See previous story here.

Rescuers found the wreckage of a missing plane used by the U.S. Air Force and recovered the bodies of several Americans who were aboard when it crashed in snow-covered mountains over the weekend, Afghan police said Tuesday.

The transport plane, which was carrying three U.S. soldiers and three American crew members, was located southeast of Bamiyan in the heart of the Hindu Kush mountains, said Ghulam Mohammed, a senior police official in Bamiyan.

“They found pieces of the engine and the wheels scattered on top of Baba Mountain,” which rises to 16,600 feet and was covered in fresh snow, Mohammed said

.

Read more…

JERUSALEM POST: Bomb-maker Abdallah Barghouti gets 67 life terms

The Judea Military Court sentenced Hamas member Abdallah Barghouti to 67 life sentences for his involvement in a number of deadly terror attacks perpetrated against Israel.

Barghouti was charged with preparing the bombs that were used in three suicide bomb attacks in Jerusalem and Rishon Letzion in 2001 and 2002, which together caused the massive death toll: 66 Israelis were killed and hundreds more wounded.

The bombs Barghouti prepared were used in the attacks at the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem in august 2001, in which 15 Israelis were killed and 130 wounded; the Sheffield Club in Rishon Letzion on May 7 2002, in which 15 Israelis were killed and 59 wounded; and the bomb attack in Jerusalem’s Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall on December 1 2001, in which 10 were killed and 191 wounded.

HAARETZ: Qassam rocket lands near Sderot

A Qassam rocket landed near the entrance to the southern town of Sderot on Tuesday. There were no injuries or damage caused. This was the first time in some three weeks that Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired a Qassam at the southern town.

(Just in case you believed the Hamas statement about a 10-year ceasefire and no attacks during palestinian presidential campaigns/elections.)

UPDATE:
HAARETZ Ticker: Second Qassam rocket lands near Sderot.

JERUSALEM POST: Arab states launch terror financing watchdog

Arab states agreed Tuesday to work together to try to keep money out of the hands of terrorists.

Tuesday’s creation of the 14-member Middle East-North Africa Financial Action Task Force was hailed by the US Treasury Department official responsible for fighting terrorist financing, Juan Carlos Zarate. Zarate said at the inaugural session in Bahrain that the step showed the region “has taken this threat seriously.”

The task force is the first of its kind in the region, which has come under increased scrutiny following the September 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States. The United Arab Emirates, which joined the new task force and is known for its freewheeling financial sector, has been identified by US investigators as a major money transfer center for al-Qaida, the terror network responsible for Sept. 11.

The watchdog bringing together Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, Qatar, Kuwait, Tunisia, Jordan, Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen will be a regional version of the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force. The 33-member FATF was set up in 1987 to monitor and fight money laundering, and in 2001 expanded its role to combatting the financing of terror.

Iraqi officials attended the Bahrain meeting as observers, as did officials from the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, United States, Britain and France.

The U.S. military said Tuesday that it was searching for six Americans who were aboard an aircraft that went missing over Afghanistan (search).

It said troops and planes were scouring an area of the Hindu Kush mountains (search), from where it had received a signal from an emergency locator transmitter.

It was unclear if the missing aircraft crashed, and a spokesman for the military said officials had not given up hope of finding the three soldiers and three crew members alive.

Read more….

Top Usama bin Laden lieutenant Ayman Al-Zawahiri vowed in a videotape excerpt shown Monday to continue fighting the United States until its policies change.

Al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s right-hand man, referred to the recent U.S. presidential election on the tape, shown on Al-Jazeera television. CIA officials told FOX News they believed with a “high degree of confidence” that the figure speaking was bin Laden’s No. 2, and that the video was probably recorded before the Nov. 2 vote, when President Bush was re-elected, defeating Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.

“The results of the elections do not matter for us,” al-Zawahiri said in the three-minute excerpt. “Vote [for] whoever you want, Bush, Kerry or the devil himself. This does not concern us. What concerns us is to purge our land from the aggressors.”

Read more…

JERUSALEM POST: Gaza: Father and son to die for aiding Israel

A Palestinian court on Monday sentenced a father and son to death for helping Israel carry out a failed assassination attempt against a Hamas leader, Palestinian officials said.

The Gaza criminal court earlier convicted Mohammed Abu Ganas, 53, and his son Rami, 22, of providing information to a foreign country and harming Palestinian interests.

The father and son were arrested last December. In April, the court said, the two were heard confessing to a journalist that they aided Israeli intelligence in setting up an attempt on the life of Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi on June 10, 2003. That attempt failed, but Rantisi was killed in another Israeli air strike on April 17.

The sentence must be confirmed by the president of the Palestinian Authority before it could be carried out.

(Just a reminder… today is the United Nations Day Of Solidarity With The Palestinian People.)

JERUSALEM POST: Abu Warade sentenced to 48 life sentences

The military court in Yehuda sentenced Muhammad Abu Warade from Hamas to 48 life sentences on Monday. He was responsible for the deaths of 45 Israelis over the last decade, Army Radio reported.

Abu Warade was behind the two terror bombings on the number 18 bus line in Jerusalem and also sent a suicide bomber to the hitchhiking station in Ashkelon in 1996.

