ABC News reports that federal and New York City officials have credible intelligence that al Qaeda is plotting against corporations based in New York:

Sources at several law enforcement agencies tell ABC News that an “overseas source” has provided the information about the threat to New York and that it is more significant than the usual “chatter” intercepted from likely terrorists that has prompted warnings in the past.

[. . .]

Intelligence sources say al Qaeda plans to move non-Arab terrorists across the border with Mexico.

Authorities already have in custody a woman of Pakistani-origin arrested after crossing into Texas. She carried a South African passport with several of the pages torn out, $7,000 in cash and an airplane ticket to New York.

[. . .]

As to the timing of any planned attack, sources say it could take place between now and Election Day in November.

ARAB NEWS: Extremists Who Failed to Surrender Will Be Wiped Out: Abdullah

Crown Prince Abdullah yesterday warned that suspected extremists who had failed to surrender under a royal amnesty would be “annihilated.”

“We had given the deviant group a month in the name of the king and the people,” the crown prince told local dignitaries who came to visit him at his palace in Jeddah, according to Saudi Press Agency.

“Unfortunately, (just a few) turned themselves in, while others remained (at large) and, God willing, will be annihilated,” he said.

The crown prince’s warning came as security forces arrested a foreign resident in possession of weapons and explosives, including rocket-propelled grenades, in a Riyadh district.

“Security forces, in searching for members of the deviant group, succeeded in arresting a (foreign) resident in a Riyadh district,” an Interior Ministry official was quoted by the Saudi Press Agency as saying yesterday.

He did not give the man’s name or nationality.

“He was found in possession of weapons and explosives, including two rocket-propelled grenades, nine highly explosive blocks, four hand grenades, and an AK-47 machine-gun with over 1,000 bullets, in addition to forged documents and electronic devices,” the official said.

HAARETZ: Uzbekistan nabs suspects in Friday’s suicide bombings

Uzbekistani Interior Minister Zokirjon Almatov on Saturday said a number of people were arrested on suspicion of carrying out Friday’s suicide bombings in Tashkent in which three people were killed, Israel Radio reported.

The Islamic Jihad group in Uzbekistan claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing outside the Israeli embassy in which two local security guards died.

Explosions also struck the United States embassy and the general prosecutor’s office in city, wounding eight people. A policeman who was guarding the U.S. embassy at the time of the attack died Saturday as a result of injuries sustained in the bombing.

Israel’s ambassador to Uzbekistan, Tzvi Cohen, said no Israelis were hurt in the explosion. The embassy’s Israeli staff was holed up in the building, from where they conveyed messages to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem.

AL-JAZEERA: Government buildings torched in Janin

Minutes after three foreign captives were rescued by Palestinian security personnel, several armed men belonging to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades burned down the governor’s headquarters in Janin.

Zakaria Zubaidi, a Brigades leader, denied on Tuesday the burning of the governor’s building was in protest against Palestinian President Yasir Arafat’s appointment of Qaddura Musa as governor, Aljazeera’s correspondent in Janin, Ali Sumodi, reported.

Musa, 50, Fatah secretary-general for Janin, had reportedly refused to pay the salaries of Brigades’ members.

By early Saturday morning, the building housing the Palestinian intelligence services was also on fire, Aljazeera’s correspondent reported.

A prominent American Muslim leader has acknowledged his involvement in an alleged Libyan plot to assassinate Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

Abdurahman Alamoudi, 52, a naturalized citizen who lives near Washington D.C., pleaded guilty in a U.S. court on Friday to charges that included illegal financial transactions with Libya.

Under a plea agreement, Alamoudi admitted violating the U.S. trade and travel ban with Libya, impeding an IRS investigation and illegally obtaining U.S. citizenship.

He confirmed the accuracy of a 20-page statement of facts which described his role in the alleged assassination plot. He was not charged in the conspiracy.

JERUSALEM POST: IAF hits weapons workshop in Gaza

IAF helicopters on Friday targeted a metal workshop in Gaza City used to manufacture explosives and Kassam rockets by Palestinian terrorist.

At least two people were injured, Palestinian medics said.

A huge plume of blaze and smoke rose from the workshop, which suffered serious damages, Palestinian witnesses said.

The IDF confirmed its helicopters attacked a workshop used by Hamas to manufacture weapons, Israel Radio reported.

Reuters reports that the Islmamic Jihad Group (the guys behind the March bombings) is claiming responsibility for yesterday’s bombings. The claim, coming through a website, claims,

“God willing, such martyrdom operations by the group will continue,” said the statement from the Islamic Jihad Group in Uzbekistan.

“(These attacks) were an answer to the injustice of the apostate government and an expression of support for the jihad (holy war) of our Muslim brothers in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Hijaz (Saudi Arabia) and other Muslim lands,”

The AFP, though, reports that it is the IMU that claimed responsibility.

“A group of young Muslims from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan carried out martyrdom operations today against the embassies of America and Israel and the office of the prosecutor general, which started a few days ago to try several brethren from the group,” the statement said.

The rest of the AFP quotes are the same, so it is a little unclear who is reporting properly. The story mentions that the claim was made on this website. [Fixed AFP link? Any Arabic speakers want to translate and see if I got it right?]

Duplicate of post at The Argus.

I probably would not post this were it not for the recent bombing. The trial of those charged in the late March Tashkent bombings began their trial this week. They have all confessed and made an interesting claim.

They say that the terrorist acts were ordered by none other than the Taliban leader Mullah Omar (not to mention less important Al Qaeda functionaries).

That the general prosecutor’s office was hit along with the embassies certainly suggests that there is a connection between the start of the trial and the most recent attacks.

For those who are curious, the US embassy is located on Chilanzar Street on the SW section of this map (to the right of Khalklar Dustligi, one of the yellow, main roads). The Israeli embassy is on Shakrisabskaya Street, though I’m not quite sure what part of the city that’s in.

As more news comes in throughout the day, it, and speculation, will be posted at The Argus.

Reuters, as well as the Israeli radio, report that in addition to the explosion at the Israeli embassy, there was also one at the US embassy - no word on casualties there.

MAARIV: 3 Kassam rockets hit Sderot

Three Kassam rockets were fired at the southern town of Sderot an hour ago, landing residential areas. Four people are being treated for shock after witnessing the hits.

JERUSALEM POST: Tashkent: Explosion at Israeli embassy

At least two dead in explosions hit the U.S. and Israeli embassies in the Uzbek capital Friday, a top police official said. Another blast also hit the general prosecutor’s office and caused “deaths,” a Russian news agency reported.

Embassy officials weren’t immediately available for comment, but Israel Radio reported that a suicide bomber set off the explosion at the Israeli Embassy in Tashkent.

The victims who were killed at the Israeli Embassy were not Israeli citizens but were foreign workers employed there, Israel Radio said.

Reuters reports:

DUBAI (Reuters) - Pakistan has arrested a senior al Qaeda figure with a bounty of up to $25 million on his head, Interior Minister Makhdoom Faisal Saleh Hayat told CNN television Thursday.

He said the suspect had been captured during a raid in central Pakistan a few days ago. He did not identify the captive but said he was “a person who is most wanted internationally.”

Al Arabiya satellite news channel quoted Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf as saying the suspect was arrested Sunday.

“The Pakistani president said the arrested person is Tanzanian who is married to an Uzbek woman, and who is wanted by the United States,” the station said.

Al Arabiya said the suspect may be Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian who is on the FBI (news - web sites)’s most wanted “terrorists” list for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings by al Qaeda of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Ghailani was among seven people about whom the United States said in May it was seeking information amid fears of a possible attack in the near future.

An FBI Web site lists Ghailani as a suspect in the African embassy bombings and says it is offering a reward of up to $25 million for information leading to his capture.

A Pakistani official said Tuesday that Pakistani security forces were holding three Africans, including a Tanzanian, suspected of being militants after a shootout last week.

Another said the suspects had been trying to flee Pakistan along with their families, using fake documents, after living in neighboring Afghanistan (news - web sites).

Pakistan, a key ally in the U.S.-led “war on terror,” has arrested hundreds of al Qaeda members since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. Several senior al Qaeda figures have been handed over to Washington.

JERUSALEM POST: Palestinians surrender bombs to IDF at roadblock

Palestinian security guards transferred 4 explosive devices to IDF soldiers at the Walaje roadblock south of Jerusalem Thursday.

Border Police sappers were called to defuse the devices, reports Israel Radio.

HAARETZ: IAF kills two Palestinian militants in Gaza missile strike

Two wanted Palestinian militants were killed on Thursday afternoon in an Israeli missile strike on their vehicle as it drove through the southern Gaza Strip.

Missiles were fired at the car as it neared the entrance of the Gaza town of Rafah, not far from the Egyptian border, Palestinian sources said. The Israel Defense Forces has confirmed that it was behind the strike.

Residents said the two men killed in the air strike were militants wanted by Israel.

They were identified as Amr Abu Suta, the commander of the Abu Reish militant group, and his assistant, Zaki Abu Rakha.

The Abu Reish Brigade is an extreme offshoot of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction that has recently been highly critical of the chairman and claimed responsibility for a recent wave of kidnappings in Gaza last week.

Reuters carry two reports on the latest statement to come out of what is perceived to be Al Qaeda’s European branch, the Abu Hasef Al Masri brigades. In it, they vow ‘bloody war’ on Europe, after Europe declined earlier to take up Al Qaeda on its truce offer.

Reuters:

Qaeda-Linked Group Vows ‘Bloody War’ on Europe

Jul 28, 4:41 PM (ET)

DUBAI (Reuters) - Muslim militants claiming links to al Qaeda vowed in a statement on Wednesday to launch a “bloody war” on Europe after a “truce” offered by Osama bin Laden expired earlier this month.

“Today, we have declared a bloody war on you and we will not stop raids against you until you return to the correct path,” said the statement signed by Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades and posted on an Islamist Web site, which has carried previous statements from the group.

“After the truce determined by our sheik Osama bin Laden ended, and after you have not returned to the correct path, we declare a war in your faces and in the face of your silent people whose silence proves their support to you,” it added.

The authenticity of the statement could not be immediately verified.

The group had warned in an internet statement earlier this month it would launch new attacks on Europe once the truce, which expired in mid-July, ended.

Al Qaeda leader bin Laden, in an audiotape on April 15, gave European states three months to pull troops out of Afghanistan, Iraq and other Muslim countries or face new attacks like the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people on March 11.

In the same statement, they theaten Silvio Berlusconi’s Italy:

Reuters:

Qaeda-Linked Group Says Berlusconi Its First Target

Jul 28, 5:28 PM (ET)

DUBAI (Reuters) - Muslim militants claiming links to al Qaeda said in a statement on Wednesday Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was their first target for attack.

“We will shake the cities of Europe and we will start with you Berlusconi, and we will make it bloody until you return to the correct path. Wait for us Berlusconi and your other allies as well, wait for our promise which we have revealed to you and are now revealing to Europe,” said the statement signed by Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades and posted on an Islamist Web site.

More at Southern Watch

JERUSALEM POST: France bans Hizbullah’s al-Manar

The French Broadcasting Authorities (CSA) on Wednesday complied with a recommendation by the French government to ban Hizbullah’s al-Manar satellite television from broadcasting in France.

On July 12 of this year, the French Ministry of Interior sent an advisory memo to the CSA recommending al-Manar’s transmission via the European satellite operator Eutelsat be “immediately terminated due to their anti-Semitic content.”

Al-Manar is the official mouthpiece of Lebanon’s Shiite guerrilla group Hizbullah.

WTOP/Federal News Radio:

A South African woman picked up in Texas almost 10 days ago may turn out to be a key, high-level al-Qaida operative.

Her name is Farida Goolam Mohamed Ahmed. She was stopped at McAllen Miller International Airport on July 19 headed to New York.

Eddie Flores of the U.S. Border Patrol office in McAllen, Texas tells FederalNewsRadio.com that a review of her papers raised some concerns.

“In looking at her documents, they did not find any entry documents in her passport where she was legally admitted into the United States,” says Flores.

Ahmed produced a South African passport to the agents with four pages torn out, and with no U.S. entry stamps. Ahmed reportedly later confessed to investigators that she entered the country illegally by crossing the Rio Grande River. Ahmed was carrying travel itineraries showing a July 8 flight from Johannesburg, South Africa to London. Six days later, Ahmed traveled from London to Mexico City before attempting to travel from McAllen to New York.

Government sources tell FederalNewsRadio.com that capturing this woman could be comparable to the arrest of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of 9/11. It was revealed in court Tuesday that she was on a watch list and had entered the U.S. possibly as many as 250 times.

Tuesday, the South African government issued a warning that Al-Qaida militants and other terrorists traveling through Europe had obtained South African passports, and authorities believe they got them from crime syndicates operating inside the government agency that issues the documents.

(Via Rusty Shackelford.)

Cross-posted at Backcountry Conservative.

JERUSALEM POST: Nasrallah: Attack on Al-Aksa means end of Israel

A possible destruction of the Al-Aksa Mosque by Jewish extremists will have “lethal” repercussions for the Jewish State, Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah warned Wednesday.

Speaking on the Beirut-based al-Manar television, the mouthpiece for the extremist Shiite group, Nasrallah warned: “God forbid, should the Holy Al-Aksa be destroyed this will mean the destruction of the Jewish entity [Israel].”

Bloomberg:

At least six people were killed, including two United Nations workers, when a bomb exploded inside a mosque in the central Afghan province of Ghazni, the U.S. military said in a statement.

The UN workers, who weren’t identified, were registering Afghans for October’s presidential election when the bomb exploded, while two other unidentified UN personnel who were injured were flown by UN helicopters to the U.S. military base at Bagram, north of the capital, Kabul, the statement said.

UN spokesman Farhan Haq said the world body’s has a report that only two people were killed in the attack — an Afghan working on the joint UN-Afghan voter registration effort and an individual who was registering to vote. Haq said the UN believes no UN workers were killed in the bombing.

Cross-posted at Backcountry Conservative.

Reuters reports on a foiled terrorist attempt to strike an embassy of a North African country in Vienna.

Reuters:

VIENNA (Reuters) - Austrian anti-terrorism investigators found detailed plans of a North African embassy with notes on its security gaps during a raid last year and may have foiled an attack, officials said Wednesday.

The raid has only now been made public as the Federal Constitutional Protection and Anti-Terrorism Agency presented its annual report on security threats in Austria.

The agency’s head said the Vienna embassy which he declined to identify had been immediately informed and extra protection assigned while it beefed up its own security.

“These measures (the raid) may at least have prevented the planning of an attack,” Gert-Rene Polli told Reuters.

The 2003 report said there was no evidence of a direct threat to Austria, but that a latent threat hung over all of Europe and the danger of Islamic militant attacks was growing.

Investigators found the embassy drawings while serving a search warrant on suspects from North Africa, who left the country before prosecutors could take up the case.

Polli said the leads generated by the raid were more important than the fact no one was tried.

“We found very interesting material that took us further,” he said.

more on this at Southern Watch

MAARIV: Mine tunnel discovered

IDF foces have uncovered a large tunnel in the northern paret of the Gaza Strip. Military sources believe its purpose was to mount an attack on an IDF outpost similar to the one a few weeks ago, when Palestinians succesfully mined a IDF outpost by tunneling under it.

NY TIMES: Islamic Charity Says F.B.I. Falsified Evidence Against It

A shuttered Islamic charity in Dallas, accused of being a financial front for Middle East terrorists, charged Monday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation falsified evidence and “fabricated a case” against it in an effort to show that it financed Palestinian suicide-bombers.

