A Taliban suicide bomber killed Afghanistan's deputy chief of intelligence during a visit to a mosque east of Kabul on Wednesday in an attack that left 23 others dead. Going to a mosque can kill you. Best to avoid such places.
Interesting that the assassination method of choice was the jacket wallah instead of a sniper. Is it harder to place a sniper these days, or is that just something the ISI and Al Qaeda between them can't produce such highly trained people anymore?
The explosion ripped through a crowd in Laghman province just as officials were leaving the main mosque in Mehterlam, 60 miles (100 kilometers) east of Kabul. Several top provincial officials from Laghman were among the dead, and President Hamid Karzai and the U.N. condemned the attack. As opposed to applauding it?
Posturing must be done. At least the UN is on the right side of this issue this time, as compared to the textbooks they produce for the Palestinian territories.
A Taliban spokesman said a suicide bomber on foot targeted Abdullah Laghmani, the deputy chief of Afghanistan's National Directorate for Security. The spokesman for Laghman's governor, Sayed Ahmad Safi, confirmed Laghmani was killed.
[Mail and Globe] At least 50 people were killed and dozens more injured over the week in intense fighting between government troops and rebels in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, the United Nations said Tuesday.
If fighting were to continue at current intensity, Somalia's humanitarian situation could further deteriorate, said Elisabeth Byrs, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, noting that half of the country's population already needs aid.
Elisabeth must be a rookie Euro apparatchik. Half the country has needed aid forever, and that's only because the other half are stealing the aid the first half are supposed to get. The humanitarian situation can't possibly deteriorate further.
"Some 75% of the people in need are concentrated in south and central Somalia, where most of the fighting is taking place, causing loss of life and livelihoods and impeding humanitarian access," she said.
North Somalia, meanwhile, is beset by an "alarming deterioration" in the food and nutrition situation due to a drought.
The International Committee of the Red Cross underlined the suffering of children in the country.
"Somalia's children have never known what it is like to live in peace; armed violence has ravaged the country ever since they were born," said Ahmed Hassan, who heads the Somali Red Crescent. "Although they have adapted their short lives to the situation, they deserve all the support they can get."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
The humanitarian situation can't possibly deteriorate further.
#2
"75% of the population is suffering half of the time, with the other 2/3rds needing humanitarian support. It's a case where the anguish is 90% mental with the other half being hunger"
/Yogi Berra, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/02/2009 5:53 Comments ||
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#3
Would you care for a little wager?
Point taken ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/02/2009 7:50 Comments ||
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[Al Arabiya Latest] Al Arabiya television broadcast on Tuesday a recording of the telephone conversation between Saudi Arabia's security chief, Prince Mohammad bin Nayef, and the suicide bomber, Abdullah Hassan Tali Assiri, who tried to assassinate him in Jeddah late on Thursday.
Assiri called the prince and asked for a meeting saying he repented for his participation in terrorist activities and wanted to give himself up to the authorities.
The phone conversation was around five minutes long and in it Assiri told Prince Mohammad that he wanted to "explain everything."
The prince is renowned for his anti-terrorism work in the kingdom, where he encourages militants to come forward.
Assiri goes on to ask the prince for a plane and tells him he will bring his brother along with him. The prince sounded compassionate and said he would try his best to sort things out.
Before hanging up, Assiri asked the prince for forgiveness and the prince told him: "Don't ask me to forgive you. You are our sons. We want to win you back and make sure no one is abusing you."
Upon meeting the prince, Assiri detonated his explosives in an attempt to assassinate the prince. He succeeded only in killing himself as the prince was only slightly wounded.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2009 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Arabia
#1
"Hey, Fatima, hold my calls! I'm off to meet this....Abdullah guy. Not sure exactly what he wants. He sounds like a real pain in the ass."
#9
See also BHARAT RAKSHAK > AL-QODS BRIGADES REDEPLOY IN MIDDLE EAST [capable of multi-CrossBorder attacks e.g. RECENT BAGHDAD, IRAQ BOMBING via SYRIA?].