According to the ticker at Haaretz:

The Netherlands agrees to outlaw Hezbollah, says it hopes its European Union partners will follow suit.

Backlash from the murder of Theo van Gogh?

EU will likely not outlaw Hezbollah outright, considering that France has agreed to allow Hezbollah-mouthpiece station Al-Manar to use French satellite resources to broadcast.

HAARETZ: IDF rescues two soldiers from collapsed Gaza tunnel

An Israel Defense Forces rescue team extricated two IDF soldiers Monday from a weapons-smuggling tunnel that collapsed along the Gaza-Egypt border, trapping the soldiers inside.

Both of the soldiers were hurt in the collapse, one moderately. They were transferred to Soroka Hospital in Be’er Sheva for treatment.

IDF rescuers were at first unable to contact the trapped soldiers but then managed to make contact and locate them, Israel Radio reported. The tunnel is situated near the IDF’s Hardon outpost.

The reason for the collapse were not immediately clear, but Israel Radio said it was not caused by an explosion.

JERUSALEM POST: Sheikh Yusef: Hamas ready for ‘hudna’

Sheikh Hassan Yusef, head of the Hamas political bureau in Ramallah said Monday that Hamas is willing to declare a 10 year hudna, or ceasefire.

In an interview with Israel Radio, the senior Hamas leader said that the Islamic movement would consider committing to a ceasefire in order to ultimately join a national unity government with the Palestinian leadership, as Hamas is interested in playing an active role in the new Palestinian government and participating in national decisions.

He did not reject the possibility that Hamas would stop terror attacks against Israel during negotiations. However, a truce with Israel, Yusef said, would be dependant on an end of the Israeli occupation of the territories, release of security prisoners and “elimination of Israeli violence.” When asked which borders “occupation” was referring to, he said the borders of 1967, not 1948.

Yusef also called on the United States and the international community to reconsider their definition of Hamas a “terror organization.”

Fox News reports that Pakistan is withdrawing troops from the area where bin Laden is believed to be hiding:

The withdrawals from the region near the Afghanistan border follow intense military operations by thousands of troops against remnants of bin Laden’s Al Qaeda organization and its allies.

The top Pakistan general in the region says the army is removing checkpoints in return for local tribesmen’s support against foreign militants. He adds that some Pakistani soldiers will remain nearby.

From California Yankee.

Reuters reports that the FBI has established the clearest link yet between the March 11 Madrid train bombings and the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States:

The FBI has told Spanish investigators that one of three men believed to have planned the Sept. 11 attacks from Spain in the summer of 2001 also gave the order to carry out the Madrid blasts, the newspaper ABC reported.

[. . .]

Investigators have long concluded that the Sept. 11 attacks were partially planned in Spain in July 2001.

Hijacker Mohammed Atta, believed to have piloted one of the airliners that crashed into New York’s World Trade Center, visited Spain two months before the attacks and met two men.

One was Ramzi bin al-Shaibah, who is being held by U.S. authorities, while the other was unidentified.

ABC said investigators now believe that third man was the one who in December 2003 activated the Qaeda cell that carried out the March 11 attacks, which Spaniards call “our Sept. 11.”

JERUSALEM POST: Iran group canvasses for suicide attacks on Israel

The 300 men filling out forms in the offices of an Iranian aid group were offered three choices: Train for suicide attacks against US troops in Iraq, train for suicide attacks against Israelis, or train to assassinate British author Salman Rushdie.

It looked at first glance like a gathering on the fringes of a society divided between moderates who want better relations with the world and hard-line Muslim terrorists hostile toward the United States and Israel.

But the presence of two key figures - a prominent Iranian lawmaker and a member of the country’s elite Revolutionary Guards - lent the meeting more legitimacy, and a clear indication of at least tacit support from some within Iran’s government.

Since that inaugural June meeting in a room decorated with photos of Israeli soldiers’ funerals, the registration forms for volunteer suicide commandos have appeared on Tehran’s streets and university campuses, with no sign Iran’s government is trying to stop the shadowy movement.

On November 12, the day Iranians traditionally hold pro-Palestinian protests, a spokesman for the Headquarters for Commemorating Martyrs of the Global Islamic Movement said the movement signed up at least 4,000 new volunteers.

Mohammad Ali Samadi, the spokesman, told The Associated Press the group has no ties to the government.

And Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters recently that the group’s campaign to sign up volunteers for suicide attacks had “nothing to do with the ruling Islamic establishment.”

“That some people do such a thing is the result of their sentiments. It has nothing to do with the government and the system,” Asefi said.

HAARETZ: PA said planning to disband Gaza ‘Death Squad’

Rashid Abu Shbak, the head of the Palestinian Authority Preventive Security forces in Gaza, announced on Saturday that its special unit in the Strip, also called the ‘Death Squad’ will be disbanded, Israel Radio reported.

Its members will all be dispersed in different Palestinian security services units, Abu Shbak said.

The Death Squad was created during the first months of the second intifada in response to attacks by opposition factions against the Palestinian Authority. The unit is infamous for its brutal methods of operation.