The charity, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, brought a formal complaint with the Justice Department inspector general and requested an investigation, saying that the F.B.I. used as the crux of its case a “distorted” and erroneous translation of sensitive Israeli intelligence material. The Holy Land group said it hired an independent translating service in Oregon, which cited 67 discrepancies or errors in translation in a four-page F.B.I. document used in the case.

The F.B.I. and the inspector general’s office said they had not yet seen the request for an investigation and could not comment on the specifics of the accusations. But an F.B.I. official who spoke on condition of anonymity said that “our investigation was based on the facts that were developed, and I’m not aware of any concerns expressed with regard to the translations used in the case.”

AP reports: A federal indictment charges a Muslim charity and seven men with conspiracy and dealing with terrorists.

BBC: Guantanamo inmates back in France

Four French nationals captured by US troops in Afghanistan have been transferred home from the US military base in Guantanamo Bay.

The detainees - among seven Frenchmen seized during the war against the Taleban in late 2001 - arrived at the Evreux air base, west of Paris.

They are expected to appear before a French anti-terrorism magistrate.

Nearly 600 prisoners from the US “war on terror” are still held at Guantanamo naval base in Cuba.

Airports in Turkey have been placed on the second highest terror alert level after officials received intelligence that the Al Qaeda terror network may be planning Sept. 11-style attacks, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

The daily Milliyet said the warning said Usama bin Laden’s terror network may either hijack a plane to crash it onto a target or detonate an explosive device on board a plane.

The report did not say where the attack might take place.

JERUSALEM POST: Palestinians digging tunnel under Rafah terminal

The Palestinian Authority is refusing to allow up to 2,000 Palestinians stranded on the Egyptian side of the border in Rafah to use an alternative crossing in the Negev instead.

The Nitzana crossing was prepared by Israel after the Rafah international border crossing was closed 10 days ago do to suspicions that terrorists were digging a tunnel under the crossing and plan to rig it with explosives.

Security officials confirmed to The Jerusalem Post that after the new crossing was prepared and ready for operation, PA officials declared they would refuse to process the Palestinians seeking to return to the Gaza Strip.

The officials said Israel was trying to find ways to alleviate the situation and assist the Palestinians stranded in Egypt.

HAARETZ: Shin Bet nabs cell planning attacks in Shoham, Netanya

The Shin Bet security service and Israel Defense Forces troops arrested a Hamas cell in the West Bank city of Nablus last month that had been planning to carry out terror attacks in Shoham and Netanya, it was released for publication Tuesday.

Four students at A-Najah University in Nablus were among the Hamas members arrested.

The cell was planning a number of shooting attacks in Shoham, near Ben-Gurion International Airport. The cell planned to disguise one of the militants as a deaf and mute beggar to gain entry into the city.

Yes, it’s a new feature on Winds of Change.NET - and a new team member, too!

“We are becoming hopeful day by day. We cannot develop our country, in which the fighting existed for 23 years, within two years. We had lots of problems in the past but they are being solved day by day.”
— Ghalib Shah Azizi,
Head of Afghanistan’s Northern Chamber of Commerce

If there is one place where good news is harder to come by than Iraq, it’s Afghanistan. For that we should partly blame our poor understanding of Afghan realities, and consequently, unrealistic expectations. An isolated, poor, largely rural country with harsh landscapes and limited natural resources, Afghanistan has been for the past quarter of a century cursed with constant violence and oppression. Good news from Afghanistan will not in any foreseeable future mean mushrooming shopping malls and health care clinics in every village. For the people who have suffered so much for so long, relative peace and absence of theocracy are a good start.

But, as is the case with reporting from Iraq, we shouldn’t let the media off the hook so easily, either. For all the fashionable talk about Iraq distracting the Bush Administration from the war on terror, it’s largely been the media who have ignored Afghanistan except for the occasional story about another skirmish with the Taliban remnants or the explosion in opium cultivation.

CBS’s veteran journalist, Tom Fenton, recently had this to say about the work of his media colleagues:

“You know the old saying: No news is good news. But in the news business, it is just the opposite: Good news is no news - which is why you have been hearing so little from Afghanistan recently.

“Iraq has been grabbing the headlines. Even the most confirmed optimist would find it hard to see a ray of light there today. But there is a growing body of evidence that things are beginning to improve in Afghanistan. To see why, you need to travel around Afghanistan a bit. That’s something the media find hard to do in Iraq now - many news crews rarely venture out of their hotels in Baghdad.”

Not to mention in Kabul. If they did, they would arguably find more stories like these:

• Democracy
  
• Society
  
• Reconstruction
  
• Humanitarian Aid
  
• Security

HAARETZ: IDF: Hezbollah may have rockets that reach Tel Aviv

Hezbollah might have a few dozen long-range rockets capable of hitting the Tel Aviv area if launched from southern Lebanon, the head of Military Intelligence told ministers at the weekly cabinet meeting Sunday.

IDF Intelligence Chief Major-General Aharon Ze’evi-Farkash said Hezbollah had a few dozen rockets “apparently” with a range of 115 kilometers and perhaps as great as 200 kilometers. Farkash said Israel was also investigating the possibility that the rockets might also reach as far as Be’er Sheva.

Farkash told the cabinet that over the past two years, Hezbollah has increased its supply of rockets with a 25-kilometer range, capable of hitting targets in the Galilee, from 11,000 to 13,000. The number of mid-range rockets in the hands of Hezbollah has also risen from a few hundred to 500. Israel is certain that the Iranian Fajar 3 and Fajar 5 rockets, with a range of 45 to 75 kilometers, and Syrian-made 200-milimeter rockets, with a range of 70 kilometers, are included among these rockets.

REUTERS: Palestinian Militants Vow ‘Revolutionary Justice’

The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, whose masked gunmen have clashed with Palestinian security forces in Gaza, has vowed in a manifesto to mete out “revolutionary justice” to those it brands corrupt.

The militant group, part of President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction, has been involved in the worst internal strife for a decade — turmoil that has stirred fears of civil war.

Militants began distributing the pamphlet titled “Dream of the Martyrs” in Gaza this week, but it was dated July 15, a day before unrest began with a wave of high-profile kidnappings. Black hooded gunmen have also attacked several police posts.

“We will put a conclusive end to those who are outside the organizational, national and moral understanding of our people, removing them from official positions and holding them to account,” the proposal said.

It said it would “implement the law of revolutionary justice against them” without giving further details.

JERUSALEM POST: Report: Six Palestinian gunmen killed in Tulkarm

Six Palestinian gunmen were reportedly killed in clashes with IDF troops and undercover Border Police units in the West Bank city of Tulkarm Sunday night.

Palestinians reported hearing gunfire in the streets, according to Arab media reports.

HAARETZ: Six children injured after missile hits Gaza settlement

Six children were injured on Sunday evening after an anti-tank missile hit a community center in the Gaza Strip settlement of Neveh Dekalim in Gush Katif.

One 10-year-old child was seriously injured and five others, also 10, suffered light injuries in the attack.

Palestinian militants fired the missile from the area of Khan Yunis.

AP: Britain to Issue Terror Information Kits

Britain’s top law enforcement official said Sunday he is preparing to issue a booklet with advice on what to do in case of a terrorist attack or a civil emergency.

Home Secretary David Blunkett said the pamphlet was inspired by information kits issued by the Australian government last year.

He said Britons should be “alert but not alarmed” about the threat from terrorism.

“I spent from Sept. 11 a lot of political energy and political clout persuading people not to over-hype what was going on,” Blunkett told British Broadcasting Corp. TV.

“Not because the threat isn’t real … but because we need to go about our daily lives. We need to keep our economy and our social life going and if people were over-frightened they would change their behavior.”

AP: Morocco Warns Spain About Militants

Moroccan authorities have warned Spain that they have lost track of 400 suspected militants who trained in al-Qaida terrorist camps in Afghanistan, a newspaper reported Sunday.

Most of the suspects in the Madrid train bombings were Moroccan, prompting that country’s government to alert Spanish anti-terrorism judge Baltasar Garzon of the situation during a meeting in Rabat, Morocco, in early July.

About 600 Moroccans were known to have trained in Afghanistan in camps sponsored by Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), the daily El Pais said, quoting unidentified sources close to police and judicial officials.

But Morocco knew the whereabouts of only 200 of them, El Pais said.

JERUSALEM POST: Laser gun against Kassams a possibility

The defense industry is considering adapting the Nautilus system, or Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser (MTHEL), meant for anti-Katyusha defense systems in the north, to combat lower tech Kassam rockets on the Gaza strip border. The Nautilus, which has cost hundreds of million of dollars to develop, is essentially a laser gun, has been developed over the last few years in a joint US – Israeli program.

According to security sources familiar with the design, the MTHEL will be able to fire a beam every five seconds and follow 15 targets simultaneously. It will also be able to turn glass canopies on fighter jets into opaque glass after a one-second blast. The MTHEL could also be used against helicopters.

In field tests conducted since development of the system, the Nautilus has succeeded in downing over thirty Katyusha rockets, and several artillery shells.

Advanced testing in New Mexico further improved the laser’s targeting system and enabled it to down a long-range missile.

A defense official told Israel Radio Sunday that the cost of adjusting the system to target Kassam rockets would be very high.

After all, you have to upgrade the sea bass to sharks…

Here’s a shocker:

MAARIV: Egypt foils transfer of 60 rockets to Gaza

IDF intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Aharon Ze’evi-Farkash, has told ministers at the weekly cabinet session that Egypt recently foiled the transfer of 60 rockets to Gaza. He also noted that Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah recently acknowledged his organization’s active involvement in Palestinian territories.

JERUSALEM POST: IAF helicopter strikes Gaza

In yet another attempt to target a senior Hamas official, an IAF Apache attack helicopter fired a number of missiles Sunday morning at the home of Hamas member Abu Malek Jundash in Gaza City’s Zeitun neighborhood.

At the time of the attack the suspect was not home. The house, which was empty when the missiles hit it, was totally destroyed.

According to local Palestinian reports, several bystanders were lightly wounded. Two people were taken to a Gaza hospital with light wounds, and two others were treated on the spot.

Is Musharraf dragging his feet or not? Well, if this is true, then there’s some good news in Pakistan…

DAILY TIMES: Pakistanis sneak up to Bin Laden

CIA-sponsored Pakistani agents have infiltrated the outer core of Al Qaeda in the high-gear American effort to grab Osama bin Laden.

The Pakistani agents, who are joined by Afghans and Uzbeks, are “beyond foot soldiers but not in the inner circle.” These agents “are more senior than the agents (the United States had) three years ago, who were on the periphery,” a senior intelligence official told Washington Post, according to a report published Saturday.

US intelligence believes that Al Qaeda today has a far less capable team than it had before the 9/11 attacks. However, Al Qaeda would “still want to continue to attack us in the ways they did three years ago,” the official said.

According to a CIA official, “We have busted plots repeatedly” undertaken by “serious Al Qaeda players” involving both aircraft and ships, some in Northeast Asia, others in Southeast Asia. He said intelligence on the possibility of other attacks had recently been strong. “I wouldn’t characterise what we have now as chatter. I think we have some fairly specific information that Al Qaeda wants to come after us,” he added.

HAARETZ: Security services avert suicide bombing

The Israel Defense Forces, along with Shin Bet Security Services say they averted on Saturday a suicide bombing planned to be carried out in the Jordan Valley. Troops arrested three Islamic Jihad militants said linked to the planned attack in the town of Tubas, in the northern West Bank.

The three men arrested included the intended suicide bomber, his dispatcher and an assistant. During their arrest, soldiers found an explosive belt weighing 15-kilos in the attic of one of their homes.

Security forces carried out a controlled-explosion of the belt, Israel Radio reported.

An investigation of the three revealed they planned to target a gas station which also houses a restaurant.

HAARETZ: Hanegbi: Extreme right may carry out attack on Temple Mount

Public Security Minister Tzachi Hanegbi on Saturday said that the defense establishment has identified a strengthening of intent among extreme-right groups to carry out a terror attack on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in order to thwart the peace process.

“There is no information on specific persons, otherwise the Shin Bet and the police would not have enabled them to act,” Hanegbi told Channel Two news, “but there are worrying indications pointing to a purposeful - not just philosophical - frame of mind.”

“There is a danger that they would want to make use of the most explosive target, in hope that the ensuing chain reaction would bring about the destruction of the political process,” he added.

HAARETZ: Militants set fire to Gaza police station

Masked militants set fire and destroyed a Palestinian police station south of Gaza City on Saturday, in an apparent protest against PA Chairman Yasser Arafat’s lack of reform of the security services.

Witnesses to the fire and local security officials said the unidentified militants stormed the police station in the town of Zwaida, about seven kilometers south of Gaza City, smashed furniture, then set the building alight.

No one was injured, but damage was caused to a town council building nearby. The building was sparsely occupied since the raid happened before normal working hours. No group immediately claimed responsibility.

AP: Surrender of al-Qaeda chief negotiated

Negotiations for the surrender of the man believed to be al-Qaeda’s chief in the Arabian Peninsula have begun, a Saudi cleric said Friday.

Sheik Safar al-Hawaly, speaking to The Associated Press from the southern Saudi province al-Baha, said an intermediary was sent to Saleh Mohammed al-Aoofi on Thursday night. He would not say where al-Aoofi was.

Al-Hawaly said he had previously mediated with extremists on behalf of the Saudi government.

Saudi officials were not immediately available to comment Friday, the Muslim Sabbath.

REUTERS: Group May Attack Media at Democrats Convention-FBI

The FBI said on Friday it was investigating “unconfirmed information” of a possible attack on media vehicles during the Democratic National Convention, which begins on Monday in Boston.

“The FBI has received unconfirmed information that a domestic group is planning to disrupt the Democratic National Convention by attacking media vehicles with explosives or incendiary devices,” the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Boston field office said in a statement.

The FBI said members of the Boston Joint Terrorism Task Force were investigating, and that it would provide more details if there is “any credible information.”

A spokeswoman for the Boston FBI told Reuters that the bureau had notified media organizations of the probe because they were potential targets.

Boston police declined immediate comment.

MAARIV: Al-Qadea mastermind planned to crash plane into Eilat

Al-Qaeda mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed offered Osama Bin Laden in the spring of 2001 to perpetrate a terror attack on the Israeli resort town of Eilat, the report published by the 9/11 investigative commission reveals.

According to the report, Mohammed raised the idea of crashing an airplane on the city but the al-Qaeda leader rejected his idea.

The panel of five Republicans and five Democrats on Thursday released the findings of its 20-month investigation into the deadliest terror attack in U.S. history. They called for an overhaul of America’s intelligence agencies to stop the next terror attack. Citing multiple government failures, the report called for a national counterterrorism center headed by a Cabinet-level director to centralize intelligence efforts.

AP: U.S. seeking cleric’s extradition

Lawyers acting for the U.S. government on Friday outlined a series of alleged terrorism offenses by radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri as they sought his extradition in a British court.

But his defense attorney said al-Masri wouldn’t receive a fair hearing if he was sent to the United States and expressed fears that some American evidence against him may have been obtained from tortured witnesses.

Defense lawyer Edward Fitzgerald also told Belmarsh Magistrates Court in south London that the preacher could face the death penalty in the United States for charges relating to a hostage-taking in Yemen.

Al-Masri, 47, nodded to confirm his name and age and shook his head when asked if he wanted the charges to be repeated.

(Now put your right hand on the Ko- … oh, wait. Put your left ha- … well, how about a foot?)