POSTER > opined that YEMEN TROUBLES = AL QAEDA, etc. now indir waging WAR/JIHAD for control of SAUDI ARABIA = ARABIAN PENINSULA as LINK BETWEEN AFRICA + CENTRAL ASIA???
IOW, the FUTURE ISLAMIST CALIPHATE = large Islmaist-controlled regions of PRE-NUKULAAR ASIA + AFRICA???
[Al Arabiya Latest] The Yemeni government rejected a truce offer by Shiite rebels in the north of the Arabian Peninsula country late on Monday, after accusing Iranian media of stoking the conflict.
"We announce an initiative to stop the war so that roads are opened, the presence of armed mobilization ends and the situation returns to how it was before," a statement issued by rebel leader Abdel-Malik al-Houthi's media office said.
The government rejected the offer, which follows a government ceasefire offered last month for ending the conflict that has displaced more than 100,000 villagers.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
ION BHARAT RAKSHAK > ARMY ACTION MAY NOT STOP YEMEN REBELS. Analyst = Collapse of YEMEN State-Govt will de facto threaten SAUDI ARABIA, the only Regional force in the ME capable of countering IRAN, hence it is to Iran's advantage for Yemen to be destabilized and taken over by pro-Iran = anti-Saudi Milterrs.
* SAME > SAUDI ARABIA TO BANKROLL ANTI-IRAN SECESSIONISTS [PK Baluchistan = Jondollah/
Jundullah Group].
[Bangla Daily Star] A criminal sustained bullet injury in a 'shootout' with Rapid Action Battalion in the city's Motijheel yesterday. "Aaaaiiieee! I am injured!"
"What wuz the agent of your injury, Rocket Lalu?"
"It wuz a bullet!"
Ismail Hossain Lalu alias Rocket Lalu, 34, of Jatrabari, is an accomplice of "Foreign" Kuddus, one of the top listed criminals in Motijheel area. He has the death sentence on twelve systems...
When a patrol team of Rab-3 moved to arrest a gang of three to four criminals in front of Motijheel Ideal School and College, the criminals opened fire on them. As the Rab personnel retaliated, a gunfight ensued. "It's the Rab! [BANG! BANG! BANGETY BANG!] You'll never take us alive, coppers!... Ow!... Ow!... Hey! Stop that! You're hurting me!"
Lalu was found lying at the spot bullet-hit in his left leg after the shootout. "Aaaaiiieee! My kneecap! I am injured!"
He was rushed to Dhaka Medical College Hospital. "Comin! through! Comin' through! Got bullet injury here!"
Police arrested him but his accomplices managed to flee. "Rocket Lalu, yer under arrest!"
"You'll never get me to the calaboose, copper! My gang'll... Say! Where is my gang?"
A revolver and three bullets were recovered from the spot. "I found these, chief!"
"Hmmm... Where have I seen these before?"
Rab sources said Lalu confessed his involvement in killing trader Anwar at the capital's Shapla Chattar on September 27, 2008. "I dunnit an' I'm glad! Glad, I tells yez!"
Lalu was also involved in extortion and an accused in several cases including arms cases with Motijheel and Sabujbagh police stations. "Yasss. They were all my work!"
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Lalu was found lying at the spot bullet-hit in his left leg after the shootout.
#2
Not really. After being injured in the kneecap he did confess to all sorts of crimes, to include killing John Binet, doing away with Jimmy Hoffa, and being the other gunman on the grassy knoll.
#6
A+ with extra credit (for creativity) for Gloria's first effort at an Rab encounter! I hope .5MT will note she got the twelve systems bit right, which suggests she read his comment last time. :-)
A BOMB in a car exploded outside the Athens stock exchange, slightly wounding one woman, damaging the building and setting eight vehicles ablaze, Greek police said.
They said a home-made bomb exploded at the same time outside a government building in the northern city of Thessaloniki.