“The security and protection department has become a source of accusation and doubts. As a preventive security service we are keen to defend the rights of the citizen,” Abu Shbak said.

The decision on the unit’s decommissioning was made after Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip protested that the Death Squad was used primarily against the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.

The head of the unit, Nabil Tanus, told Israel Radio he would respect the decision and will continue to serve in a different unit of the Palestinian security services.

The first step on the Roadmap clearly obligates the Palestinian side to end incitement and stop armed terrorist groups.

Forget the name for a moment… this was a unit used primarily against the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. Those are terrorist groups, or at least even more terrorist that Fateh, Tanzim, and Al-Aqsa.

This isn’t just the Palestinian Authority doing nothing about that step. This is the disbanding of an anti-terrorist unit, and this is a step backward from reigning in Hamas and Islamic Jihad as per the Roadmap obligations.

HAARETZ: IDF troops arrest Hamas man involved in murder of two Israelis

Israel Defense Forces troops operating in the West Bank on Saturday arrested Hamas militant Amin Shakirat, who masterminded the murder of two Israeli security guards near Abu Dis in November 2003.

The troops conducted searches in the vicinity of Sawahara, in the West Bank, based on intelligence information received, and found the Hamas man hiding in the kitchen in his home.

The gambit to release Barghouti as some sort of palestinian Nelson Mandela (instead of a palestinian Terry Nichols) continues…

HAARETZ: Arab MK visits jailed Barghouti to discuss PA leadership run

Israeli Arab Knesset member Jamal Zahalka (Balad) met Friday afternoon with the prominent Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti in his Israeli prison to find out whether he intends to run for chairman of the Palestinian Authority as an independent candidate or to support former Palestinian prime minister Mahmoud Abbas, named this week as Fatah’s official candidate for the post.

Elections to the PA chairmanship will be held on January 9 and were called following the death of Yasser Arafat two weeks ago.

Before the meeting Zahalka said that “the Palestinian leadership needs Marwan Barghouti as a key figure who could stabilize the situation after Arafat in any serious negotiations with Israel.”

Barghouti “has to be immediately released,” he added.

An aide to the convicted multiple-murderer will be giving a press conference within an hour to announce whether Barghouti will toss his bloody hat into the ring or not.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE:
Fateh tries to talk him out of running. (Nader?)

UPDATE 2:
First announcement: He’s not running for President.

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

TOP TOPICS: THE KASHMIR POTBOILER

• Contending that solving Kashmir is easy, and can even be achieved in a day’s sitting General Musharraf proposed a simple solution to the problem of Kashmir. These generally involve India ceding some (Muslim-majority) territory to Pakistan in return for peace. India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh took his time, but then ruled out any solution that would involve another Partition along religious lines. Recently India’s foreign minister suggested that maybe economic trade between India and Pakistan could help spur the peace process.

• General Musharraf, who will keep his epaulettes after all is not accustomed to being rejected, promptly declared that he might need to review what he put on the table since the vibes from India were just not right. The good news is that India and Pakistan are firmly engaged in bilateral talks and confidence-building measures; the bad news is that any eventual solution of Kashmir involves one of the two countries having to swallow an unacceptable bitter pill.

• India began withdrawing troops from the state of Jammu & Kashmir, as part of its internal rapprochement process. The separatist elements remained churlish and refused to meet the visiting Indian Prime Minister, in spite of the state getting an unparalleled $5.3 billion economic development package.

• Rather strangely enough the Hizbulla has a seemingly reasonable solution but you can be assured that when they say Kashmiris they actually mean Jihadis. Despite the continued talks between the two countries the insurgency continues and the death toll mounts.

Other Sub-Headings Today Include: What Condoleezza Rice means to South Asia; India adopts Bush strategies in tackling terror; Pakistan makes some important decisions; Bangladesh and refugees; Shifting Alliances; Looking for good South Asian blogs?

Read the Rest…
 

JERUSALEM POST: Weapons tunnel destroyed; mortars fired

Early Friday morning security forces blew up a 150 meter long weapons smuggling tunnel in south Gaza whose opening was found underneath the bed of Hamas activist Hamadan Hasnat in his home in Rafah on Thursday. According to officials, Hasnat used the tunnel to smuggle weapons from Egypt into the Palestinian side of Rafah.

During the operation to blow up the tunnel, a bomb was detonated and shots fired at soldiers. After completing the mission, troops pulled out of the area.

This is the 22nd tunnel to be found by security forces since the beginning of the year.

Elsewhere in the Gaza Strip, 5 mortars were fired at Israeli settlements and an IDF base in northern and southern Gaza. No one was wounded in any of the attacks.

In the West Bank Friday, security forces demolished the Hebron home of Malek Abed Aldin a member of the Hamas who planned to blow himself up in the Jerusalem Caffit Coffee Shop in July this year. At the last minute, after reaching the site wearing an explosives belt, Aldin reneged on the plan and returned to his Hebron home where he was shot and killed by security forces several days later during an attempt to arrest him. He ditched the explosives belt he was to use in the attack on his return to Hebron.

From The Australian :

A Terrorism expert has warned Australia of a new, global generation of Islamist terrorists “armed, trained financed and ideologicised” to use chemical and biological weapons.