What the hell … we’ll wait. From The Washington Times:

Congress will begin acting on some of the recommendations in the September 11 commission’s report when lawmakers return from summer recess, but leaders said the dramatic changes sought in yesterday’s report will be put off until after the Nov. 2 elections.

Here’s the spin:

“We will move the Faster and Smarter Funding for First Responders Act to the floor soon to ensure that our areas under the highest risk of threats are taken care of,” said Rep. Christopher Cox, California Republican and chairman of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security Committee.

And here’s the counterspin:

Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Democratic Sens. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Evan Bayh of Indiana suggested a special session to move more of the recommendations forward.

“Delay is our enemy, and time is important. And that’s why I think it’s so important that, what Joe and Arlen and Evan say, that if necessary, let’s do a special session,” Mr. McCain said.

Naw, let’s wait. Fundraising is MUCH more important. Go here to email your elected representatives.

HAARETZ: Palestinian killed in Beit Hanun dispute with Al- Aqsa militants

An Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades cell killed a 16-year-old Palestinian youth in Beit Hanun on Friday after his family opposed the cell’s attempt to launch Qassam rockets from their yard, security sources said.

According to a report obtained by the defense establishment from Palestinian sources, the cell, comprised of six men, arrived at Za’anun family’s Beit Hanun home in a commercial vehicle on Friday morning. The cell placed a Qassam rocket launcher adjacent to the family’s house, and one of the cell members opened fire on an armored Israel Defense Forces vehicle not far from the house.

Members of the Za’anun family came out of their house holding sticks and rocks, and tried to drive the Al-Aqsa militants from their yard, most likely fearing that their house would be demolished if Qassam rockets were launched from it.

During the clash, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades members opened fire and killed Hassan Za’anun and wounded three additional family members. The militants left the area following the incident, without firing the Qassam rockets.

BY THE WAY:
If you’re wondering about Al-Jazeera’s new ethical standards, here’s an example of how they apply to coverage of Palestinian witnesses propagandists-on-the-scene.

Fox News:

WASHINGTON — A report of a bomb aboard a Turkish merchant ship Thursday forced the U.S. Coast Guard (search) to escort the vessel away from the port of Philadelphia and anchor it near the mouth of the Delaware River, where it flows into the Atlantic Ocean, senior Defense officials told FOX News.

The ship’s master became irritated with the length of time a routine Coast Guard search was taking and made comments about a possible explosion, officials said. He refused to allow authorities to search certain portions of the vessel, called the Cenk Kaptanoglu (search).

But the captain later told authorities he’d been joking about the bomb, officials told FOX News. The ship had not yet been boarded for its second inspection.

Still, the Coast Guard took his comments “very seriously” and planned to conduct a “multi-agency” search, officials told FOX News.

HAARETZ: Two Islamic Jihad militants killed in IAF strike in Gaza

Two Islamic Jihad militants were killed Thursday evening when an Israel Air Force helicopter missile struck their car as they were traveling in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City.

Islamic Jihad said that one of the two was a field commander in the movement. The second was not immediately identified.

A third member of the group was wounded in the strike, which occurred in a district known as a stronghold of Islamic militants frequently targeted by the Israel Defense Forces.

UPDATE:
Three dead.

9-11 Commission Report: “[L]ess than a week after [Richard A.] Clarke’s phone call [to an Arab government] the bin Laden camp was hurriedly dismantled, and the site was deserted.”

According to the 9-11 Commission Report, the Clinton Administration had bin Laden’s camp in its sites, but the camp was “hurriedly dismantled … and … deserted” after a leak to an Arab government by Richard A. Clarke:

Via the 9-11 Commission Report:

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Richard A. Clark earlier this year was critical of the Bush Administration, and its policies for combating terrorism, during his 9-11 Commission testimony. During Clarke’s public testimony, at least, Clarke made no mention of the above-discussed lost chance to capture or kill bin Laden in 1999, during the Clinton Administration.

The full 9-11 Commission Report is here.

Via The Corner and Instapundit.

The link to the nikita demosthenes post is here.

You can read the entire report here, in PDF format only.

Here, you can read the transcript of President Bush’s reaction to the report.

Update: If you can’t get the report to open (the site is awfully slow right now), you can get bits and pieces over at The Corner.

The panel investigating the September 11, 2001, attack concluded in its final report that a “failure of imagination” kept U.S. officials from understanding the al Qaeda threat before the attacks on New York and Washington.

The 570-page, 14-chapter report also offers recommendations for reforming U.S. security agencies to fight terrorism.

The independent commission — formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States — released the report on Thursday.

More on this topic:

MSNBC:

The commission did not recommend creation of a new domestic intelligence agency similar to Britain’s MI5, as proposed by some in Congress. Instead, the report endorsed steps already being taken by FBI Director Robert Mueller to create a specialized intelligence service within the FBI.

The commission also says the U.S. government must do more at home to guard against future terror attacks, including such things as setting national standards for issuance of drivers’ licenses and other identification, improving “no-fly” and other terrorist watch lists and using more biometric identifiers to screen travelers at ports and borders.

___

Don’t expect action in ‘04 on 9/11 report

___

Also from MSNBC:

The report will also debunk several “myths” that have built up around the terrorist strikes that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York City, Washington and Pennsylvania, the officials said.

According to the report, they said:

The Saudi government did not fund the 19 hijackers.
* Relatives of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden were not allowed to fly out of the country until after air traffic was allowed to move freely after it was grounded following the attacks. Moreover, those family members had no connection to the terrorist plot.
* Bush did not know about the specific threat beforehand, and there was little more that he could to prevent it.

IMRA: 2 Weapon Smuggling Tunnels were uncovered

Two shafts of weapon smuggling tunnels were uncovered during an IDF activity to uncover weapon smuggling tunnels along the Israeli-Egyptian border, which started yesterday (Wednesday) during night hours.

A pulley block and ropes were found inside the first shaft, 8 meters deep, which was dug under the cover of a civilian structure. A knife, sand bags and ropes were found inside the second shaft, 6.5 meters deep.

The first shaft was detonated in a controlled manner. During the activity Palestinians activated several explosive devices at IDF forces. No injuries were reported. The activity along the border continues.

17 weapon smuggling tunnels were uncovered since the beginning of 2004. Since September 2000, approximately 90 weapon smuggling tunnels were uncovered.

HAARETZ: Arafat agrees to give up authority over security forces

Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, under growing pressure, has agreed to grant his prime minister full authority over the security forces, a Palestinian lawmaker said Thursday after meeting with Arafat.

Imad Fallouji, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said, “Arafat expressed his readiness to give (Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia) full authority to reshuffle his cabinet in the way that he sees fit and give the government full … authority over the internal security services.”

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged Arafat on Wednesday to empower his prime minister and interior minister to carry out essential reforms in the PA, especially in the security establishment.

Annan told a news conference that he hopes Arafat will use the current crisis to implement reforms and advance the peace process.

“I really hope that, as difficult and as complicated as the crisis is in Palestine, that they will exploit this crisis positively, and move ahead and really come up with some other reform structures which are required, particularly in the security area,” he said.

(Ahmed Queri has stated several times that he will not use the “security forces” to pursue palestinian “militants”)

HAARETZ: FM: EU vote encourages PA to avoid fighting terror

Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said Thursday that this week’s European vote supporting a UN General Assembly resolution against the separation fence encourages the Palestinians to continue avoiding their obligation to fight terrorism.

He made the comments during a joint press conference in Tel Aviv with European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana after meeting with him for an hour.

“The government and people of Israel are deeply disappointed by Europe’s decision to vote with the Palestinians and against the fence,” Shalom said.

“The EU should be engaged in promoting Palestinian reform in Gaza and Ramallah, not Palestinian manipulation in the UN,” the foreign minister said, adding that Europe’s vote “encourages the Palestinians to continue their evasion of responsibility” on fighting terror.

“Of course, it’s necessary to support the UN and its principles, but not to permit a cynical use of the UN,” Shalom said.

HAARETZ: IDF foils Haifa suicide bombing

Israel Defense Forces troops foiled a suicide bombing in Haifa on Thursday when they stopped a suspicious-looking taxi in the West Bank and found two Fatah militants planning to carry out a terror attack, Israel Radio reported.

The IDF had set up several roadblocks around the West Bank city of Nablus after receiving warnings that Palestinian terrorists from the region were planning to carry out an attack.

The taxi tried to avoid a surprise roadblock east of the Tapuah junction, arousing soldiers’ suspicion. The troops fired warning shots in the air, and one of the Palestinians in the cab tossed out a bag containing an explosives belt. There were no injuries.

The IDF said the belt was intended for a suicide bombing in the northern city of Haifa, according to the report.

One of the things the mainstream media do poorly is to follow-up top stories. There’s an initial fooferaw and great hoo-ha, then… silence.

Fortunately, TCP is a blog, not mainstream media. So, updating a previous post, here’s a follow-up from the BBC :

The BBC security correspondent who was shot in Saudi Arabia says he has been “overwhelmed” by the messages he has received from around the world.

Frank Gardner remains in hospital in London where he is being treated for injuries he received in a gun attack in Riyadh last month.

His colleague BBC cameraman Simon Cumbers was killed in the attack.

Gardner particularly wanted to express his thanks for the many messages posted on BBC News Online, a spokesman said.

“Many [of the messages] are from people he has never met and who only know him through his broadcasts on BBC television and radio.

“He’s asked us to say how much he appreciates their support and good wishes - and to thank everyone who has written or sent messages paying tribute to his work and wishing him a full and speedy recovery,” the spokesman said.

Gardner, 42, and Cumbers, 36, were both shot in a southern suburb of the Saudi capital on 6 June.

After being treated in a Saudi hospital, Gardner returned earlier this month to a hospital in the UK, where he is said to be making “slow and steady progress”.

Previous Follow-ups on TCP have included what happened to Ali Abbas, the kid whose arms were blown off during the war.

Washington Post, July 22, 2004: “The documents that Berger has acknowledged taking — some of which remain missing — are different drafts of a January 2000 “after-action review” of how the government responded to terrorism plots at the turn of the millennium. The document was written by White House anti-terrorism coordinator Richard A. Clarke, at Berger’s direction when he was in government.”

This report in today’s New York Daily News seems to indicate that Sandy Berger’s theft of classifed documents appears to have been pre-meditated and planned:

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Here’s the latest in this bizarre story from the Washington Post:

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Sources have told The Washington Post, and other news organizations, that Berger was witnessed stuffing papers into his clothing. Through attorneys and spokesmen, Berger has denied doing that.


Berger has known for months that he was in potential jeopardy. Breuer was hired in October, and in January former White House press secretary Joe Lockhart was enlisted to remain on standby if a public controversy blossomed. But Berger allies said he did not inform Kerry because he had resolved to work privately with Justice Department officials, and received assurances that these officials would treat the matter confidentially.

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As to the contents of the millennium “after-action report,” Byron York reports as follows:

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The link to the nikita demosthenes post, with additional citations, is here.

WaPo reports:

Surveillance video from Washington’s Dulles Airport the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, shows four of the five hijackers being pulled aside to undergo additional scrutiny after setting off metal detectors but then permitted to board the fateful flight that later crashed into the Pentagon.

The surveillance video, obtained by The Associated Press, shows an airport screener hand-checking the carryon baggage of one hijacker, Nawaf al-Hazmi, for traces of explosives before letting him continue onto American Airlines Flight 77 with his brother, Salem, a fellow hijacker.

It appears 4 of the 5 hijackers who departed through Dulles received additional screening; all were allowed to board.

AP: Israeli Helicopters Attack Gaza Workshop

Israeli helicopters fired two missiles at a workshop in the Khan Younis refugee camp in southern Gaza early Thursday, residents said.

One of the missiles exploded in the empty shop, they said, but the other failed to explode.

Palestinian police and ambulances raced to the scene. There was no immediate report of casualties. Police were dealing with the unexploded missile, witnesses said.

The Israeli military said the target was a weapons workshop used by Hamas. The military said there were several secondary blasts, “showing that there was a large amount of explosives in the workshop.”

JERUSALEM POST: Mediators restart Hizbullah prisoner swap talks

German intermediaries have restarted negotiations regarding the second phase of the Hizbullah prisoner exchange in which information about the disappearance of missing aviator Ron Arad is to be exchanged for Haran family murderer Samir Kuntar.

According to a report on Channel 1 TV Wednesday night, Iran, seeking information on four missing diplomats it believes are being held by Israel, is pressuring the Hizbullah to fulfill its part of the bargain.

During the past months, bone fragments have been delivered to Israel that have proven to be immaterial to the exchange - following DNA tests proving the fragments were not those of Ron Arad’s.

MAARIV: Palestinian entry from Gaza to Israel to end within four years

World Bank representatives together with Director of the National Security Council Giora Eiland and Deputy Director of Economic Affairs in the Foreign Ministry Yossi Gal decided on Wednesday to completely phase out entry of Palestinian workers from the Gaza Strip into Israel within four years.

Eiland and Gal met for the first working meeting with World Bank representatives in order to advance the disengagement plan. During the discussion, an agreement was reached to set up four joint work teams to promote economic facets of disengagement involving trade and passageways, the transfer of Israeli assets in the Gaza Strip, the establishment and operation of industrial zones and improvement of the transportation infrastructure in Judea and Samaria.

The four work teams are expected to begin operating within two weeks. It was further agreed that there was an urgent need to encourage Palestinian economic independence while gradually separating Palestinian and Israeli economies.

A decision was also made by which the Gaza Strip would be closed as a passageway for Palestinian workers. Simultaneously, a Palestinian industrial zone would be opened and Palestinian exports would increase.

(If a premature explosion that kills a terrorist is called a “work accident” does it mean that Qassam rockets launched at Israeli schoolyards, houses, and streets are considered “exports” ?)

….[F]ederal law enforcement authorities are investigating a Lexington business.

Agents executed search warrants at Galls Incorporated on Palumbo Drive and a warehouse on Russell Cave Road.

Galls is a national supplier of police and emergency services equipment.

Among the agencies involved in the investigation are the Homeland Security Cabinet and the Department of Defense. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office tells 27 NEWSFIRST, Federal officials are investigating whether the company had a license to send gear to restricted countries. They’re also looking into any wrongdoing by company employees.

Follow up to come.

JERUSALEM POST: Palestinian official kidnapped, then released

Palestinian gunmen kidnapped a senior official of the local government of the West Bank city of Nablus Wednesday, an aide to the governor said, the latest in a series of abductions in the Palestinian territories.

The official was released unharmed after being held for two hours, officials said.

Fadel Alshouli, head of tribal affairs department at the Nablus government, was seized by armed men and taken to the Balata Refugee Camp outside Nablus, said the aide, Anan Ateeri.

The governor, Mahmoud Aloul, contacted the kidnappers to secure Alshouli’s release, Ateeri said.

It was not clear if the kidnappers made any concrete demands, or whether the abduction was a form of protest by young militants against the Palestinian establishment.

Asked why the kidnapping took place, Aloul told The Associated Press, “this is part of the chaos that we’re living in,” and declined further comment.

MAARIV: Palestinian cabinet calls on groups to stop Kassam attacks

The Palestinian cabinet has called on terror groups to stop the launching of Kassam rockets towards Israel.