The Athens blast followed a warning received by a Greek newspaper, the police said.
"It was an explosive device. The remains of it were found in a damaged car," said Greek police spokesman Panayiotis Stathis.
The chairman of the Athens stock exchange, Spyros Kapralos, told NET TV: "The building has been seriously damaged."
Earlier, police said the damage to the building was minor.
A Reuters witness said windows of other buildings in the area had been smashed and that a car dealership was among those damaged. The area was cordoned off by police.
Leftist and anarchist guerrilla groups have claimed responsibility for a string of attacks that have struck Greece since the police shooting of a teenager in December sparked the country's worst riots in decades.
#2
Anarcho-kiddies. Sideshow leftovers, when/if TSHTF, they will be part of a larger problem, because they're symptomatic of a larger disease and because AFAIK political violence in Europe almost exclusively came from the left those last few decades, including actual terrorism. Still, it's not the 70's anymore, and leftists don't own the street anymore, in Greece nor in France nor in the Uk, nor anywhere else, the Youths do. Lefties are wannabes, black bloc included, the Youths are the real deal.
Pakistan's minister for religious affairs has been wounded and his driver killed in a gun attack in Islamabad.
The minister, Hamid Saeed Kazmi, was hit in the leg when two gunmen shot into his car as he left work.
Another passenger in the vehicle believed to be a security guard was also injured, police say.
The attackers escaped on a motorbike. It is not clear who carried out the attack. Mr Kazmi has been an outspoken critic of the Taliban. It still isn't clear? Or are they simply unsure which slime-monster in particular lashed out from the cesspool?
The security forces in Islamabad have been put on high alert. HUNCH: The ISI was already on high alert...
Television footage showed Mr Kazmi being taken away in an ambulance. There were blood stains on the car's seats and its windows were shattered.
"Gunmen sprayed bullets on the minister's car," a police officer told Reuters news agency.
Senior medical official Shaukat Hameed Kiani said Mr Kazmi's leg had been fractured by a bullet.
"His condition is stable, but he is in a state of shock," he said.
Shazia Nazir, a doctor at the hospital treating Mr Kazmi, told the AFP news agency that the minister's driver had been brought in dead, with a bullet wound to the head, and that a security guard had been seriously wounded.
Health Minister Aijaz Jhakrani has denied there were any lapses in security, saying the incident was "a targeted attack", AFP reported.
The BBC's Aleem Maqbool in Islamabad says Mr Kazmi has been involved in the Pakistani government's controversial drive to reform religious schools in the country. The 'lapse in security' was that this guy wasn't issued a tank as a limo.
He has been working with leading clerics to issue a fatwa, declaring suicide bombing un-Islamic. They churn these things out all the time- what's the big hold-up? Besides, how much traction does the Pakistani howling-holy-men ulema actually have? They aren't the Saudis or the Egyptians.
[Bangla Daily Star] Government forces destroyed four militant bases and killed more than 35 insurgents yesterday in battles near Pakistan's famed Khyber Pass, the main route for supplies to Nato troops in Afghanistan, the military said.
Elsewhere in the northwest, the army claimed that 105 Pakistani Taliban fighters had surrendered to the military in the Swat Valley, where a suicide bombing over the weekend prompted a security crackdown that has left scores of militants dead.
Eight of them are close aides to Swat Taliban chieftain Maulana Fazlullah, said Brig. Salman Akbar, the army commander of Kabal town in the valley.
Earlier at least 41 bodies, mostly of Taliban militants, have been found in Pakistan's Swat valley over the past 24 hours, officials said Tuesday, describing them as revenge killings by residents.
The corpses, six of them beheaded, were dumped on the roadside, riverside and fields in different areas.
Pakistan's military claims to have cleared Swat of Islamist extremists in an offensive launched earlier this year after militants extended their grip into the northwest valley, terrorising residents with public beheadings and other violence.
Officials said a total of 251 people had been found dead in similar circumstances since July, and believed that the militants were killed by residents who feared a Taliban comeback.