In declaring that part of this new global terror wave would come out of Southeast Asia, Singapore-based Rohan Gunaratna said he found the Jemaah Islamiah group had come extremely close to developing “chem-bio” weapons last year, recounting his alarming analysis of a Jemaah Islamiah bio-terror training manual that was taken from a Philippines safe house in late 2003.

The manual gave incorrect manufacturing instructions and lacked safeguards, Dr Gunaratna told an emergency medicine conference in Adelaide yesterday.

Any JI members who had used the methods in the manual would have died or become sick, he said.

“But it is only a question of time that a group that has these intentions will have the capability to develop them,” he said.

Dr Gunaratna, who heads the terror unit at Singapore’s Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, said terror groups showed “repeated expressions of interest” in moving in the “biochem” direction.

“We are seeing a new generation of terrorists being trained in the use of chem-bio weapons,” he said.

“We rarely saw this in the 1990s but today we are seeing increasingly this kind of training.

“Groups are being trained to use these agents,” he added, but the “probability of attack is still low”.

Terrorists had attemped in 2002, last year and this year to use “chem-bio” weapons and “this is the best indication of the next attacks”.

“I believe they will try again next year,” Dr Gunaratna said.

He has also analysed videotapes showing al-Qa’ida testing of cyanide gas to kill dogs in the Afghanistan desert, using crudely manufactured gas chambers.

And he found al-Qa’ida cells uncovered in Jordan this year and London last year were “quite close” to targeting sites using chemical or biological weapons.

JERUSALEM POST: Arab world: 73.72% want Hamas to replace Arafat

A survey of the Arab world organized by the Al-Arabia network website after the death of Yasser Arafat, showed 73.72% want a Hamas representative to replace Arafat, ITIM reported. In contrast only 0.7% expect that one of the PLO leaders will take over.

25.58% were in favor of an independent candidate.

113,107 participants from across the Arab world took part in the survey.

The organizers of the survey explained that the Hamas movement and the Islamic Jihad organization stand for the establishment of a Palestinian state on the land of historic Palestine, a concept that the PLO gave up on when the Oslo discussions began.

Reuters reports that the military chief of northwest Pakistan, who is also in charge of clearing out al-Qaeda militants, says Osama bin Laden can not be hiding in Pakistan’s tribal lands on the Afghan border:

Bin Laden and his bodyguards could not go undetected in the rugged tribal lands, although pockets of al Qaeda-backed fighters are battling Pakistani forces there, said Lieutenant-General Safdar Hussain.

“He requires his own protection and the kind of security apparatus he is supposed to have around would give us a very big signature,” Hussain told Reuters in an interview in his well-fortified headquarters in the northwest city of Peshawar.

“There is not an inch of South Waziristan agency or the tribal area which we have not swept time and again and if he was here, I assure you he could not have escaped my ears and eyes.”

From California Yankee.

HAARETZ: Fatah sources: Barghouti to announce candidacy for PA leader

Sources in the ruling Fatah movement said Thursday that Marwan Barghouti - the Fatah military leader currently serving five life sentences in an Israeli jail - intends to announce his candidacy for the chairmanship of the Palestinian Authority, to replace Yasser Arafat who died two weeks ago.

The Fatah Central Committee is expected to name former Palestinian prime minister and PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) as the movement’s official candidate.

There has been no official confirmation from Barghouti or his lawyers.

But Amin Maqboul, the secretary general of the Fatah Higher Committee said that Barghouti has informed Fatah leaders through his lawyers that he will compete in the election.

On Wednesday evening, 55 of 66 Fatah legislators met with an Abbas confidant, Tayeb Abdel Rahim, and a majority endorsed Abbas, said Dalal Salama, one of the lawmakers.

UPDATE:
Fateh is still backing Abbas. Barghouti is being told to run as an independent.

HAARETZ: EU’s Solana retracts talk of Hamas ‘contacts’

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana denied on Thursday having had direct contact with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, hours after he said just that in a BBC interview.

Solana’s office issued a statement saying “at no time Dr. Solana wished to imply that direct contacts between himself and Hamas had taken place” since the Islamic movement was put on the EU’s list of banned terrorist organizations.

The EU foreign policy chief earlier told BBC Radio: “I have had direct contact with Hamas but not in the last few days. Those meetings were not long. They were just to pass a clear message of where the international community was.”

Asked how long ago the contact occurred, he said: “Months.”

That prompted Israel to accuse the EU of double standards and drew veiled criticism from Britain, triggering a statement from Solana’s office it said was meant to clarify his remarks.

“Any mention of contacts or meetings with Hamas referred to soundings and impressions conveyed to him but gathered by governments and other parties on the ground,” his spokeswoman, Cristina Gallach, said in the statement. “At no time did the High Representative nor his office hold direct contacts with Hamas or any other organization appearing on the EU terrorist list.”

(Sounds like the same kind of “retraction” that Peter Hansen did when he said that UNRWA had Hamas members on its payroll.)

HAARETZ: IDF troops kill two Hamas men during Hebron arrest operation

Israeli Defense Forces troops on Thursday shot dead two wanted Hamas militants during an arrest operation in the West Bank town of Hebron.