The unexpected plea followed this morning’s Kassam attack in which a rocket landed on a home in a kibbutz in the western Negev, miraculously causing no injuries. It was explained as a desire not to give Prime Minister Ariel Sharon any pretense for taking over additional territory in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

The firing of the Kassam this morning is a continuation of a trend by Palestinian terrorist organizations to fire towards towns in the western Negev. Since the beginning of Operation Forward Shield in the northern Gaza Strip that was designed to prevent rocket attacks towards Sderot, 40 Kassams have been fired, two of which fell in Sderot and close to twenty in the western Negev.

There is concern that the terrorist organizations will succeed in extending the rocket range, thus increasing the threat posed to Israeli towns and cities. In this case, the IDF might step up its operations and take over additional territories in the depths of the Gaza Strip.

Cross post from OTB

CNN - Saudis find U.S. hostage’s head

The head of slain U.S. hostage Paul M. Johnson Jr., who was kidnapped and beheaded in Saudi Arabia last month, has been found in a Riyadh villa, a Saudi Interior Ministry official said. The head was discovered in a freezer during raids against militants that began Tuesday night. Weapons and ammunition were found in the same villa. A U.S. Embassy official said the Johnson family was being notified and that U.S. officials were working closely with the Saudis in the investigation. Johnson, 49, was working as an engineer for Lockheed Martin in Riyadh when he was abducted by al Qaeda militants on June 12. He worked on Apache attack helicopters and had lived in Saudi Arabia for more than a decade.

Tuesday night, Saudi security forces, police and national guard units staged a major operation against suspected al Qaeda militants in the capital, killing at least two and arresting the wife of the fifth-most-wanted man in the kingdom, the Saudi Interior Ministry said. Three other suspected militants were wounded in the operation, the ministry said. The ministry would not confirm that among the dead and wounded may be Saleh al-Oufi, the current leader of al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. Al-Oufi’s wife was arrested in the operation and three of his children were detained, the ministry said. There were other women in the house and they also were detained, it said. Al-Oufi, a former prison guard, is fifth on Saudi Arabia’s list of most-wanted terrorists.

At the center of the cordon was what sources described as a major safehouse, which contained light weapons and homemade explosives. Heavy exchanges of gunfire took place near the house, and al-Oufi’s wife was arrested inside, the security sources said. The sources said it’s believed the raid disrupted a planned operation. . . . There is speculation that the operation was undertaken based on information gathered from the interrogation of some 61 people who have taken advantage of the government’s offer of leniency for wanted militants.

ARAB NEWS: Sultan Asks Militants to Surrender

Prince Sultan, second deputy premier and minister of defense and aviation, yesterday called on militants still at large to take advantage of a royal amnesty before it expires on Friday.

Speaking from his palace in Jeddah where he met senior government officials and military commanders, Prince Sultan said: “Islam is a religion of compassion, mercy and peace. Terrorists still in hiding should make use of the amnesty and surrender before it is too late.”

“We hope that those remaining will be reasonable enough to use the period left to turn themselves in. Amnesty usually comes from men of magnanimity and generosity and it always comes with victory. The amnesty declared by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd was a noble act and we hope those who have not given themselves up would benefit from this pardon,” Prince Sultan was quoted by the Saudi Press Agency as saying.

HAARETZ: U.S. official: Arafat blocks probe of U.S. Gaza deaths

Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat is blocking an investigation to find the killers of three American security guards attacked in the Gaza Strip last year, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday.

The United States has persistently complained the Palestinians have failed to investigate fully the bombing of a U.S. diplomatic convoy but officials had not directly blamed Arafat for the handling of the probe before.

“There has been no satisfactory resolution of this case. We can only conclude that there has been a political decision taken by the chairman [Arafat] to block further progress in this investigation,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield told lawmakers.

AP: Israelis hit Palestinian base in Lebanon

Israeli warplanes fired at least four missiles Tuesday at a Palestinian base south of Beirut, an official of the radical Palestinian group said.

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command said.

The attack targeted a base of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command in the hills of Naameh, about five miles south of Beirut. It was the second such Israeli airstrike against the area just over a month.

There was no report of casualties.

HAARETZ: Dichter: Iran trying to create fifth column among Israeli Arabs

The head of the Shin Bet internal security service Avi Dichter told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday that “Iran is trying to create a fifth column among Israeli Arabs.”

Via Hezbollah, he said, Teheran is making an effort to recruit Israeli Arabs for terror activity. During the last year, 12 Israeli Arabs were arrested: two are allegedly connected to Hezbollah, seven have ties to Palestinian terror groups and three are suspected of independent involvement in terror activity.

HAARETZ: Hezbollah, IDF troops clash in north

Israel Defense Forces troops were on high alert along the Israel-Lebanon border on Tuesday after a Hezbollah militant was reported killed in heavy exchanges of fire with Israeli soldiers.

IDF officials insisted it was Hezbollah who started the skirmish when snipers opened fire at an IDF post in the north around midday Tuesday. The army called the shooting a “provocation.”

But Lebanese security officials said the Israelis were the first to shoot, and Hezbollah warned it would retaliate at the right time and place.

Israeli helicopters and a tank returned fire, hitting the Hezbollah position from which the sniper attack was initiated. A gunman was killed in the IDF strike, Lebanese security sources said.

It was unclear whether any IDF troops were wounded.

UPDATE: Two IDF soldiers killed.

From The Australian :

Australia’s maritime security was being upgraded following an ASIO assessment which revealed terror groups such as al-Qaeda could attack maritime targets, Prime Minister John Howard said today.

Announcing the maritime security enhancements, Mr Howard said the number of containers subject to X-ray inspection by Customs in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Fremantle would be increased.

As well, the number of ports covered by Customs closed circuit television would rise from 32 to 63.

Mr Howard said there would also be a further review of security arrangements for Australia’s offshore oil and gas facilities by a new taskforce within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

He said the taskforce would consider Australian Government capabilities and protocols for intercepting ships at sea as well.

What’s significant is not that some country stuck on the backside of the world is doing stuff like this, it’s that all countries throughout the world are quietly doing likewise. Or should be.

Mr Howard acknowledged the hard work and commitment of the maritime industry in complying with an International Ship and Port Facility Security Code by the July 1 deadline.

He said 244 security plans covering Australia’s ports, port facilities and ships were approved ahead of the deadline.

“As a result of this commitment, Australia’s maritime security arrangements are amongst the best in the world,” he said.

President Clinton’s national security adviser, Sandy Berger, is the focus of a criminal investigation after admitting he removed highly classified terrorism documents from a secure reading room during preparations for the Sept. 11 commission hearings, The Associated Press has learned.

Berger’s home and office were searched earlier this year by FBI agents armed with warrants. Some drafts of a sensitive after-action report on the Clinton administration’s handling of al-Qaida terror threats during the December 1999 millennium celebration are still missing.

Berger and his lawyer said Monday night he knowingly removed handwritten notes he had taken from classified anti-terror documents he reviewed at the National Archives by sticking them in his jacket and pants. He also inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio, they said.

Full story here

Via Blogs for Bush, which notes that Berger is John Kerry’s foreign policy advisor.

Update: More on Sandy Berger and pants here. Really, just read it.

HAARETZ: 3 Popular Resistance Cmte. men hurt in Gaza strike

Three Popular Resistance Committee militants were wounded in an Israel Air Force helicopter fired missiles at a safe house at in the Shati refugee camp near Gaza City on Monday, the militant group said.

The IDF had no immediate comment on the report.

A spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committee said the air strike was aimed at a house used by Abu Yusef al-Kuka, the group’s leader in northern Gaza.

White smoke rose high from the building, and a large crowd quickly gathered around the house at the Shati Refugee Camp near the Gaza beach.

The blast took place inside the house of a family known to be linked to militant groups.

The Popular Resistance Committee is an umbrella group of militants who left various other Palestinian factions.

It was believed to be responsible for the killing of three American security guards in the northern Gaza Strip last October.

JERUSALEM POST: MI: Hizbullah may have non-conventional weapons

The risk of Iranian non-conventional weapons being transferred to the Hizbullah “exists,” in the same way the group was supplied with long-range rockets, a senior IDF intelligence official said in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday.

The official, Brig.-Gen. Yossi Kupperwasser, said that Iran has resumed its work on nuclear centrifuges needed to make nuclear materials after releasing themselves from a commitment to Europe to halt efforts. He said the development is “worrisome.”

Hizbullah, Iran and Syria are still heavily involved in supporting terror groups, he said, adding that Hizbullah is handing out “handsome bonuses” to Palestinians who carry out attacks. They are making “every effort” to ensure that there won’t be a period of calm here, he said.

(Back from Destin. Did y’all miss me?)

A followup article to one mentioned in a previous item has appeared at WomensWallStreet.com (link to followup), by Annie Jacobsen. Writes Jacobsen, regarding the response to her first article:

By Thursday morning, that number had again multiplied ten-fold. It felt like the shampoo commercial from my youth: they told two friends, then they told two friends, then they told two friends. We sat in the WWS offices reading through your emails, taking stock of what you had to say. As the afternoon went on, the number of people reading the article continued to increase and the telephone was ringing off the hook.

However, there is much more here than simply an “Oohh! Did we hit a nerve, or what?” Notes Jacobsen:

Since publishing the first article, I have received dozens of emails from people in the airline industry, including flight attendants, captains and pilots, some of whom I have also spoken with on the telephone. As of Sunday morning, to my knowledge, WWS had received no emails from anyone in the airline industry suggesting that the incident described in my first article did not happen.

Cheers…

The Al Qaeda-linked Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC) have admitted their leader, Mustapha Abou Ibrahim, along with six others have disappeared

Reuters:

Algerian Islamic rebels admit leader missing
19 Jul 2004 11:46:34 GMT
ALGIERS, July 19 (Reuters) - An Algerian Islamic militant group with ties to al Qaeda has reported its leader missing, one month after the North African country’s military said he was shot during a gun battle.

The army said on June 20 it had killed the chief of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) Nabil Sahraoui, also known as Mustapha Abou Ibrahim, and three top aides during an operation in Bejaia province, east of the capital Algiers. “Mustapha Abou Ibrahim and six other mujahideen are, for us, reported missing. We do not know their fate,” the GSPC said in a statement posted on its Web site, dated July 17.

“In the event of their deaths being confirmed, that will not harm us.”

The GSPC is the only major rebel group still fighting to overthrow Algeria’s secular authorities after a decade of violence. It wants to set up a purist Islamic state.

Last month the GSPC said it detonated a car bomb at an electricity plant in Algiers. The June 21 attack, in which 11 people were injured, was the first of its kind in Algeria since the mid-1990s.

An Islamic uprising began in Algeria after authorities cancelled parliamentary elections in 1992 that a now-banned radical Islamic party was set to win.

More than 150,000 people have since died, according to human rights groups, but violence has diminished in recent years.

More news on this at Southern Watch.

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

A bomb blast has ripped through Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah’s stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut, killing a senior member of the group, witnesses and Hezbollah said.

Witnesses said the blast rocked a car, killing at least one.

Hezbollah’s al Manar television said the bomb killed Ghalib Awali as he got into his car.

It described him as “part of the leadership of the Islamic Resistance” - a reference to Hezbollah.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast.

From The Australian :

A Supermarket stacker was planning to take hostages and carry out executions in an attack on ASIO [Australian Security Intelligence Organisation - similar to FBI] or the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), a court was told today.

Zeky “Zak” Mallah faced a committal hearing at Sydney’s Central Local Court today charged with planning a terrorist act and threatening to seriously harm an undercover federal official.

The 21-year-old is the first NSW person charged under federal terrorism laws to face a committal hearing.

He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Crown prosecutor Desmond Fagan told the court that Mallah intended to enter the Sydney offices of either ASIO or DFAT, take hostages and “kill at least two” federal agents.

“He intended to make available a final message in doing this,” Mr Fagan said.

This message was on a video tape which he sold for $3000, along with a transcript of the tape and photographs of himself, to a federal agent posing as a freelance journalist, the court heard.

Mr Fagan said while the plan was sparked by the Federal Government’s refusal to grant Mallah a passport, his motivations were “not purely personal”.

“His political motivation broadly speaking was he wished to intimidate the Australian Government.”

He said Mallah intended to use the $3000 to clear his debts, which was necessary if he was to become a martyr as he intended.

“He saw it necessary as a matter of religious duty to clear his debts,” he said.

Of course a real journalist would have kept quiet. The report doesn’t mention which particular religious affiliation he has.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

The Crown claims he wanted to force the government to soften its security policy and that Mallah believed the government was persecuting Muslims because of their faith.

Al Qaeda-related terrorists are coming to the U.S. over the Mexican border disguised as Mexicans, Congressman John Culberson (R-TX) has disclosed. The terrorists are adopting Hispanic names and blending in with the hundreds or thousands of illegal aliens who enter the U.S. via Mexico each day.

Culberson made this statement on the John & Ken show (KFI-640 Los Angeles), and KFI is reporting his statement in their news segments.

A listener to the show offers this report:

One of the prosecutors is reportedly Southern District of Texas U.S. Attorney Michael Shelby.

Culberson will have more information, including a letter presumably from federal prosecutors, on Tuesday.

In the past, there have been rumors of terrorists planning to come over the border with Mexico. See, for instance, “Feds discount rumor of Iraqis lurking in Mexico” (Also here and here).

However, the fact that these statements are coming from a U.S. Representative and reportedly from a U.S. Attorney give them quite a bit of weight.

A month ago, WABC reported the following:

In March 2003, I posted Some 9/11 conspirators entered via Mexico?

At the time, I unsuccessfully attempted to contact Flores for more information.

Over two years ago, Sen. John Breaux (D-La.) raised questions about Mexican trucks being used to transport hazardous materials or terrorists into the U.S.

Mohammad Khatami, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, meets with French President Jacques Chirac at the Elysee Palace in Paris on October 27, 1999

Osama bin Laden. It was been reported in the Hindustan Times on February 16, 2003, that Osama bin Laden’s eldest son, Saad, believed to be a key figure in the Al-Qaeda terror network, moved to Iran and is living there with other members of the outlawed group.

Reuters/Yahoo News has reported that “Iranian officials approached al-Qaeda leadership after the bombing of the USS Cole and proposed a collaborative relationship in future attacks on the U.S.”

- - - - - - -

- - - - - - -

It was reported in the Hindustan Times on February 16, 2003, that Osama bin Laden’s eldest son, Saad, believed to be a key figure in the Al-Qaeda terror network, moved to Iran and is living there with other members of the outlawed group.

Photographs of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami’s meetings with French President Jacques Chirac, in both Tehran and Paris, are available here.

The link to the nikita demosthenes post is here - where I’ve posted a couple of updates.

See also the diary on the same subject posted on Red State.

The Guantanamo tribunals were set up soon after the Supreme Court ruled the prisoners there have a right to go to U.S. civilian courts to challenge their detention. The Pentagon said the purpose of the tribunals is to prepare for those court challenges by showing that a panel of military officers has reviewed each prisoner’s case.

[. . .]

Every prisoner’s case will be reviewed, whether he wants to take part in the quasijudicial process or not.

From California Yankee.

Posted by Dan Spencer at 04:00 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

JERUSALEM POST: Fatah, Islamic Jihad call UN Mideast envoy

The armed wings of Fatah and Islamic Jihad on Thursday issued warnings to UN Middle East envoy Terje Roed-Larsen to stay away from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, describing him as an Israeli agent.

In separate leaflets distributed in a number of Palestinian cities, the Aksa Martyrs Brigade (Fatah) and the Al-Quds Battalions (Islamic Jihad) said Larsen was a persona non grata in the PA-controlled areas and warned him against entering.

The two groups condemned Larsen as an “Israeli ambassador” who should not be allowed to set foot on Palestinian lands. The Islamic Jihad group advised Larsen to “pack your bags and leave immediately.”