"Among the 41 dead bodies, six were beheaded, almost all of them were militants," Atif-ur-Rehman, the top administrative official of Swat district, told AFP, adding that the rest had bullet wounds.
"According to my information they were militants and were killed by residents," Rehman said.
The United States has been urging Pakistan to fight the Taliban who operate mostly in lawless tribal areas near the border, which Washington sees as another front in the Afghan war.
Two militant commanders were among those killed in the raids in the Bara area of northwestern Khyber region, a statement from Pakistan's paramilitary Frontier Corps said.
It said more than 35 insurgents were killed a death toll that could not be independently confirmed. The statement added 40 suspected militants were captured in the operation, which started at dawn and continued through the day.
The new fighting came days after another suicide bombing this one at the main Khyber border crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan killed 19 guards. The attack at the Torkham crossing was blamed on Taliban militants.
Pakistan's military has this year intensified its fight against the Taliban, who are believed to shelter al-Qaeda leaders in areas they control, where the government has only nominal control. The Taliban also help mount attacks against Western troops across the Afghan border.
The two suicide bombings in Swat and at Torkham follow militant vows to avenge the death last month of their leader, Baitullah Mehsud, in a US missile strike in South Waziristan and for the army operation in Swat, where the extremists had imposed their harsh interpretation of Islam on residents.
The reported surrender of 105 militants in Swat gives a boost to army efforts to pacify the region, where pockets of resistance remain and the atmosphere is still tense. After Sunday's suicide bombing at a police station that killed 17 cadets training in Swat's main town, the army said sweeps by security forces left at least 45 militants dead Monday.
Akbar said the Taliban fighters' surrender reflects their weakening hold in the valley as residents provide more intelligence to the military.
"There is a local uprising against the Taliban, that is why militants are surrendering," he said, adding the fighters would be tried in local courts. He urged other extremists to turn themselves in.
Human rights activists have accused security forces of executing captured militants and dumping their bodies, but the military denies it.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2009 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] The commander of the operation against militants in the area of Swat, Kanju underlined that 105 militants have laid down their arms during search and clearance operations.
During a Press Briefing, Brigadier Suleman said the operation is moving in the right direction and as a result of it 105 militants have laid down their arms, out of which 18 were most wanted.
In response to a question, he said the militants will be presented before Qazi Courts adding that their future will be decided by the courts rather than the army. He said that those militants who will not lay arms will face will be killed.
He said that checking and curfews caused difficulties for locals but these steps were for their welfare.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2009 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] At least 41 bodies, mostly of Taliban militants, have been found in Pakistan's Swat valley over the past 24 hours, officials said Tuesday, describing them as revenge killings by residents.
The corpses, six of them beheaded, were dumped on the roadside, riverside and fields in different areas.
Pakistan's military claims to have cleared Swat of extremists in an offensive launched earlier this year after militants extended their grip into the northwest valley, terrorising residents with public beheadings and other violence.
Officials said a total of 251 people had been found dead in similar circumstances since July, and believed that the militants were killed by residents who feared a Taliban comeback.
'Among the 41 dead bodies, six were beheaded, almost all of them were militants,' Atifur Rehman, the top administrative official of Swat district, told AFP, adding that the rest had bullet wounds.
'According to my information they were militants and were killed by residents,' Rehman said.
Fourteen police cadets were killed Sunday in a suicide attack in the main town in Swat valley which police blamed on Taliban militants.
'People are now familiar with dead bodies, it is becoming a routine,' Swat resident Sakhawat Ali, 34, said.
'We see dead bodies almost every morning, most of them are Taliban,' he told AFP.
Pakistan in April launched a punishing military offensive against the Taliban in the northwest after the militants advanced closer to Islamabad.
The military push forced 1.9 million civilians from their homes, most of them seeking refuge with relatives and the rest crowding into refugee camps, creating a humanitarian crisis for impoverished Pakistan.