The two militants were identified as Murad ak-Kazasma, 28, and Omri al-Hamoni, 21.

A third wanted militant, Iyad Abu Shahada,28, was critically wounded in the incident and arrested. The man is said to be a senior member of the Hamas cell in Hebron and the prime target of Thursday ‘s operation.

The troops surrounded a building in the center of Hebron where the three were hiding. They then demolished the building after the militants refused to come out.

The three were then believed to have found refuge in a pit between the rubble, out of which they opened fire on the IDF troops who were searching the area. The troops returned fire and killed the two.

Agence France-Presse reports that Major General Eric Olson, second in command of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, says that al-Qaeda is believed to have called its followers to action in response to the Afghan election:

“I think there now is a call out to do something to reverse the momentum that right now is going in the direction of freely elected governments,” Olson said in an interview here.

According to AFP, U.S. intelligence has found evidence of Taliban anger and disarray because of the success of the elections, which drew millions of Afghans to the polls despite the threat of insurgent attacks.

From California Yankee.

Could refusing to halt the progress of a locust swarm be considered a biological weapon meant to commit the war crime of destroying civilian agricultural fields?

HAARETZ: Officials: Egypt responsible for locust attack on Israel

Egypt does not take proper action against locusts in its territories and as a result they continue to invade Israel, the head of the Plant Protection and Inspection Services, Dr. Eldad Landes said on Wednesday.

Landes cannot predict when the locusts will stop coming to Israel but he says the rain and cold weather which are expected in the next few days will stop the pests, at least temporarily.

A large swarm of locusts landed in the Ein Gedi reservation near the Dead Sea and began to feed on the vegetation in the fields of nearby kibbutz Ein Gedi, but no significant damage was caused.

The swarm had advanced north from the Sinai peninsula, through the Arava desert and Be’er Sheva. Two new swarms of locusts also arrived in Eilat and the western Negev near kibbutz Urim.

Plant Protection and Inspection Services officials are working to find the locusts, because they intend to dust nearby fields with insecticides in the early morning.

The locusts originated in Libya and migrated through Egypt. They can now be found along the entire Egyptian coastline.

JERUSALEM POST: Palestinian-Canadian convicted of planning attacks

A Gaza-born Canadian citizen pleaded guilty Wednesday to planning attacks on Israelis in North America and was sentenced by a military court to four years in prison, the Israeli army said.

Jamal Akkal, 24, was arrested in Gaza on Nov. 1, 2003, and charged with conspiracy to commit murder. Prosecutors said Akkal planned to carry out attacks against Israeli officials traveling in the United States, as well as bombings against Jewish targets in North America.
Akkal had denied the charges, claiming a confession he gave was made under duress.

Under Wednesday’s plea bargain, Akkal was found guilty of conspiracy to commit manslaughter and receiving paramilitary training, the army said. He was credited with time served since his arrest, and five lesser charges were dropped.

Akkal, who was also fined 2,000 shekels (US$450), had faced up to 10 years in prison.

HAARETZ: High Court allows construction of fence near Jerusalem to begin

Security forces can now begin constructing the separation fence in the area east of Jerusalem after the High Court of Justice on Wednesday rejected a petition against the fence’s route.

The petition was made by residents of the Palestinian village Tzur Baher on the edge of Jerusalem where the fence is planned to cross through the center.

The petitioners asked that the fence be rerouted further to the east since it would obstruct their daily life.

But another group of the village’s residents opposed the alternative route proposed by the petitioners, and claimed before the High Court that rerouting the fence would hurt them.

Consequently, the justices decided in their ruling to reject the petition and leave the fence’s planned route unchanged.

After the authorization of this section of the “Jerusalem bypass,” the construction of four other sections of the route remains pending on the High Court’s approval.

In the meanwhile the new route of the fence is still awaiting the approval of the government.

HAARETZ: Jordan’s military judge urges terror suspects to surrender

A military judge called on Jordanian terrorist Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi and three other fugitives to surrender Tuesday, a step toward opening a terror conspiracy trial involving a foiled chemical attack that could have killed thousands.

Al-Zarqawi, believed to be on the run in Iraq with a $25 million price on his head, and the three fugitives will be tried in absentia along with eight men in police custody since April on charges including conspiring to commit terrorism, possessing and manufacturing explosives and affiliation with a banned group.

A ninth man, also detained in April, was charged only with helping two fugitives.

If convicted in the military court, the 12 other men - including al-Zarqawi - face the death penalty.

No date has yet been set for the trial. But it is expected to start in early December, shortly after the expiry of a 10-day grace period issued Tuesday by Col. Fawaz Buqour, the presiding military judge in the case.

Why didn’t we think of doing that?

Well here's some good news out of Afghanistan. The three UN hostages have been released.

AP

Three U.N. workers kidnapped in Afghanistan have been released unharmed after more than three weeks in captivity, officials said Tuesday. "They are out," U.N. spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva said.

Officials said the three were freed overnight and were in the Afghan capital. One Western official said doctors were examining the three at a NATO field hospital in Kabul.

...