HAARETZ: Palestinian security sources: Gunmen seize Gaza police chief

Palestinian militants seized Gaza’s police chief on Friday after ambushing his convoy and took him to an unknown location, Palestinian security sources said.

The Jenin Martyrs’ Brigade, part of President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction, claimed responsibility for Ghazi al-Jabali’s abduction. The group’s motive was not immediately known.

Jabali was travelling on Gaza City’s coastal road when several cars cut off his convoy. Armed Palestinians put him in another vehicle and sped away, the security sources said.

According to Israel Radio, the vehicle headed in the direction of the el-Bureij refugee camp. Army Radio later quoted Palestinian sources as saying that Jabali was being held at gunpoint in the camp.

(Reports also say that a UNRWA jeep in the area was “missing.”)

Annie Jacobsen, a writer for WomensWallStreet.com, wrote an account of what happened during a domestic flight she and her family took a couple of weeks ago from Detroit to Los Angeles. An excerpt:

After seeing 14 Middle Eastern men board separately (six together, eight individually) and then act as a group, watching their unusual glances, observing their bizarre bathroom activities, watching them congregate in small groups, knowing that the flight attendants and the pilots were seriously concerned, and now knowing that federal air marshals were on board, I was officially terrified.

Observations regarding official policies currently in place to counter the terrorist threat in the skies over the U.S. are peppered in the piece.

SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE: Morocco is Europe’s biggest terrorist threat, Spain’s judge Garzon says

Morocco – home to most of the suspects in the Madrid train bombing – is teeming with some 100 al-Qaeda-linked cells that are capable of suicide attacks and pose Europe’s biggest terrorist threat, Spain’s leading anti-terrorism judge testified Thursday.

Each cell has five to 10 members, “so we are talking about 900 to 1,000 people who could be sought by police now in Morocco,” Judge Baltasar Garzon told lawmakers investigating the March 11 attacks, which killed 190 people. Garzon cited police and intelligence data.

“In my opinion it is the gravest problem Europe faces today with this kind of terrorism,” Garzon said, noting that many of those groups are in northern Morocco, with members who speak perfect Spanish and are able to slip easily in and out of Spain. The two countries are just a short ferry ride away from each other across the Strait of Gibraltar.

HAARETZ: Would-be bomber, accomplice arrested during security alert

A would-be suicide bomber and his accomplice were arrested Wednesday during a security alert that led to the disruption of two suicide attacks in Jerusalem and the Sharon region, according to details released Thursday, after a gag order on the incident was lifted.

During the alert, the Shin Bet security service and the Israel Defense Forces detained 17-year-old Ahmed Ali Bushkar, and his driver, 24-year-old Rasan Posama Alawani, both Tanzim members from Nablus.

The two were arrested in the West Bank town of Mescha, close to the settlement of Ariel.

JERUSALEM POST: Report: Saudi Arabia to establish terror council

Saudi Arabia is establishing a council on terrorism, to be led by Interior Minister Prince Nayef, that will identify terror financiers and help implement policies to end such violence in the kingdom, a newspaper reported Thursday.

The Shura Council - an advisory body that acts somewhat like a parliament - approved formation of the council on Wednesday, Okaz daily newspaper reported, quoting an unidentified official. Prince Nayef will lead the council, it said.

The council will come up with a plan to implement Shura Council recommendations on handling terrorism in the kingdom, according to Okaz, which is close to Saudi Interior Ministry officials. It also will attempt to identify entities behind terror attacks and track sources of terror money internally and overseas, the newspaper said.

No further details were given.

This happened last week but is just being reported now.

Federal sources told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS the man was arrested last Wednesday at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Sources in the Twin Cities and in Washington D.C. said the man arrived on a flight and was taken into federal custody. Along the way, customs agents found disturbing items in his possession.

The U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed to 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS that Ali Mohamed Almosaleh is in federal custody in the Twin Cities. He was being detained on an immigration law violation, but federal sources confirmed there is much more than that to this investigation.

Sources confirm Almosaleh was carrying a suicide when he was arrested. They say that note indicated a specific time and date for carrying out some sort of public suicide. He was also carrying CDs and DVDs, which federal sources say contained anti-American material. A source also confirms Almosaleh had something with him indicating a connection with at least one known terrorist.

Paul Klebnikov, the Chief Editor of the Russian edition of Forbes Magazine, was recently shot to death in Moscow. Investigations are underway.

While his journalism in Russia may have contributed to the hit, there is at least one other possibility. Klebnikov was also the author of “Millionaire Mullahs,” which tore the lid off of the organized corruption that lies behind the terrorist theocracy of Iran:

“A looming nuclear threat to the rest of the world, Iran is robbing its own people of prosperity. But the men at the top are getting extremely rich.”

Ain’t that the truth. Later on, Klebnikov exposes Iran’s Mr. Big - Ayatollah Rafsanjani:

Read the Rest…

KSTP:

The war on terrorism is again at Minnesota’s front door after federal authorities arrested a man who they suspect has terrorism ties. Federal sources told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS the man was arrested last Wednesday at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Sources in the Twin Cities and in Washington D.C. said the man arrived on a flight and was taken into federal custody. Along the way, customs agents found disturbing items in his possession.

The U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed to 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS that Ali Mohamed Almosaleh is in federal custody in the Twin Cities. He was being detained on an immigration law violation, but federal sources confirmed there is much more than that to this investigation. Sources confirm Almosaleh was carrying a suicide [note] when he was arrested. They say that note indicated a specific time and date for carrying out some sort of public suicide. He was also carrying CDs and DVDs, which federal sources say contained anti-American material. A source also confirms Almosaleh had something with him indicating a connection with at least one known terrorist. “One of the first things that comes to mind is is he actually going to do something that’s the first concern,” said terrorism expert Bill Michael. “Second, if law enforcement believes he is, and now rightly so they take an overly safe approach and they try and determine what activity he might actually be planning to engage in.”

Almosaleh arrived on a KLM flight last week. A source confirmed he began his travels in Syria and stopped in Amsterdam before continuing to the Twin Cities. A federal source would not say where Almosaleh’s final destination was, but that source did indicate it appears Almosaleh had plans to travel beyond the Twin Cities. One federal official in Washington noted, this is a “very sensitive” investigation.

(Via James Joyner via Rusty Shackleford)

Cross-posted at Backcountry Conservative.

AL-JAZEERA: Bahrain arrests ‘al-Qaida’ suspects

Bahrain has arrested seven men suspected of having al-Qaida links and for allegedly plotting attacks in the kingdom.

Six of those arrested on Wednesday were freed last month after being briefly detained for similar reasons.

The suspects “prepared a plan to carry out attacks using explosives against government, economic and tourist facilities”, said an interior ministry statement.

The men wanted to “spread panic among the population, create disorder and expose the national economy and foreign investments to danger,” the statement added.

The six were released without charge on 23 June after being arrested the previous day for planning to carry out “grave acts” in the tiny Gulf country on behalf of al-Qaida.

A Bahraini official had said last week the suspects were still under judicial investigation.

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

• After each new genocide, the refrain of “Never Again” is repeated once more. Now genocide is happening again in Sudan. Initially ignored, the genocide launched by the Sudanese government against the people of Darfur has gotten more attention this month, thanks in part to a high-profile visit from Secretary of State Powell. I’ve linked to some blogosphere commentary below.

• The Africa Union summit was held July 6-8 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Issues discussed included the ongoing violence in Congo and Sudan and the current crisis in Zimbabwe. Mostly Africa has a complete roundup. You can start here and follow the links at the bottom of the page.

Other Topics Today Include: More news and commentary on Darfur crisis; Zimbabwe press crackdown; Terror ties for Comrade Bob?; Uganda update; Final word on DDT.

Read the Rest…

MAARIV: Knesset to examine plans to protect its roof

The concern is that an architectural flaw in the building could cause its roof to collapse during an earthquake or a massive terror attack using explosives, airplanes or missiles.

“The chances of an attack on the building are slim but due to the recent earthquakes and certain security alerts received last year, I must assume the worst case scenario since several times a year, the Knesset hosts the entire leadership of the nation”, Rivlin explained.

The Mayor of Sderot Elie Moyal said in response, vIt is strange that they are willing to waste millions in order to protect a threat that exists only on paper while the residents of Sderot do not enjoy this luxury and are exposed on a daily basis to Kassam attacks”.

MAARIV: Saudi royal house again appeasing terrorists

Two weeks into a month long semi amnesty for al Qaeda operatives who surrender to Saudi security forces, announced dramatically by Crown Prince Abdullah, only four terrorists have done so.

According to the terms of the amnesty, announced by Abdullah two weeks ago on Saudi TV, al Qaeda operatives surrendering to Saudi security forces will not be indicted for offenses carrying a possible death penalty. The amnesty is due to expire on the 23rd of July.

The so far desultory results tends to confirm western intelligence reports that the some of the Sudairi princes have knifed their half brother Abdullah in the back by resuming back-channel contacts with al Qaeda. The reports specifically mention Prince Nayef Prince Salman and King Fahd’s youngest son Abdulaziz.

According to several western intelligence agencies, the Sudairis (named after the clan of Ibn Saud’s favorite wife which has dominated the extended royal family for over two generations) have decided to sabotage Abdullah’s bid to confront the jihadists, preferring to appease them.

The reason for this is the assessment of Saudi intelligence that the US would ultimately fail in Iraq. Saudi intelligence believes that within a year interim president Ghazi al Yawar will be at best president of greater Baghdad. The Sunni triangle will be under the control of an al-Qaeda led Baathist-Jihadist coalition, the Shiite south will be dominated by pro-Iranian Hezbollah, and the Kurdish north will be de facto independent of Iraq, although may not have formally declared independence in order to avoid a show down with Turkey, which opposes an independent Kurdish state.

JERUSALEM POST: IDF Chief: Egyptians step up anti-smuggling action

Visiting with troops in the southern Gaza Strip Tuesday, Chief of IDF General Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya’alon said he has seen an improvement in Egyptian efforts to thwart weapons smuggling into the Gaza Strip.

“We are demanding from the Egyptians that they act on their territory to prevent weapons and materiel reaching Rafah or the Negev,” Ya’alon said.

“Lately, we have seen more effort,” Ya’alon said. “But I can say I’m satisfied with it,” he quickly added.

Breaking on CNN (no link yet) (and update to post below)

Close associate of Osama bin Laden, Khaled al-Harbi, surrenders to Saudi security officials in Tehran, Saudi official says. Details soon.

More as we get it.

Update from Reuters:

A suspected Saudi al Qaeda militant, who had appeared in a videotape with Osama bin Laden, was flown back to the kingdom from Iran after he surrendered under a government amnesty, state television said Tuesday.
It said Khaled al-Harbi, also known as Abu Suleiman al-Makki, had been on the Iranian-Afghan border and had contacted Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Tehran in response to the amnesty.
…
A Saudi security source said Harbi was the man seen talking with Saudi-born al Qaeda leader bin Laden in a videotape in which the two praised the September 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. cities. He said Harbi had fought in Afghanistan and Bosnia.
“He is big in the sense that he is one of the Saudis that were close to bin Laden,” the security source said, adding that Harbi had not been involved in a spate of militant attacks in Saudi Arabia claimed by al Qaeda.

From a 2001 CNN article about the aforementioned tape:

The Saudi government said al Harbi, about 38 or 39, fought with bin Laden against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Saudi officials believe al-Harbi returned to the battlefield in the mid-1990s, joining up with al Qaeda and losing at least one of his legs in combat.

MSNBC (re, the tape):

In the so-called “Dinner Party Tape,” bin Laden describes planning for the Sept. 11 attacks, noting among other things that the final order was given the “Thursday before,” meaning Sept. 6. The tape is the first in which bin Laden takes responsibility for the attacks and was made the month earlier in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

At this hour, MSNBC is reporting that one Suleiman al Maki, a top associate of Osama bin Laden, has “turned himself in” to authorities in Cairo.

MORE: this story is refining nearly in real-time. The report now is that the surrender took place at the Saudi embassy in Teheran, and that al Maki has been flown to Saudi Arabia.

HAARETZ: Larsen launches attack on Arafat, PA’s failure to reform

The United Nation’s Middle East envoy Terje Larsen launched a rare attack on Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and the failure of the Palestinians to implement reforms during a Tuesday meeting of the Security Council.

Larsen also criticized Israel for failing to remove illegal settlement outposts and freeze settlement building.

“The PA, despite consistent promises by its leadership, has made no progress on its core obligation to take immediate action on the ground to end violence and combat terror and to reform and reorganize the Palestinian Authority,” Larsen said in his monthly report to the Security Council on the situation in the territories.

In what is considered a rare attack on the Arafat, Larsen said: “Regarding the crucial area of security reforms, the president of the PA has lent only nominal and partial support to the commendable Egyptian effort aimed at reforming the ailing Palestinian security services.

“All those who yearn for peace have already and repeatedly argued President Arafat, in public and in private, [must] take immediate action to restore this diminished credibility,” Larsen said.

JERUSALEM POST: Troops kill Islamic Jihad’s Jenin commander

The head of the Islamic Jihad in Jenin was killed Tuesday afternoon by undercover IDF troops, Israel Radio reported.

Na’aman Ta’aimeh, was killed near the city’s Jordanian hospital when the IDF force, disguised as Palestinians and driving a Palestinian taxi, tried to stop two cars laden with Palestinian fugitives wanted by Israeli security services, al-Jazeera reported.

One other Palestinian was wounded. Three Palestinian fugitives were arrested, Israel Radio reported.

Ta’aimeh has been on Israel’s wanted list since the first intifada for masterminding numerous terrorist attacks.

(A1BTD)

HAARETZ: IDF chief: Pressure on militants to cease firing Qassams

Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon said Tuesday that residents of the northern Gaza Strip village of of Beit Hanun were exerting pressure on Palestinian Authority officials and terror groups to cease launching Qassam rockets at Israel from the area.

During a tour of the region, Ya’alon said forces would not leave the area until the Qassam attacks on Israel were stopped.

A Qassam rocket was fired at the Gush Katif settlement bloc in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday morning. The rocket landed near a cow shed and damaged it. No injuries were reported.

JERUSALEM POST: US Court: PA, PLO guilty of murdering US citizen

In what may be a landmark blow to global terror financing, a federal judge in the US ordered the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization to pay $116m. to the family of a US citizen who was murdered in Israel eight years ago.

In a July 12 decision, District Court Judge Ronald Lagueux of Rhode Island upheld the findings of Magistrate David Martin, issued March 31, that the PA and PLO provided a safe haven and operational base for Hamas to carry out the shooting death of Yaron Ungar, an American living in the West Bank, and his Israeli wife Efrat Ungar. The Ungars were murdered near Beit Shemesh on June 9, 1996, while driving home from a wedding. They were survived by two young sons, Dvir and Yishai.

This case has proven that individuals can join the fight against terrorism and that litigation can be successful against terrorist entities, the Ungars’ attorney, David Strachman, said Monday.

Detainees at Guantanamo Bay are told they may use American courts to contest their detention. The Associated Press reports:

The notice given to detainees Monday does not mention the Supreme Court but states that U.S. courts “have jurisdiction to consider petitions brought by enemy combatants held at this facility that challenge the legality of their detention.”

It said the detainees will be notified in the near future of procedures available “should you seek to challenge your detention in U.S. courts.”

From California Yankee.

