202 people, a blast at the Atrium shopping mall in Jakarta, another at the home of the Philippines ambassador which killed two Indonesians, and bombings of various churches, the Media Indonesia daily reports.

"Our investigation found a relationship between Hambali and terrorism cases between 2000 and 2002," the paper quoted Indonesia's top detective Erwin Mappaseng as saying.

The United States would "eventually" hand Hambali over to Indonesia for trial, Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda said on Wednesday after a brief visit by US President George W. Bush to the resort island of Bali.

The White House confirmed the report.
[...]
Hambali was arrested in Thailand in August and is now in US custody at an undisclosed location. Indonesia had asked that he be handed over for trial.

Media Indonesia quoted Indonesian Police Chief General Da'i Bachtiar as saying Hambali would be brought before the courts here.
[...]
He also said that besides his alleged involvement in Indonesian bombings, Hambali was linked to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that killed thousands in the United States.

"I don't know the details of it but according to an American investigator Hambali has a connection with the September 11 attack and that group," Bachtiar said.

From The Australian :

Italian police said they arrested six alleged Red Brigades terrorists today suspected of killing a Labour Ministry consultant in 1999 - the first attack by the left-wing terrorist group in more than a decade.

Police officials in Rome confirmed the arrests bur refused to provide details.

The ANSA news agency and other reports said three of the arrests were carried out in Rome, two in Florence and one in Sardinia. The six suspects included two women, ANSA said.

The government adviser, Massimo D'Antona, was shot dead outside his house in Rome in 1999.

Winds of Change.NET Regional Briefings run on Tuesdays & Wednesdays, and sometimes Fridays too. This Regional Briefing focuses on Central Asia, courtesy of Nathan Hamm of The Argus.

TOP TOPIC

* Azerbaijan has a new President, the son of the old one. In an election likely full of massive fraud, Ilham Aliyev has been declared the winner with approximately 3/4 of all votes.

* Baku has been rocked by unrest amidst protests by opposition parties, including the Musavat Party of self-proclaimed winner Isa Gambar. Exit polls by the Turan Information Agency indicate that Gambar received a plurality of the votes. Two opposition leaders and hundreds of protesters have been arrested in a police crack-down, while 73 journalists were attacked during and immediately after the election.

* Meanwhile, the OSCE is "concerned," while Russia and France are reportedly pleased with the outcome. The U.S. reaction is mixed, recognizing the results of the election while independent monitors sent by the Bush administration heap scorn on its conduct.

Other Topics Today Include: Georgia's Parliamentary Elections; Russian Business Leader Seeks Empire; Is Kazakstan Moving Towards Dynasty?; Positive Political and Economic Developments in Uzbekistan; The Ferghana Valley and Islamic Extremism; Afghanistan's New Constitution; The US Military Footprint in Central Asia; The Taliban Pours Into Afghanistan; Russia Moves to Join the Islamic World; and, a Peace Corps Volunteer Fights a Small Battle Against Uzbek Agricultural Policy.

read the rest....
 

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

Top Topics

• Osama bin Laden, or someone who sounds like him, has released an audiotape to al-Jazeera in which he issues his latest round of threats. You can read my point-by-point analysis as well as speculation on what it may mean here and here. In addition to propaganda, it seems that the message may have far more sinister undertones to it.

• Hosting Matters, which hosts a number of prominent warbloggers, recently experienced DoS attacks from what Powerline says was supporters of al-Qaeda. For more discussion on this topic, go here. If Powerline is accurate, bloggers should expect more of these DOS attacks in the future.

• I recently made a number of predictions regarding al-Qaeda's next course of action and its implications for the War on Terror. Now, 2 weeks later, we'll see how some of those predictions have panned out.

Other Topics Today Include: Iran Reports; USA Homeland Security Briefing; Jemaah Islamiyyah second-in-command free in Malaysia; Hugo Chavez and al-Qaeda; the People's War in India; Abu Abdul Najdi rants and raves online; al-Qaeda lying low in the Philippines; Hassan Hattab deposed as GSPC leader; more Taliban and coalition clashes in Afghanistan; border battles in Pakistan; Ahmed Khadr's great escape; Dawood Ibrahim a global terrorist; Jemaah Islamiyyah summit; 60 rebels captured in Chechnya; anti-Western attacks in East Africa; and one hell of a leap of faith.

read the rest...
 