Armed men seized Philippine diplomat Angelito Nayan, British-Irish citizen Annetta Flanigan and Shqipe Hebibi of Kosovo in Kabul on Oct. 28, the first such abduction in the Afghan capital since the Taliban fell three years ago.

...

News of the release came hours after U.S. and Afghan forces raided two houses in downtown Kabul on Monday and detained 10 people in connection with the abductions.

Tipped by: In The Bullpen

Other Commentary:

The Jawa Report, which has much more backstory on the terrorists, the workers and their ordeal.

Originally posted at Diggers Realm

JERUSALEM POST: Qurei hopes to join militia to PA

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei said on Sunday that he is working to merge members of the Aksa Martyrs Brigades into the Palestinian security forces.

Qurei met in Ramallah with US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs William Burns and told him that “the Aksa Martyrs Brigades are an integral part of Fatah. We need to solve their case by protecting them and merging them into security forces.”

The group’s gunmen have over the past few days been waging a campaign against Qurei and other PA leaders, accusing them of abandoning them while they are being hunted and killed by Israel.

Leaflets distributed by the Aksa Martyrs Brigades in the West Bank have also challenged PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) as Fatah’s sole candidate to run in the election for the chairmanship of the PA.

Both Qurei and Abbas are concerned that the group would try to disrupt the elections either by calling for a boycott or by launching attacks on Israel and PA installations.

At the meeting with Burns, Qurei called on Israel to redeploy the IDF in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to enable the PA to hold the elections on time.

JERUSALEM POST: Fatah fugitive killed after leaving Mukata hideout

A top Palestinian fugitive and two other Palestinians were killed Sunday evening in a gun battle with an elite Israel Police anti-terror unit (Yamam) near Beituniya north of Jerusalem.

One of the policemen was lightly wounded in the battle and taken to Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem.

Police had entered Beituniya, which is south of Ramallah, to arrest Mohammed Ghassan Sheikh, a member of the Fatah armed wing, the Al Aksa Martyrs’ Brigades (AKA the Yasser Arafat Martyrs’ Brigades), who had been hiding out in Yasser Arafat’s Mukata headquarters in Ramallah over a long period.

Ghassan was killed just hours after he left the Mukata on Sunday.

The anti-terror Police unit reached Beituniya and spotted Sheikh in a car with two others.

According to Israeli security officials, the fugitives opened fire on the Police unit and the gun battle ensued.

Mohammed Ghassan Sheikh and two others traveling in the car with him were killed in the ensuing gun battle.

Sheikh was recently trying to rejuvenate Fatah’s infrastructure in Ramallah.

Not any more.

JERUSALEM POST: Atwan: Arafat signed Oslo Accords hoping Jews would flee

Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based daily al-Quds al-Arabi, said Arafat made his remarks when they met in Tunis, a few days before the PLO returned to the Gaza Strip.

“I met with him in his office at around 3.00 a.m.,” Atwan recalled.

“The man told me, ‘Listen, Abdel Bari, I know that you are opposed to the Oslo Accords, but you must always remember what I’m going to tell you. The day will come when you will see thousands of Jews fleeing Palestine. I will not live to see this, but you will definitely see it in your lifetime. The Oslo Accords will help bring this about.’”

…

Atwan also disclosed that Arafat decided to form the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of Fatah, in response to US and Israeli attempts to sideline him after the failed Camp David summit in 2000.

“President Arafat was the one who established the Aksa Martyrs Brigades in response to the attempt to marginalize him after the failure of the Camp David summit,” he added.

Expatica reports:

Re-branded as the AIVD, or General Intelligence and Security Service in English, the organisation seemed bereft of enemies of the state. September 11 in the US and more recently the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam on 2 November has changed all that. The focus is now firmly on “Islamic terror”. Armed with the promise of “several tens of millions of euros” in increased funding, the AIVD has been given new orders in direct response to the brutal assassination of Van Gogh. The organisation has been tasked with tightening surveillance on suspected “extremists” and preventing future attacks.

AL -JAZEERA: Hamas may back independent candidate

In an exclusive interview with Aljazeera.net, Hasan Yusuf said it would be futile and inexpedient for the movement to adopt a passive role in the elections.

“This is a crucial phase of our national struggle, and taking a passive or indifferent stance toward the elections undermines the interests of both the Palestinian people and the Islamic movement,” he told Aljazeera.net on Saturday.

Yusuf said it was only logical that Hamas would chose the best possible, or least disagreeable, candidate.

“If a candidate declares that he is committed to true democracy, and if he pledges to defend the paramount issues such as Jerusalem, the refugees, then it would be foolish not to support him.

“Not supporting him would only help other candidates who might compromise the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.”

From The Australian :

For the past two years, reports have been filtering in from prisons around the world. They started as tantalising glimpses into a world still far removed.

But as more accused terrorists were captured, and started talking, two things became clear: Australia is now not only a pivotal part of al-Qa’ida’s global diaspora, it has also been the subject of sustained attempts by the group’s ruling guard to directly target Australians.

Much of what Australian authorities have learned about the interest of Islamic militants in local targets and the alleged crimes of their acolytes stems from information provided by detainees who have entered the prison system of allied partners in the war against terror.