HAARETZ: System to defend planes against missiles tested successfully

An airborne defense system against shoulder-launched missiles aimed at civilian aircraft underwent a successful test at Palmahim on Monday.

The system, dubbed FlightGuard, is being jointly produced by Israel
Aircraft Industries and Israel Military Industries. It is slated to be installed on El Al passenger aircraft.

The two companies have sold marketing rights to an American firm, Aviation Protection Systems, which has Israeli and American investors. The company bought two passenger planes earmarked for demonstrations for the Federal Aviation Authority in an effort to win approval for the products.

Monday’s test was supervised by the air force and involved a Boeing 737 owned by Elta, an IAI company, on which the three main elements of the system were mounted: the radar, a control center and special infrared flares, which are invisible to the naked eye. The Elta-made radar spotted the Strella SA7 missile the moment it was launched - though it was a virtual missile launch - and the control system launched the flares. The virtual missiles chased after the flares as they flew away from the plane, which continued on its flight path.

HAARETZ: Car explodes in Gaza after grenades detonate too soon

A car exploded in Gaza City on Monday night after locally made hand grenades detonated prematurely, Palestinian security sources said.

There were no immediate reports of casualties in the explosion, which eyewitnesses initially said was caused by an Israeli helicopter missile strike.

(Must be a new definition of the word eyewitness.)

The Chicago Tribune reports that information obtained from the detainees held in Guantanamo Bay has prevented terrorist attacks:

But in intelligence briefings given here to the Tribune last week, the Tribune learned that recent information from Guantanamo has derailed plans for attacks during the Athens Olympics next month and possibly forestalled at least a dozen attacks elsewhere.

From California Yankee.

UN NEWS CENTER: Annan ‘strongly condemns’ terror attack in Tel-Aviv

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today condemned this morning’s terrorist attack in Israel and called on the Palestinian leadership to make every effort to stop such acts of terror.

A statement issued by a UN spokesman in Bangkok, Thailand, where the Secretary-General is attending the 15th International AIDS Conference, said Mr. Annan “strongly condemns” the attack, which took place earlier on Sunday in Tel-Aviv.

“No cause whatsoever can justify terrorism,” said the statement. “In this connection, the Secretary-General urges the Palestinian Authority to do everything possible to end terror.”

Winds of Change team member Robin Burk is an adjunct faculty member at the US Military Academy (West Point) and the wife of a retired Air Force officer. After nearly 30 years as a techie and high-tech executive, she has also finally found time to pursue PhD work, with a research focus in the use of intelligent software agents to evaluate and analyze masses of unstructured information. As always, any contributions of Robin to Winds of Change reflect only her personal understanding or opinion, and not necessarily those of West Point or the Army.

Well, the Senate’s report blasting the CIA is all over today’s news. It’s pretty apparent that our intel community needs a fundamental overhaul. Actually, that red flag has been raised a bunch of times in the past, only to have Congress and Commissions sidestep the hard decisions. This time, though, it will be impossible to avoid taking on this difficult issue directly. It looks (according to some who know firsthand, of whom I’m not one) as if the problems are built into the overall structure set in place by law … and no doubt compounded by the inertia built into any long-lived bureaucracy.

The U.S. military is already undergoing rapid and profound changes of their own in response, not only to the global War on Terror, but also to a whole slew of technical, geopolitical and other shifts around the world. I’d hoped to begin a new monthly WOC feature looking at these changes and their implications, along with insights into the technologies that will play a role in our future intelligence capability and our defense, overseas and at home. Unfortunately, right now I’m double-tasked and running on less sleep than I’d like, so this new feature is on hold for a while. But I thought I might throw out some links to background info for your summer reading …..

The intel reforms will be contentious, with hard choices in front of us. The current structures date back to the end of WWII and some political horsetrading. For the story on how we got to where we are, check out Flawed by Design: the Evolution of the CIA, JCS, and NSC by Amy Zegart, who earned her PhD at Stanford during Condi Rice’s tenure there IIRC. Also check out Wm Odom’s Fixing Intelligence for a More Secure America . Odom is a past Director of the National Security Agency, our signals intel group, and he’s been pushing for structural changes to the CIA, FBI and the overall intel community for a decade or more.

I’m just starting John Keegan’s Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al Qaeda. A good read to understand what the military needs from intelligence gathering, and why (as Odom notes) one size does NOT fit all.

Tranformation of the US armed forces is already underway. To understand how our services work now (and especially the Army, which is particularly affected), an authoritative place to start is the 578 page How the Army Runs: A Senior Leader Reference Handbook 2003-2004, which you can read online or download from the U.S. Army War College. To get a feel for the magnitude of the transformation underway, check out this excerpt and the links that follow:

Read The Rest…

JERUSALEM POST: Arafat: Israel masterminded Tel Aviv bombing

Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat condemned Sunday’s Tel Aviv bomb explosion that was claimed by his Aksa Martyrs Brigades militia, accusing Israel of masterminding the attack.

Arafat suggested that the attack was an act of provocation carried out by Israel following the ruling of the International Court of Justice in The Hague against the West Bank security fence.

Arafat said: “We are against such kinds of bombings, and you must never forget that the Israelis are completely behind it as they have been in the past.”

Speaking to reporters after meeting with UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Commissioner General Peter Hansen, Arafat added: “You know who is behind these acts, which are aimed at harming the court decision. Europe knows it, the Americans, the Egyptians, the Jordanians, and the Israelis also know it.”

This is not the first time that Arafat accuses Israel of carrying out terror attacks against Israelis. In the past, he has accused the Israeli security services of assassinating the late Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze’evi in order to justify IDF raids against Palestinian gunmen.

On other occasions, Arafat accused Israel of being behind some of the suicide bombings to avoid fulfilling its obligations under the Oslo Accords and the road map.

Over the last week, there has been a major operation conducted against followers of an ‘Anti-American’ cleric in Yemen.
From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Yemeni forces have killed seven supporters of an anti-US rebel religious leader, raising the death toll in nearly three weeks of clashes to at least 179, Yemen’s ruling party’s web site has reported.

“Government forces have carried out a fierce assault since this morning against remaining followers of Hussein al-Houthi leading to the death of seven of his supporters and the wounding of three others,” the General People’s Congress party web site quoted a military official as saying.

“This raises the number of those killed and injured among Houthi’s supporters to around 85 in the last 48 hours,” the official said but did not give a breakdown.

The Government launched its offensive in the northern mountainous province of Saada against Houthi and his “Believing Youth” group on June 20.

It has offered a $US54,000 reward for Houthi’s capture.

The Government accuses Houthi, a leader of the Zaidi Shiite sect, of setting up unlicensed religious centres in Saada and other provinces and forming what it described as an underground armed group, which has staged violent protests against the United States and Israel.

On Friday, Amnesty International said it had written to Yemeni Interior Minister Rshad al-Alimi to call for an investigation into the mounting death toll.
[…]
Houthi has not been accused of links to Al Qaeda.

JERUSALEM POST: Palestinian found carrying 6 hand grenades

A Palestinian man was arrested Sunday at the Tufah Crossing near Neveh Dekalim in Gush Katif, after he was found hiding 6 hand grenades hidden in a milk jug.

He was detained and handed over for questioning.

The incident occured one hour before President Moshe Katsav was to visit Neve Dekalim. It is unclear whether the incident was related to Katsav’s visit, or if the Palestinian intended to target soldiers mannning the blockades in the area.

The BBC is reporting a bomb attack in Herat. The bomb was reportedly on a bicycle (?!) and killed at least five civilians, including a child.

HAARETZ: One killed in Tel Aviv terror attack

A bomb exploded at around 7 A.M. Sunday on Tel Aviv’s Har Zion Street, close to the central bus station, killing one person and injuring at least 19.

Israel Radio reported that the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades - the armed branch of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement - claimed responsibility for the attack.

Police have closed off a large section of the street - a main thoroughfare in the city - and are scouring the area for additional devices.

Tel Aviv police chief Yossi Sedbon told Army Radio that evidence suggested Palestinian militants planted the device, which went off during morning rush hour.

“This was not a suicide bomber but a device planted next to the bus station in a bunch of weeds,” Sedbon told Israel Radio.

A police spokesman said that the device was apparently planted in bushes adjacent to a bus station, and was detonated as the bus was leaving the station. The spokesman added that the device did not contain metal pieces, usually packed tightly around bombs to maximize their impact.

Reuters reports:

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An explosion rocked an Israeli bus near the central bus station in Tel Aviv Sunday, Israel radio reported, and emergency workers said around 10 people were wounded.

It was not immediately clear what caused the explosion, which came two days after the World Court ruled that Israel’s West Bank barrier is illegal.

…

The head of emergency medical services Yossi Cohen in Tel Aviv told Israel radio that it was possible that the explosion went off at a bus station — next to, and not on, the bus.

Magen David Adom emergency services said most of the injured were only slightly wounded.

After Al Qaeda’s ultimatum, since yesterday the Dutch governement is acting upon a high terror alert and the Belgian neighbours today arrested two more terror suspects.

HAARETZ: 4 Palestinians killed in explosion in car in Gaza Strip

Four Palestinians were killed Saturday when the Mercedes car in which they were traveling blew up in the Gaza Strip, near the settlement of Netzarim.

According to Palestinian sources, the car was badly damaged and parts of it were flung a long distance away. Apparently, there were three passengers in the car, and the fourth victim was a motorcyclist who traveled near the vehicle. The victims have not yet been identified.

The Israel Defense Forces said it had nothing to do with the explosion, and that it was probably the result of a “work accident,” when explosives blew up prematurely.

The army said Palestinians had fired two anti-tank missiles and sprayed machine gun fire at IDF soldiers near Netzarim earlier in the day, but that nobody had been injured.

The Popular Resistance Committees, a militant extremist group that includes former members of all Palestinian factions, said three of the four people killed were its members. The fourth, it said, was the motorcycle driver.

The group claimed Israeli forces had planted a bomb in the car and detonated it by remote control from a helicopter in the area.

UPDATE:
Report says 3 of the 4 were Hamas.

All together now…

HAARETZ: FBI seeking help from U.S. Muslims to thwart terror threat

The FBI is intensifying efforts nationwide to enlist Muslims, Arab Americans and Sikhs to help thwart a possible terrorist attack this summer or fall.

FBI Director Robert Mueller told top agents in all 56 FBI field offices to increase contacts with these groups in their areas amid a consistent flow of intelligence that indicates Al-Qaida wants to launch a major attack on U.S. soil in coming months.

“While we currently lack precise knowledge about when, where and how they are planning to attack, we are actively working to gain that knowledge,” Attorney General John Ashcroft said in a statement issued Friday.

AL-JAZEERA: Saudi cleric urges al-Qaida surrender

A top Saudi cleric has urged al-Qaida members to surrender under a limited amnesty that supporters of Usama bin Ladin group have so far rejected.

Shaikh Saud bin Ibrahim al-Shraim, preacher at the Grand Mosque in Makka, told worshippers attending his Friday sermon that Saudi authorities were sincere in forgiving armed dissidents who voluntarily surrender.

“Hurry, you who have committed mistakes and are now in hiding, to make this initiative a new beginning in correcting (your behaviour) and return to the true path,” Shraim said in a speech that praised repentance as an Islamic ideal.

“Hurry to catch up with those who have been promised forgiveness in life and death, for God Almighty has said to those who have repented … that He is forgiving and merciful.”

The one-month amnesty offer was announced on 23 June.

AP: Ridge OK With Not Raising Terror Status

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said Friday he saw no contradiction in the government’s renewed public warning of likely terrorist attack and its unwillingness to raise the official terror alert level.

The country remains on “yellow,” the midlevel stage of the five-step terror alert program administered by Ridge’s department, set up after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that killed some 3,000 people in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington.

Appearing Friday on morning network news shows, Ridge denied that the Bush administration was talking publicly of a threat — without increasing the official alert status — to insulate itself from criticism in the event an attack happens.

“I would say to those who would criticize this kind of public statement that if you ask the homeland security officials at the state and local level, they get it. They understand,” he said on CBS’s “The Early Show.”

“I think it’s very important to keep the public informed,” Ridge said.

Will someone at the state or local level of Homeland Security who is reading this post please explain this in the comments?

Thank you.

Steven Schwartz has been documenting “the Wahhabi Lobby” and its effects for some time now (vid. “The Arab Hall of Mirrors”). As a Muslim and a practicing Sufi, he’s particularly offended by their brand of fundamentalist hate. We’re in talks to bring him in as part of our weekly Sufi Wisdom series at some point, and his musings on the future of Islam (vid. “A Leonardo, Not a Luther”) are interesting. Right now, however, he has more pressing concerns:

“The Ingushetia raid touched off a new round of speculation about terrorist ambitions to obtain and use nuclear materials. But while the Caucasus remains the focus of atomic paranoia in the Russian and international media, there is as much or more anxiety expressed by experts about the situation of the Republic of Kazakhstan, as a territory scattered with radioactive materials left over from the Soviet era.”

Kazakhstan doesn’t get a lot of attention these days. But if you’re trying to pay attention to the world’s winds of change, for good or ill, it ought to be on your short list. Stephen Schwartz explains why, and adds some interesting notes about counter-insurgency policies and Central Asia in general.

HAARETZ: Israel: ICJ fence ruling fails to address Palestinian terror

In a response to the ruling of the International Court of Justice on the West Bank separation fence, Israel said Friday that the court had failed to address the issue of “Palestinian terror” in determining that the barrier is illegal.

“It fails to address the essence of the problem and the very reason for building the fence - Palestinian terror,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman said at a news briefing Friday.

Israel will not follow the International Court of Justice ruling on the West Bank separation fence, Justice Minister Yosef Lapid said Friday.

HAARETZ: Tom Ridge cancels Israel visit, warns of terror attack in U.S.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge has canceled a planned visit to Israel next week, Israel Radio reported Friday. Ridge has warned that Al-Qaida may attempt an election time attack in the United States, and officials in Washington said that he prefers not to leave the country at such a sensitive time, according to the radio.

JERUSALEM POST: Tanzim fugitive shot and killed in Hebron raid

A Tanzim member was killed early Friday morning during an IDF operation in Hebron to arrest fugitives.

IDF forces surrounded a house in the city where several fugitives were hiding. One of the fugitives, a member of the Tanzim, attempted to flee and was shot. He was taken to a hospital in Israel, where he died shortly after.

Three other fugitives who were in the house surrendered to security forces and were taken into custody.

A warning from US Homeland Security about an 'imminent' al-Qaida attack on American soil has sent world oil prices soaring.

US markets also slumped after Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge on Thursday issued the terse warning, saying the al-Qaida was planning another major attack in an effort to disrupt the November presidential elections.

Shortly after the warning was issued, New York's benchmark light sweet crude oil contract for delivery in August soared by $1.25 to close at $40.33 a barrel, the first finish above $40 since 1 June. Brent North Sea crude for August leapt $1.16 to $37.77.

US stocks slumped as frightened investors sold, pushing the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 71.16 points and the Nasdaq composite down 30.79 points.

CNN

A plot to carry out a large-scale terror attack against the United States in the near future is being directed by Osama bin Laden and other top al Qaeda members, senior intelligence officials said Thursday.

Bin Laden and his top lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are overseeing the attack plans from their remote hideouts somewhere along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, according to senior intelligence officials.

“This type of plotting, this type of operational activity, is being done with the direct direction and authorization of that senior leadership,” said one official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Also:

Senators warned on terror threats: According to one Democratic source, the briefers warned that the threat of attack is more acute than at any time since al Qaeda operatives struck the World Trade Center in New York ….