..hen attacked, it defends itself.

From the AFP via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

A Palestinian militant has been killed during a firefight with armed settlers and soldiers in the southern West Bank town of Hebron, Israeli military sources said.

The clash broke out in the divided city's downtown Tel Rumeida neighbourhood, which is home to Jewish settlers.

The sources had originally told AFP that two soldiers had been lightly wounded in the incident but later reported that it was two armed settlers instead.

They said the Palestinian gunman opened fire at an army patrol before being shot by armed settlers in the vicinity.

Palestinian medics said two Palestinian civilians were lightly hurt.

The slain man, who was named by witnesses and his family as 23-year-old Rafik Kneibeih, was found carrying a Kalashnikov assault rifle and spare magazines.

During the afternoon, Israeli troops came to Kneibeih's house and arrested his father, Ziad, and brother-in-law Amjad Zahadi, witnesses said.

The family was staying inside the house for fear the army would destroy it, they said.

Sons are a dime a dozen, but good houses are valuable, right?

From The Australian :

At least three Palestinians militants from the radical Hamas movement were in a critical condition early today when their car was destroyed in an explosion in the northern West Bank town of Nablus, Palestinian security sources and witnesses said.

The three were driving in a car in the eastern part of the city when the explosion took place shortly after 10pm local time.

Witnesses said the men were travelling with at least one weapon and several small explosive devices, saying it was possible that one of the bombs had accidentally detonated, injuring the men and totally destroying their car.

An Israeli military source said he was aware of the blast, but stressed the Israeli army had nothing to do with it.

Pity about the car.

Winds of Change.NET has a complete briefing on the recent anti-warblogger cyber-attacks which brough down command-post.org, and many other sites besides. In addition to offering a compilation of tips and resources for dealing with DoS and DDoS cyber attacks, we've also got some analysis from Dan Darling that points the finger at one of al-Qaeda's Malaysian affiliates, and warns that this may be just a testing of the waters.

From The Australian :

Suspected Islamic militants hurled a grenade at a busy bus station in Indian-controlled Kashmir on today, injuring at least 30 people, police said.

The militants apparently were targeting a paramilitary police post, but it missed and exploded near the bus station where scores of people were waiting to board buses, an official said.

"At least 30 people were injured in the grenade attack in the Batmalloo suburb of Srinagar," said Tirath Acharya, spokesman of the paramilitary Border Security Force.

Srinagar is the summer capital of the northern Indian state of Jammu-Kashmir, which both India and Pakistan claim in its entirety.

From The Australian :

Singapore's Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong says terrorism in Asia cannot be stopped unless countries prevent extremist Islamic teachers from producing new militants.

Hundreds of members of the terror group Jamaah Islamiah have been arrested, including Hambali - Osama bin Laden's alleged point man in Asia.

But "the spiritual leaders are still around imparting rather intolerant Islamic teachings to their followers," Mr Goh said in an interview published today in the Bangkok Post.

"If those spiritual leaders are not neutralised, we are going to see more and more people who are searching for the truth turn to jihadists - namely those who use the Islamic faith to pursue their own goals of hatred for others."

Mr Goh said moderate Islamic governments and leaders must recognise that the militants were giving the faith a bad name, and "they have to stand up and ideologically fight the other side."

Singapore and Malaysia: So near, and yet so far.

Sydney Morning Herald/AFP:

Security forces recovered a bio-terror manual and traces of possible biological weapons in a raid on a Jemaah Islamiah hideout in the southern Philippine city of Cotabato, the army said today.

Local police said up to eight local and foreign JI suspects escaped yesterday's raid in central Cotabato but left behind what vice chief of staff Lieutenant General Rodolfo Garcia described as possible residues of a "tetanus virus-carrying chemical".