Earlier this year, Singaporean national Muhamed Arif bin Naharudin agreed to give evidence against the third man charged in Australia with preparing a terror attack, Faheem Khalid Lodhi.

Also lining up against Mr Lodhi, when his committal hearing starts on December 14, will be three US-based prisoners, who will provide evidence by video-link claiming they had met him in training camps run by the outlawed terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

And the interest of Australian Federal Police in American prisoners does not stop there. Around the same time the trio of witnesses against Mr Lodhi were coming forward, AFP agents were receiving information from at least one other detainee about another Australian — Jihad Jack Thomas.

The Melbourne-based convert to Islam on Thursday became the fifth man charged under Australian laws with terrorism offences.

The case against him will depend heavily on what people who claim to have met him, amid the al-Qa’ida milieu in Pakistan and Afghanistan, have told investigators.

Police believe Mr Thomas had spent time with al-Qa’ida operatives throughout 2002 and had received money from them in order to re-establish himself in Australia.

If convicted on the charges — receiving funds from al-Qa’ida and providing assistance of his own to operatives — Mr Thomas will likely become the closest Australian link to the group.

His two rivals for the title are fellow convert David Hicks and Egyptian-born Australian Mamdouh Habib — both being held in US detention in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Hicks is alleged to have spent his time in Afghanistan in late-2001 with the Taliban — the Islamic ideologues who sanctioned and supported al-Qa’ida in Afghanistan until the US-led invasion that year.

According to the US military, Habib is alleged to have forged closer links with al-Qa’ida, and the key splinter group, LET.

Although yet to be formally charged, the case against Habib centres on claims he helped train at least one of the September 11 hijackers, had prior knowledge of the attacks and had helped move chemicals around Afghanistan.

The linchpin of the terror captives is a man allegedly known to all three — al-Qa’ida’s former chief of military operations and the man behind 9/11, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

He too has been talking, providing the CIA and America’s allies with a bounty of insights into what he plotted and who he ran as agents until his capture in March last year. As revealed by The Australian in September, Khalid had planned to travel to Australia one month before the 9/11 attacks, when he was granted a multiple-entry Australian visa.

He has confirmed meeting several of the Australian men charged, including the only man so far convicted of terrorism in Australia, Jack Roche, who is now serving a nine-year sentence for plotting to bomb the Israeli embassy in Canberra and assassinate Jewish businessman Joe Gutnick.

There is a strong element of scepticism among some investigators about why those captured so far have been so willing to divulge their secrets.

However, their co-operation does not surprise all experts.

“These men are jihadis,” said Singapore-based terrorism analyst Rohan Gunaratna. “When they are captured, their mission is over. They are proud of what they have done and not scared to share it.”

AP: Hezbollah-linked TV station allowed to broadcast in EU

The French public broadcasting regulator authorized an Arabic-language television station close to the Lebanese Shiite Muslim Hezbollah group to transmit programs within the European Union.

The Al-Manar station, well known within the Arabic world, had committed itself in an agreement “not to incite hatred, violence or discrimination based on race, sex, religion or nationality,” said the French Audiovisual Council.

Jewish groups had earlier urged French authorities not to grant a licence to the channel to transmit programmes in France after it had put out material criticized for perceived anti-Semitic content.

Following complaints, the audiovisual authority asked Al-Manar to submit a reasoned application to register as a broadcasting organisation.

A top French court in August warned Lebanese-based Al-Manar channel it would curtail its satellite transmissions to France if it did not commit itself to a code of professional conduct.

(Italics added for emphasis)

Feds conduct raids; 13 suspects charged

Federal counter-terrorism agents swept down on homes and businesses in Seattle yesterday, conducting searches and charging 13 men with gun, immigration and bank-fraud violations.

The FBI said it searched 19 Seattle-area homes, businesses and vehicles. Federal agents detained five other people on immigration charges, said FBI Special Agent Robbie Burroughs.

None of the men targeted in the raids is accused under terrorism statutes. However, the federal charges unsealed yesterday allege the ringleader of the bank-fraud case told a paid FBI informant that his “whole Muslim crew” was involved in stealing money because “you can’t go to war broke.”

According to the complaint, the purported ringleader, a drug felon named Karim Abdullah Assalaam, told an acquaintance that the money obtained through the fraud “goes to help our Muslim brothers and sisters. … It goes to the cause, not like it goes to me and you.”

However, the complaint alleges that his half-brother, Attawwaab Muhammad Fard, who is also charged, used some of the money to buy a used Lexus. “There was a lot of jihad talk,” said one highly placed federal law-enforcement official familiar with the case. “But most of the money went into their pockets.”

(Sounds like Yasser Arafat and his stolen billions.)

JERUSALEM POST: Tunnel collapses near Rafah; at least 3 killed

Between three to five Palestinians were killed on Thursday when a tunnel collapsed near Rafah, on the border between Israel and Egypt, not far from the IDF’s Tarmit outpost.

According to IDF officials, Palestinians informed the local District Coordination Office of a land collapse in which up to five Palestinians were buried.

Officials said it appears that the Palestinians were in the midst of digging a tunnel when the collapse occurred.

UPDATE:
Death toll is now up to 5.

UPDATE 2:
Three survivors arrested.