Last month, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani announced that the military had 'eliminated' extremists in the northwest and according to government and UN statistics 1.6 million displaced people have returned home.
Swat slipped out of government control after radical cleric Fazlullah mounted a violent campaign in which his followers beheaded opponents, burnt schools and fought against government troops to enforce Islamic sharia law.
Pakistan says more than 2,000 militants and over 170 security personnel have been killed in the government offensive, but the death tolls are impossible to verify independently.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Having trouble matching up body parts, are they?
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
09/02/2009 11:54 Comments ||
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[Dawn] Troops killed 15 militants in fresh clashes in Swat, the army said on Tuesday, taking the death toll to 45 in five days after a lull in the campaign to clear the Taliban out of the northwestern valley.
Security forces also launched an operation to flush out militants in the northwestern tribal region of Khyber, bordering Afghanistan, a government official said.
The army went on the offensive in Swat in late April and says it has killed over 2,000 militants, and lost 312 soldiers in the fighting. Independent casualty estimates are unavailable.
Despite the Taliban's losses, the recent clashes and a suicide attack in Swat's main town of Mingora on Sunday showed they can still hit back.
'It was very precise and we managed to kill 15 militants,' Lt. Col. Akhtar Abbas, a military spokesman in Swat, said of the attack launched on Monday evening.
The army had already killed at least 30 insurgents in encounters since Friday, while 12 police recruits were killed by a suicide bomber on Sunday.
Pakistan's show of force in Swat had allayed fears among allies, in particular the United States and other countries with troops in neighbouring Afghanistan that the nuclear-armed country was failing to confront spreading militancy.
In Khyber, forces killed five militants and destroyed three militant bases in the latest offensive. 'It's an assault against terrorists, anti-social and anti-state elements and it will continue until the region is cleared of them,' the top government officer, Tariq Hayat Khan, told Reuters.
Troops used artillery to attack militant positions while residents said helicopter gunships flew over the area but did not take part in the operation.
The offensive in Khyber came less than a week after a suicide bomber killed 22 Pakistani border guards in an attack at the main crossing point into Afghanistan.
The August 27 attack on Khyber was the first major operation since Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a US missile strike in early August.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Pakistan will eventually come to the same conclusion the Israelis came to: Kill the senior bombmakers, and let the juniors take care of themselves.
[Dawn] The security forces believe the new Taliban Commander Hakimullah Mehsud is already dead and Taliban in order to save their image are giving the impression that he is alive.
A private TV channel, citing intelligence sources, said it was Hakimullah's brother who gave the interview to BBC some days ago.
Hakimullah Mehsud's look-alike brother was specially summoned from Afghanistan to head the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan on a temporary basis while a decision to appoint the new chief was taken by Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
The security forces also said the Taliban declared Hakimullah Mehsud as their new chief to prove their top leadership is still alive. Sources said, the security forces are finalizing preparation to launch a massive offensive against the Taliban in South Wazirisitan.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Lol if true , they are getting so owned ..
Cant actually beleive the pak army is up for a fight as they are . We just need to keep pushing the bad guys over from Afghan into Pak and let nature take its course with a gentle nudge from pak army . Even the locals are getting in on the act at the moment
Posted by: Oscar ||
09/02/2009 5:49 Comments ||
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#2
The other day one of Zero's guys bragged how the War on Terror (oops, international contingency operation against whatever they call it) is being waged more effectively now than when the Bush team was running it. If the reported demise of the pie hats is true and typical, he might actually even be telling a little bit of truth.
[Dawn] An Indian soldier was killed on Tuesday when Pakistani troops fired at Indian positions across the Line of Control, the Indian army said.
The incident took place in mountainous Mendhar district, about 450 kilometres south of Indian administered Kashmir's summer capital Srinagar.
'The soldier died in firing from across the Line of Control (LOC). Apparently it was Pakistani soldiers who targeted our positions,' an army spokesman said.
India and Pakistan have fought two wars over Muslim-majority Kashmir, which is held in part by each country but claimed in full by both.