A "bio-terror manual" was also recovered, Garcia said over ABS-CBN television.

The raid on a Cotabato apartment unit was launched a day after the visit to Manila of US President George W Bush and more than two weeks after the arrest in Cotabato of Indonesian Taufiq Rifqi, described by the Filipino authorities as the number-two man of JI.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

British army bomb disposal experts defused two bombs overnight in a western Roman Catholic area of Belfast, police have said.

More than 60 homes had to be evacuated in the Ballymurphy district, a stronghold of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) paramilitary group, they said.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for planting the devices, which are usually made by armed loyalist Protestant groups.

[...]

Meanwhile, police believe loyalist paramilitaries were behind a separate foiled bomb attack on Thursday in front of the home of a former prison guard in the eastern suburbs of Belfast, police sources said.

Looks like the "loyalists" are challenging the provisional IRA's monopoly on murderous stupidity again.

[Fox News]

Palestinian police arrested three members of a small militant group Thursday in connection with a deadly attack on a U.S. diplomatic convoy, security officials said.

Witnesses said militants and police exchanged fire for about 10 minutes during the raid.

The three suspects are members of the Popular Resistance Committees , a group of dozens of armed men, including many former members of the Palestinian security forces and disgruntled followers of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement , said the officials. Officials initially gave the number of people detained as five.

No Palestinian group has claimed responsibility for Wednesday's bombing, which killed three U.S. security guards and wounded a fourth. It was the first deadly attack against U.S. official targets in the Palestinian areas and was likely to increase U.S. pressure on the Palestinian leadership to move against militants.

Full story...

From The Australian :

Afghan soldiers backed by U.S. troops and helicopters have killed seven Taliban and captured 12 others in a sweeping raid in a remote region in southern Afghanistan, a district police chief said.

Three Afghan soldiers also died and five others were wounded in the two days of fighting in Chaar Cheno district's rugged mountainous terrain, about 150 kilometres northeast of Kandahar, said police chief Haji Mohammed Akhtar.

The operation was successful and hundreds of Afghan soldiers who participated have returned, he said. It was not immediately clear if any important Taliban commanders were among the dead or captured rebels.

Akhtar said the captured men were being interrogated in Uruzgan, the province where Chaar Cheno is located. He gave no other details.

This from CNN:

At least three Americans were killed and another seriously wounded Wednesday when an explosion hit a U.S. convoy in northern Gaza near the border with Israel, according to U.S. and Israeli sources.

Palestinian sources also said all the casualties were Americans.

The three-car convoy was carrying at least 12 Americans and was escorted by Palestinian security, Israeli sources said ...

... According to the Palestinian sources, the explosion occurred immediately after Palestinian police cars passed by, with the blast hitting the first U.S. vehicle in the convoy.

Erakat offered his condolences and condemned the attack.

"These people were here to help us," Erakat insisted, saying an attack on what he described as U.S. monitors was not in the interest of the Palestinian people. "I don't think this was a deliberate attack against the Americans."

"We offer to have an immediate, joint Palestinian-American investigation committee to investigate the matter," Erakat said.

Erakat said the Americans were in Gaza at the request of the Palestinians as part of the U.S.-backed "road map" for peace in the region.

Well at least they've formed a committee ... I'm sure that will get to the bottom of this in no time at all.

"You are either with us, or against us" ...

From the ABC :

Some 2,000 Indonesian police and troops have been sent to a district in Central Sulawesi province to prevent a major flare-up of Muslim-Christian violence, a police officer has said.

And the role of the Christians is..?

A government minister said separately the attack on four villages on Sunday, which killed eight people, mostly Christians, may have been timed to coincide with the first anniversary of the Bali bombings.

And the Islamic victims were...?

National police said a man, who was injured when the bomb he was making exploded prematurely, has been arrested in Poso, where an estimated 1,000 people died in Muslim-Christian battles earlier this decade.
[...]
In a clash last Thursday, two people were killed and three wounded when a mob raided a mainly Christian village, near Poso, and burned homes.
[...]
Top security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said he and other officials from the military and the national intelligence agency would fly to Poso on Tuesday to assess the situation and hold talks with local religious leaders.