We Do Not Regret the Death of Arafat, who Expressed his Joy at Sadat’s Assassination

While PA Chairman Yasser Arafat was dying, some columnists in the Egyptian government press avoided expressing hope for his recovery. They explained their position as stemming from Arafat’s joyful behavior following the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Al-Sadat. The following are excerpts from two articles on the subject:

‘I Do Not Care at All Whether He Remains Unconscious’

Anwar Wagdi, a c olumnist for the Egyptian government weekly Akhbar Al-Youm, wrote on November 6, 2004:

“I do not know what will become of the Palestinian president Yasser Arafat, and I do not care at all whether he remains unconscious in the recovery room of a hospital in Paris or whether he suddenly awakens, dons his military uniform, and boards the plane to return to Ramallah, with a broad grin on his face and his two famous fingers reaching the skies in [his] traditional sign of victory, a victory that never was throughout the long decades that have gone by…

“My lack of interest in Arafat’s fate does not stem from a lack of humanity toward a poor, sick person, who is suffering the agony of dying, but [stems from the fact] that I have not forgotten, and will not forget, as long as I live, how Arafat jumped for joy, dancing, singing, and praising [the killers] as soon as he learned of the death of the late Egyptian President Anwar Al-Sadat on October 6, 1981.

“The picture of Yasser Arafat exchanging congratulations with those surrounding him on the occasion of the death of the ‘traitor’ and the ‘agent’ – as they had the audacity to describe the Egyptian president … prevents me from expressing solidarity with Abu Ammar [i.e. Yasser Arafat], whatever his fate may be.” [1]

‘We in Egypt will Never Forget how Yasser Arafat Broadcast the Song ‘Rejoice My Heart’ in the [West] Bank and the [Gaza] Strip when President Al-Sadat was Assassinated’

In a similar vein, columnist and former editor Anis Mansour wrote on November 10, 2004 in the Egyptian government daily Al-Ahram:

“Life is in the hands of Allah, O Abu Ammar. and one must not gloat over a death. [However,] we in Egypt will never forget how Yasser Arafat broadcast the song ‘Rejoice My Heart’ in the [West] Bank and the [Gaza] Strip when President Al-Sadat was assassinated, [nor will we forget] the exclamations of joy regarding ‘the fall of the Zionist traitor, agent, criminal, and exterminator Anwar Al-Sadat!’

“What has passed is dead. And the dead has already paid his debt and must not be beaten. Yasser Arafat has left the Palestinian people facing a difficult choice and a test. This opportunity must not be missed. The Palestinian people must prove to the world that it can have one stand and one leadership in order to renew the struggle in a different form…

“In the event that the Palestinians are divided in their opinions regarding who should be their leader and in the event that they direct their guns toward themselves and there is a civil war – they will give Israel, the U.S., and the entire world a strong justification to cease all negotiations, because there is no one [Palestinian leader] with whom an understanding can be reached, but [instead there are] many.

“If the absence of such a person continues for a long time, Israel will shelve the road map plan and there will be no map and no road, but anarchy

in Palestine, and that will constitute a danger to Israel’s security. [In such an event,] there will be no escape, and the U.N., the U.S., the European Community, and the Arab League will publish a resolution concerning Palestine, and in the future there will be those who [talk] about the need to occupy Palestine or make it a protectorate.

“In order to avoid such a thing, the Palestinian people must quickly choose a wise leadership – otherwise, there will be thousands of bad scenarios that will take us back for another century.”

AP: Saudi Forces Arrest 5 Suspected Militants

Saudi police have arrested five suspected militants following a shootout that killed a policeman, the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported Wednesday.

The agency, quoting an unidentified Interior Ministry official, said the clash took place Tuesday in al-Qassim, 220 miles northwest of Riyadh, the capital.

The official said two of those arrested were suspected terrorists, adding that one was severely wounded in the shootout that also killed one policeman and wounded eight others.

Police seized automatic rifles, pistols, pipe bombs and ammunition from the militants, plus computers, communication equipment and more than $10,000.

HAARETZ: Palestinian who gave Iraqi money to bombers’ families jailed

A military court last week sentenced the Palestinian leader of the Arab Liberation Front to eight years in prison for receiving funds from Iraq and distributing them to the families of suicide bombers in the West Bank.

Rakhad Salaam, a resident of the West Bank, received money and directives from Iraq while Saddam Hussein was in power.

In addition to an eight year prison sentence, the Judea Military Court also fined Salaam NIS five million.

JERUSALEM POST: Abbas demands ceasefire from factions

In his first major political gambit since being appointed PLO executive committee chairman, Mahmoud Abbas is coaxing leaders of the major Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas, to suspend terrorist attacks against Israel in the lead-up to the January 9 elections for Palestinian Authority chairman, sources in Gaza said Tuesday.

The Palestinian leadership believes a major terrorist attack could derail its hopes for smooth elections.

While none of the militant groups wants to play the role of elections spoiler, the more extremist of the Fatah elements and the Islamic groups consider Abbas something of a traitor for his concessions to Israel during his stint as prime minister in 2003.

Both Hamas and Fatah sources said that while open talk of a cease-fire has so far not reached