They agreed to a ceasefire along the Line of Control border in 2003 and started a peace process in 2004. Since then there have been sporadic clashes, and both countries have accused each other of violating the ceasefire.
'It is another case of ceasefire violation by Pakistan and we will soon lodge a strong protest,' the Indian army spokesman said.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2009 00:00 ||
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The Israel Defense Forces categorically denied killing two Hamas gunmen in Gaza on Tuesday, after the Palestinian Islamist group and medical officials accused the army of having slain the men with tank fire.
A military spokeswoman said: "There was no attack by the Israel Defense Forces in the Gaza Strip."
The army relayed that while an explosion was heard near the security fence along the border, the IDF had no involvement in the incident.
Hamas and the medics initially said the militants, two Hamas gunmen standing guard on the Gaza Strip's northern frontier, were killed in an Israel Air Force strike, before claiming that it was in fact a tank shell that caused the deaths.
There have been sporadic Palestinian short-range rocket attacks on Israel since the end of its December-January offensive against Hamas, often carried out by non-Hamas factions. Israel has generally responded with air strikes against infrastructure, causing few casualties.
Hamas said the gunmen killed on Tuesday had been deployed in night-lookout positions east of the town of Jabalya, close to the Israeli border.
Medical officials said their bodies bore wounds from heavy ordnance.
Which, even if true, does not mean the Israelis did it. What's come through the tunnels lately?
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2009 00:00 ||
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Earlier Tuesday, Egyptian police discovered two tons of explosives hidden near the border with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, Egyptian security forces said.
The discovery was the second in the last three days in Rafah, a town close to the Egypt-Gaza border.
It sounds like Rafah needs to be relocated a bit further inland.
How 'bout Mauritania ...
An Egyptian source, who declined to be named, reported that Egyptian police thwarted an attempt on Sunday to smuggle 500 kg of explosives into Gaza. In addition, police discovered on Monday the entrances to four tunnels used for smuggling.
"The Egyptian police received information about some smugglers storing these explosives in the area of Sarsuriyah near to the border between Egypt and Gaza," another source said.
Some 400 tunnel entrances have been discovered by Egyptian police this year. They are usually blocked off or blown up.
Last Tuesday, three Palestinians were killed in an Israel Air Force strike on smuggling tunnels in the southern Gaza Strip. The Israel Defense Forces confirmed the attack, saying it came in response to two mortar shells fired at the western Negev from Gaza.
Gaza's smuggling tunnels, which still number in the hundreds despite air attacks and an Egyptian crackdown in which some have been blown up or flooded, are a frequent target of Israeli retaliation for attacks by Gaza's armed Palestinian groups.
Smugglers send weapons and goods through tunnels to Gaza to circumvent an Israeli-led blockade.
Israeli-led on one side. Egyptian-led on the other. That's why it's an Egyptian crackdown, you see.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
That section of border must be an ants nest of tunnels. Must be "interesting" digging when they hit an already unstable or collapsed old tunnel.
[Straits Times] A RADICAL Indonesian publisher said to be a former member of Al-Qaeda has been declared a suspect in July's deadly luxury hotel bombings in the capital Jakarta, national police said on Tuesday.
Publisher and blogger Mohammed Jibril Abdurahman, who went by the online moniker 'Prince of Jihad", was officially declared a suspect following his arrest a week ago, police spokesman Nanan Soekarna told reporters.
The move allows police to keep him in custody pending possible charges.
'He is alleged to have been involved in terrorism, specifically financing and other offences, including using a false identity. The details of his involvement will all be explained at an appropriate time,' Mr Soekarna said.
Mohammed Jibril, 24, could face charges of conspiracy and aiding terrorism as well as immigration violations and falsifying documents, he said.
Police have said Mohammed Jibril channelled money from abroad to fund the two July 17 suicide bombings, which killed seven people and two bombers in Jakarta's J.W. Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels.