He and other top officials have said outsiders rather than locals may have been involved.

Muslim militants from outside the province travelled to Poso to join in the fighting, which began in 2000, and which largely ended in December 2001 with a government-brokered peace pact.

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. Today's briefings are brought to you by Andrew Olmsted of Andrew Olmsted dot com.

TOP TOPICS

• Israel may be planning to strike Iran's nuclear plants; Charles Johnson takes a look at the reports. Daily Kos has a good roundup of the issues, although his conclusion is rather pat. A diplomatic solution always *sounds* great, but getting there is there real trick, and Kos doesn't offer an answer for that.

• Donald Sensing examines a Dan Darling post, discussing where al Qaeda stands right now, and what the U.S. needs to do to keep them down.

• One year ago, Islamofascists murdered 202 people in Bali for the crime of being Westerners, or too close to Westerners. Bali marked that anniversary this weekend with a reading of the victims' names and a speech from Australian Prime Minister John Howard. Australia remembers her dead, and the war goes on.

Other Topics Today Include: a worthy Nobel; China launching a taikonaut; NK military options & consequences; Bird Dog's NK solution; U.S. State Dept: bought and paid for; Syria & Israel; Another PA PM bites the dust; Phalcons to India; Got Ghozi?

read the rest! »
 

Reuters via CNN:

MANILA, Philippines (Reuters) -- The Philippine military said it killed escaped Indonesian militant Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi on Sunday, eliminating a major security threat just six days before U.S. President George W. Bush visits Manila.

"It's confirmed," Lt. Gen. Rodolfo Garcia, vice chief of the armed forces, told reporters. "I cannot give you any further details. The president will make an announcement tomorrow."

Al-Ghozi, a member of the Southeast Asian militant group Jemaah Islamiah (JI), embarrassed the Philippine government by walking out of his cell at national police headquarters in mid-July.

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

• Time Magazine is reporting that Hanbali has cracked and is spilling the beans on Jemaah Islamiyyah's ties to al-Qaeda and MILF, as well as other al-Qaeda plots in Southeast Asia.

• Mullah Abdul Razzaq Nafees, one of ten members of the new Taliban ruling council, has been killed by US and Afghan forces in Uruzgan province. Nine more to go...

Other Topics Today Include: Iran Reports; U.S.A. Homeland Security Briefing; GSPC HQ under seige; Australian intervention in the Solomon Islands; Chechen president poisoned; an aid worker assassinated in Somalia; videos of bin Laden circulating the UK; 211 dead terrorists in Kashmir; factional fighting in Afghanistan; Taliban fighters massing in Baluchistan; and Khan a Klingon!?!

read the rest! »
 

2003 has not been a good year so far by al-Qaeda. In the course of less than six months, key members of their military committee have been captured or killed as a result of the US-led campaign against terrorism. Their two biggest losses so far this year include that of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the head of their military committee, and Hanbali, the operations chief of Jemaah Islamiyyah. The network's terror theoretician, Yusuf al-Ayyeri, was killed in a gunfight in Saudi authorities. Ali Abd al-Ghamdi has been captured and over 600 members of the Salafi Jihad have been arrested in Morocco. In addition, any number of senior commanders and mid-level leaders have been arrested worldwide since the beginning of the year, many of them since the fall of Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq.

The capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed likely served as the catalyst to spur this reorganization of the terror network.....

read the rest! »
 

Winds of Change.NET Regional Briefings run on Tuesdays & Wednesdays, and sometimes Fridays too. This Regional Briefing focuses on Africa, courtesy of AfricaPundit.

TOP TOPICS

• In Zimbabwe, Comrade Mugabe continues to torment his own people. Now he's going after the newpapers: First the Daily News and then The Standard and The Independent.

• Rwanda held successful parliamentary elections this month -- yet another step along the path to democracy. Winds of Change writes that Rwandans are taking charge of their country in other ways as well.