Three foreigners, including one American, have been arrested in Kabul.

Three foreigners, including at least one U.S. national, arrested in Kabul were apparently waging a private war against supposed terrorists, illegally holding Afghans, the Afghan interior minister said on Thursday.

The group, captured along with four Afghans after a brief shootout in Kabul on Monday, had been illegally detaining and interrogating locals, Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali said.

The three foreigners arrested included at least one U.S. national, he told a news briefing.

The U.S. embassy said the three identified themselves as Americans, but their nationalities still had to be confirmed.

“They apparently said that their aims were to act against those carrying out terrorist attacks,” Jalali said. “But they did not have a legal relationship with anyone and the United States was also chasing them — they are actually rebels.”

Jalali said the group, wearing local and foreign military uniforms according to police, had illegally held eight people.

According to Chadian rebels holding an Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist leader, Libya has threatened to bomb them on Chadian territory if they do not hand him over within 48 hours.

BBC:

Libya has threatened to bomb Chad rebels unless they give up a key terror suspect, the rebels say.

Ammari Saifi - known as Abderrezak - is accused of leading a group which kidnapped 32 European tourists in Algeria last year.

“The Libyan secret service gave us 48 hours to hand [him] over … or said we will suffer the full wrath of Libya’s armed forces,” a rebel spokesman said.

There has been no comment on these claims from Libya.

Mr Saifi allegedly leads the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which is blamed for abducting the tourists, many of them Germans, and which is also allegedly linked to al-Qaeda.

The Movement for Democracy and Justice in Chad (MDJC) say they arrested him in March but have no means of handing him to the West.

Ransom demand

Since September 2003, Mr Saifi has been the subject of an international arrest warrant issued by Germany.

The warrant accuses him of kidnapping, extortion, membership in a foreign terrorist organisation and attempted blackmail of the German government.

Germany is reported to have paid a ransom for the hostages, but the government has refused to confirm or deny this.

The tourists were captured in small groups during a spate of kidnappings in the Sahara desert.

All but one of the hostages - a German woman who died of heat stroke - were freed.

More over at Southern Watch.

Tom Ridge says that al Qaeda is planning a large-scale attack before the elections.

Prior to Ridge’s statement, an administration official said an attack might precede the November elections.

No new specific intelligence exists, however, and Ridge did not raise the national color-coded threat level beyond the yellow, or elevated, level.

It was not immediately clear how the assessment of existing intelligence has led Ridge to his remarks.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, said the intelligence was “very non-specific” and there was “no reason for panic, no reason for paralysis.

“This is not a major announcement, it’s just a fact,” Frist told reporters. “The reality is of increased risk here in the homeland over the next several weeks, the next several months.”

Officials say there is no specific intelligence of a planned attack on either of the major political conventions. The four-day Democratic convention kicks off July 26 in Boston, Massachusetts, and the Republican National Convention begins August 30 in New York City.

Officials say Ridge thinks it is time to again raise public awareness.

Because there is no plan to raise the threat level and only general information, some Democrats privately have questioned whether the timing of the announcement is politically motivated.

A senior administration official said accusations of scaremongering are to be expected. But the official, who has read Ridge’s prepared remarks, added, “This is one of those damned if you do and damned if you don’ts, and our default is ‘do.’ “

A senior campaign adviser to Sen. John Kerry, President Bush’s expected rival in November, said he is giving the White House the benefit of the doubt. He added, however, that the White House would have to explain its reasons for the new warnings.

REUTERS: Muslims Alarmed as Germany Plans Islamist Database

Germany said Thursday it would create a central database on suspected radical Islamists, provoking concern from the country’s large Muslim community.

Interior Minister Otto Schily also announced plans to boost the fight against terrorism by pooling intelligence from the three national security agencies in a new joint analysis center.

The moves, announced after two days of talks between Schily and interior ministers from the 16 states or ‘Laender’, are designed to strengthen Germany’s defenses against terrorism by making its complex security structure work more efficiently.

Germany has stepped up its guard against radical Islamists since 2001, when three of the suicide hijackers involved in the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States turned out to be Arab students from Hamburg.

Authorities are investigating about 150 cases involving alleged Islamic militants, and have conducted several prominent trials.

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.

Auditions are in progress, and today’s Winds of War briefing is brought to you by Matt “Colt” of Eurabian Times.

TOP TOPICS

• According to a study by a former CIA agent, Islamic terrorists are well-educated, well-off, psychologically stable men with families .

• Saudi intelligence is so sympathetic to al-Qaeda that any Saudi efforts to combat them will fail. That is the opinion of senior Arab and Western officials, one of whom says Saudi intelligence is 80% sympathetic. Dan Darling has more…

• We’re probably all aware of the one-hour documentary released by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. You might not have heard that an Iraqi group has threatened to kill Zarqawi due to his attacks on Iraqis. Now the real fun begins.

• Friday is the anniversary of the Iranian student uprising of 1999 - also known informally as 18 Tir. Blog Iran! has more… and of course, Cox and Forkum have a great editorial cartoon.

Other Topics Today Include: Iran Reports; The Home Front; Libya thwarts deal to arrest GSPC leader; Libya discovers GSPC camp; Algeria braces for terror attacks; Yemeni forces hunt radical cleric; Saudi Salafis take root in the Balkans; Russians accuse Chechen ex-deputy PM of funding Ingushetia raids; Islamists have enough funds to continue attacks in Iraq; Arab states pledge to co-operate against terror financing; US military to train Filipino soldiers; two Abu Sayyaf leaders captured; Saddam relatives aiding terror; heavy weapons seized in Jordan near Syrian border; Cole suspects on trial in Yemen; al-Zarqawi’s brother arrested in Jordan; Saddam: I’m bored!

Read The Rest…

Libya has been accused by Chadian rebels holding Amari Saifi, one of Al Qaeda-affiliated Salafist Group for Call and Combat, to having killed two previously handed over terrorist leaders of the same group, in order to silence them.

Salt Lake Tribune/Associated Press:

DAKAR, Senegal — The handover of the Sahara’s top terror suspect was in jeopardy Tuesday after Libya announced it had killed two of the Algerian extremist’s accomplices when they allegedly tried to cross into Libyan territory.
Rebels holding Amari Saifi, the No. 2 of the al-Qaida-allied Algerian Salafist Group for Call and Combat, said they believed the two slain men were Saifi’s accomplices.
The rebels said they had handed the men over to Libya in a peaceful exchange.
The rebels accused Libya of killing the men to silence them — and said they would never hand over the top suspect to Libya or to his native Algeria as a result. The development was a setback for outside negotiators seeking to try Saifi on terrorism charges.
“They were liquidated because these men were going to make revelations,” said Brahim Tchouma, an official with the Sahara rebel group that says it is holding Saifi, who uses the nom de guerre Al Para, and several of his followers.
“Now there is no question of returning Al Para to the Algerians, or to the Libyans,” Tchouma told The Associated Press.
The rebel group holding Saifi is the Movement for Democracy and Justice in Chad, in the West African desert nation of Chad.
Saifi and dozens of his followers were the targets of a chase across the Sahara earlier this year. West African armed forces, supported by the United States and France, pursued the fleeing militants across three desert countries.

Chad rebels say they captured Saifi and several others as they wandered, lost, in Chad’s north.

Via Southern Watch

Ine the breaking news box on CNN:

BREAKING NEWS “Credible reporting indicates al Qaeda moving forward with plans to carry out large-scale attack in U.S.,” Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge said. Details soon.

More as we get it.

Update: Fox also has it as breaking news (no link yet). Theirs says that AQ wants to disrupt the elections.

Update:

Fox has this story:

Secretary Tom Ridge (search) will give the nation a “threat update” around 11 a.m. EDT Thursday and will talk about what’s going on to secure the homeland.

The event comes after a top-secret briefing to key lawmakers on Wednesday and Thursday by Ridge, FBI Director Robert Mueller, outgoing CIA Director George Tenet and other officials from the Department of Homeland Security and the CIA.

The officials have been citing a “steady drum beat” of intelligence that tells them Usama bin Laden’s (search) terror network is intent on hitting sometime between now and the November elections.

The goal of terrorists here, according to law enforcement, is an attack with Madrid-style implications. That attack in Spain on March 11 probably altered the election results in that country when the U.S.-friendly former President Jose Maria Aznar was ousted.

As soon as the copy from Ridge’s address is avialable, we’ll have it.

CNN downplays the announcement and says that some Dems are calling Ridge’s proclamation scare mongering.

JERUSALEM POST: Tel Aviv court seizes NIS 140 mil. in PA funds

NIS 140 million of Palestinian Administration funds have been temporarily seized in accordance with a temporary lien issued by the Tel Aviv district court, after the PA failed to respond in a claim against it by a bereaved family.

The petitioners are relatives of the Munk family, three of whose members were murdered by the Beit Tzurif terror group in a shooting attack at Beit Guvrin eight years ago.

On July 26 1996, in a drive-by shooting, cell members killed Rahel and Ze’ev Munk and Ze’ev’s father Ori Munk near Beit Guvrin.

JERUSALEM POST: Suicide bomber’s brother and sister face retrial

A judge on Thursday ordered a retrial for a brother and sister facing terrorism charges over their involvement in the Mike’s Place suicide bombing - perpetrated by their brother last year.

Jurors told the Old Bailey criminal court they could not agree on verdicts for Parveen Akther Sharif, 35 and Zahid Hussain Sharif, 36. They were charged with failing to report information about their brother, Omar Khan Sharif, 27, that could have prevented an act of terrorism.

Prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw said they will face another jury later this year. Parveen Sharif will also be retried on a charge of inciting her brother to commit an act of terrorism.

The pair have denied all the charges.

JERUSALEM POST: Army seals offices of Hamas charity organizations

IDF forces overnight Wednesday sealed offices affiliated with the Hamas “dawa” charity organizations in Bethlehem and Kalkilya and confiscated equipment in an office affiliated with a Hamas charity organization in Jenin.

According to security officials, those running the office in Jenin kept records containing the names of Palestinians arrested by Israeli security forces, those wounded in clashes with IDF forces and the names of suicide bombers and their assistants. They offered financial assistance and alternative accommodation to those whose homes were demolished or damaged by security forces.

HAARETZ: IDF forces kill 8 Palestinians, soldier wounded in Gaza

IDF troops killed at least eight Palestinians and an Israel Defense Forces soldier was seriously wounded, during a fierce gun battle in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza early on Thursday, Palestinian security officials said, as an Israeli operation to destroy Palestinian rocket launchers entered its tenth day.
According to the report, the dead include at least five armed militants and a woman. Some 20 people were injured.

Witnesses said two of the dead were affiliated with the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, a militant organization linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, and one with the militant Hamas.

Palestinian security officials said that Hamas activist Nahed Abu Oudeh was among the dead in the exchange of fire, which came after Palestinian gunmen ambushed IDF soldiers during a raid.

The IDF said it had entered the center of Beit Hanoun because rockets had been fired from the area.

Europe is considering harmonization of its anti-terror laws. One item under consideration is a potential ban on Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain.

Three Islamist groups are banned in Germany, including Hizb ut-Tahrir, which is legal and active in Britain. The group was banned in Germany 18 months ago after it was found to be distributing literature which advocated killing Jews and the destruction of the state of Israel.

The Home Office said the idea floated by Mr Schily would be considered as part the government’s wide-ranging review of anti-terrorism laws now under way, but it stressed there were no immediate plans to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain.

Hizb ut-Tahrir has never directly been implicated in terrorist acts, but shares many goals with Islamist terror groups.

The Abu Hafs Al-Masri Brigades, linked to Al Qaeda and famous for claiming the March 11 Madrid attacks, and recently renewing their threat to Europe to attack again if Al Qaeda isn’t taken up on their truce offer, has threatened Yemen to open what they refer to as a ‘third front’ in their war against the Americans.

Arabic News.com:

Groups of Abu Hafs al-Masri, which is close to al-Qaida organization, said yesterday in a statement on a web site for it on the Internet of converting Yemen to a ” third front” in the war against the Americans in the world after Iraq and Afghanistan.

The statement of Abu Hafs groups which falls in ten pages and came under the title ” road map for the Mujahadeen ” set the objective of the organization in the coming phase of ” expanding the cycle of conflict with the US through launching operations in various parts of the world.” He added ” we will bring the US into a third front after Iraq and Afghanistan, Let it be Yemen. Inshallah.”

The statement explained that ” Abu Ali al-Harithi ” organization which is active in Yemen takes this name after the name of the leader of al-Qaida organization in Yemen who was killed by the American forces together with five men in November 2003. The Yemeni authorities suspects al-Harithi involvement in blowing up the American warship “USS Cole” in 2000 which resulted in killing 16 American soldiers. The statement came at a time when Sanaa is preparing to try certain persons suspected in the attack during this week.

via Southern Watch

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JERUSALEM POST: Hamas: Members escape IAF missiles in Gaza City

Three Palestinian bystanders were injured Wednesday when missiles fired by an IAF gunship smashed into a car driving through the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza.

Hamas said in a statement to The Associated Press that members of the terrorist group had been inside the vehicle, which was damaged, but escaped unharmed.

The IDF is yet to confirm what seems to be an assassination attempt on Hamas terrorists.

A Yemeni security court on Wednesday charged six Yemenis in the planning of the October, 2000 bombing of a U.S. destroyer and said they belonged to Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network, opening the first trial in the Cole case.

Seventeen American sailors were killed when two suicide bombers in an explosives-laden boat rammed the USS Cole as it refueled in the southern port city of Aden. The bombing was blamed on bin Laden’s al Qaeda terror network.

Among the six charged in San’a Wednesday was accused mastermind Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is in U.S. custody, but it was unclear where. The other five were in court Wednesday.

Read more about the USS Cole bombing here.

MSNBC carries an AP report on the opening of the trial in a court in Yemen of charges against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the al Qaeda-linked accused mastermind of the USS Cole bombing who is presently held in U.S. custody, and five other Yemenis in the October 2000 terror attack that claimed the lives of 17 American sailors.

U.S. officials believe the Saudi-born al-Nashiri is a close associate of bin Laden. In addition to the Cole attack, he is suspected of helping direct the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. U.S. officials say al-Nashiri gave telephone orders to the Cole bombers from the [United Arab] Emirates.

Read the whole thing.

JERUSALEM POST: Jordan seizes heavy weapons near Syrian border

The Jordanian Border Control Authority seized a truck laden with heavy artillery near one of its border crossings with Syria, Jordanian diplomatic sources told the London-based Arabic daily newspaper al-Shaq al-Awsat on Wednesday.

It remains unclear whether the trucks were to be delivered to extremist Islamic elements in Jordan or to Palestinian groups in the West Bank.

Syria strongly denied that the truck - loaded with anti-tank missiles, highly explosive substances and cannon shells - had crossed into Jordan from its territory.

“This matter is totally unfounded and untrue,” Syrian Information Minister Ahmed al-Hassan told al-Awsat, and “it is part of attempts aimed at creating tension between Syria and Jordan.”

MAARIV: Terror victims sue The Arab Bank

Six families of terror victims have instigated a massive $875 million lawsuit against The Arab Bank, one of the Arab world’s major financial institutions. In the lawsuit, filed at the end of last week to the New York Federal Court, it was argued that the bank helped finance terror in Israel and the territories.

In the past, terror victims filed claims against the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, and other organizations. However, in most cases these bodies claimed diplomatic immunity and refused to appear in court. This time the claim is against a commercial institution, which also has a branch in New York.