Police have not said where the money has come from, but are investigating whether it came from Al-Qaeda money men in the Middle East or South Asia.
The July 17 attacks, the first of their kind in Indonesia in nearly four years, are the suspected work of Malaysian terror mastermind Noordin Mohammed Top, 41, who leads a violent splinter group of the Jemaah Islamiyah network.
Noordin was allegedly behind a 2003 attack on the Marriott that killed 12 people, as well as the bombing of the Australian embassy in 2004 and tourist restaurants on the holiday island of Bali in 2005.
Police say they have killed three members of Noordin's group, 'Al-Qaeda in the Malaysia Archipelago", and arrested five since July 17, including a Saudi national who allegedly helped bring in foreign money for the attacks.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2009 00:00 ||
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[Straits Times] POLICE have captured a suspected Al-Qaeda-linked militant accused of high-profile kidnappings of at least four Americans and dozens of Filipinos in the southern Philippines, officials said on Tuesday.
Last week's arrest of Hajer Sailani, an alleged member of the Abu Sayyaf, in a shopping mall in southern Cotabato city was the latest success of a crackdown that has netted several militants in the country's south and foiled kidnapping and terror plots, police said.
Sailani has been linked to the 2000 kidnapping of American Jeffrey Schilling, a Muslim convert who travelled to an Abu Sayyaf jungle stronghold on southern Jolo Island but was held by the militants on suspicion that he was working for the CIA, police spokesman Leonardo Espina said. Schilling escaped eight months later.
Did he remain Muslim after he left?
Sailani also was allegedly involved in the 2001 kidnapping of three Americans and 17 Filipino tourists at the Dos Palmas resort in south-western Palawan province, which prompted Washington to deploy US troops to the southern Mindanao region to help the Philippine military rescue them, Mr Espina said.
American missionary Gracia Burnham survived the yearlong jungle captivity, but husband Martin was killed in the military rescue in 2002. The third American, Guillermo Sobero, was beheaded by the militants on Basilan Island.
Mr Espina said Sailani also played a role in the kidnappings of dozens of teachers, priests and students in two Basilan schools in 2000.
Most of the hostages were freed or escaped, but at least two teachers were beheaded.
A civilian informant on Tuesday received a US$7,000-dollar reward for the tip leading Sailani's arrest, national police chief Director General Jesus Versoza said.
The national police 'will not rest until all terrorists and criminals are arrested, accounted for and neutralised,' Mr Espina said.
Among those arrested recently was Dinno-Amor Rosalejos Pareja, alleged head of the Rajah Solaiman Movement that officials say was behind the 2004 Manila ferry bombing that killed 116 people in the country's worst terror attack.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/02/2009 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A Taliban suicide bomber killed Afghanistan's deputy chief of intelligence during a visit to a mosque east of Kabul on Wednesday in an attack that left 23 others dead.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Al Arabiya television broadcast on Tuesday a recording of the telephone conversation between Saudi Arabia's security chief, Prince Mohammad bin Nayef, and the suicide bomber, Abdullah Hassan Tali Assiri, who tried to assassinate him in Jeddah late on Thursday. 
[Bangla Daily Star] A criminal sustained bullet injury in a 'shootout' with Rapid Action Battalion in the city's Motijheel yesterday. 
[Bangla Daily Star] Government forces destroyed four militant bases and killed more than 35 insurgents yesterday in battles near Pakistan's famed Khyber Pass, the main route for supplies to Nato troops in Afghanistan, the military said.
[Dawn] At least 41 bodies, mostly of Taliban militants, have been found in Pakistan's Swat valley over the past 24 hours, officials said Tuesday, describing them as revenge killings by residents.
[Dawn] Troops killed 15 militants in fresh clashes in Swat, the army said on Tuesday, taking the death toll to 45 in five days after a lull in the campaign to clear the Taliban out of the northwestern valley.
[Dawn] The security forces believe the new Taliban Commander Hakimullah Mehsud is already dead and Taliban in order to save their image are giving the impression that he is alive.