Other Topics Today Include: WTO roundup; GM foods; Liberia update; Yellowcake; Amina Lawal & Nigerian Islamism; Nigerians in space; $$A LUCRATIVE OPPORTUNITY$$; France's quagmire; South African Nobel laureate; Uganda's dictator; Somalia remembered.

read the rest! »
 

From The Australian :

ASEAN leaders meeting in Indonesia's bomb-scarred Bali resort, agreed today on a two-pronged approach against terrorism and appealed for global help to end the scourge.

Philippine President Gloria Arroyo said at the summit meeting of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) that "operational cooperation against terrorism must be enhanced while the root causes of terrorism must also be addressed."

"There was overwhelming agreement during the summit for this two-pronged approach in the war against terror," Philippine Foreign Secretary Blas Ople said, as he briefed reporters on the talks.

Arroyo also pushed for intensified regional cooperation in fighting terror, Ople said.

Updating a previous post, from the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

A Palestinian suicide bomber blew herself up in a crowded beach restaurant in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, killing at least 19 people including three children, police said.

The attack, just before the Yom Kippur fast day, provoked an outcry abroad and renewed demands in Israel for the government to exile Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, despite a call by his prime minister-designate for attacks on civilians to end.

The Islamic Jihad movement said it was behind the attack, in which the bomber struck as families sat down for lunch on the Jewish sabbath at the Maxim restaurant, owned by a Christian Arab and a Jewish family and frequented by Arabs and Jews.

"Suddenly we heard a tremendous explosion. We saw smoke pour out of the restaurant and the windows shattered," said witness Navon Hai.

"There wasn't much we could do. Families were dead around the tables."

Wires and roofing material were left dangling. Windows were shattered on all sides of the restaurant and shoes and bloody clothing littered a nearby parking lot. Dazed people wandered around in swimming trunks after leaving the beach.

Police said the dead included three children and a security guard, and that about 50 people were wounded.

Israeli media said one of the dead children was a baby of several months and the two others were aged three and five.

Islamic Jihad named the bomber as Hanadi Tayseer Jaradat, 29, from the West Bank city of Jenin.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Israeli helicopter gunships have launched twin attacks on Gaza City and the al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian security sources and witnesses.

The electricity supply was cut in the refugee camp after two missiles were fired and explosions were heard, the sources said, giving no information of any casualties.

Earlier Israeli helicopters launched an attack on Gaza City where explosions were also heard.

Breaking:

An explosion went off at a restaurant in the northern Israeli port city of Haifa on Saturday, and paramedics said about 20 people were wounded, several of them seriously.

The blast went off in the Maxim restaurant near Haifa's beach promenade on the southern edge of the city.

The cause of the blast was not immediately clear, though an Israel Radio reporter at the scene said the explosion apparently was set off by a Palestinian attacker.

[UPDATE: At least 18 dead and thirty injured]

Al Qaeda and Company don't just go after Christians, Jews, Hindus etc. To be safe from them, you must be the right kind of Muslim. And even then, that may not always help.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

At least three people were killed and as many as 30 wounded after a grenade attack on a packed mosque in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, police said.

[...]

Among the fatalities was Ismael Datu Kali, the Islamic preacher presiding over the prayers and regional irrigation director Macmod Mending, who died of his wounds on the way to the hospital, Mr Marquez said.

Most of the casualties were employees of the agency.

[...]

Midsayap town, which is mainly Christian but has a sizable Muslim minority, has been hit by bomb blasts before.

Most of the previous attacks were largely blamed on Muslim separatist guerrillas.

And also this from Reuters via the ABC again :

Two gunmen have attacked a bus carrying Shiite Muslim worshippers in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, killing at least five people and wounding seven, police said.

Gunmen riding a motorcycle opened fire with automatic weapons on a government bus carrying the worshippers to Friday prayers, Tariq Jameel, a deputy inspector general of police, told Reuters.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but police blame Sunni Muslim extremists for most of the sectarian bloodletting in Pakistan.

Hundreds of people have been killed in religious violence in Pakistan in recent years.

And yet another report from the ABC :

At least seven people were killed and six others injured in an explosion at a house outside the US-led military coalition's main base in Afghanistan, witnesses said.