The plaintiffs, six American families of terror victims, argue that Saudi Arabian money is transferred to the Arab Bank branch in Madison Avenue in New York, and converted to US dollars. From there, it is then wired to 15 branches in the West Bank and Gaza, which then distribute it to the families of suicide bombers, victims of the Intifada, and to the families of Palestinian prisoners. $40 million has so far been allocated in this fashion.

According to the suit, enormous sums of money collected from donors in Saudia Arabia were converted to dollars at the New York branch of the bank, and then transferred to Ramallah and Gaza. From there, it rapidly reached the hands of suicide bombers and their families. “We have evidence that the bank not only knew what it was doing, but also laundered funds to forward to the terror organizations”.

JERUSALEM POST: GSS cracks Fatah-Tanzim terror cell

The General Security Service (GSS) and Judea and Samaria Police have captured a 7-member Fatah Tanzim terror cell in Silwad in the Binyamin region, it was released for publication Tuesday evening.

According to the IDF, the terror cell was responsible for many shooting attacks in the Binyamin region over the past four years, including the murder of Asaf Hershkowitz and Idit Mizrahi.

JERUSALEM POST: Sderot mother learns her son is dead

Ruthie Zahavi, who was seriously wounded in last week’s Kassam rocket attack on Sderot, in which her three year-old son, Afik, and another local resident, Mordechai Yosefov, 50, were killed, has finally learned that her only child is dead.

Zahavi underwent a series of operations after being admitted to the hospital, including the amputation of her right leg, and had been unconscious for all the period since the attack.

She opened her eyes on Monday in the presence of close family as well as medical staff and, according to reports, her first words were: “Where is Afik.”

The family reportedly tried to avoid telling her, but in the end she learned from them the painful truth that her son was in critical condition when rushed to the hospital and died of his wounds.

According to reports in the Hebrew press, Zahavi cried quietly, almost to herself, and then asked to be left alone on the pretext she needed to rest.

HAARETZ: Naval commando, 4 Palestinians killed in Nablus

An Israel Defense Forces officer in the elite naval commando unit Shayetet 13 was killed early Tuesday, and three other soldiers were wounded, in a gun battle with wanted Palestinian militants in a West Bank refugee camp.

Captain Moran Vardi, 25, of Binyamina, was identified as the Shayetet team commander killed in the shootout with the wanted men. Three other Shayetet commandos were wounded and are listed in serious, moderate and light condition.

Vardi will be laid to rest on Wednesday evening at 6.30 P.M. in his home town.

HAARETZ: IDF foils double suicide bombing set for Rosh Ha’ayin

The Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet internal security services successfully foiled on Monday morning a double suicide bombing that Hamas had planned to carry out very shortly in Rosh Ha’ayin.

Before dawn Monday, troops from the Golani Brigade’s Egoz anti-guerilla unit uncovered two explosive belts cached in the Palestinian village of Rafat, located near the West Bank settlement of Elkana.

The explosives were tracked down as a result of information obtained from Hamas operatives who had earlier been arrested.

JERUSALEM POST: Egypt discussing Kassam ceasefire

The Egyptians are negotiating with Hamas and Islamic Jihad to convince the terrorist organizations to stop firing Kassam rockets at Sderot, Egyptian security chief Omar Suleiman told the Yahad faction late Sunday night in Cairo.

Suleiman said an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip could be used as a model for further withdrawals from the West Bank. He said he wants the United States to convene an international conference on disengagement to oversee Israel’s disengagement. He called upon Israel to allow the Palestinians to open an airport and seaport in order to allow the Palestinians to prevent weapons smuggling.

the Bahraini Gulf Daily News writes about a report from the French weekly Le Journal du Dimanche (link unavailable), in which a source with the intelligence services of a European country claims that Libyan agents some ten days ago discovered an Al Qaeda camp on the Libyan border with Chad.

The French newspaper said that the GSPC - the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat - was recruiting actively in the Tibesti region and buying arms and vehicles with German ransom money paid for the release of tourists in the Sahara in 2003.

The GSPC has seen a lot of activity against it lately. It seems however that, despite all efforts to eradicate this Algerian terrorist group, they are still operational.

“Above all, it appears that the GSPC is clearly preparing terrorist attacks in Africa, on American or European targets - including French ones - be they economic, diplomatic or tourist sites,” the newspaper said.

The article then notes the downplayment of European governments of the recently repeated threat by Al Qaeda to strike Europe again if they fail to take them up on their truce offer.

Most poignantly so did the German interior ministry. The same German government that last year paid this ransom to the GSPC in the first place.

Update: Algeria’s Le Matin (French) has more.

HAARETZ: Report: Troops surrounding militants in Jenin

Israel Defense Force troops Monday afternoon were reportedly surrounding a house in the West Bank city of Jenin where wanted Palestinian militants from the Fatah-affiliated Al-Aqsa Brigades were believed to be hiding out. There were exchanges of gunfire at the scene, Palestinians reported.

Troops operating near Jenin earlier Monday found a 30-kilogram bomb planted on a road used by IDF vehicles. The army believes the bomb was to be detonated while troops were passing by. The bomb was detonated by sappers. There were no casualties and no damage was caused.

UPDATE:
JERUSALEM POST: Jenin: Palestinian killed in gunbattle with IDF

One Palestinian was killed and several were wounded in clashes with IDF troops in Jenin on Monday evening.

Undercover Border Police and IDF Golani units entered Jenin to carry out an arrest raid. Acting on intelligence information, the troops surrounded a house in which two suspected fugitives of the Fatah Tanzim were said to be hiding. Troops called on the fugitives to surrender, and were answered by a hail of gunfire.

In the ensuing gun battle, one of the Palestinian fugitives was killed. Forces later found an M-16 assault rifle in his possession.

The other fugitive was shot and wounded when he tried to escape. The fugitive was captured and taken in for medical treatment and interrogation. It was later released for publication that the man captured was Yusef Kandil, the Palestinian who drove the terrorist in Sunday’s ambush of Mevo Dotan resident Victor Kreiderman. Kreiderman’s killer is still at large.

During the battle with the fugitives inside the house, Palestinians opened fire at the IDF forces from the roof of a nearby house. Soldiers returned fire and reported a gunman was hit. The Palestinian gunman’s condition is unknown.

In a third incident also in Jenin, soldiers shot a gunman they said tried to sneak up on their position. His condition is also unknown.

FYI:

Earlier Monday, an elite IDF reconnaissance unit found two bombs, 7kg each, south of Elkana near Kfar Saba. The bombs were hidden inside school bags.

HAARETZ: Israeli lightly hurt in latest Qassam rocket attack on town of Sderot

Palestinian militants on Friday fired three Qassam rockets from Gaza towards the Negev town of Sderot, lightly injuring one person.

One of the three rockets landed in the southern Negev town. Eight other people were suffering from shock.

Sderot has been subject to a barrage of Qassam rockets in the past week. On Monday, Afik Zahavi, age three and a half, and Mordechai Yosepov, 49 were killed by a rocket fired from the northern Gaza Strip.

Following the incident the Israel Defense Forces raided areas from which the rockets are launched, near the town of Beit Hanun. Officers said the operation, meant to ensure no rockets would be launched, could last for months.

Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades is reminding Europe that their three-month truce is about to expire and renewing threats to carry out attacks in Europe.

An al Qaeda-linked group vowed to renew attacks on Europe and urged Muslims to flee once Osama bin Laden’s three-month truce ends on July 15, two Arabic-language newspapers reported on Friday.

“To the European people … you only have a few more days to accept bin Laden’s truce or you will only have yourselves to blame,” said the statement purported to be from the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades which claimed responsibility for the March 11 train bombings in Spain which killed 191 people.

Al Qaeda leader bin Laden, in an audiotape on April 15, extended a truce to Europeans if they withdrew troops from Muslim nations. He said the offer not to attack Europe would last three months.

It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the new statement, parts of which were published by London-based newspapers Asharq al-Awsat and al-Hayat. The papers said the letter was dated July 1 but did not say how they obtained it.

European analysts are not taking the threat seriously.

JERUSALEM POST: IDF nabs to-be suicide bomber in Ramallah

IDF forces in Ramallah caught Thursday night a potential suicide bomber with an explosive belt weighing nearly 10 kilograms. The belt, intended for Jerusalem, was exploded in safety Friday morning by IDF sappers.

The army stopped four wanted men for questioning, and among them they discovered the soon-to-be suicide bomber. The explosives belt was then found in a garbage can on the roof of a building next to the central bus station in Ramallah. All four men are now in army custody, and are under interrogation.

The Financial Times reports on a collaborative effort between the three major partners in the global war on terror - the U.S., Britain, and Australia - to build a global, real-time intelligence-sharing operation to track and counter Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups:

Counter-terrorism chiefs in the US, Britain and Australia are aiming to build a global intelligence-sharing structure that will allow security services to assess threats and issue warnings continuously across all time zones.

The new system is intended to allow each country to benefit from the daytime collection and assessment of information on the threat from groups affiliated to al-Qaeda.

Security services in the different time zones will assess information received from the other services and then pass on updated assessments in an unbroken flow.

“The step change has been in the intelligence sharing because no one country can understand al-Qaeda,” said a senior security official involved in creating the new system.

Extensive intelligence sharing on terrorism and other issues between the three countries is already routine. But al-Qaeda’s fragmented structure has intensified the focus on local terrorist cells whose cross-border links have become increasingly difficult to identify.

The foundation of the system will be the new terrorism assessment centres the three countries have established. In the aftermath of the bombing of a nightclub in Bali on October 12 2002, which killed 199 people, including many Australians, several security services blamed a lack of intelligence co-ordination for having limited the sharing of information available before the bombings.

Read the whole thing.

From the New York Daily News :

The FBI is more worried about workers at Iran’s UN mission in New York when it comes to suspicious photo surveillance of city landmarks than those from any other nation, sources said yesterday.

”The staff of the Iranian mission seems to be the most active in taking photos and video” of potential terror targets, one U.S. law enforcement source said.
[…]
On Tuesday, the State Department announced the expulsion of two security guards at Iran’s United Nations mission. The duo was tailed by G-men in New York last week as they videotaped St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Rockefeller Center, Central Park and transit buses, sources said.

The FBI watched the men shooting video from the hip and concealing cameras with clothing, according to the sources.

Iranian agents have been stopped at least six times for similar activity in the past, NYPD and federal officials have said.

“Should [Iranian officials] start sharing these photos with people we don’t care for, it may do us harm,” said a federal law enforcement source.

Yesterday, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) stood in front of the mission’s offices at E. 40th St. and Third Ave. and blasted Iran for “spying and deception” that puts “everyone at risk.”

“Time after time Iranian employees have gotten caught red-handed,” Schumer said. “If it happens once, you say it’s unusual. If it happens three times, something is wrong.”

G-men? Just the NYDN’s style I guess, very retro-50’s. But the Iranian activities are what is called in the military ‘Pre-Strike Photo Reconnaissance’. To state the obvious, tourists don’t use concealed cameras, nor film covertly.

REUTERS: Marines Say Hold ‘High Value’ Taliban Commander

U.S. Marines arrested a Taliban commander they described as a “high value” provincial target and killed another guerrilla in a sweeping operation in the central Afghan province of Uruzgan on Thursday.

The Marines did not name the commander detained in the Tarin Kot region whose face matched a photo on their list of wanted guerrillas.

But Captain James Martin, commander of Bravo Company of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, described him as a “high-value target for the province.”

“He appears to be possibly a very important Taliban who we arrested in a cordon and search effort,” he told a Reuters reporter accompanying hundreds of Marines, Afghan National Army soldiers and militia forces.

But the best quote is:

“If you fire on Marines, they are going to kill you,” said Martin, the company commander.

Saudi Arabia is now backing off a claim that a militant cleric and wanted terrorist, Abdullah Mohammed Rashid al-Roshoud, had been killed.

A senior Saudi official denied Thursday that a militant killed in a shootout with police was a cleric believed to be the chief ideologist for al-Qaida in the region.

A security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, on Wednesday told The Associated Press that the man slain during a car chase and shootout with police was Abdullah Mohammed Rashid al-Roshoud, one of Saudi’s most wanted terror suspects. Saudi and other Arab TV stations and newspapers also widely reported that al-Roshoud had been killed.

But Prince Sattam bin Abdel-Aziz, the deputy governor of Riyadh, said al-Roshoud had not been killed in Wednesday’s clash.

The Prince went on to say that a militant was killed, who was just as dangerous.

Abdel-Aziz, speaking after burial prayers for a policeman killed in the fighting, refused to reveal the name of the militant killed Wednesday or say if he was on a list of 26 most wanted militants in Saudi.

He added that a statement would be issued later.

MAARIV: IDF guns down four Hamas operatives

IDF forces killed four Hamas terrorists today (Thursday) in the Gaza Strip. Palestinian sources reported this evening that three operatives were shot dead during a clash with IDF forces West of Netzarim. According to the sources, the terror cell exposed an undercover army unit, which resulted in exchanges of fire. Another terrorist was gunned down near Beit Hanoun.

Earlier, an IAF helicopter gunship fired a missile at a group of Palestinians east of the Beit Hanoun industrial zone, on the third day of operation “Forward Shield” (Magen Kidmi in Hebrew) aimed at preventing the firing of Kassam rockets towards southern Israel.

According to Palestinian sources, the group consisted of children and seven of them, aged 8-14, sustained injuries as a result of the attack. The IDF rejected the claim and said that the helicopter targeted a group of men who were engaged in planting explosive charges. The terror cell was spotted by IDF ground forces that called in aerial assistance.

JERUSALEM POST: Hamra suicide bomb dispatcher nabbed

The Judea and Samaria Police, in a joint operation with the Shin Bet, arrested Hekmat Khaled Ahmad al-Jalili, 23, from Nablus, who prepared and dispatched a suicide bomber to a large restaurant in a northern Israeli town.

The man, instead, blew himself up at the Hamra crossing in the West Bank in May.

HAARETZ: Israel fires missile in Gaza town of Beit Hanun

Israeli helicopters on Thursday fired two missiles at targets in the northern Gaza Strip, wounding several people, Palestinian witnesses said.

The army said it had fired at least one missile at a group of militants who had planted explosives near Israeli troops operating near the town of Beit Hanun.

The Palestinian witnesses said two missiles had been fired.

The witnesses confirmed that militants had been operating in the area. They also said youths had been throwing stones at nearby troops. At least one person in the area was armed.

Ambulances left the scene, carrying at least four people. Palestinian hospital workers said none of the injuries was believed to be life-threatening.

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

Saudi police have killed a top spiritual guide for the Saudi wing of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network during a shoot-out in Riyadh, security sources said.

They named the slain militant as Abdullah al-Roshood, on a list of 26 most wanted suspects, and said his death was a hefty blow to the ideological hierarchy of Al Qaeda in the world’s biggest oil exporter.

The Interior Ministry said a policeman was also killed in the gun battle, the first militant violence since Saudi forces killed the leader of Al Qaeda in the kingdom 12 days ago.
[…]
The ministry statement said six more policemen and three passers-by were moderately to lightly wounded.

The security sources had earlier said a second militant apart from Roshood was killed, but the ministry statement, read out on Saudi television, said only one militant died.

The ministry statement said the afternoon gun battle broke out after police spotted a group of militants leaving a house carrying weapons.

A chase ensued and police were still tracking down a number of other suspects.

“A police search of the militant’s den showed that it was a factory for explosives,” the statement said.
[…]
Roshood was one of four top ideologues for the Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, security sources said, adding that he had been in hiding for over a year.