"Seven bodies have been recovered and people are still sifting through the rubble for more victims," witness Mohammad Nazim said, adding the toll may go up as a wedding party had been under way in an adjacent house.

"Lots of people who had gathered for the wedding were seen rushing out of the party in panic," he said.

No official casualty figure was immediately available.

A US military official said at least six Afghans were injured and were brought to the base for treatment.

"I have counted six injured people being evacuated in US military ambulances, they were all locals," a US guard at the Bagram Air Base's north-eastern gate said.

Residents said the blast took place in Qala-e-Gulai village, less than a kilometre from the base.

Witnesses said coalition teams were on the spot for relief and rescue operation after the blast destroyed several houses.

From News.com.au:

The last of the principal Bali bombers was sentenced to death yesterday - almost exactly a year after the horror of the terrorist blasts - effectively ending a saga of hatred that has echoed throughout Australia.

Attack operations commander Mukhlas, alias Ali Ghufron, was the mastermind of the destruction on October 12 last year.

After planning the attacks, he retreated to east Java where he listened with joy to news that the bombs had killed and maimed hundreds of Westerners. Since his arrest 10 months ago, he has shown little remorse for the Kuta blasts, which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.

Chief judge Cokorda Rai Suamba said Mukhlas had been "legally and convincingly proven guilty of having, with others, planned an act of terrorism and also of being in illegal possession of explosives - we punish the defendant with the death sentence".

Mukhlas nodded and soon after stood and shouted "Allah akbar", jumping with arms and legs spread as he rushed to hug his lawyers, a grin spread across his face.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Pakistani forces have killed 12 suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters and arrested 10 in an operation near the Afghan border.

Small-arms fire crackled and a Cobra helicopter swooped overhead, firing machineguns at positions in the rugged tribal country just a few kilometres from the Afghan frontier.

Reporters taken by helicopter to the scene, 350 kilometres south-west of the capital Islamabad, saw four dead bodies under blankets and military officials said there were eight more bodies lying where they fell, some with central Asian features.

"The fighting is still going on," Major General Faisal Alavi said.

"Some of these guys got out of the houses and have gone into folds in the ground and into the trees.

"Our guys are trying to flush them out, but they are putting up very stiff resistance."

Two Pakistani soldiers were wounded by grenades.

Ten fighters were arrested, four possibly of Arabic origin and six apparently Pakistanis or Afghans.

Some of the detainees were blindfolded and all had their hands tied behind their backs.

A large cache of arms, mines and basic surveillance equipment was found in one of the rebel compounds, located around two kilometres from the dusty frontier town of Angor Adda.

General Alavi, commander of special forces in the area where the operation is taking place, said some captives appeared to be from Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime.

The presence of foreign fighters at the scene suggested Al Qaeda involvement.

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

TOP TOPIC

Pakistan has for several decades been treated as a valuable ally of the United States yet many people have started to question if Pakistan really is. At the same time Pakistan has helped the U.S. apprehend numerous terrorist and now Al-Queda is calling for President Mushraf’s removal which Pakistan is taking as a serious threat.

Topics Today Include: Commentary on the Israeli and Indian alliance; India gains influence in Washington; Australia sees U.S. as necessary ally in stabilizing South Asia Islamic terrorism throughout SE Asia; and Tech Central Stations new Asia/Pacific site.

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From the ABC (Australian broadcasting Corporation) :

Police in the southern Philippines claim they have arrested the deputy of the Abu Sayyaf rebel group.

Abu Sulaiman, the deputy of Abu Sayyaf leader Khadaffy Janjalani, was allegedly taken into custody along with another Abu Sayyaf member.

Police said that during questioning he gave another identity and denied being an officer of Abu Sayyaf, which has abducted foreigners and locals and held them for ransom.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Israeli forces have captured the West Bank leader of the militant Islamic Jihad movement.

The man was arrested during a large raid of the Jenin refugee camp.

Bassam Saadi was found by Israeli troops hiding under a car in the middle of the camp.